{"commentary":{"id":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","website":"https://worthy.bible/commentaries/keil-delitzsch-commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"bb5cc0f9cfe0a93b3c903bb6972c6bc8c4e9f2bd3be6c2a6d276737cf9c5edce","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":39,"totalNumberOfChapters":909,"totalNumberOfVerses":6516,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"1SA","commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","name":"1 Samuel","commonName":"1 Samuel","introduction":"The Book of 1 Samuel\n\nIntroduction\n\nTitle, Contents, Character, and Origin of the Books of Samuel\n\nThe books of Samuel originally formed one undivided work, and in the Hebrew MSS they do so still. The division into two books originated with the Alexandrian translators (lxx), and was not only adopted in the Vulgate and other versions, but in the sixteenth century it was introduced by Daniel Bomberg into our editions of the Hebrew Bible itself. In the Septuagint and Vulgate, these books are reckoned as belonging to the books of the Kings, and have the heading, Βασιλειῶν πρώτη, δευτέρα (Regum, i. et ii.). In the Septuagint they are called \"books of the kingdoms,\" evidently with reference to the fact that each of these works contains an account of the history of a double kingdom, viz.: the books of Samuel, the history of the kingdoms of Saul and David; and the books of Kings, that of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. This title does not appear unsuitable, so far as the books before us really contain an account of the rise of the monarchy in Israel. Nevertheless, we cannot regard it as the original title, or even as a more appropriate heading than the one given in the Hebrew canon, viz., \"the book of Samuel,\" since this title not only originated in the fact that the first half (i.e., our first book) contains an account of the acts of the prophet Samuel, but was also intended to indicate that the spirit of Samuel formed the soul of the true kingdom in Israel, or that the earthly throne of the Israelitish kingdom of God derived its strength and perpetuity from the Spirit of the Lord which lived in the prophet. The division into two books answers to the contents, since the death of Saul, with which the first book closes, formed a turning-point in the development of the kingdom.\n\nThe Books of Samuel contain the history of the kingdom of God in Israel, from the termination of the age of the judges to the close of the reign of king David, and embrace a period of about 125 years, viz., from about 1140 to 1015 b.c. The first book treats of the judgeship of the prophet Samuel and the reign of king Saul, and is divided into three sections, answering to the three epochs formed by the judicial office of Samuel (1 Samuel 1-7), the reign of Saul from his election till his rejection (1 Samuel 8-15), and the decline of his kingdom during his conflict with David, whom the Lord had chosen to be the leader of His people in the place of Saul (1 Samuel 16-31). The renewal of the kingdom of God, which was now thoroughly disorganized both within and without, commenced with Samuel. When the pious Hannah asked for a son from the Lord, and Samuel was given to her, the sanctuary of God at Shiloh was thoroughly desecrated under the decrepit high priest Eli by the base conduct of his worthless sons, and the nation of Israel was given up to the power of the Philistines. If Israel, therefore, was to be delivered from the bondage of the heathen it was necessary that it should be first of all redeemed from the bondage of sin and idolatry, that its false confidence in the visible pledges of the gracious presence of God should be shaken by heavy judgments, and the way prepared for its conversion to the Lord its God by deep humiliation. At the very same time, therefore, at which Samuel was called to be the prophet of God, the judgment of God was announced upon the degraded priesthood and the desecrated sanctuary. The first section of our book, which describes the history of the renewal of the theocracy by Samuel, does not commence with the call of Samuel as prophet, but with an account on the one hand of the character of the national religion in the time of Eli, and on the other hand of the piety of the parents of Samuel, especially of his mother, and with an announcement of the judgment that was to fall upon Eli's house (1 Samuel 1-2). Then follow first of all the call of Samuel as prophet (1 Samuel 3), and the fulfilment of the judgment upon the house of Eli and the house of God (1 Samuel 4); secondly, the manifestation of the omnipotence of God upon the enemies of His people, by the chastisement of the Philistines for carrying off the ark of the covenant, and the victory which the Israelites gained over their oppressors through Samuel's prayer (1 Samuel 5-7:14); and lastly, a summary of the judicial life of Samuel (Sa1 7:15-17). The second section contains, first, the negotiations of the people with Samuel concerning the appointment of a king, the anointing of Saul by the prophet, and his election as king, together with the establishment of his kingdom (1 Samuel 8-12); and secondly, a brief survey of the history of his reign, in connection with which the only events that are at all fully described are his first successful conflicts with the Philistines, and the war against the Amalekites which occasioned his ultimate rejection (1 Samuel 13-15). In the third section (1 Samuel 16-31) there is a much more elaborate account of the history of Saul from his rejection till his death, since it not only describes the anointing of David and his victory over Goliath, but contains a circumstantial account of his attitude towards Saul, and the manifold complications arising from his long-continued persecution on the part of Saul, for the purpose of setting forth the gradual accomplishment of the counsels of God, both in the rejection of Saul and the election of David as king of Israel, to warn the ungodly against hardness of heart, and to strengthen the godly in their trust in the Lord, who guides His servants through tribulation and suffering to glory and honour. The second book contains the history of the reign of David, arranged in four sections: (1) his reign over Judah in Hebron, and his conflict with Ishbosheth the son of Saul, whom Abner had set up as king over the other tribes of Israel (1 Samuel 1-4): (2) the anointing of David as king over all Israel, and the firm establishment of his kingdom through the conquest of the citadel of Zion, and the elevation of Jerusalem into the capital of the kingdom; the removal of the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem; the determination to build a temple to the Lord; the promise given him by the Lord of the everlasting duration of his dominion; and lastly, the subjugation of all the enemies of Israel (1 Samuel 5-8:14), to which there is appended a