1 Samuel 26:1-8

1 The people from Zif went to Sha'ul in Giv'ah and said, "David is hiding himself on Hakhilah Hill, across from Yeshimon."

2 Then Sha'ul set out and went down to the Zif Desert with three thousand men chosen from Isra'el, to search for David in the Zif Desert.

3 Sha'ul pitched camp on Hakhilah Hill, across from Yeshimon, near the road. David was staying in the desert, and he saw that Sha'ul was coming into the desert after him.

4 So David dispatched spies and determined that Sha'ul had definitely come.

5 David set out and went to where Sha'ul had pitched his camp. He saw where Sha'ul and Avner the son of Ner, the commander of his army, were sleeping. Sha'ul was lying inside the barricade with the troops asleep all around him.

6 David said to Achimelekh the Hitti and Avishai the son of Tz'ruyah, Yo'av's brother, "Who will go down with me to Sha'ul in the camp?" Avishai said, "I will go down with you."

7 So David and Avishai went to the soldiers by night. Sha'ul was lying there asleep inside the barricade. His spear was stuck in the ground next to his head, with Avner and the troops asleep all around him.

8 Avishai said to David, "God has handed your enemy over to you today; so now, please, let me pin him to the ground with just one stroke of the spear. I won't strike him a second time."

1 Samuel 26:1-8 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 26

This chapter relates that Saul, upon the information of the Ziphites, went out again with an armed force to seek David, 1Sa 26:1-3; of which David having intelligence, and of the place where he pitched, came with one of his men and reconnoitred his camp, and finding Saul and his men asleep, took away his spear, and the cruse of water at his head, and departed, without taking away his life, though solicited to it by his servant, 1Sa 26:4-12; which spear and cruse of water he produced to the reproach of Abner, Saul's general, and as a testimony of his sincere regard to Saul, and that he had no design upon his life, 1Sa 26:13-20; of which Saul being convinced, blessed David, and returned home again, 1Sa 26:21-25.