24:1-7 God delivered Saul into David's hand. It was an opportunity given to David to exercise faith and patience. He had a promise of the kingdom, but no command to slay the king. He reasons strongly, both with himself and with his men, against doing Saul any hurt. Sin is a thing which it becomes us to startle at, and to resist temptations thereto. He not only would not do this bad thing himself, but he would not suffer those about him to do it. Thus he rendered good for evil, to him from whom he received evil for good; and was herein an example to all who are called Christians, not to be overcome of evil, but to overcome evil with good.

Verse 1. - The wilderness of En-gedi. Finding no safety on the western side of the desert of Judah, where the Ziphites were ever watching his movements, David now boldly crossed this arid waste, and sought shelter in the remarkable oasis of En-gedi, on the shore of the Dead Sea. The word may signify either the Fountain of Luck or the Kid's Spring, the latter being the meaning of the name Ain-Jadi, which it still bears. In 2 Chronicles 20:2 it is identified with Hazazon-Tamar, the Palm Wood, an ancient seat of the Amorites, and evidently famous from of old for its fertility (Genesis 14:7). Conder ('Tent Work,' 2:126) describes the country over which David would have to travel as almost impassable, so that in four and a half hours of hard riding be and his party advanced only six miles, so deep were the valleys which they were obliged to cross. From a lofty peak on their way the view was most extraordinary. On every side were other ridges, equally white, steep, and narrow; their sides seamed by innumerable torrent beds, their summits sharp and rugged in outline. Not a tree was visible, and the whole region was like the dry basin of a former sea, scoured by the rains, and washed down in places to the hard foundation of metamorphic limestone which underlies the whole district. But the desert once crossed, "there is no scene," he says, "more vividly impressed on my memory than that of this magnificently rocky and savage pass, and the view from the spring below." He had encamped on a plateau upon the top of the cliffs, which rise to a height of 2000 feet above the Dead Sea; and 1340 feet below him the warm spring of En-gedi, 83° F., rises from under a great boulder, and dashing down the rest of the descent, flows across the plate at the foot of the cliffs, which is about half a mile square. All around are the ruins of ancient gardens and thickets, among which he saw the beautiful black grackles with gold-tipped wings, bulbuls, and thrushes. Solomon seems to have delighted in the spot, and to have covered the hills with vines; for he compares his beloved to a "cluster of camphire in the vineyards of En-gedi" (Song of Solomon 1:14). Neither palm nor vine is to be found there now, but there is still a rich vegetation, and groves of trees. According to Thomson ('The Land and the Book,' p. 602) the sides of the ravines leading to En-gedi are full of natural and artificial caves and sepulchres.

And it came to pass, when Saul was returned from following the Philistines,.... Having, as it should seem, got the victory over them, and driven them out of his country, and pursued them to their own:

that it was told him, saying, behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi; in the strong holds of it, the high rocks and mountains in it, 1 Samuel 23:29.

CHAPTER 24

1Sa 24:1-7. David in a Cave at Engedi Cuts Off Saul's Skirt, but Spares His Life.

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