list of the principal officers of state (Sa1 8:15-18), and an account of the favour shown to the house of Saul in the person of Mephibosheth (1 Samuel 9): (3) the disturbance of his reign through his adultery with Bathsheba during the Ammonitish and Syrian war, and the judgments which came upon his house in consequence of this sin through the wickedness of his sons, viz., the incest of Amnon and rebellion of Absalom, and the insurrection of Sheba (1 Samuel 10-20): (4) the close of his reign, his song of thanksgiving for deliverance out of the hand of all his foes (1 Samuel 22), and his last prophetic words concerning the just ruler in the fear of God (Sa1 23:1-7). The way is prepared for these, however, by an account of the expiation of Saul's massacre of the Gibeonites, and of various heroic acts performed by his generals during the wars with the Philistines (Sa1 21:1-15); whilst a list of his several heroes is afterwards appended in 1 Samuel 23:8-29, together with an account of the numbering of the people and consequent pestilence (1 Samuel 24), which is placed at the close of the work, simply because the punishment of this sin of David furnished the occasion for the erection of an altar of burnt-offering upon the site of the future temple. His death is not mentioned here, because he transferred the kingdom to his son Solomon before he died; and the account of this transfer forms the introduction to the history of Solomon in the first book of Kings, so that the close of David's life was most appropriately recorded there.\n\nSo far as the character of the historical writing in the books of Samuel is concerned, there is something striking in the contrast which presents itself between the fulness with which the writer has described many events of apparently trifling importance, in connection with the lives of persons through whom the Lord secured the deliverance of His people and kingdom from their foes, and the summary brevity with which he disposes of the greatest enterprises of Saul and David, and the fierce and for the most part tedious wars with the surrounding nations; so that, as Thenius says, \"particular portions of the work differ in the most striking manner from all the rest, the one part being very brief, and written almost in the form of a chronicle, the other elaborate, and in one part composed with really biographical fulness.\" This peculiarity is not to be accounted for from the nature of the sources which the author had at his command; for even if we cannot define with precision the nature and extent of these sources, yet when we compare the accounts contained in these books of the wars between David and the Ammonites and Syrians with those in the books of Chronicles (2 Samuel 8 and 10 with 1 Chron 18-19), we see clearly that the sources from which those accounts were derived embraced more than our books have given, since there are several places in which the chronicler gives fuller details of historical facts, the truth of which is universally allowed. The preparations for the building of the temple and the organization of the army, as well as the arrangement of the official duties of the Levites which David undertook, according to 1 Chron 22-28, in the closing years of his life, cannot possibly have been unknown to the author of our books. Moreover, there are frequent allusions in the books before us to events which are assumed as known, though there is no record of them in the writings which have been handed down to us, such as the removal of the tabernacle from Shiloh, where it stood in the time of Eli (Sa1 1:3, Sa1 1:9, etc.), to Nob, where David received the shewbread from the priests on his flight from Saul (Sa1 21:1.); the massacre of the Gibeonites by Saul, which had to be expiated under David (2 Samuel 21); the banishment of the necromancers out of the land in the time of Saul (Sa1 28:3); and the flight of the Beerothites to Gittaim (Sa2 4:3). From this also we must conclude, that the author of our books knew more than he thought it necessary to mention in his work. But we certainly cannot infer from these peculiarities, as has often been done, that our books are to be regarded as a compilation. Such an inference as this simply arises from an utter disregard of the plan and object, which run through both books and regulate the selection and arrangement of the materials they contain. That the work has been composed upon a definite plan, is evident from the grouping of the historical facts, in favour of which the chronological order generally observed in both the books has now and then been sacrificed. Thus, in the history of Saul and the account of his wars (Sa1 14:47-48), the fact is also mentioned, that he smote the Amalekites; whereas the war itself, in which he smote them, is first described in detail in 1 Samuel 15, because it was in that war that he forfeited his kingdom through his transgression of the divine command, and brought about his own rejection on the part of God. The sacrifice of the chronological order to the material grouping of kindred events, is still more evident in the history of David. In 2 Samuel 8 all his wars with foreign nations are collected together, and even the wars with the Syrians and Ammonites are included, together with an account of the booty taken in these wars; and then after this, viz., in 1 Samuel 10-12, the war with the Ammonites and Syrians is more fully described, including the circumstances which occasioned it, the course which it took, and David's adultery which occurred during this war. Moreover, the history of Saul, as well as that of David, is divided into two self-contained periods, answering indeed to the historical course of the reigns of these two kings, but yet so distinctly marked off by the historian, that not only is the turning-point distinctly given in both instances, viz., the rejection of Saul and the grievous fall of David, but each of these periods is rounded off with a comprehensive account of the wars, the family, and the state officials of the two kings (Sa1 14:47-52, and 2 Samuel 8). So likewise in the history of Samuel, after the victory which the Israelites obtained over the Philistines through his prayer, everything that had to be related concerning his life as judge is grouped together in Sa1 7:15-17, before the introduction of the monarchy is described; although Samuel himself lived till nearly the close of the reign of Saul, and not only instituted Saul as king, but afterwards announced his rejection, and anointed David as his successor. These comprehensive accounts are anything but proofs of compilations from sources of different kinds, which ignorance of the peculiarities of the Semitic style of writing history has led some to regard them as being; they simply serve to round off the different periods into which the history has been divided, and form resting-places for the historical review, which neither destroy the material connection of the several groups, nor throw any doubt upon the unity of the authorship of the books themselves. And even where separate incidents appear to be grouped together, without external connection or any regard to chronological order, on a closer inspection it is easy to discover the relation in which they stand to the leading purpose of the whole book, and the reason why they occupy this position and no other (see the introductory remarks to Sa2 9:1-13; 21:1-24:25).