Beginning

The Philistines Go to Fight Saul

28 In those days, the Philistines brought together their armies to prepare for war against Israel. Achish said to David, “You certainly understand that you must go along with me in the army, you and your men.”

² David said to Achish, “When I do, you will know what your servant can do.”

Achish said to David, “When you do, I will make you my bodyguard permanently.”

Saul and the Witch of Endor

³ At this time, Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in Ramah, which was his hometown.

Saul had banished the mediums and spiritists^[a] from the land.

⁴ The Philistines joined forces and set up camp at Shunem. Saul brought all Israel together, and they set up camp at Gilboa. ⁵ When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was terrified and trembled with fear. ⁶ Saul inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him through dreams, or through Urim, or through prophets. ⁷ Then Saul said to his attendants, “Find a woman who consults the spirits of the dead for me, so that I can go to her and inquire of her.”

His servants said to him, “As a matter of fact, there is a woman at Endor who consults the spirits of the dead.”

⁸ So Saul disguised himself and put on different clothing. Then he went with two men, and they visited the woman at night. He said, “Please consult a spirit for me. Bring up for me the person I name to you.”

⁹ The woman said to him, “Look, you must know what Saul has done. He has cut off mediums and spiritists from the land. Why then are you setting a death trap for me, to make me die?”

¹⁰ Saul swore to her by the Lord, “As the Lord lives, you will not be punished for this.”

¹¹ Then the woman said, “Who is it that you want me to bring up for you?”

He said, “Bring up Samuel for me.”

¹² When the woman saw Samuel, she screamed and said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!”

¹³ The king said to her, “Do not be afraid! What do you see?”

The woman said to Saul, “I see a powerful spirit^[b] coming up out of the earth.”

¹⁴ He said to her, “What does he look like?”

She said, “An old man is coming up. He is covered with a robe.” Saul recognized that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground to show respect.

¹⁵ Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?”

Saul answered, “I am in dire straits because the Philistines are waging war against me, and God has departed from me. He no longer answers me through prophets or through dreams. That is why I have called you, so that you can let me know what I should do.”

¹⁶ Samuel said, “Why do you ask me, since the Lord has departed from you and has become your adversary? ¹⁷ The Lord has done exactly what he told you through me. The Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor David. ¹⁸ Because you did not obey the Lord’s voice and did not execute his fierce wrath on Amalek, the Lord has done this to you today. ¹⁹ What’s more, the Lord will deliver Israel into the hands of the Philistines, along with you. Tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The Lord will also deliver the army of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.”

²⁰ Saul immediately fell full-length on the ground. Not only was he terrified because of Samuel’s words, but he also had no strength left because he had eaten no food all that day and all that night.

²¹ The woman came to Saul and saw that he was terrified. So she said to him, “Look, your servant has obeyed you, and I have taken my life in my hands. I have listened to the words you spoke to me. ²² Now please listen to your servant, and allow me to set some food in front of you. Eat, so that you will have strength when you go on your way.”

²³ Saul refused and said, “I will not eat.” But his attendants, together with the woman, strongly urged him, and he listened to them. So he got up off the ground and sat on the bed. ²⁴ The woman had a fattened calf at the house. She quickly butchered it. She took flour, kneaded it, and baked unleavened bread with it. ²⁵ She set it before Saul and his servants, and they ate. Then they got up and left during the night.

David Is Dismissed by the Philistines

29 The Philistines gathered all their armies together at Aphek, and the Israelites camped beside the spring at Jezre’el. ² As the serens^[c] of the Philistines were marching past with their units of a hundred and units of a thousand, David and his men were marching in the rear of the column with Achish.

³ The officers of the Philistines said, “What are these Hebrews doing here?”

Achish said to the officers of the Philistines, “Isn’t this David, the servant of Saul, king of Israel, who has been with me for some time now?^[d] I have found no fault in him from the day he defected, right up to today.”

⁴ But the officers of the Philistines were angry with him, and the officers of the Philistines said, “Make this man return to the place that you have assigned to him. He must not go down to battle with us, or else he might become an adversary against us during the battle. What better way for this man to reconcile himself to his master than with the heads of these men of ours? ⁵ Isn’t this David, about whom they sang to one another as they danced, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?’”

⁶ Then Achish called David and said to him, “As the Lord lives, you have been straightforward with me. As far as I am concerned,^[e] it would be good to have you accompany me^[f] on this campaign, because I have not found anything wrong with you from the day you came to me right up to this day. Nevertheless, in the opinion of the serens you are a liability. ⁷ So now return. Go in peace, so that you do not displease the serens of the Philistines.”

⁸ David said to Achish, “But what have I done? What have you found in your servant from the day I came into your presence until this day that would disqualify me from going and fighting against the enemies of my lord the king?”

⁹ Achish answered David, “I know that, as far as I am concerned, you are as good as an angel of God. Nevertheless, the officers of the Philistines have said, ‘He must not go up to the battle with us.’ ¹⁰ So get up early in the morning, along with the servants of your master who have come with you. Get up early in the morning, and leave as soon as it is light.”^[g]

¹¹ So David got up early, and he and his men left early in the morning to return to the land of the Philistines, but the Philistines went up to Jezre’el.

