1 Samuel 27
About 1 SamuelWritten by AI
1 Samuel is history told as story. It carries Israel from the last of the judges to the first of its kings, through three lives that overlap: Samuel the prophet, Saul the king the people asked for, and David the shepherd God chose. The book does not name its author. Jewish tradition credits Samuel with the early parts and the prophets Nathan and Gad with the rest; many scholars think the books of Samuel were drawn together from older sources some time later. 1 and 2 Samuel were first one book.
The big movement is from a nation with no king to a nation with the wrong kind of king, and then toward a king after God's own heart. Saul starts well and unravels. David rises slowly, often on the run, and refuses to grab the throne.
Watch for reversals: the barren woman sings, the proud fall, the youngest son is anointed. Watch, too, for the steady theme that God looks deeper than appearances: “the LORD sees the heart.”
Before you read 1 Samuel 27Written by AI
Worn down, David decides he will be safer among the Philistines and goes to Achish of Gath, who gives him the town of Ziklag. David raids other peoples, leaves no survivors to report him, and tells Achish he has been raiding Judah. The chapter reports this without praise, and readers differ on how to judge David here.
David and the Philistines
David, however, said to himself, “One of these days now I will be swept away by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will stop searching for me all over Israel, and I will slip out of his hand.”
So David set out with his six hundred men and went to Achish son of Maoch, the king of Gath. David and his men settled in Gath with Achish. Each man had his family with him, and David had his two wives: Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel, the widow of Nabal. And when Saul learned that David had fled to Gath, he no longer searched for him.
Then David said to Achish, “If I have found favor in your eyes, let me be assigned a place in one of the outlying towns, so I can live there. For why should your servant live in the royal city with you?”
That day Achish gave him Ziklag, and to this day it still belongs to the kings of Judah. And the time that David lived in Philistine territory amounted to a year and four months.
Now David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites. (From ancient times these people had inhabited the land extending to Shur and Egypt.) Whenever David attacked a territory, he did not leave a man or woman alive, but he took the flocks and herds, the donkeys, camels, and clothing.
Then he would return to Achish, who would ask him, “What have you raided today?”
And David would reply, “The Negev of Judah,” or “The Negev of Jerahmeel,” or “The Negev of the Kenites.”
David did not leave a man or woman alive to be brought to Gath, for he said, “Otherwise they will report us, saying, ‘This is what David did.’” And this was David’s custom the whole time he lived in Philistine territory.
So Achish trusted David, thinking, “Since he has made himself an utter stench to his people Israel, he will be my servant forever.”