1 Samuel 24:7

the men of David said . . . Behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand--God had never made any promise of delivering Saul into David's hand; but, from the general and repeated promises of the kingdom to him, they concluded that the king's death was to be effected by taking advantage of some such opportunity as the present. David steadily opposed the urgent instigations of his followers to put an end to his and their troubles by the death of their persecutor (a revengeful heart would have followed their advice, but David rather wished to overcome evil with good, and heap coals of fire upon his head); he, however, cut off a fragment from the skirt of the royal robe. It is easy to imagine how this dialogue could be carried on and David's approach to the king's person could have been effected without arousing suspicion. The bustle and noise of Saul's military men and their beasts, the number of cells or divisions in these immense caverns (and some of them far interior) being enveloped in darkness, while every movement could be seen at the cave's mouth--the probability that the garment David cut from might have been a loose or upper cloak lying on the ground, and that Saul might have been asleep--these facts and presumptions will be sufficient to account for the incidents detailed.

Here, I. Saul renews his pursuit of David, Sa1 24:1, Sa1 24:2. No sooner had he come home safely from chasing the Philistines, in which it should seem he had good success, than he enquired after David to do him a mischief, and resolved to have another thrust at him, as if he had been delivered to do all these abominations, Jer 7:10. By the frequent incursions of the Philistines, he might have seen how necessary it was to recall David from his banishment and restore him to his place in the army again; but so far is he from doing this that now more than ever he is exasperated against him, and, hearing that he is in the wilderness of En-gedi, he draws out 3000 choice men, and goes with them at his feet in pursuit of him upon the rocks of the wild goats, where, one would think, David should not have been envied a habitation nor Saul desirous of disturbing him; for what harm could he fear from one who was no better accommodated? But it is not enough for Saul that David is thus cooped up; he cannot be easy while he is alive.
II. Providence brings Saul alone into the same cave wherein David and his men had hidden themselves, Sa1 24:3. In those countries there were very large caves in the sides of the rocks or mountains, partly natural, but probably much enlarged by art for the sheltering of sheep from the heat of the sun; hence we read of places where the flocks did rest at noon (Sol 1:7), and this cave seems to be spoken of as one of the sheep-cotes. In the sides of this cave David and his men remained, perhaps not all his men, the whole 600, but only some few of his particular friends, the rest being disposed of in similar retirements. Saul, passing by, turned in himself alone, not in search of David (for, supposing him to be an aspiring ambitious man, he thought to find him rather climbing with the wild goats upon the rocks than retiring with the sheep into a cave), but thither he turned aside to cover his feet, that is, to sleep awhile, it being a cool and quiet place, and very refreshing in the heat of the day; probably he ordered his attendants to march before, reserving only a very few to wait for him at the mouth of the cave. Some by the covering of the feet understand the easing of nature, and think that this was Saul's errand into the cave: but the former interpretation is more probable.
III. David's servants stir him up to kill Saul now that he has so fair an opportunity to do it, Sa1 24:4. They reminded him that this was the day which he had long looked for, and of which God had spoken to him in general when he was anointed to the kingdom, which should put a period to his troubles and open the passage to his advancement. Saul now lay at his mercy, and it was easy to imagine how little mercy he would find with Saul and therefore what little reason he had to show mercy to him. "By all means" (say his servants) "give him the fatal blow now." See how apt we are to misunderstand, 1. The promises of God. God had assured David that he would deliver him from Saul, and his men interpret this as a warrant to destroy Saul. 2. The providences of God. Because it was now in his power to kill him, they concluded he might lawfully do it.
IV. David cut off the skirt of his robe, but soon repented that he had done this: His heart smote him for it (Sa1 24:5); though it did Saul no real hurt, and served David for a proof that it was in his power to have killed him (Sa1 24:11), yet, because it was an affront to Saul's royal dignity, he wished he had not done it. Note, It is a good thing to have a heart within us smiting us for sins that seem little; it is a sign that conscience is awake and tender, and will be the means of preventing greater sins.
V. He reasons strongly both with himself and with his servants against doing Saul any hurt. 1. He reasons with himself (Sa1 24:6): The Lord forbid that I should do this thing. Note, Sin is a thing which it becomes us to startle at, and to resist the temptations to, not only with resolution, but with a holy indignation. He considered Saul now, not as his enemy, and the only person that stood in the way of his preferment (for then he would be induced to hearken to the temptation), but as God's anointed (that is, the person whom God had appointed to reign as long as he lived, and who, as such, was under the particular protection of the divine law), and as his master, to whom he was obliged to be faithful. Let servants and subjects learn hence to be dutiful and loyal, whatever hardships are put upon them, Pe1 2:18. 2. He reasons with his servants: He suffered them not to rise against Saul, Sa1 24:7. He would not only not do this evil thing himself, but he would not suffer those about him to do it. Thus did he render good for evil to him from whom he had received evil for good, and was herein both a type of Christ, who saved his persecutors, and an example to all Christians not to be overcome of evil, but to overcome evil with good.
VI. He followed Saul out of the cave, and, though he would not take the opportunity to slay him, yet he wisely took the opportunity, if possible, to slay his enmity, by convincing him that he was not such a man as he took him for. 1. Even in showing his head now he testified that he had an honourable opinion of Saul. He had too much reason to believe that, let him say what he would, Saul would immediately be the death of him as soon as he saw him, and yet he bravely lays aside that jealousy, and thinks Saul so much a man of sense as to hear his reasoning when he had so much to say in his own vindication and such fresh and sensible proofs to give of his own integrity. 2. His behaviour was very respectful: He stooped with his face to the earth, and bowed himself, giving honour to whom honour was due, and teaching us to order ourselves lowly and reverently to all our superiors, even to those that have been most injurious to us.

