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1 Samuel 27 Bible study: David said in his heart
When David said in his heart, "I will now perish one day by the hand of Saul" (27:1), perish was in Hebrew the verb he had just used of Saul: "he shall go down into battle and perish" (26:10). And the peoples he told Achish he had raided, the Jerahmeelites and the Kenites (27:10), are among those he later sent gifts from the plunder (30:29).
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“David said in his heart, “I will now perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul will despair of me, to seek me any more in all the borders of Israel. So I will escape out of his hand.””
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“When Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, he stopped looking for him.”
Is that in 1 Samuel 27, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
"David said in his heart"
Chapter 26 ended, "So David went his way, and Saul returned to his place" (26:25). Chapter 27 begins with what David said, not aloud, but in his heart (tap heart): "I will now perish one day by the hand of Saul" (27:1) (tap perish). "There is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul will despair of me, to seek me any more in all the borders of Israel. So I will escape out of his hand" (27:1) (tap escape, despair and seek). In Hebrew the verb behind escape comes three times in this one verse; the WEB gives it twice. The chapter doesn't say that David inquired of the LORD before he went, as it said at Keilah: "David inquired of the LORD" (23:2), and "Then David inquired of the LORD yet again" (23:4). It gives what he said in his heart. And what he said came true: "Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, so he stopped looking for him" (27:4).
Where it leads to Jesus
Flee into the next
1 Samuel 27:1leads toMatthew 10:23
David said in his heart, "There is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the Philistines" (27:1). When Jesus sent out the twelve to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 10:6), he told them, "But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next" (Matthew 10:23). No New Testament passage cites 1 Samuel 27, so setting the two side by side is a reading. Some hear in Jesus' words that fleeing from those who seek your life need not be unfaithful, and read in that light David's flight into the land of the Philistines from Saul, who had "come out to seek his life" (23:15). Others read each in its own setting: Jesus spoke of fleeing from city to city before the twelve had "gone through the cities of Israel" (Matthew 10:23), while David left Israel for the land of the Philistines (27:1).
Honest questions
Questions people ask about 1 Samuel 27
That was a taste
The rest of 1 Samuel 27 is waiting in Favor
- Back to Achish, with six hundred men
- Ziklag, a town of Judah
- Whom he raided, and what he told Achish
- The peoples David named
- "My servant forever"
- 6 questions as you read
- 12 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it
לֵבlevsay LEV
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "inner man, mind, will, heart". Strong's: "the heart; also used (figuratively) very widely for the feelings, the will and even the intellect". The last part of 1 Samuel opens here: "David said in his heart" (27:1). What follows is David's own reasoning, spoken to no one. The book used the word the same way of Hannah at Shiloh: "Now Hannah spoke in her heart. Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard" (1:13).
For your group
1 Samuel 27 Bible study questions
- 1David said in his heart, "I will now perish one day by the hand of Saul" (27:1). What do you find yourself saying in your heart when things look hopeless, and where do you take it?
- 2David lived in the country of the Philistines "a full year and four months" (27:7). What helps you stay close to God when you are living far from where you belong?
- 3This chapter tells what David did among the Philistines without saying whether it was right (27:8-12). When you meet a story like this in the Bible, what helps you think it through?
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home