Commentary - 1 Samuel 27:8-12

Bird's-eye view

In this section of 1 Samuel, we find David in a compromised and precarious position. Having fled from Saul in a moment of flagging faith, he is now living in Ziklag, a city granted to him by the Philistine king, Achish of Gath. This is David in exile, and it is a picture of what happens when God's anointed man tries to solve God's problems with his own cleverness. David is living a double life. To his Philistine host, he presents himself as a disgruntled Israelite, a mercenary now loyal to Gath. But in his actions, he is secretly continuing his war against the enemies of Israel. This entire episode is a master class in God's sovereign providence, as He works His purposes through the messy, compromised, and frankly sinful actions of His chosen instruments. David is walking by sight here, not by faith, and yet God is still weaving His story of redemption.

The central tension is David's deception. He is raiding Israel's historic enemies, but lying to Achish about his targets. This is not a simple case of a man telling lies. We must distinguish, as Scripture does, between bearing false witness against a neighbor and the tactics of warfare. David is at war, and in war, deception is a necessary weapon. He is protecting his own men and, in a roundabout way, protecting Israel's interests. Yet, his need to deceive flows from his initial failure of faith that drove him to the Philistines in the first place. God uses it all, turning Achish's blindness into a shield for David, and David's raids into a fulfillment of God's earlier commands to eradicate the Amalekites. It is a tangled web, but God is the master weaver.

Outline

Context In 1 Samuel

This passage comes after a long period of David on the run from Saul. Twice David has spared Saul's life, demonstrating his righteousness and his trust in God's timing for the kingdom. However, at the beginning of chapter 27, David's faith wavers. He says in his heart, "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul" (1 Sam 27:1). This is a moment of profound discouragement, and it leads him to seek refuge among the Philistines, Israel's sworn enemies. This is the man who faced Goliath with a sling now running to Goliath's hometown for safety. It is a low point.

His time in Ziklag, which lasts for sixteen months, is therefore a time of exile. God is teaching His king what it means to be cut off from the land of promise, from the tabernacle, from the visible people of God. It is a kind of death. And it is in this context of spiritual compromise and exile that David conducts these raids. He is not a straightforward hero in this chapter; he is a man of God in a deep mess of his own making, yet God has not abandoned him. God's purposes for David, and for Israel, are not thwarted by David's faithlessness. This section serves as a crucial setup for the events of chapter 29, where David is providentially saved from having to fight against Israel, and chapter 30, where Ziklag is destroyed and David is brought to a point of true repentance and reliance on God once more.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 8 Now David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites and the Girzites and the Amalekites; for they were the inhabitants of the land from ancient times, as you come to Shur even as far as the land of Egypt.

David is not idle in his exile. He is a warrior, and he continues to wage war. But notice who he is fighting. These are not Philistine allies or random desert tribes. These are the ancient enemies of God's people. The Amalekites, in particular, were under a divine curse of extermination (Ex. 17:14; Deut. 25:17-19). This was the very task that Saul had failed to carry out completely, which led to his definitive rejection by God (1 Sam. 15). So here is David, in the midst of his own faithless flight, actually carrying out the commands of God that the sitting king had abandoned. This is the beautiful and sometimes baffling providence of God. He uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines. David is acting as the true king of Israel, protecting her southern border and executing God's justice, even while he is on the payroll of a Philistine king.

v. 9 And David struck the land and did not leave a man or a woman alive, and he took away the sheep, the cattle, the donkeys, the camels, and the clothing. Then he returned and came to Achish.

The brutality of the raids is stark. He "did not leave a man or a woman alive." There are two reasons for this. The first is pragmatic and strategic, which David himself reveals in verse 11. But the second is theological. In the case of the Amalekites, this was holy war, the execution of a divine sentence. This was not personal vendetta; it was the ban (herem) being carried out. Saul was told to do this and he flinched, sparing Agag and the best of the livestock. David, even in his compromised state, does not flinch. He is ruthless in his obedience to this particular command. The plunder he takes is the spoils of war, which he will use to sustain his men and, as we see later, to build alliances within Judah (1 Sam. 30:26-31). He is acting like a king, gathering resources and dispensing patronage, all under the nose of Achish.

v. 10 And Achish said, “Where have you made a raid today?” And David said, “Against the Negev of Judah and against the Negev of the Jerahmeelites and against the Negev of the Kenites.”

