1 Samuel 26:21

_THEN SAID SAUL, I HAVE SINNED: RETURN, MY SON DAVID: FOR I WILL NO MORE DO THEE HARM, BECAUSE MY SOUL WAS PRECIOUS IN THINE EYES THIS DAY: BEHOLD, I HAVE PLAYED THE FOOL, AND HAVE ERRED EXCEEDINGLY._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

21-25 Saul repeated his good words and good wishes. But he showed no evidence of true repentance towards God. David and Saul parted to meet no more. No reconciliation among men is firm, which is not founded in an cemented by peace with God through Jesus Christ. In sinning against God, men play the fool, and err exceedingly. Many obtain a passing view of these truths, who hate and close their eyes against the light. Fair professions do not entitle those to confidence who have long sinned against the light, yet the confessions of obstinate sinners may satisfy us that we are in the right way, and encourage us to persevere, expecting our recompence from the Lord alone....

Verse 1 Samuel 26:21. _I HAVE SINNED_] Perhaps the word חטאתי _chatathi_, "I have sinned," should be read, _I have erred_, or, _have been_ _mistaken_. I have taken thee to be a very different man from what I find thee to be. Taken literally it was strictly true. He often purposed the spilling of David's blood; and thus, again and again, _sinned_ against his life....

DAVID A SECOND TIME SPARES SAUL'S LIFE (1 Samuel 26:1.). EXPOSITION SAUL, ON INFORMATION FROM THE ZIPHITES, AGAIN SEEKS TO DESTROY DAVID (1 Samuel 26:1). 1 SAMUEL 26:1 THE ZIPHITES CAME UNTO SAUL. There are so many points of similarity between this narrative and that contained in 1

THEN SAID SAUL, I HAVE SINNED,.... Which is more than he acknowledged before, and yet, it is to be feared he had no true sense of his sin, and real repentance for it; but, like Pharaoh, his guilty conscience for the present forced this confession from him; see Exodus 9:27; RETURN, MY SON DAVID: meaning to his own house, or rather to his palace, since he had disposed of his wife to another man: FOR I WILL NO MORE DO THEE HARM: or seek to do it by pursuing him from place to place, as he had done, which had given him a great deal of trouble and fatigue: BECAUSE MY SOUL WAS PRECIOUS IN THINE EYES THIS DAY; and therefore spared, when he could have taken it away; which showed that his life was dear to him, of great worth and value in his account; and therefore he would neither take it away himself, nor suffer another to do it:...

CHAPTER 26 _ 1. The Ziphites and Saul's pursuit (1 Samuel 26:1)_ 2. David again spares Saul (1 Samuel 26:5) 3. David's words to Abner (1 Samuel 26:13) 4. David's words to Saul (1 Samuel 26:17) 5. Saul's confession and David's reply (1 Samuel 26:21) Hachilah, where we find David now, was six miles east of Ziph and about halfway to En-gedi. The Ziphites once more reveal his hiding place to Saul. And Saul was rushing forward to his doom when with his three thousand chosen men he took up the

1 SAMUEL 26. DAVID SPARES SAUL IN THE WILDERNESS OF ZIPH (J). From one of the oldest sources (_cf._ on ch. 24). 1 SAMUEL 26:1 TO 1 SAMUEL 12:1 f. repeats briefly the substance and part of the wording of 1 Samuel 23:19: David is in the wilderness of Ziph, and Saul pursues him. But instead of the sequel given in 1 Samuel 23, we have another version of the story in 1 Samuel 24 of David's generous treatment of Saul. David learns that Saul is again pursuing him and is in his immediate neighbourhood: of a certainty is clearly wrong, and RVm, to a set place, is not much more likely. There may be a scribal error, and the name of a place may have stood here originally. David went to see for hims

SINNED. Hebrew. _chata'._ App-44. SOUL. life. Hebrew. _nephesh._ App-13. ERRED. Hebrew. _shagah._ App-44....

David's final expostulation with Saul 13. _a great space being between them_ This precaution indicates that David trusted Saul less now than upon the former occasion. Cp. 1 Samuel 26:22....

THEN SAID SAUL, I HAVE SINNED— Bayle has endeavoured to prove that this event, and that related in chap. 24: are but one and the same. To destroy this seeming identity, it will not be unseasonable to attend to the following circumstances, which prove the events to be different. In the first, David was in the wilderness of _En-gedi;_ in the second, he was in the wilderness of _Ziph._ In the first, Saul went to seek David on the rocks of the goats; in the second, Saul pitched his camp in Hachilah. In the former, Saul was alone; in the latter, he was encamped with his soldiers. In the first, he was in a cave to _cover his feet;_ in the second, he lay asleep in his camp. In the former, David was in the same cave with Saul, though unseen, and his men were with him in the cave; in the latter, Saul was in the hill of Hachilah, but David with his men abode in the wilderness, and when he went to...