Suffered them not to rise against Saul - As he could restrain them, it was his duty to do so; had he connived at their killing him, David would have been the murderer. In praying for the king we call God the only Ruler of princes, for this simple reason, that their authority is the highest among men, and next to that of God himself; hence he alone is above them. We find this sentiment well expressed by an elegant poet: -
Regum timendorum in proprios greges,
Reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis.
Horace, Odar. lib. iii., Od. i., ver. 5.
Kings are supreme over their own subjects;
Jove is supreme over kings themselves.

So David stayed his servants with these words,.... Or pacified them, as the Targum, and made them quiet and easy in that he had not slain him, and reconciled their minds to his conduct, and restrained them from laying hands on him, by observing to them, that he was the anointed of the Lord:

and suffered them not to rise against Saul; to take away his life; he not only argued with them, but laid his commands on them that they should not slay him:

but Saul rose up out of the cave, and went on his way; he rose from his sleep, and went out of the cave unhurt, and proceeded on in the way he came to the sheepcotes, and which led on further, 1 Samuel 24:3.

Stayed his servants, Heb. cut, or clave, or divided, or cut them off. The word notes both the eagerness and violence of David’ s men in prosecuting their desire, and David’ s resoluteness in opposing them, as it were, by force; wherein he shows great piety, and generosity, and loyalty to Saul.

