1 Samuel 23:25 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 23:25
Saul also and his men went to seek him. And they told David; wherefore he came down into a rock, and abode in the wilderness of Maon. And when Saul heard that, he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon.
a pasture (i.e. open field · noun, common masculine singular construct
Maon
מָעֽוֹןma.'on
H4584
Maon · proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Judges 15:8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.
1 Samuel 23:28 Wherefore Saul returned from pursuing after David, and went against the Philistines: therefore they called that place Sela-hammahlekoth.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 23:19–end
Here, 1. The Ziphites offer their service to Saul, to betray David to him, Sa1 23:19, Sa1 23:20. He was sheltering himself in the wilderness of Ziph (Sa1 23:14, Sa1 23:15), putting the more confidence in the people of that country because they were of his own tribe. They had reason to think themselves happy that they had an opportunity of serving one who was the ornament of their tribe and was likely to be much more so, who was so far from plundering the country, or giving it any disturbance with his troops, that he was ready to protect it and to them all the good offices that there was occasion for. But, to ingratiate themselves with Saul, they went to him, and not only informed him very pa…
David . . . came down into a rock, and abode in the wilderness of Maon--Tell Main, the hillock on which was situated the ancient Maon (Jos 15:55), and from which the adjoining wilderness took its name, is one mile north, ten east from Carmel. The mountain plateau seems here to end. It is true the summit ridge of the southern hills runs out a long way further towards the southwest; but towards the southeast the ground sinks more and more down to a tableland of a lower level, which is called "the plain to the right hand [that is, to the south] of the wilderness" [VAN DE VELDE].
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 23:25
The wilderness of Maon - Maon was a mountainous district in the most southern parts of Judah. Calmet supposes it to be the city of Menois, which Eusebius places in the vicinity of Gaza; and the Maenaemi Castrum, which the Theodosian code places near to Beersheba.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 23:25
And Saul also and his men went to seek him,.... Whether the Ziphites returned to him with better intelligence, or sent him word where David was, is not said, however Saul with his army came out in search of him:
and they told David; or it was told him, that Saul was come in quest of him:
wherefore he came down into a rock; either into a cave in it, or he came down from the hill Hachilah to a plain or valley, in order to go up to a rock, the same with the mountain in 1 Samuel 23:26,
and abode in the wilderness of Maon; in which was the rock or mountain he came to:
and when Saul heard that, he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon; for upon the intelligence of the Ziphites, he came…
The Church Fathers
This is what happened to Paul. For the potency of the light suddenly surprised his feeble eyes and injured them. But the greatness of the voice brought low his strength and entered his ears and opened them. For they had been closed up by Jewish contentiousness as by wax. For the voice did not plough up the ears, as the light injured the eyeballs. Why? but because it was meet that he should hear, but not that he should see. Therefore the doors of hearing were opened by the voice as by a key: but the doors of sight were shut by the light that should open them. Why then was it meet that he should hear? Clearly because by that voice our Lord was able to reveal Himself as being persecuted by Saul. For He was not able to show Himself by sight as being persecuted; for there was no way whereby this should be, that the son of David should be seen fleeing and Saul pursuing after Him. For this happened in very deed with that first Saul and with the first David. The one was pursuing; the other was being persecuted; they both of them saw and were seen, each by the other. But here the ear alone could hear of the persecution of the Son of David; the eye could not see that He was being persecuted.
When Saul heard this, he pursued David, etc. These things specifically regard the Jewish persecutor, who, upon hearing of the faith and devotion of believers, persecutes them on earth, while they with the whole intention of their minds look towards the heavens, himself believing that Christ will come in the flesh, which they have already learned has come. For this is Saul proceeding on one side of the mountain, and David and his men staying on the other side; these ones empty of Christ, hastening with perverted hope towards Christ yet to be incarnate; those ones having already received, by the grace of Christ the author, the sacraments of the Christian faith in which they would be saved. For he is the mountain of the house of the Lord prepared on the summit of the mountains, upon which a city set cannot be hidden (Isa. II). Nor is it surprising if they despair of being able to escape carnally from their enemies, to whom it was not said, "Do not fear, for you will not be killed by your enemies" (Matt. X); but, he says, "Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul" (Matt. X). Yet sometimes those in despair are delivered from enemies even at present, like the three boys from the furnace, Daniel from the lions' den, like Paul and Silas, and the very prince of the apostles himself (Acts V): but also elsewhere, all the apostles from prison together; as indeed many later martyrs of great praise and glory in Christ and the Church. Hence it is rightly added:
Dictionary and topics
David — Beloved, the eighth and youngest son of Jesse, a citizen of Bethlehem. His father seems to have been a man in humble life. His mother’s name is not recorded. Some think she was the Nahash of 2 Sam.…
Maon — Habitation, a town in the tribe of Judah, about 7 miles south of Hebron, which gave its name to the wilderness, the district round the conical hill on which the town stood. Here David hid from Saul,…
Deserts · Mentioned in scripture: Maon — Mentioned in scripture: Maon
Maon · David (with his insurgents) en — David (with his insurgents) en
Rocks · Mentioned in scripture: Selahammahlekoth in the wilderness of Maon — Mentioned in scripture: Selahammahlekoth in the wilderness of Maon
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Having been informed of the arrival of Saul and his men (warriors), David went down the rock, and remained in the desert of Maon. "The rock" is probably the conical mountain of Main (Maon), the top of which is now surrounded with ruins, probably remains of a tower (Robinson, Pal. ii. p. 194), as the rock from which David came down can only have been the mountain (Sa1 23:26), along one side of which David went with his men whilst Saul and his warriors went on the other, namely when Saul pursued him into the desert of Maon.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on 1 Samuel 23:24
Maon was about three miles directly south of the wilderness of Ziph (23:14), approximately ten miles south of Hebron. • The Arabah Valley is a deep rift stretching from above the Sea of Galilee down both sides of the Jordan River to the Dead Sea.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 23:24
Ahead of Shaul. For Shaul was destined to go after them, and they went before him, to search exactly [where Dovid was].