\n\nIf we look more closely, however, at the contents of these books, in order to determine their character more precisely, we find at the very outset, in Hannah's song of praise, a prophetic glance at the anointed of the Lord (Sa1 2:10), which foretells the establishment of the monarchy what was afterwards accomplished under Saul and David. And with this there is associated the rise of the new name, Jehovah Sabaoth, which is never met with in the Pentateuch or in the books of Joshua and Judges; whereas it occurs in the books before us from the commencement (Sa1 1:3, Sa1 1:11, etc.) to the close. (For further remarks on the origin and signification of this divine name, see at Sa1 1:3.) When Israel received a visible representative of its invisible God-king in the person of an earthly monarch; Jehovah, the God of Israel, became the God of the heavenly hosts. Through the establishment of the monarchy, the people of Jehovah's possession became a \"world-power;\" the kingdom of God was elevated into a kingdom of the world, as distinguished from the other ungodly kingdoms of the world, which it was eventually to overcome in the power of its God. In this conflict Jehovah manifested himself as the Lord of hosts, to whom all the nations and kingdoms of this world were to become subject. Even in the times of Saul and David, the heathen nations were to experience a foretaste of this subjection. When Saul had ascended the throne of Israel, he fought against all his enemies round about, and extended his power in every direction in which he turned (Sa1 14:47-48). But David made all the nations who bordered upon the kingdom of God tributary to the people of the Lord, as the Lord gave him victory wherever he went (Sa1 2:8, Sa1 2:14-15); so that his son Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms, from the stream (the Euphrates) to the boundary of Egypt, and they all brought him presents, and were subject to him (Kg1 5:1). But the Israelitish monarchy could never thus acquire the power to secure for the kingdom of God a victory over all its foes, except as the king himself was diligent in his endeavours to be at all times simply the instrument of the God-king, and exercise his authority solely in the name and according to the will of Jehovah. And as the natural selfishness and pride of man easily made this concentration of the supreme earthly power in a single person merely an occasion for self-aggrandisement, and therefore the Israelitish kings were exposed to the temptation to use the plenary authority entrusted to them even in opposition to the will of God; the Lord raised up for Himself organs of His own Spirit, in the persons of the prophets, to stand by the side of the kings, and make known to them the will and counsel of God. The introduction of the monarchy was therefore preceded by the development of the prophetic office into a spiritual power in Israel, in which the kingdom was to receive not only a firm support to its own authority, but a strong bulwark against royal caprice and tyranny. Samuel was called by the Lord to be His prophet, to convert the nation that was sunk in idolatry to the Lord its God, and to revive the religious life by the establishment of associations of prophets, since the priests had failed to resist the growing apostasy of the nation, and had become unfaithful to their calling to instruct and establish the congregation in the knowledge and fear of the Lord. Even before the call of Samuel as a prophet, there was foretold to the high priest Eli by a man of God, not only the judgment that would fall upon the degenerate priesthood, but the appointment of a faithful priest, for whom the Lord would build a permanent house, that he might ever walk before His anointed (Sa1 2:26-36). And the first revelation which Samuel received from God had reference to the fulfilment of all that the Lord had spoken against the house of Eli (Sa1 3:11.). The announcement of a faithful priest, who would walk before the anointed of the Lord, also contained a prediction of the establishment of the monarchy, which foreshadowed its worth and great significance in relation to the further development of the kingdom of God. And whilst these predictions of the anointed of the Lord, before and in connection with the call of Samuel, show the deep spiritual connection which existed between the prophetic order and the regal office in Israel; the insertion of them in these books is a proof that from the very outset the author had this new organization of the Israelitish kingdom of God before his mind, and that it was his intention not simply to hand down biographies of Samuel, Saul, and David, but to relate the history of the Old Testament kingdom of God at the time of its elevation out of a deep inward and outward decline into the full authority and power of a kingdom of the Lord, before which all its enemies were to be compelled to bow.\n\nIsrael was to become a kingship of priests, i.e., a kingdom whose citizens were priests and kings. The Lords had announced this to the sons of Israel before the covenant was concluded at Sinai, as the ultimate object of their adoption as the people of His possession (Exo 19:5-6). Now although this promise reached far beyond the times of the Old Covenant, and will only receive its perfect fulfilment in the completion of the kingdom of God under the New Covenant, yet it was to be realized even in the people of Israel so far as the economy of the Old Testament allowed. Israel was not only to become a priestly nation, but a royal nation also; not only to be sanctified as a congregation of the Lord, but also to be exalted into a kingdom of God. The establishment of the earthly monarchy, therefore, was not only an eventful turning-point, but also an \"epoch-making\" advance in the development of Israel towards the goal set before it in its divine calling. And this advance became the pledge of the ultimate attainment of the goal, through the promise which David received from God (Sa2 7:12-16), that the Lord would establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. With this promise God established for His anointed the eternal covenant, to which David reverted at the close of his reign, and upon which he rested his divine announcement of the just ruler over men, the ruler in the fear of God (Sa2 23:1-7). Thus the close of these books points back to their commencement. The prophecy of the pious mother of Samuel, that the Lord would give strength unto His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed (Sa1 2:10), found a fulfilment in the kingdom of David, which was at the same time a pledge of the ultimate completion of the kingdom of God under the sceptre of the Son of David, the promised Messiah.