1 Samuel 26:19 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 26:19
Now therefore, I pray thee, let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If the LORD have stirred thee up against me, let him accept an offering: but if they be the children of men, cursed be they before the LORD; for they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the LORD, saying, Go, serve other gods.
sovereign · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
king
הַמֶּ֔לֶךְha.Me.lekh
H4428
a king · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
hear
יִֽשְׁמַֽעyish.ma'-
H8085
to hear intelligently (often with implication of attent… · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
words
דִּבְרֵ֣יdiv.Rei
H1697
a word · noun, common masculine plural construct
servant
עַבְדּ֑וֹav.Do
H5650
a servant · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֞הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
up
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
2 Samuel 14:16 For the king will hear, to deliver his handmaid out of the hand of the man that would destroy me and my son together out of the inheritance…
2 Samuel 16:11 And David said to Abishai, and to all his servants, Behold, my son, which came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life: how much more now may th…
2 Samuel 20:19 I am one of them that are peaceable and faithful in Israel: thou seekest to destroy a city and a mother in Israel: why wilt thou swallow up…
Genesis 8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imag…
Joshua 22:25-27 For the LORD hath made Jordan a border between us and you, ye children of Reuben and children of Gad; ye have no part in the LORD: so shall…
1 Samuel 18:10 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David play…
1 Chronicles 21:1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
Psalms 120:5 Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 26:13-20
David having got safely from Saul's camp himself, and having brought with him proofs sufficient that he had been there, posts himself conveniently, so that they might hear him and yet not reach him (Sa1 26:13), and then begins to reason with them upon what had passed.
I. He reasons ironically with Abner, and keenly banters him. David knew well that it was from the mighty power of God that Abner and the rest of the guards were cast into so deep a sleep, and that God's immediate hand was in it; but he reproaches Abner as unworthy to be captain of the lifeguards, since he could sleep when the king his master lay so much exposed. By this it appears that the hand of God locked them up in this dee…
If the Lord have stirred thee up against me--By the evil spirit He had sent, or by any spiritual offenses by which we have mutually displeased Him.
let him accept an offering--that is, let us conjointly offer a sacrifice for appeasing His wrath against us.
if they be the children of men--The prudence, meekness, and address of David in ascribing the king's enmity to the instigations of some malicious traducers, and not to the jealousy of Saul himself, is worthy of notice.
saying, Go, serve other gods--This was the drift of their conduct. By driving him from the land and ordinances of the true worship, into foreign and heathen countries, they were exposing him to all the seductions of id…
Let him accept an offering - If God have stirred thee up against me, why, then, let him deliver my life into thy hand, and accept it as a sacrifice. But as the word is מנחה minchah, a gratitude-offering, perhaps the sense may be this: Let God accept a gratitude-offering from thee, for having purged the land of a worker of iniquity; for, were I not such, God would never stir thee up against me.
But if they be the children of men - If men have, by false representations, lies, and slanders, stirred thee up against an innocent man, then let them be cursed before the Lord. If I am guilty, I deserve to die; if not, those who seek my life should be destroyed.
Saying, Go, serve other gods - His bein…
The Church Fathers
If the Lord incites you against me, etc. If, he says, led by the Spirit of God you persecute me, it is necessary that I appease the divine mercy with sacrifices and prayers; but if not by the will of the Lord, but against His will, having been corrupted by the deception of wicked men, you thought it right to rage for a time against the innocent; it is certain that those are held worthy of a curse in the divine examination, who, by wicked persuasions repelling me from His tabernacle and holy land, compel me to live among idolaters, whom I utterly detest. And if this flame of persecution has arisen from men, as I said, it is just in every way that my blood should not be shed by the impious, which the hands of persecutors have thus far unjustly sought. According to the mystical understanding, it is the voice of the members of Christ, that is, of His faithful, who, caught by the persecution of wicked men, are accustomed to diligently examine their hearts. And if for their sins they recognize that punishment of chastisement is inflicted upon them by the Lord through such men, they immediately strive to purge these with sacrifices of due contrition. But if they see themselves unjustly suffering injuries or deaths from the impious, so that they may be called away from the path of truth, they indeed understand those who do these things as deserving eternal curse from the Lord; because they wish to turn the faithful of Christ from the inheritance of the Catholic faith even to the idolatry of gentility or any kind of heresy. However, those who innocently suffer these things rejoice, being saved by the Lord from all death and corruption, and indeed even anticipating receiving the palm of their patience. We can also accept it as said in the person of the apostles to the persecuting Jews: If the Lord incites you to persecute us, His wrath is appeased by our prayers; but if, which is more true, the sons of men, they are accursed by the Lord, who have driven us out preaching divine things, so that we do not dwell in Judea and Jerusalem; they said, Depart; and because you believe Jesus to be God, serve Him rather among the nations, who are accustomed to worship alien gods.
