1 Samuel 27
New English Translation
David Aligns Himself with the Philistines
27 David thought to himself,[a] “One of these days I’m going to be swept away by the hand of Saul! There is nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will despair of searching for me through all the territory of Israel and I will escape from his hand.”
2 So David left and crossed over to King Achish son of Maoch of Gath accompanied by his 600 men. 3 David settled with Achish in Gath, along with his men and their families.[b] David had with him his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelite and Abigail the Carmelite, Nabal’s widow. 4 When Saul learned that David had fled to Gath, he did not mount a new search for him.
5 David said to Achish, “If I have found favor with you, let me be given a place in one of the country towns so that I can live there. Why should your servant settle in the royal city with you?” 6 So Achish gave him Ziklag on that day. (For that reason Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah until this very day.) 7 The length of time[c] that David lived in the Philistine countryside was a year[d] and four months.
8 Then David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites. (They had been living in that land for a long time, from the approach[e] to Shur as far as the land of Egypt.) 9 When David would attack a district,[f] he would leave neither man nor woman alive. He would take sheep, cattle, donkeys, camels, and clothing and would then go back to Achish. 10 When Achish would ask, “Where[g] did you raid today?” David would say, “The Negev of Judah” or “The Negev of Jerahmeel” or “The Negev of the Kenites.” 11 Neither man nor woman would David leave alive so as to bring them back to Gath. He was thinking, “This way they can’t tell on us, saying, ‘This is what David did.’” Such was his practice the entire time[h] that he lived in the country of the Philistines. 12 So Achish trusted David, thinking to himself,[i] “He is really hated[j] among his own people in[k] Israel! From now on[l] he will be my servant.”
Footnotes
- 1 Samuel 27:1 tn Heb “said to his heart.”
- 1 Samuel 27:3 tn Heb “a man and his house.”
- 1 Samuel 27:7 tn Heb “the number of the days.”
- 1 Samuel 27:7 tn Heb “days.” The plural of the word “day” is sometimes used idiomatically to refer specifically to a year. In addition to this occurrence in v. 7 see also 1 Sam 1:3, 21; 2:19; 20:6; Lev 25:29; Judg 17:10.
- 1 Samuel 27:8 tn Heb “from where you come.”
- 1 Samuel 27:9 tn Heb “the land.”
- 1 Samuel 27:10 tc The translation follows the LXX (ἐπι τίνα, epi tina) and Vulgate (in quem) which assume אֶל מִי (ʾel mi, “to whom”) rather than the MT אַל (ʾal, “not”). The MT makes no sense here. Another possibility is that the text originally had אַן (ʾan, “where”), which has been distorted in the MT to אַל. Cf. the Syriac Peshitta and the Targum, which have “where.”
- 1 Samuel 27:11 tn Heb “all the days.”
- 1 Samuel 27:12 tn Heb “saying.”
- 1 Samuel 27:12 tn Heb “he really stinks.” The expression is used figuratively here to describe the rejection and ostracism that David had experienced as a result of Saul’s hatred of him.
- 1 Samuel 27:12 tc Many medieval Hebrew mss lack the preposition “in.”
- 1 Samuel 27:12 tn Heb “permanently.”
1 Samuel 27
New Century Version
David Lives with the Philistines
27 But David thought to himself, “Saul will catch me someday. The best thing I can do is escape to the land of the Philistines. Then he will give up looking for me in Israel, and I can get away from him.”
2 So David and his six hundred men left Israel and went to Achish son of Maoch, king of Gath. 3 David, his men, and their families made their home in Gath with Achish. David had his two wives with him—Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel, the widow of Nabal. 4 When Saul heard that David had run away to Gath, he stopped looking for him.
5 Then David said to Achish, “If you are pleased with me, give me a place in one of the country towns where I can live. I don’t need to live in the royal city with you.”
6 That day Achish gave David the town of Ziklag, and Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah ever since. 7 David lived in the Philistine land a year and four months.
8 David and his men raided the people of Geshur, Girzi, and Amalek. (These people had lived for a long time in the land that reached to Shur and Egypt.) 9 When David fought them, he killed all the men and women and took their sheep, cattle, donkeys, camels, and clothes. Then he returned to Achish.
10 Achish would ask David, “Where did you go raiding today?” And David would tell him that he had gone to the southern part of Judah, or Jerahmeel, or to the land of the Kenites. 11 David never brought a man or woman alive to Gath. He thought, “If we bring people alive, they may tell Achish, ‘This is what David really did.’” David did this all the time he lived in the Philistine land. 12 So Achish trusted David and said to himself, “David’s own people, the Israelites, now hate him very much. He will serve me forever.”
NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2017 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com All rights reserved.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
