properly · noun, common feminine singular absolute
flea
פַּרְעֹ֥שׁpar.'Osh
H6550
a flea (as the isolated insect) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
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
1 Samuel 26:20 Now therefore, let not my blood fall to the earth before the face of the LORD: for the king of Israel is come out to seek a flea, as when on…
1 Samuel 17:43 And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
2 Samuel 9:8 And he bowed himself, and said, What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?
Judges 8:1-3 And the men of Ephraim said unto him, Why hast thou served us thus, that thou calledst us not, when thou wentest to fight with the Midianite…
2 Samuel 3:8 Then was Abner very wroth for the words of Ish-bosheth, and said, Am I a dog’s head, which against Judah do shew kindness this day unto the…
2 Samuel 16:9 Then said Abishai the son of Zeruiah unto the king, Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take o…
1 Kings 21:7 And Jezebel his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will g…
2 Samuel 6:20 Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of I…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 24:9-15
We have here David's warm and pathetic speech to Saul, wherein he endeavours to convince him that he did him a great deal of wrong in persecuting him thus and to persuade him therefore to be reconciled.
I. He calls him father (Sa1 24:11), for he was not only, as king, the father of his country, but he was, in particular, his father-in-law. From a father one may expect compassion and a favourable opinion. For a prince to seek the ruin of any of his good subjects is as unnatural as for a father to seek the ruin of his own children.
II. He lays the blame of his rage against him upon his evil counsellors: Wherefore hearest thou men's words? Sa1 24:9. It is a piece of respect due to crowned heads…
HE URGES THEREBY HIS INNOCENCY. (Sa1 24:8-15)
David also arose . . . and went out of the cave, and cried after Saul--The closeness of the precipitous cliffs, though divided by deep wadies, and the transparent purity of the air enable a person standing on one rock to hear distinctly the words uttered by a speaker standing on another (Jdg 9:7). The expostulation of David, followed by the visible tokens he furnished of his cherishing no evil design against either the person or the government of the king, even when he had the monarch in his power, smote the heart of Saul in a moment and disarmed him of his fell purpose of revenge. He owned the justice of what David said, acknowledged his own gu…
After a dead dog - A term used among the Hebrews to signify the most sovereign contempt; see Sa2 16:9. One utterly incapable of making the least resistance against Saul, and the troops of Israel. The same idea is expressed in the term flea. The Targum properly expresses both thus: one who is weak, one who is contemptible.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 24:14
After whom is the king of Israel come out?.... From his court and palace, with an army of men, and at the head of them:
after whom dost thou pursue? with such eagerness and fury:
after a dead dog; as David was in the opinion, and according to the representation of his enemies, a dog, vile, mean, worthless, of no account; a dead dog, whose name was made to stink through the calumnies cast upon him; and if a dead dog, then as he was an useless person, and could do no good, so neither could he do any hurt, not so much as bark, much less bite; and therefore it was unworthy of so great a prince, a lessening, a degrading of himself, as well as a vain and impertinent thing, to pursue after such a…
The Church Fathers
The Creator compares himself to the lowest of his creatures so that you may regard nothing as despicable which is known to have been fashioned by his agency. As Scripture has it, "God made all things very good." Thus David too followed his Teacher and compared himself with the humblest flea; for the real power of religion is that the more an individual humbles himself after the model of the Creator, the more splendidly he is exalted to glory.
Whom do you persecute, king of Israel? Whom do you persecute? etc. Israel means a man seeing God. Whom then do you persecute, O people, who were chosen before all other nations to see the glory of divine brightness? Whom do you persecute? Is it that great and most vigilant shepherd of holy sheep, whom you did not hesitate to betray to death and continue to hate even after his death? He who was lowly in human appearance but swift in the leap of resurrection, having escaped your hands when you attempted to seize him, you foolishly think that you can again grasp him thundering from heaven? Indeed, I do not seek my glory; there is one who seeks and judges. Let it seem absurd to no one that a dead dog or a flea bears the Lord's figure, since in another place due to the frailty of the flesh, which he received from a virgin's flesh without male seed, he says of himself: "But I am a worm, and not a man" (Psalm XXII). And due to the glory of the resurrection, which he quickly and swiftly completed from death to life as if by a leap: "And I am shaken out as a locust" (Psalm CVIII).
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
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.…
Dog — Frequently mentioned both in the Old and New Testaments. Dogs were used by the Hebrews as a watch for their houses (Isa. 56:10), and for guarding their flocks (Job 30:1). There were also then as now…
Flea — David at the cave of Adullam thus addressed his persecutor Saul (1 Sam. 24:14): “After whom is the king of Israel come out? after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea?” He thus…
Providence — Literally means foresight, but is generally used to denote God’s preserving and governing all things by means of second causes (Ps. 18:35; 63:8; Acts 17:28; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3). God’s providence…
Dog (Sodomite?) · Epithet of contempt — Epithet of contempt
Dog, The · Illustrative: (Dead,) of the mean — Illustrative: (Dead,) of the mean
Flea · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Humility · .David — .David
Insects · Mentioned in scripture: Flea — Mentioned in scripture: Flea
Proverbs · MISCELLANY OF — MISCELLANY OF
Self-Control · Of David — Of David
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).
And even if he should wish to attack the king, he did not possess the power. This thought introduces Sa1 24:14 : "After whom is the king of Israel gone out? After whom dost thou pursue? A dead dog, a single flea." By these similes David meant to describe himself as a perfectly harmless and insignificant man, of whom Saul had no occasion to be afraid, and whom the king of Israel ought to think it beneath his dignity to pursue. A dead dog cannot bite or hurt, and is an object about which a king ought not to trouble himself (cf. Sa2 9:8 and Sa2 16:9, where the idea of something contemptible is included). The point of comparison with a flea is the insignificance of such an animal (cf. Sa1 26:20)…
The proverb vindicates David and indicts Saul. David refrained from evil deeds, such as killing Saul. Saul, however, repeatedly tried to kill David.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 24:14
As the ancient proverb says. The proverb of the Ancient One of the world7It may also mean ‘old proverb’ or it may refer to a ‘Kadmonite proverb,’ a nation mentioned in Bereishis 15:19. [referring to] the Torah, which is the proverb of the Holy One, Blessed is He.8And accordingly הַקַּדְמֹנִי means ‘The Ancient One’ referring to ה׳ Himself.
From the wicked comes wickedness.9So let it not come from me even if you deserve it.—Radak. The Holy One, Blessed is He, destines the wicked to fall into the hand of the wicked like himself. And where did the Torah say this, "And God destined it into his hand,"10Shemos 21:13. as it is stated in Maseches Makos.11