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.…
Hachilah — The darksome hill, one of the peaks of the long ridge of el-Kolah, running out of the Ziph plateau, “on the south of Jeshimon” (i.e., of the “waste”), the district to which one looks down from the…
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).
הֱסִֽיתְךָ֥he.si.te.Kha
H5496
properly · verb, hiphil perfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
accept
יָרַ֣חya.Rach
H7306
properly · verb, hiphil jussive, 3rd person masculine singular
offering
מִנְחָ֔הmin.Chah
H4503
a donation · noun, common feminine singular absolute
children
בְּנֵ֣יbe.Nei
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural construct
men
הָאָדָ֗םha.'a.Dam
H120
ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
cursed
אֲרוּרִ֥ים'a.ru.Rim
H779
to execrate · verb, qal passive participle, masculine plural absolute
before
לִפְנֵ֣יlif.Nei
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
LORD
יְהוָ֔הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
driven
גֵרְשׁ֣וּנִיge.re.Shu.ni
H1644
to drive out from a possession · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person common plural + pronominal suffix
day
הַיּ֗וֹםhai.Yom
H3117
a day (as the warm hours) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Now therefore, I pray thee, let my lord the king hear the words of his servant,.... Whether David waited for an answer to his question is not certain; probably he did, and observing none returned, desired audience of what he had further to say:
if the Lord have stirred thee up against me; if he had put it into his heart to persecute him after this manner, for some sin he had committed against him, though not against Saul: did that appear to be the case:
let him accept an offering; my offering, as the Targum; or my prayer, as Jarchi; I would offer a sin offering according to the law, to make atonement for my offence, and might hope it would be accepted; or I would make my supplication to Go…
"And David went over to the other side, and placed himself upon the top of the mountain afar off (the space between them was great), and cried to the people," etc. Saul had probably encamped with his fighting men on the slope of the ill Hachilah, so that a valley separated him from the opposite hill, from which David had no doubt reconnoitred the camp and then gone down to it (Sa1 26:6), and to which he returned after the deed was accomplished. The statement that this mountain was far off, so that there was a great space between David and Saul, not only favours the accuracy of the historical tradition, but shows that David reckoned far less now upon any change in the state of Saul's mind tha…
If the Lord has stirred you up against me: David was perplexed by Saul’s behavior and concerned with the possibility of unintentional sin on his part. • a human scheme: Possibly a reference to Doeg (22:9-10). • worship pagan gods: The sentiment parallels Ps 137:4. Anyone who was exiled from the holy land was unable to worship the Lord by participating in sacrifice at the central sanctuary.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 26:19
Who has incited you against me. To hate me. Every expression of הֲסָתָה means setting;4See Devarim 13:7, where Rashi states ‘הַסָּתָה always denotes inciting.’ametement in O.F.
Let my offering be pleasing to Him. He will accept with mercy my prayer to turn your anger away from me.
For they have driven me away. From Eretz Yisroel.
Go serve other gods. Whoever goes out of Eretz Yisroel to other lands during the time of the Temple is considered as though he worshipped idols.5See Maseches Kesubos 110b. Targum Yonoson renders, 'Go, Dovid, among nations who worship idols.'6Or the reference to idol worship means that by causing Dovid to flee from his enemies made him abandon his Torah study there…
