1 Samuel 27:2 Commentary and Bible Study

So David goes to Achish, king of Gath, for the second time, along with his six hundred men and their families, and David also takes his two wives. He stays in Gath with Achish for a time, and the result is that Saul gives up hunting for David. He cannot reach him with all his troops in a foreign land. David has calculated right in thinking that Saul will give up seeking him, but this is the only element of his reasoning that was right. But David does not stay in Gath for long. He cannot remain there without inflaming the annoyance and aggravation of the princes of Gath. Although Achish was willing to have David with him, it was clear that the princes of the Philistines were suspicious of him. He therefore asks Achish to send him somewhere else, not to stay in the capital. Surely by an overruling of the Lord, Achish gave him Ziklag. Actually, by rights, this city belonged to Judah, and had been given by God to Judah (Joshua 15:31), and as the record indicates, it remained in Israel’s hands from then on.The years have passed, with David as a fugitive. We read that the time David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was ‘was a full year and four months.’ We must not let that word ‘full’ put us off – ‘a full year and four months’. It is true, but it somehow projects itself over the verse as though it were a long time; in fact, it was a very short time. That is just a kind of accident of rendering, because what should come to our minds is that it was a mere year and four months. If David had only known, when he took that decision to go to Gath, that he only had sixteen months left of trial, and Saul would be dead by his own hand; that was all there was left to go. Sixteen months! He came – poor David, noble David – to the end of his tether, and he didn't know it but he was almost at the end of the trial. He exercised patience for so long, for so many years. He had just had one year and four months, but at that point he buckled and fell. So down he goes, and he makes up his mind to repeat a folly which he engaged in previously, and to go to Gath to king Achish, king of Gath, and to seek his hospitality, one of the lords of the Philistines, and his protection. It was a disaster before. The king would have had him and given him hospitality, but not his courtiers, his lieutenants. They ganged up against it, and David had to flee and feign madness to get out. It was an absolute calamity, and yet he is going to repeat that same policy. He must surely have tried it out first; he must have sent some messenger and found by negotiation that the Philistine king would have him and receive him. It is unlikely that he just walked in, but nevertheless it was a disastrous step to make. David gave up, unfortunately, just at the wrong time.