\n\nThis is one, and in fact the most conspicuous, arrangement of the facts connected with the history of salvation, which determined the plan and composition of the work before us. By the side of this there is another, which does not stand out so prominently indeed, but yet must not be overlooked. At the very beginning, viz., in 1 Samuel 1, the inward decay of the house of God under the high priest Eli is exhibited; and in the announcement of the judgment upon the house of Eli, a long-continued oppression of the dwelling-place (of God) is foretold (Sa1 2:32). Then, in the further course of the narrative, not only is the fulfilment of these threats pointed out, in the events described in 1 Samuel 4; 6:19-7:2, and Sa1 22:11-19; but it is also shown how David first of all brought the ark of the covenant, about which no one had troubled himself in the time of Saul, out of its concealment, had a tent erected for it in the capital of his kingdom upon Mount Zion, and made it once more the central point of the worship of the congregation; and how after that, when God had given him rest from his enemies, he wished to build a temple for the Lord to be the dwelling-place of His name; and lastly, when God would not permit him to carry out this resolution, but promised that his son would build the house of the Lord, how, towards the close of his reign, he consecrated the site for the future temple by building an altar upon Mount Moriah (Sa2 24:25). Even in this series of facts the end of the work points back to the beginning, so that the arrangement and composition of it according to a definite plan, which has been consistently carried out, are very apparent. If, in addition to this, we take into account the deep-seated connection between the building of the temple as designed by David, and the confirmation of his monarchy on the part of God as exhibited in 2 Samuel 7, we cannot fail to observe that the historical development of the true kingdom, in accordance with the nature and constitution of the Old Testament kingdom of God, forms the leading thought and purpose of the work to which the name of Samuel has been attached, and that it was by this thought and aim that the writer was influenced throughout in his selection of the historical materials which lay before him in the sources that he employed.\n\nThe full accounts which are given of the birth and youth of Samuel, and the life of David, are in the most perfect harmony with this design. The lives and deeds of these two men of God were of significance as laying the foundation for the development and organization of the monarchical kingdom in Israel. Samuel was the model and type of the prophets; and embodied in his own person the spirit and nature of the prophetic office, whilst his attitude towards Saul foreshadowed the position which the prophet was to assume in relation to the king. In the life of David, the Lord himself education the king of His kingdom, the prince over His people, to whom He could continue His favour and grace even when he had fallen so deeply that it was necessary that he should be chastised for his sins. Thus all the separate parts and sections are fused together as an organic whole in the fundamental thought of the work before us. And this unity is not rendered at all questionable by differences such as we find in the accounts of the mode of Saul's death as described in Sa1 31:4 and Sa2 1:9-10, or by such repetitions as the double account of the death of Samuel, and other phenomena of a similar kind, which can be explained without difficulty; whereas the assertion sometimes made, that there are some events of which we have two different accounts that contradict each other, has never yet been proved, and, as we shall see when we come to the exposition of the passages in question, has arisen partly from unscriptural assumptions, partly from ignorance of the formal peculiarities of the Hebrew mode of writing history, and partly from a mistaken interpretation of the passages themselves.\n\nWith regard to the origin of the books of Samuel, all that can be maintained with certainty is, that they were not written till after the division of the kingdom under Solomon's successor. This is evident from the remark in Sa1 27:6, that \"Ziklag pertaineth unto the kings of Judah unto this day.\" For although David was king over the tribe of Judah alone for seven years, it was not till after the falling away of the ten tribes from the house of David that there were really \"kings of Judah.\" On the other hand, nothing can be inferred with certainty respecting the date of composition, either from the distinction drawn between Israel and Judah in Sa1 11:8; Sa1 17:52; Sa1 18:16, and Sa2 3:10; Sa2 24:1, which evidently existed as early as the time of David, as we may see from Sa2 2:9-10; Sa2 5:1-5; Sa2 19:41; Sa2 20:2; or from the formula \"to this day,\" which we find in Sa1 5:5; Sa1 6:18; Sa1 30:25; Sa2 4:3; Sa2 6:18; Sa2 18:18, since the duration of the facts to which it is applied is altogether unknown; or lastly, from such passages as Sa1 9:9; Sa2 13:18, where explanations are given of expressions and customs belonging to the times of Saul and David, as it is quite possible that they may have been altogether changed by the time of Solomon. In general, the contents and style of the books point to the earliest times after the division of the kingdom; since we find no allusions whatever to the decay of the kingdoms which afterwards took place, and still less to the captivity; whilst the style and language are classical throughout, and altogether free from Chaldaisms and later forms, such as we meet with in the writings of the Chaldean period, and even in those of the time of the captivity. The author himself is quite unknown; but, judging from the spirit of his writings, he was a prophet of the kingdom of Judah. It is unanimously admitted, however, that he made use of written documents, particularly of prophetic records made by persons who were contemporaries of the events described, not only for the history of the reigns of Saul and David, but also for the life and labours of Samuel, although no written sources are quoted, with the exception of the \"book of Jasher,\" which contained the elegy of David upon Saul and Jonathan (Sa2 1:18); so that the sources employed by him cannot be distinctly pointed out. The different attempts which have been made to determine them minutely, from the time of Eichhorn down to G. Em. Karo (de fontibus librorum qui feruntur Samuelis Dissert. Berol. 