1. And the Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah. This verse, echoing much of the language of 23:19, announces the beginning of the last of the elaborately paired episodes that structure the story of David and Saul. Scholarly consensus assumes that these doublets reflect different sources or traditions bearing on the same events, although the possibility cannot be rejected out of hand that the original writer may have deliberately composed his story with paired incidents. In any case, the pairings need to be read as part of the purposeful compositional design of the redacted version of the narrative that we have. As the Russian formalist critic Viktor Shklovsky observed long ago, every parallelism in a literary text serves to point up a certain semantic difference. Here, we note at the outset that the elaborately detailed intelligence about David’s whereabouts provided by the Ziphites in 23:19 is largely absent from this briefer account: this story will prove to be an inversion of the earlier one, David discovering Saul instead of the other way around. Another indication that the doublet is manipulated as an element of purposeful design is the fact that this episode simultaneously repeats two different previous episodes—not only the earlier story of Saul’s pursuit of David into the wilderness of Ziph but also the encounter between David and Saul at the cave near Ein-Gedi (chapter 24). There, just as here, David refused to kill Saul when he, or one of his men, could have done so, and there he professed his innocence to a remorseful Saul who called him as he does here, “my son, David.”

3. he saw that Saul had come after him. The placement of this second account of pursuit in the wilderness of Ziph after Saul’s solemn pledge in chapter 24 not to harm David underlines the compulsive character of his obsession with David. Whatever his avowed good intentions, Saul cannot restrain his impulse to destroy his rival. There is thus strong narrative logic in the recurrence: after this last encounter with Saul, David will sensibly conclude that he can no longer trust the king’s professions of good faith, and he will take flight beyond the borders of Israel.

4. David sent spies and he knew with certainty. In contrast to the episode in chapter 23, it is David here who commands military intelligence. The writer makes this point neatly by using the same (relatively unusual) phrase, ʾel nakhon, “with certainty,” which in chapter 23 was spoken by Saul, referring to the information about David he expected to get from the Ziphites.

6. Ahimelech the Hittite. In biblical usage, “Hittite” is a loose designation for Canaanite peoples and does not necessarily refer to the Indo-European group that originated in Anatolia. The presence of a foreigner in David’s inner circle of warriors suggests an openness of his band of disaffected men to adventure seekers, freebooters, and other mobile types in the Canaanite population. Ahimelech is nowhere else mentioned in the biblical record, which has led some scholars to infer that the mention of this foreigner may be an authentic early notice of a historical personage. The name itself is Hebrew.

Abishai son of Zeruiah. If the report in Chronicles is reliable, Zeruiah was David’s sister—hence the unusual matronymic instead of a patronymic. David the warrior-chieftain is surrounded by his three nephews, the three bloody-minded sons of Zeruiah: two of them impetuous (Abishai and Asahel), the third, who is David’s commander, ruthlessly calculating (Joab).

8. God has this day delivered your enemy into your hand. These words explicitly echo the words of David’s men when they discover Saul unawares in the cave.

strike him through with the spear . . . just once, I will need no second blow. This bit of warrior’s bravado helps us make an important connection, as J. P. Fokkelman has nicely observed: twice Saul hurled this same spear at David, who eluded him. Abishai on his part vows he will deliver one swift, lethal blow.

9. And David said. Abishai, dumbfounded, offers no response to David’s forbidding him to harm this archenemy, and so David has to explain that God will settle accounts with Saul in His own good time.

Do no violence to him. Instead of one of three expected verbs, “to strike down,” “to kill,” “to put to death,” David uses the verb hishḥit, which basically means “to destroy,” but which can carry the association, as Kyle McCarter Jr. rightly observes, of mutilation or defacement, the taboo acts that should not be perpetrated on the person of the king.

11. take . . . the spear. In the episode at the cave, David carried away the cut-off corner of Saul’s garment, which had been symbolically linked with kingship. The spear is an alternative image of kingship, obviously more directly associated with martial potency, and so this version conveys a greater sense that David is depriving Saul of something essential in the token of kingship he bears off. Again, the placement of this version of the paired episodes is telling, for the next time we see Saul in the narrative he will be undone on the battlefield by the Philistines and will turn his own weapon against himself.

and the water jug. The spear protects life by destroying; the water jug sustains life for the warrior in battle under the hot sun.