Here is the crux of the deception. Achish, his benefactor, asks a straightforward question, and David gives a straightforward lie. He claims to have been raiding his own people. The Negev of Judah was the southern part of his own tribe. The Jerahmeelites and the Kenites were clans who were allied with or lived among Judah. By claiming to attack them, David is painting a picture for Achish of a man who has completely and irrevocably burned his bridges with his own people. He is making himself out to be a traitor, a true Philistine vassal. This is a calculated deception, designed to secure his position and allay any suspicions Achish might have. It is a wartime lie. David is not in a covenant relationship with Achish where the Ninth Commandment applies in its fullness. He is an Israelite general in enemy territory, and his words are weapons used to protect his men and his mission.

v. 11 And David did not leave a man or a woman alive to bring to Gath, saying, “Lest they tell about us, saying, ‘So has David done and so has been his custom all the time he has lived in the country of the Philistines.’”

The narrator now gives us David's internal reasoning, and it is entirely pragmatic. He kills everyone so that there are no witnesses. No one can come to Gath and tell Achish, "Wait a minute, that raid wasn't in Judah, it was against the Amalekites." His ruthlessness is the necessary security measure to maintain his lie. One survivor could have unraveled his entire strategy. This shows us the precariousness of his situation. Living by deception is a high-wire act. It requires constant maintenance and, in this case, a brutal consistency. While his actions against the Amalekites align with God's revealed will, his motive for the totality of the slaughter is self-preservation, driven by the need to cover his tracks. It is a messy business.

v. 12 So Achish believed David, saying, “He has surely made himself odious among his people Israel; therefore he will become my servant forever.”

The deception works perfectly. Achish is completely taken in. He doesn't just believe David's report; he draws the very conclusion David wanted him to draw. The Hebrew word for "odious" means to stink, to be utterly repulsive. Achish believes that David has made himself so foul to his own countrymen that he could never go back. He is a permanent Philistine asset now, a "servant forever." This is a profound irony. Achish thinks he has secured David's loyalty for good, but in reality, God is using Achish's gullibility to protect and provide for Israel's future king. The pagan king thinks he is manipulating David, but the sovereign God is manipulating the entire situation for His own glory and the good of His people. David's sin of faithlessness led him here, but God's providence has turned the enemy's house into a taxpayer-funded training ground for the future king of Israel.

Application

This passage is a potent reminder that God's chosen instruments are deeply flawed men. David is not a plaster saint. He is a man of faith, yes, but here his faith has taken a holiday. He is operating out of fear and human cleverness. And yet, God does not discard him. God's covenant faithfulness is not dependent on our perfect performance. He continues to work through David, even using his deception to accomplish His purposes. This should be a comfort to us. Our lapses in faith, our compromises, our foolish decisions do not have the final word. God's grace and His sovereign plan do.

We also learn something about the nature of truth and deception. There is a vast difference between bearing false witness against a neighbor in peacetime and misleading an enemy in wartime. David's lie to Achish was not a violation of the Ninth Commandment any more than a feint on the battlefield is a sin. He was at war with the Philistines, even while living among them. His deception was a tactic of that war. We must be careful not to apply a flat, pacifistic standard of truth-telling to every situation, ignoring the context of covenant and conflict.

Finally, we see the hidden hand of God's providence. Achish thinks he has David trapped. David thinks he is surviving by his wits. But God is the one running the show. He is preserving His anointed, judging His enemies through him, and preparing him for the throne. He is turning what David meant for survival into a step toward the kingdom. Our lives are often just as messy, and the path forward is often just as unclear. But we can trust that the God who guided David through the land of the Philistines is the same God who guides us through our own exiles, using even our failures to bring about His glorious ends.