the bloody deed. On the expression “wearing the linen ephod,” compare the remarks at 1Sa 2:18. The allusion to the priestly clothing, like the repetition of the expression “priests of Jehovah,” serves to bring out into its true light the crime of the bloodthirsty Saul and his executioner Doeg. The very dress which the priests wore, as the consecrated servants of Jehovah, ought to have made them shrink from the commission of such a murder.
Verse 19
But not content with even this revenge, Saul had the whole city of Nob destroyed, like a city that was laid under the ban (vid., Deu 13:13.). So completely did Saul identify his private revenge with the cause of Jehovah, that he avenged a supposed conspiracy against his own person as treason against Jehovah the God-king.
Verses 20-23
The only one of the whole body of priests who escaped this bloody death was a son of Ahimelech, named Abiathar, who “fled after David,” i.e., to David the fugitive, and informed him of the barbarous vengeance which Saul had taken upon the priests of the Lord. Then David recognised and confessed his guilt. “I knew that day that the Edomite Doeg was there, that he (i.e., that as the Edomite Doeg was there, he) would tell Saul: I am the cause of all the souls of thy father's house,” i.e., of their death. סבב is used here in the sense of being the cause of a thing, which is one of the meanings of the verb in the Arabic and Talmudic (vid., Ges. Lex. s. v.). “Stay with me, fear not; for he who seeks my life seeks thy life: for thou art safe with me.” The abstract mishmereth, protection, keeping (Exo 12:6; Exo 16:33-34), is used for the concrete, in the sense of protected, well kept. The thought is the following: As no other is seeking thy life than Saul, who also wants to kill me, thou mayest stay with me without fear, as I am sure of divine protection. David spoke thus in the firm belief that the Lord would deliver him from his foe, and give him the kingdom. The action of Saul, which had just been reported to him, could only strengthen him in this belief, as it was a sign of the growing hardness of Saul, which must accelerate his destruction.
