1 Samuel 22:18

_AND THE KING SAID TO DOEG, TURN THOU, AND FALL UPON THE PRIESTS. AND DOEG THE EDOMITE TURNED, AND HE FELL UPON THE PRIESTS, AND SLEW ON THAT DAY FOURSCORE AND FIVE PERSONS THAT DID WEAR A LINEN EPHOD._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

6-19 See the nature of jealous malice and its pitiful arts. Saul looks upon all about him as his enemies, because they do not just say as he says. In Ahimelech's answer to Saul we have the language of conscious innocence. But what wickedness will not the evil spirit hurry men to when he gets the dominion! Saul alleges that which was utterly false and unproved. But the most bloody tyrants have found instruments of their cruelty as barbarous as themselves. Doeg, having murdered the priests, went to the city, Nob, and put all to the sword there. Nothing so vile but those may do it, who have provoked God to give them up to their hearts' lusts. Yet this was the accomplishment of the threatenings against the house of Eli. Though Saul was unrighteous in doing this, yet God was righteous in permitting it. No word of God shall fall to the ground....

Verse 1 Samuel 22:18. _AND DOEG-FELL UPON THE PRIESTS_] A ruthless Edomite, capable of any species of iniquity. _FOURSCORE AND FIVE PERSONS_] The Septuagint read τριακοσιους και πεντε ανδρας, _three hundred and five men_; and Josephus has _three_ _hundred and eighty-five men_. Probably the eighty-five were priests; the three hundred, the families of the priests; three hundred and eighty-five being the whole population of Nob. _THAT DID WEAR A LINEN EPHOD._] That is, persons who did actually administer, or had a right to administer, in sacred things. The _linen ephod_ was the ordinary clothing of the priests....

We are not to suppose that Doeg killed them all with his own hand. He had a band of men under his command, many or all of whom were perhaps foreigners like himself, and very likely of a Bedouin caste, to whom bloodshed would be quite natural, and the priests of the Lord of no more account than so Early sheep or oxen....

EXPOSITION COMMENCEMENT OF DAVID'S LIFE AS AN OUTLAW. 1 SAMUEL 22:1 THE CAVE ADULLAM. According to Josephus this was situated near a city of the same name ('Ant.,' 1 Samuel 6:12, 1 Samuel 6:3), which formed one of a group of fifteen in the Shephelah (see on 1 Samuel 17:1), and its site has now been recovered by Mr. Conder (see 'Tent Work,' 2:156-160). "The great valley," he says, "of Elah, which forms the highway from Philistia to Hebron, runs down northwards past

AND THE KING SAID TO DOEG, TURN THOU AND FALL UPON THE PRIESTS,.... For determined he was they should die; if one would not put them to death, another should, and who so fit for this bloody work as the false accuser of them, and false witness against them? AND DOEG THE EDOMITE TURNED; immediately, he at once obeyed the king's orders, as brutish as they were: AND FELL UPON THE PRIESTS; with his sword in hand: AND SLEW ON THAT DAY FOURSCORE AND FIVE PERSONS THAT DID WEAR A LINEN EPHOD; not the ephod of Urim and Thummim, which was only worn by the high priest, but a garment wholly linen, worn by common priests; the Targum is, "who are fit to be clothed with a linen ephod;'' not that they were clothed with it, but were deserving of it; or it designs the great and more honourable among the servants of the Lord, as Kimchi observes, for such were clothed with this garment, as Samuel and Da...

CHAPTER 22 _ 1. In the cave of Adullam (1 Samuel 22:1)_ 2. In Moab and Gad's message (1 Samuel 22:3) 3. Saul's discovery of David's visit to Nob (1 Samuel 22:6) 4. The murder of the priests (1 Samuel 22:11) 5. David and Abiathar (1 Samuel 22:20) Next we find him in the cave of Adullam (a witness). Here a strange company gathers around the rejected king. It consisted of 400 men. He became their captain. Some of them were in distress, others in debt, and discontented. Such were attracted to th

1 SAMUEL 22. DAVID AT ADULLAM AND MOAB: MASSACRE AT NOB (J). The series of narratives in ch. 22 may very well come from the same ancient document, and be the continuation of 1 Samuel 21:1. 1 SAMUEL 22:1 F. David takes refuge at Adullam (p. 31), about 12 miles SW. of Bethlehem: he is joined by his clan and by various unsatisfactory characters, to the number of about 400, _i.e._ he becomes a captain of bandits. 1 SAMUEL 22:3. David takes his father and mother for safety to the king of Moab at Mizpeh (not identified). According to Ruth 4:21 f., David's great-grandmother was a Moabitess, Ruth. The prophet Gad ...

SLEW. Thus partly fulfilling 1 Samuel 2:31; 1 Samuel 3:12, on Eli's house. PERSONS. Hebrew. _'ish._ App-14....

Saul's vengeance on the priests of Nob 6. _that David was discovered_ Lit. "was known." Saul found out that some of his courtiers knew of David's hiding-place in the forest of Hareth. _now Saul abode_, &c. Render, NOW SAUL WAS SITTING AT GIBEAH UNDER THE TAMARISK TREE ON THE HEIGHT. We have here a vivid picture of a solemn conclave met to deliberate on affairs of state or to administer justice. The king sits in state under some venerable tamarisk (cp. 1 Samuel 14:2; Judges 4:5); his spear, the emblem of royalty (see on 1 Samuel 18:10), is in his hand; his servants, still chiefly the men of his own tribe (1 Samuel