1 Samuel 27:9-11

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

⁹And David smote the land and left neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, oxen, donkeys, camels, and the apparel, and returned to Achish.

¹⁰Achish would ask, Against whom have you made a raid today? And David would reply, ^[a]Against the South (Negeb) of Judah, or of the Jerahmeelites, or of the Kenites.

¹¹And David saved neither man nor woman alive to bring tidings to Gath, thinking, Lest they should say about us, So did David, and so will he do as long as he dwells in the Philistines’ country.

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Footnotes

1 Samuel 27:10 How could David be “a man after His [God’s] own heart” (I Sam. 13:14) and lie and deceive like that? God hates lying (Prov. 12:22), and those who deal in falsehood and deception are to be excluded from heaven (Rev. 22:15). The truth is that David had gone through such a long period of persecution and threatening circumstances that he had fallen into a bit of mistrust of God Himself. God had sworn to make him king, to rid him of his enemies, to give him a sure house; yet here he was in a panic, concluding that God had forsaken him and that if he was to remain alive he must manage it himself. It was very dishonoring to God. But God was standing by His stricken child, waiting for the moment when he would realize his own utter helplessness and turn in blessed surrender to the almighty arms of Him who had been watching over him all along. That time came at Ziklag, when, in the bitterest hour of his life, we are told, “But David encouraged and strengthened himself in the Lord his God” (I Sam. 30:6), truly “a man after God’s own heart.”