1862), are lacking in the necessary proofs which hypotheses must bring before they can meet with adoption and support. If we confine ourselves to the historical evidence, according to Ch1 29:29, the first and last acts of king David, i.e., the events of his entire reign, were recorded in the \"dibre of Samuel the seer, of Nathan the prophet, and of Gad the seer.\" These prophetic writings formed no doubt the leading sources from which our books of Samuel were also drawn, since, on the one hand, apart from sundry deviations arising from differences in the plan and object of the two authors, the two accounts of the reign of David in 2 Samuel and 1 Chron 11-21 agree for the most part so thoroughly word for word, that they are generally regarded as extracts from one common source; whilst, on the other hand, the prophets named not only lived in the time of David but throughout the whole of the period referred to in the books before us, and took a very active part in the progressive development of the history of those times (see not only 1 Samuel 1-3; 7:1-10:27; 12; 15:1-16:23, but also Sa1 19:18-24; Sa1 22:5; Sa2 7:7-12; Sa2 24:11-18). Moreover, in Ch1 27:24, there are \"chronicles (diaries or annals) of king David\" mentioned, accompanied with the remark that the result of the census appointed by David was not inserted in them, from which we may infer that all the principal events of his reign were included in these chronicles. And they may also have formed one of the sources for our books, although nothing certain can be determined concerning the relation in which they stood to the writings of the three prophets that have been mentioned. Lastly, it is every evident from the character of the work before us, that the author had sources composed by eye-witnesses of the events at his command, and that these were employed with an intimate knowledge of the facts and with historical fidelity, inasmuch as the history is distinguished by great perspicuity and vividness of description, by a careful delineation of the characters of the persons engaged, and by great accuracy in the accounts of localities, and of subordinate circumstances connected with the historical events.","order":9,"numberOfChapters":31,"sha256":"d49a0f0d63206cb84561ddf67b91850f8b4fe1f1601777b67e0db318d2c50a13","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/1SA/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"1SA","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":31,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/1SA/31.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"1SA","chapter":31},"totalNumberOfVerses":184},"chapter":{"number":20,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":1,"content":["After the occurrence which had taken place at Naioth, David fled thence and met with Jonathan, to whom he poured out his heart.\n(Note: According to Ewald and Thenius, this chapter was not written by the author of the previous one, but was borrowed from an earlier source, and Sa1 20:1 was inserted by the compiler to connect the two together. But the principal reason for this conjecture - namely, that David could never have thought of sitting at the royal table again after what had taken place, and that Saul would still less have expected him to come - is overthrown by the simple suggestion, that all that Saul had hitherto attempted against David, according to Sa1 19:8., had been done in fits of insanity (cf. Sa1 19:9.), which had passed away again; so that it formed no criterion by which to judge of Saul's actual feelings towards David when he was in a state of mental sanity.)\nThough he had been delivered for the moment from the death which threatened him, through the marvellous influence of the divine inspiration of the prophets upon Saul and his messengers, he could not find in this any lasting protection from the plots of his mortal enemy. He therefore sought for his friend Jonathan, and complained to him, \"What have I done? what is my crime, my sin before thy father, that he seeks my life?\" \nSa1 20:2\nJonathan endeavoured to pacify him: \"Far be it! thou shalt not die: behold, my father does nothing great or small (i.e., not the smallest thing; cf. Sa1 25:36 and Num 22:18) that he does not reveal to me; why should my father hide this thing from me? It is not so.\" The לו after הנּה stands for לא: the Chethibh עשׂה is probably to be preferred to the Keri יעשׂה, and to be understood in this sense: \"My father has (hitherto) done nothing at all, which he has not told to me.\" This answer of Jonathan does not presuppose that he knew nothing of the occurrences described in 1 Samuel 19:9-24, although it is possible enough that he might not have been with his father just at that time; but it is easily explained from the fact that Saul had made the fresh attack upon David's life in a state of madness, in which he was no longer master of himself; so that it could not be inferred with certainty from this that he would still plot against David's life in a state of clear consciousness. Hitherto Saul had no doubt talked over all his plans and undertakings with Jonathan, but he had not uttered a single word to him about his deadly hatred, or his intention of killing David; so that Jonathan might really have regarded his previous attacks upon David's life as nothing more than symptoms of temporary aberration of mind.\nSa1 20:3\nBut David had looked deeper into Saul's heart. He replied with an oath (\"he sware again,\" i.e., a second time), \"Thy father knoweth that I have found favour in thine eyes (i.e., that thou art attached to me); and thinketh Jonathan shall not know this, lest he be grieved. But truly, as surely as Jehovah liveth, and thy soul liveth, there is hardly a step (lit. about a step) between me and death.\" כּי introduces the substance of the oath, as in Sa1 14:44, etc.\nSa1 20:4-5\nWhen Jonathan answered, \"What thy soul saith, will I do to thee,\" i.e., fulfil every wish, David made this request, \"Behold, to-morrow is new moon, and I ought to sit and eat with the king: let me go, that I may conceal myself in the field (i.e., in the open air) till the third evening.\" This request implies that Saul gave a feast at the new moon, and therefore that the new moon was not merely a religious festival, according to the law in Num 10:10; Num 28:11-15, but that it was kept as a civil festival also, and in the latter character for two days; as we may infer both from the fact that David reckoned to the third evening, i.e., the evening of the third day from the day then present, and therefore proposed to hide himself on the new moon's day and the day following, and also still more clearly from Sa1 20:12, Sa1 20:27, and Sa1 20:34, where Saul is said to have expected David at table on the day after the new moon. We cannot, indeed, conclude from this that there was a religious festival of two days' duration; nor does it follow, that because Saul supposed that David might have absented himself on the first day on account of Levitical uncleanness (Sa1 20:26), therefore the royal feast was a sacrificial meal. It was evidently contrary to social propriety to take part in a public feast in a state of Levitical uncleanness, even though it is not expressly forbidden in the law.