Then was Abner very wroth for the words of Ishbosheth
If false he had a good deal of reason for it; and if true, he thought he deserved better at his hands, than to be reproved for and upbraided with what he might think was a very small fault, and might easily be connived at, and especially in one that had been so serviceable to him:
and said, [am] I a dog's head;
such a mean, vile, contemptible person with thee, as if no better than a dog, and as useless and as unserviceable as a dead dog, the head of a dog cut off; see ( 1 Samuel 24:14 ) ( 2 Samuel 9:8 ) ; or am I esteemed and to be treated as a head of dogs, a keeper of a pack of hounds, and not as a general of the armies of Israel? so Jarchi and others; but it seems rather to respect the filthy nature of a dog, that will couple with any; and so the sense is, am I such a filthy lustful creature that care not with whom I lie, no more, than a dog?
which against Judah do show kindness to the house of Saul thy father,
to his brethren, and to his friends;
who in opposition to the tribe of Judah, which alone abode by David, had shown respect to the family of Saul, and all his friends, by his close attachment to Ishbosheth:
and have not delivered thee into the hand David;
when it was in his power to have done it many a tithe:
that thou chargest me today with a fault concerning this woman?
he neither denies nor owns the charge, and yet, by his not denying it, tacitly owns it; though, by his way of speaking, he suggests as if it was no fault at all, at least a very trifling one, and such as ought not to have been mentioned to him, considering the services he had done to Ishbosheth and his family.