David and the Amalekites

30 David and his men arrived at Ziklag on the third day.

In the meantime the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it down. ² They had taken the women captive, along with everyone who was there, from the least to the greatest.^[h] They did not kill anyone, but they carried them off and went on their way.

³ So when David and his men came to the city, they saw that it had been burned and that their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive. ⁴ Then David and the troops who were with him wept loudly, until they had no more strength to weep. ⁵ David’s two wives had been taken captive, namely, Ahinoam from Jezre’el and Abigail, who had been the wife of Nabal from Carmel. ⁶ David was under a great deal of pressure because his men were talking about stoning him. The spirit of every one of them was very bitter because of their sons and daughters, but David found strength in the Lord his God.

⁷ David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelek, “Bring the special vest^[i] of the priest here to me.” So Abiathar brought the special vest to David. ⁸ David inquired of the Lord, “Should I pursue this band of raiders? Will I overtake them?”

The Lord answered him, “Pursue! You will certainly overtake them and recover everything.”

⁹ So David set out with the six hundred men who were with him. When they came to the stream^[j] called the Besor, the men who were unable to keep up stayed there. ¹⁰ David pursued with four hundred men, because two hundred stayed behind, so exhausted that they could not get across the ravine of the Besor.

¹¹ They found an Egyptian in the open country and brought him to David. They gave him bread to eat and water to drink. ¹² They also gave him a piece from a cake of figs and two clusters of raisins. When he had eaten, he was revived. (He had eaten no bread and had drunk no water for three days and three nights.) ¹³ David asked him, “Whose servant are you? Where are you from?”

The young man said, “I am from Egypt, a slave to an Amalekite. My master left me behind when I became sick three days ago. ¹⁴ We made a raid on the Negev of the Kerethites, and on the territory of Judah, and on the Negev of Caleb, and we burned Ziklag.”

¹⁵ David said to him, “Will you bring me down to this raiding party?”

He said, “Swear to me by God that you will not kill me or hand me over to my master, and I will bring you down to this raiding party.”

¹⁶ When he had brought David to them, there the Amalekites were, scattered all over the place! They were eating, drinking, and celebrating because of the great amount of plunder that they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah. ¹⁷ David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped from there, except four hundred young men who rode off on camels and escaped. ¹⁸ David recovered everything that the Amalekites had taken. David also rescued his two wives. ¹⁹ There was nothing missing, from the least to the greatest, neither sons nor daughters, nor any plunder, nor anything else that they had taken with them. David brought it all back. ²⁰ David took all the flocks and the herds, which they drove ahead of the other livestock, and the men were saying, “This is David’s plunder.”

²¹ When David approached the two hundred men whom they had left at the Besor because they were too exhausted to follow him, they went out to meet David and the men who were with him. David came up to the men who had been left behind and wished them well, ²² but all the wicked men and worthless troublemakers among those who had accompanied David responded, “Because they did not go with us, we will not give them anything from the plunder that we have recovered, except we will give every man his wife and his children, so that he can take them and leave.”

²³ Then David said, “Do not act that way, my brothers, with what the Lord has given to us. He is the one who has preserved us and delivered into our hand the raiders who came against us. ²⁴ Who can listen to this proposal of yours? No, the same share that is given to the one who goes down to the battle will be given to the one who stays with the supplies. They shall have an equal share.” ²⁵ So from that day forward, David made this a rule and precedent for Israel that lasts to this day.

²⁶ When David came to Ziklag, he sent some of the plunder to the elders of Judah, who were sympathetic to him,^[k] and said, “Look, here is a blessing for you from the plunder taken from the Lord’s enemies.” ²⁷ He sent it to the elders who were in Bethel, Ramoth Negev, Jattir, ²⁸ Aroer, Siphmoth, Eshtemoa, ²⁹ and Rakal; to those who were in the towns of the Jerahme’elites and the towns of the Kenites; ³⁰ to those who were in Hormah, Borashan, and Athak; ³¹ to those who were in Hebron and all the other places where David himself and his men had wandered.

The Death of Saul and Jonathan

31 In the meantime, the Philistines were fighting against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from the Philistines and fell mortally wounded at Mount Gilboa. ² The Philistines were closing in on Saul and his sons. They struck down Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malkishua, the sons of Saul. ³ The attack directed at Saul was fierce. The archers targeted him and hit him, and he was seriously wounded.

⁴ Then Saul said to his armor bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through with it, so that these uncircumcised fellows cannot come and run me through and abuse me!”

But his armor bearer would not do it, because he was too afraid. So Saul took his own sword and fell on it. ⁵ When his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him. ⁶ So Saul died together with his three sons, his armor bearer, and all his men, all on that same day.

⁷ When the men of Israel from the other side of the valley and those from beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities and fled. Then the Philistines came and lived in those cities.

⁸ On the next day, when the Philistines came to strip those who had been killed in the battle, they found Saul and his three sons fallen at Mount Gilboa. ⁹ They cut off his head, stripped off his armor, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the temple of their idols and to the people. ¹⁰ They put his armor and weapons in the temple of the Ashtartes,^[l] and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.

¹¹ When the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, ¹² all the strong, courageous men set out, traveled all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons down from the wall of Beth Shan. They returned to Jabesh and burned them there. ¹³ They took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted seven days.