\nSa1 20:6\n\"If thy father should miss me, then say, David hath asked permission of me to hasten to Bethlehem, his native town; for there is a yearly sacrifice for the whole family there.\" This ground of excuse shows that families and households were accustomed to keep united sacrificial feasts once a year. According to the law in Deu 12:5., they ought to have been kept at the tabernacle; but at this time, when the central sanctuary had fallen into disuse, they were held in different places, wherever there were altars of Jehovah - as, for example, at Bethlehem (cf. Sa1 16:2.). We see from these words that David did not look upon prevarication as a sin.\nSa1 20:7\n\"If thy father says, It is well, there is peace to thy servant (i.e., he cherishes no murderous thoughts against me); but if he be very wroth, know that evil is determined by him.\" כּלה, to be completed; hence to be firmly and unalterably determined (cf. Sa1 25:17; Est 7:7). Seb. Schmidt infers from the closing words that the fact was certain enough to David, but not to Jonathan. Thenius, on the other hand, observes much more correctly, that \"it is perfectly obvious from this that David was not quite clear as to Saul's intentions,\" though he upsets his own previous assertion, that after what David had gone through, he could never think of sitting again at the king's table as he had done before.\nSa1 20:8\nDavid made sure that Jonathan would grant this request on account of his friendship, as he had brought him into a covenant of Jehovah with himself. David calls the covenant of friendship with Jonathan (Sa1 18:3) a covenant of Jehovah, because he had made it with a solemn invocation of Jehovah. But in order to make quite sure of the fulfilment of his request on the part of Jonathan, David added, \"But if there is a fault in me, do thou kill me (אתּה used to strengthen the suffix); for why wilt thou bring me to thy father?\" sc., that he may put me to death.\nSa1 20:9\nJonathan replied, \"This be far from thee!\" sc., that I should kill thee, or deliver thee up to my father. חלילה points back to what precedes, as in Sa1 20:2. \"But (כּי after a previous negative assertion) if I certainly discover that evil is determined by my father to come upon thee, and I do not tell it thee,\" sc., \"may God do so to me,\" etc. The words are to be understood as an asseveration on oath, in which the formula of an oath is to be supplied in thought. This view is apparently a more correct one, on account of the cop. ו before לא, than to take the last clause as a question, \"Shall I not tell it thee?\" \nSa1 20:10\nTo this friendly assurance David replied, \"Who will tell me?\" sc., how thy father expresses himself concerning me; \"or what will thy father answer thee roughly?\" sc., if thou shouldst attempt to do it thyself. This is the correct explanation given by De Wette and Maurer. Gesenius and Thenius, on the contrary, take או in the sense of \"if perchance.\" But this is evidently incorrect; for even though there are certain passages in which או may be so rendered, it is only where some other case is supposed, and therefore the meaning or still lies at the foundation. These questions of David were suggested by a correct estimate of the circumstances, namely, that Saul's suspicions would leave him to the conclusion that there was some understanding between Jonathan and David, and that he would take steps in consequence to prevent Jonathan from making David acquainted with the result of his conversation with Saul.\nSa1 20:11\nBefore replying to these questions, Jonathan asked David to go with him to the field, that they might there fix upon the sign by which he would let him know, in a way in which no one could suspect, what was the state of his father's mind. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["In the field, where they were both entirely free from observation, Jonathan first of all renewed his covenant with David, by vowing to him on oath that he would give him information of his father's feelings towards him (Sa1 20:12, Sa1 20:13); and then entreated him, with a certain presentiment that David would one day be king, even then to maintain his love towards him and his family for ever (Sa1 20:14-16); and lastly, he made David swear again concerning his love (Sa1 20:17), and then gave him the sign by which he would communicate the promised information (Sa1 20:18-23).\nSa1 20:12-15\nSa1 20:12 and Sa1 20:13 are connected. Jonathan commences with a solemn invocation of God: \"Jehovah, God of Israel!\" and thus introduces his oath. We have neither to supply \"Jehovah is witness,\" nor \"as truly as Jehovah liveth,\" as some have suggested. \"When I inquire of my father about this time to-morrow, the day after to-morrow (a concise mode of saying 'to-morrow or the day after'), and behold it is (stands) well for David, and then I do not send to thee and make it known to thee, Jehovah shall do so to Jonathan,\" etc. (\"The Lord do so,\" etc., the ordinary formula used in an oath: see Sa1 14:44). The other case is then added without an adversative particle: \"If it should please my father evil against thee (lit. as regards evil), \"I will make it known to thee, and let thee go, that thou mayest go in peace; and Jehovah be with thee, as He has been with my father.\" In this wish there is expressed the presentiment that David would one day occupy that place in Israel which Saul occupied then, i.e., the throne. - In Sa1 20:14 and Sa1 20:15 the Masoretic text gives no appropriate meaning. Luther's rendering, in which he follows the Rabbins and takes the first ולא (Sa1 20:14) by itself, and then completes the sentence from the context (\"but if I do it not, show me no mercy, because I live, not even if I die\"), contains indeed a certain permissible sense when considered in itself; but it is hardly reconcilable with what follows, \"and do not tear away thy compassion for ever from my house.\" The request that he would show no compassion to him (Jonathan) even if he died, and yet would not withdraw his compassion from his house for ever, contains an antithesis which would have been expressed most clearly and unambiguously in the words themselves, if this had been really what Jonathan intended to say. De Wette's rendering gives a still more striking contradiction: \"But let not (Jehovah be with thee) if I still live, and thou showest not the love of Jehovah to me, that I do not, and thou withdrawest not thy love from my house for ever.\" There is really no other course open than to follow the Syriac and Arabic, as Maurer, Thenius, and Ewald have done, and change the ולא in the first two clauses in Sa1 20:14 into ולוּ or ולא, according to the analogy of the form לוּא (Sa1 14:30), and to render the passage thus: \"And mayest thou, if I still live, mayest thou show to me the favour of the Lord, and not if I do, not withdraw thy favour from my house for ever, not even (ולא) when Jehovah shall cut off the enemies of David, every one from the face of the earth!