12. And David took the spear and the water jug. David takes them himself, after having ordered Abishai to do it. The medieval Hebrew exegete David Kimchi offers a shrewd explanation: “He changed his mind and didn’t want Abishai to approach the king, lest he prove unable to restrain himself and kill Saul.”

14. Who are you, that you have called out to the king? Some ancient versions omit “to the king” because David has called out to Abner, not to Saul. David’s shouting from the prominence, however, occurs in the middle of the night, and it clearly has awakened Saul, which seems to be what is bothering Abner. David has chosen Saul’s commander as his first interlocutor in order to stress the sacred responsibility of those around the king to protect his person. His noble words are not devoid of self-interest because David is clearly conscious of the fact that he is the future king.

15. one of the troops has come to do violence to the king. Although this could refer to Abishai, the essential referent is David himself—something he does not want to say in so many words.

16. you all deserve death. “All” is supplied in the translation in order to convey the fact that here the pronoun “you” is a plural in the Hebrew. This death sentence pronounced on Saul’s entire entourage is extravagant, but Abner at least will die a violent death.

17. Is this your voice, my son, David? These are the identical words he pronounces outside the cave near Ein-Gedi. Here, he “recognizes” the voice—as, symbolically, in this remission of his madness, he recognizes his paternal bond with David—but he is not entirely sure because of the darkness, and so he asks.

18. what evil is in my hand? As elsewhere, “hand” and “in my hand” have multiple valences. What David literally has in his hand as he speaks is the king’s spear!

19. If the LORD has incited . . . if it be men. These two alternatives are a kind of diplomatic maneuver. David doesn’t want to put the blame squarely on Saul, so he proposes that the king was “incited” either by God for some mysterious reason or by malicious people.

let Him be appeased by an offering. The Hebrew says literally, “let Him smell [the fragrant odor of] an offering.”

banished me . . . from . . . the LORD’s inheritance. The LORD’S inheritance clearly refers to the Land of Israel. Since every national region had its own cult, David is saying that to be excluded from his own national borders is tantamount to being obliged to worship other gods. In fact, his flight from Saul has been mostly within Israelite territory, but he seems to be anticipating that his next move, for his own safety, will have to be into Philistine country.

20. to seek a single flea, as he would chase a partridge in the mountains. The language of the entire clause recycles the words David used to conclude his speech outside the cave. But the dead dog has been deleted and a partridge has been introduced instead. This image is less forceful, but its attraction in the Hebrew, as several commentators have noted, is a witty pun: partridge (qore’) is a homonym for “he who calls out.” David (verse 14) was identified by Abner as the one who called out to the king—a caller out on the mountain, a partridge pursued on the mountains.

22. And David answered and said, “Here is the king’s spear.” It is noteworthy that David does not immediately respond to Saul’s renewed profession of regret and good faith. (The Masoretic consonantal text, the ketiv, tries to rescue this lapse by representing these words as a vocative, “Here is the spear, king,” but the qeri, or pronounced Masoretic version, properly renders it as ḥanit hamelekh, “the king’s spear.”) In the encounter at the cave, David vowed he would not harm Saul’s descendants, though his actual words were not reported. Here, he first gives an impersonal order to have the spear brought back to Saul. It is only when he goes on to recapitulate his profession of innocence that he again addresses Saul. By this point, he no longer trusts any promises Saul may make not to harm him but hopes that God will note his own proper conduct and therefore protect him (verse 24).

24. I valued your life highly. The literal Hebrew idiom is “your life was great in my eyes.”

25. Blessed are you, my son, David. These words of fatherly blessing are the last ones Saul speaks to David: the two never meet again. It is notable that in their previous encounter, Saul explicitly conceded that David would replace him as king, whereas here he merely says in general language, “You shall surely do much and you shall surely win out.”

David went on his way, but Saul returned to his place. This is a biblical formula for marking the end of a narrative unit, but it also nicely distinguishes between the two men: David continues on the move while Saul goes back to his set place of residence.