Whilst Saul had gone against the Philistines, David left this dangerous place, and went to the mountain heights of Engedi, i.e., the present Ain-jidy (goat-fountain), in the middle of the western coats of the Dead Sea (see at Jos 15:62), which he could reach from Maon in six or seven hours. The soil of the neighbourhood consists entirely of limestone; but the rocks contain a considerable admixture of chalk and flint. Round about there rise bare conical mountains, and even ridges of from two to four hundred feet in height, which mostly run down to the sea. The steep mountains are intersected by wadys running down in deep ravines to the sea. "On all sides the country is full of caverns, which might then serve as lurking-places for David and his men, as they do for outlaws at the present day" (Rob. Pal. p. 203)
Sa1 24:1-2
When Saul had returned from his march against the Philistines, and was informed of this, he set out thither with three thousand picked men to search for David and his men in the wild-goat rocks. The expression "rocks of the wild goats" is probably not a proper name for some particular rocks, but a general term applied to the rocks of that locality on account of the number of wild goats and chamois that were to be found in all that region, as mountain goats are still (Rob. Pal. ii. p. 204).
Sa1 24:3
When Saul came to the sheep-folds by the way, where there was a cave, he entered it to cover his feet, whilst David and his men sat behind in the cave. V. de Velde (R. ii. p. 74) supposes the place, where the sheep-folds by the roadside were, to have been the Wady Chareitun, on the south-west of the Frank mountain, and to the north-east of Tekoah, a very desolate and inaccessible valley. "Rocky, precipitous walls, which rise up one above another for many hundred feet, form the sides of this defile. Stone upon stone, and cliff above cliff, without any sign of being habitable, or of being capable of affording even a halting-place to anything but wild goats." Near the ruins of the village of Chareitun, hardly five minutes' walk to the east, there is a large cave or chamber in the rock, with a very narrow entrance entirely concealed by stones, and with many side vaults in which the deepest darkness reigns, at least to any one who has just entered the limestone vaults from the dazzling light of day. It may be argued in favour of the conjecture that this is the cave which Saul entered, and at the back of which David and his men were concealed, that this cave is on the road from Bethlehem to Ain-jidy, and one of the largest caves in that district, if not the largest of all, and that, according to Pococke (Beschr. des Morgenl. ii. p. 61), the Franks call it a labyrinth, the Arabs Elmaama, i.e., hiding-place, whilst the latter relate how at one time thirty thousand people hid themselves in it "to escape an evil wind," in all probability the simoom. The only difficulty connected with this supposition is the distance from Ain-jidy, namely about four or five German miles (fifteen or twenty English), and the nearness of Tekoah, according to which it belongs to the desert of Tekoah rather than to that of Engedi. "To cover his feet" is a euphemism according to most of the ancient versions, as in Jdg 3:24, for performing the necessities of nature, as it is a custom in the East to cover the feet. It does not mean "to sleep," as it is rendered in this passage in the Peschito, and also by Michaelis and others; for although what follows may seem to favour this, there is apparently no reason why any such euphemistic expression should have been chosen for sleep. "The sides of the cave:" i.e., the outermost or farthest sides.
Sa1 24:4
Then David's men said to him, "See, this is the day of which Jehovah hath said to thee, Behold, I give thine enemy into thy hand, and do to him what seemeth good to thee." Although these words might refer to some divine oracle which David had received through a prophet, Gad for example, what follows clearly shows that David had received no such oracle; and the meaning of his men was simply this, "Behold, to-day is the day when God is saying to thee:" that is to say, the speakers regarded the leadings of providence by which Saul had been brought into David's power as a divine intimation to David himself to take this opportunity of slaying his deadly enemy, and called this intimation a word of Jehovah. David then rose, up, and cut off the edge of Saul's cloak privily. Saul had probably laid the meil on one side, which rendered it possible for David to cut off a piece of it unobserved.
Sa1 24:5
But his heart smote him after he had done it; i.e., his conscience reproached him, because he regarded this as an injury done to the king himself.
Sa1 24:6
With all the greater firmness, therefore, did he repel the suggestions of his men: "Far be it to me from Jehovah (on Jehovah's account: see at Jos 22:29), that (אם, a particle denoting an oath) I should do such a thing to my lord, the anointed of Jehovah, to stretch out my hand against him." These words of David show clearly enough that no word of Jehovah had come to him to do as he liked with Saul.
Sa1 24:7
Thus he kept back his people with words (שׁסּע, verbis dilacere), and did not allow them to rise up against Saul, sc., to slay him.