2 Samuel 23:15

15 David remarked longingly to his men, “Oh, how I would love some of that good water from the well by the gate in Bethlehem.”

2 Samuel 23:15 Meaning and Commentary

2 Samuel 23:15

And David longed, and said
It being harvest time, the summer season, and hot weather, and he thirsty:

oh, that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem,
which [is] by the gate!
which he was well acquainted with, being his native place; and which might make it the more desirable, as well as its waters might be peculiarly cool and refreshing, and very excellent, as Kimchi suggests. This well was about a mile from Bethlehem, now called David's well, as some travellers say ^F25. It is said to be a very large well, with three mouths, and lies a little out of the road {z}; and that there is now near Rachel's grave a good rich cistern, which is deep and wide; wherefore the people that go to dip water are provided with small leathern buckets, and a line, as usual in those countries ^F1; but Mr. Maundrell ^F2 says it is a well, or rather a cistern, supplied only with rain, without any excellency in its waters to make them desirable; but it seems, he adds, David's spirit had a further aim. Some think he meant by this to get Bethlehem out of the hands of the Philistines, and obtain the possession of it; others, as Jarchi, that he intended to ask some question of the sanhedrim that sat there; and others, that his desire was after the law of God, called waters, as in ( Isaiah 55:1 ) ; and some Christian writers, both ancient and modern ^F3, are of opinion, that not literal but spiritual water was desired by him, and that he thirsted after the coming of the Messiah, to be born at Bethlehem, and the living water which he only can give, ( John 4:10 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F25 Egmont and Heyman's Travels, vol. 1. p. 363.
F26 Le Bruyn's Voyage to the Levant, ch. 52. p. 204.
F1 Rauwolff's Travels, part 3. p. 317, 318.
F2 Journey from Aleppo p. 90.
F3 Ambros. Apolog. David l. 1. c. 7. gloss. ordinar. & Schmidt in loc. Pfeiffer. Difficil. Loc. Script. cent. 2. loc. 91. Horn. Dissert. de desiderio David. sect. 10.

2 Samuel 23:15 In-Context

13 Once during the harvest, when David was at the cave of Adullam, the Philistine army was camped in the valley of Rephaim. The Three (who were among the Thirty—an elite group among David’s fighting men) went down to meet him there.

14 David was staying in the stronghold at the time, and a Philistine detachment had occupied the town of Bethlehem.

15 David remarked longingly to his men, “Oh, how I would love some of that good water from the well by the gate in Bethlehem.”

16 So the Three broke through the Philistine lines, drew some water from the well by the gate in Bethlehem, and brought it back to David. But he refused to drink it. Instead, he poured it out as an offering to the LORD .

17 “The LORD forbid that I should drink this!” he exclaimed. “This water is as precious as the blood of these men who risked their lives to bring it to me.” So David did not drink it. These are examples of the exploits of the Three.