\" \"The favour of Jehovah\" is favour such as Jehovah shall cut off,\" etc., shows very clearly Jonathan's conviction that Jehovah would give to David a victory over all his enemies.\nSa1 20:16\nThus Jonathan concluded a covenant with the house of David, namely, by bringing David to promise kindness to his family for ever. The word בּרית must be supplied in thought to יכרת, as in Sa1 22:8 and Ch2 7:18. \"And Jehovah required it (what Jonathan had predicted) at the hand of David's enemies.\" Understood in this manner, the second clause contains a remark of the historian himself, namely, that Jonathan's words were really fulfilled in due time. The traditional rendering of וּבקּשׁ as a relative preterite, with אמר understood, \"and said, Let Jehovah take vengeance,\" is not only precluded by the harshness of the introduction of the word \"saying,\" but still more by the fact, that if אמר (saying) is introduced between the copula vav and the verb בּקּשׁ, the perfect cannot stand for the optative בּקּשׁ, as in Jos 22:23.\nSa1 20:17\n\"And Jonathan adjured David again by his love to him, because he loved him as his own soul\" (cf. Sa1 18:1, Sa1 18:3); i.e., he once more implored David most earnestly with an oath to show favour to him and his house.\nSa1 20:18-19\nHe then discussed the sign with him for letting him know about his father's state of mind: \"To-morrow is new moon, and thou wilt be missed, for thy seat will be empty,\" sc., at Saul's table (see at Sa1 20:5). \"And on the third day come down quickly (from thy sojourning place), and go to the spot where thou didst hide thyself on the day of the deed, and place thyself by the side of the stone Ezel.\" The first words in this (19th) verse are not without difficulty. The meaning \"on the third day\" for the verb שׁלּשׁ cannot be sustained by parallel passages, but is fully established, partly by השּׁלשׁית, the third day, and partly by the Arabic usage (vid., Ges. Thes. s. v.). מאד after תּרד, lit., \"go violently down,\" is more striking still. Nevertheless the correctness of the text is not to be called in question, since שׁלּשׁתּ is sustained by τρισσεύσει in the Septuagint, and מאד תּרד by descende ergo festinus in the Vulgate, and also by the rendering in the Chaldee, Arabic, and Syriac versions, \"and on the third day thou wilt be missed still more,\" which is evidently merely a conjecture founded upon the context. The meaning of המּעשׂה בּיום is doubtful. Gesenius, De Wette, and Maurer render it \"on the day of the deed,\" and understand it as referring to Saul's deed mentioned in Sa1 19:2, viz., his design of killing David; others render it \"on the day of business,\" i.e., the working day (Luther, after the lxx and Vulgate), but this is not so good a rendering. The best is probably that of Thenius, \"on the day of the business\" (which is known to thee). Nothing further can be said concerning the stone Ezel than that Ezel is a proper name.\nSa1 20:20\n\"And I will shoot off three arrows to the side of it (the stone Ezek), to shoot for me at the mark,\" i.e., as if shooting at the mark. The article attached to החצּים is either to be explained as denoting that the historian assumed the thing as already well known, or on the supposition that Jonathan went to the field armed, and when giving the sign pointed to the arrows in his quiver. In the word צדּה the Raphe indicates that the suffix of ־ה is not a mere toneless ה, although it has no mappik, having given up its strong breathing on account of the harsh צ sound.\nSa1 20:21\n\"And, behold (הנּה, directing attention to what follows as the main point), I will send the boy (saying), Go, get the arrows. If I shall say to the boy, Behold, the arrows are from thee hitherwards, fetch them; then come, for peace is to thee, and it is nothing, as truly as Jehovah liveth.\" \nSa1 20:22\n\"But if I say to the youth, Behold, the arrows are from thee farther off; then go, for Jehovah sendeth thee away,\" i.e., bids thee flee. The appointment of this sign was just as simple as it was suitable to the purpose.\nSa1 20:23\nThis arrangement was to remain an eternal secret between them. \"And (as for) the word that we have spoken, I and thou, behold, the Lord is between me and thee for ever,\" namely, a witness and judge in case one of us two should break the covenant (vid., Gen 31:48-49). This is implied in the words, without there being any necessity to assume that עד had dropped out of the text. \"The word\" refers not merely to the sign agreed upon, but to the whole matter, including the renewal of the bond of friendship. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["David thereupon concealed himself in the field, whilst Jonathan, as agreed upon, endeavoured to apologize for his absence from the king's table.\nSa1 20:24-25\nOn the new moon's day Saul sat at table, and as always, at his seat by the wall, i.e., at the top, just as, in eastern lands at the present day, the place of honour is the seat in the corner (see Harmar Beobachtungen ii. pp. 66ff.). \"And Jonathan rose up, and Abner seated himself by the side of Saul, and David's place remained empty.\" The difficult passage, \"And Jonathan rose up,\" etc., can hardly be understood in any other way than as signifying that, when Abner entered, Jonathan rose from his seat by the side of Saul, and gave up the place to Abner, in which case all that is wanting is an account of the place to which Jonathan moved. Every other attempted explanation is exposed to much graver difficulties. The suggestion made by Gesenius, that the cop. ו should be supplied before אבנר, and ויּשׁב referred to Jonathan (\"and Jonathan rose up and sat down, and Abner [sat down] by the side of Saul\"), as in the Syriac, is open to this objection, that in addition to the necessity of supplying ו, it is impossible to see why Jonathan should have risen up for the purpose of sitting down again. The rendering \"and Jonathan came,\" which is the one adopted by Maurer and De Wette, cannot be philologically sustained; inasmuch as, although קוּם is used to signify rise up, in the sense of the occurrence of important events, or the appearance of celebrated of persons, it never means simply \"to come.\" And lastly, the conjecture of Thenius, that ויּקם should be altered into ויקדּם, according to the senseless rendering of the lxx, προέφθασε τὸν Ἰονάθαν, is overthrown by the fact, that whilst קדּם does indeed mean to anticipate or come to meet, it never means to sit in front of, i.e., opposite to a person.\nSa1 20:26\nOn this (first) day Saul said nothing, sc., about David's absenting himself, \"for he thought there has (something) happened to him, that he is not clean; surely (כּי) he is not clean\" (vid., Lev 15:16.; Deu 23:11).