1 Samuel 26:5

5 And David rose up privily, and came to the place where Saul was. And when David had seen the place, wherein Saul slept, and Abner, the son of Ner, the prince of his chivalry; and Saul sleeping in the tent, and the tother common people by his compass; (And David rose up quickly, and came to the place where Saul was. And when David had seen the place where Saul slept, and Abner, the son of Ner, the leader of his cavalry, or his army; and Saul was sleeping in his tent, and the other common people were all around him;)

1 Samuel 26:5 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 26:5

And David arose, and came to the place where Saul had pitched,
&c.] Came near it, within sight of it; so that he could take a view of it with his naked eye, and observe where and in what manner he was encamped:

and David beheld the place where Saul lay, and Abner the son of Ner,
the captain of his host;
where he and his general had their quarters in the camp:

and Saul lay in the trench;
or circuit; not in the foss or ditch thrown up, in which an army sometimes lies entrenched; but this is to be understood either of the camp itself, so called, as Ben Gersom, Abarbinel, and Ben Melech think, because it lay in a circular form, that all comers to it on every side might be seen; or else a sort of fortress all around the camp, made of carriages joined together; and as the word signifies a carriage, cart or chariot, it may design the chariot in which Saul slept, as kings have been used to do when not in their houses; and to this the Septuagint agrees, which uses a word that Procopius Gazaeus says signifies one kind of a chariot, and is used of a chariot drawn by mules, in the Greek version of ( Isaiah 66:20 ) ; Grotius observes, kings used to sleep in chariots where there were no houses; (See Gill on 1 Samuel 17:20); though he rather seems to have slept, "sub die", in the open air:

and the people pitched round about him;
both for the sake of honour, and for his greater security; this shows it could not be the loss he laid in, for then they could not pitch around him.

1 Samuel 26:5 In-Context

3 And Saul setted his tents in the hill of Hachilah, that was even against the wilderness, in the way. And David dwelled in the desert. Forsooth David saw that Saul had come after him into desert; (And Saul pitched his tents on Mount Hachilah, on the way overlooking Jeshimon. And David stayed in the wilderness. And David knew that Saul had come after him into the wilderness;)

4 and David sent spyers, and learned most certainly, that Saul had come thither.

5 And David rose up privily, and came to the place where Saul was. And when David had seen the place, wherein Saul slept, and Abner, the son of Ner, the prince of his chivalry; and Saul sleeping in the tent, and the tother common people by his compass; (And David rose up quickly, and came to the place where Saul was. And when David had seen the place where Saul slept, and Abner, the son of Ner, the leader of his cavalry, or his army; and Saul was sleeping in his tent, and the other common people were all around him;)

6 David said to Ahimelech, (the) Hittite, and to Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, the brother of Joab, saying, Who shall go down with me to Saul into his tents? And Abishai said, I shall go down with thee.

7 Therefore David and Abishai came to the people in the night, and they found Saul lying and sleeping in the tent, and a spear set fast in the earth at his head; forsooth they found Abner and the people sleeping in his compass (and they found Abner and the other people sleeping all around him).