1 Samuel 19:8-18

8 And there was war again; and David went out and fought with the Philistines, and made a great slaughter among them, so that they fled before him.

9 Then an evil spirit from the LORD came upon Saul, as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand; and David was playing the lyre.

10 And Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear; but he eluded Saul, so that he struck the spear into the wall. And David fled, and escaped.

11 That night Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him, that he might kill him in the morning. But Michal, David's wife, told him, "If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed."

12 So Michal let David down through the window; and he fled away and escaped.

13 Michal took an image and laid it on the bed and put a pillow of goats' hair at its head, and covered it with the clothes.

14 And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, "He is sick."

15 Then Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, "Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him."

16 And when the messengers came in, behold, the image was in the bed, with the pillow of goats' hair at its head.

17 Saul said to Michal, "Why have you deceived me thus, and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?" And Michal answered Saul, "He said to me, 'Let me go; why should I kill you?'"

18 Now David fled and escaped, and he came to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and dwelt at Nai'oth.

1 Samuel 19:8-18 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 19

This chapter relates the dangers David was exposed unto through Saul's enmity at him, and his deliverance from them, as by the notice Jonathan gave him of his father's designs against him, and by his kind interposition on his behalf, 1Sa 19:1-7; by David's slipping out of Saul's presence, when he was about to cast a javelin at him, 1Sa 19:8-10; by Michal's letting him down through a window, when Saul sent messengers to kill him, and by deceiving them with an image laid in his bed in the room of him, 1Sa 19:11-17, and again by Samuel's protection of him at Naioth, whither David fled, and where Saul sent messengers after him, and at length came himself; and instead of laying hands on David, both he and the messengers were set a prophesying, 1Sa 19:18-24.