\nSa1 20:27-29\nBut on the second day, the day after the new moon (lit., the morrow after the new moon, the second day: השּׁני is a nominative, and to be joined to ויהי, and not a genitive belonging to החדשׁ), when David was absent from table again, Saul said to Jonathan, \"Why is the son of Jesse not come to meat, neither yesterday nor to-day?\" Whereupon Jonathan answered, as arranged with David (compare Sa1 20:28 and Sa1 20:29 with Sa1 20:6). \"And my brother, he hath commanded me,\" i.e., ordered me to come. צוּה as in Exo 6:13, and אחי, the elder brother, who was then at the head of the family, and arranged the sacrificial meal.\nSa1 20:30-31\nSaul was greatly enraged at this, and said to Jonathan, \"Son of a perverse woman (נעות is a participle, Niph. fem. from עוה) of rebellion,\" - i.e., son of a perverse and rebellious woman (an insult offered to the mother, and therefore so much the greater to the son), hence the meaning really is, \"Thou perverse, rebellious fellow,\" - \"do I not know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own shame, and to the shame of thy mother's nakedness?\" בּחר, to choose a person out of love, to take pleasure in a person; generally construed with בּ pers., here with ל, although many Codd. have בּ here also. \"For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the earth, thou and thy kingdom (kingship, throne) will not stand.\" Thus Saul evidently suspected David as his rival, who would either wrest the government from him, or at any rate after his death from his son. \"Now send and fetch him to me, for he is a child of death,\" i.e., he has deserved to die, and shall be put to death.\nSa1 20:32-34\nWhen Jonathan replied, \"My father, why shall he die? what has he done?\" Saul was so enraged that he hurled his javelin at Jonathan (cf. Sa1 18:11). Thus Jonathan saw that his father had firmly resolved to put David to death, and rose up from the table in fierce anger, and did not eat that day; for he was grieved concerning David, because his father had done him shame. כּלה is a substantive in the sense of unalterable resolution, like the verb in Sa1 20:9. השּׁני בּיום־החדשׁ, on the second day of the new moon or month. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["The next morning Jonathan made David acquainted with what had occurred, by means of the sign agreed upon with David. The account of this, and of the meeting between Jonathan and David which followed, is given very concisely, only the main points being touched upon. In the morning (after what had occurred) Jonathan went to the field, דּוד למועד, either \"at the time agreed upon with David,\" or \"to the meeting with David,\" or perhaps better still, \"according to the appointment (agreement) with David,\" and a small boy with him.\nSa1 20:36\nTo the latter he said, namely as soon as they had come to the field, Run, get the arrows which I shoot. The boy ran, and he shot off the arrows, \"to go out beyond him,\" i.e., so that the arrows flew farther than the boy had run. The form חצי for חץ only occurs in connection with disjunctive accents; beside the present chapter (Sa1 20:36, Sa1 20:37, Sa1 20:38, Chethibh) we find it again in Kg2 9:24. The singular is used here with indefinite generality, as the historian did not consider it necessary to mention expressly, after what he had previously written, that Jonathan shot off three arrows one after another.\nSa1 20:37-39\nWhen the boy came to the place of the shot arrow (i.e., to the place to which the arrow had flown), Jonathan called after him, \"See, the arrow is (lies) away from thee, farther off;\" and again, \"Quickly, haste, do not stand still,\" that he might not see David, who was somewhere near; and the boy picked up the arrow and came to his lord. The Chethibh החצי is evidently the original reading, and the singular is to be understood as in Sa1 20:37; the Keri החצּים is an emendation, according to the meaning of the words. The writer here introduces the remark in Sa1 20:39, that the boy knew nothing of what had been arranged between Jonathan and David.\nSa1 20:40\nJonathan then gave the boy his things (bow, arrows, and quiver), and sent him with them to the town, that he might be able to converse with David for a few seconds after his departure, and take leave of him unobserved.\nSa1 20:41\nWhen the boy had gone, David rose (from his hiding-place) from the south side, fell down upon his face to the ground, and bowed three times (before Jonathan); they then kissed each other, and wept for one another, \"till David wept strongly,\" i.e., to such a degree that David wept very loud. הנּגב מאצל, \"from the side of the south,\" which is the expression used to describe David's hiding-place, according to its direction in relation to the place where Jonathan was standing, has not been correctly rendered by any of the early translators except Aquila and Jerome. In the Septuagint, the Chaldee, the Syriac, and the Arabic, the statement in Sa1 20:19 is repeated, simply because the translators could not see the force of הנּגב מאצל, although it is intelligible enough in relation to what follows, according to which David fled from thence southwards to Nob.\nSa1 20:42\nAll that is given of the conversation between the two friends is the parting word spoken by Jonathan to David: \"Go in peace. What we two have sworn in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed for ever:\" sc., let it stand, or let us abide by it. The clause contains an aposiopesis, which may be accounted for from Jonathan's deep emotion, and in which the apodosis may be gathered from the sense. For it is evident, from a comparison of Sa1 20:23, that the expression \"for ever\" must be understood as forming part of the oath. - Sa1 21:1. David then set out upon his journey, and Jonathan returned to the town. This verse ought, strictly speaking, to form the conclusion of 1 Samuel 20.\n(Note: In our English version it does; but in the Hebrew, which is followed here, it forms the opening verse of Sa1 21:1-15. In the exposition of the following chapter it has been thought better to follow the numbering of the verses in our version rather than that of the original, although the latter is conformed to the Hebrew. - Tr.)\nThe subject to \"arose\" is David; not because Jonathan was the last one spoken of (Thenius), but because the following words, \"and Jonathan came,\" etc., are in evident antithesis to \"he arose and went.\" \n"]}]},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/1SA/20.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"1SA","chapter":20},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/1SA/21.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"1SA","chapter":21},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/1SA/19.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"1SA","chapter":19},"numberOfVerses":4}