This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand! I will strike you down and cut off your head. This day I will give the corpses of the Philistine army to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the land. Then all the land will realize that Israel has a God

“At this time tomorrow I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin. You must consecrate ¹  him as a leader over my people Israel. He will save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I have looked with favor on my people. Their cry has reached me!”

David thought to himself, ¹  “One of these days I’m going to be swept away by the hand of Saul! There is nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will despair of searching for me through all the territory of Israel and I will escape from his hand.”

In this initial skirmish Jonathan and his armor bearer struck down about twenty men in an area that measured half an acre.

Now the whole army ¹  entered the forest and there was honey on the ground. ² 

When David would attack a district, ¹  he would leave neither man nor woman alive. He would take sheep, cattle, donkeys, camels, and clothing and would then go back to Achish.

So they left and went to Ziph ahead of Saul. Now David and his men were in the desert of Maon, in the Arabah to the south of Jeshimon.

But keep an eye on it. If it should go up by the way of its own border to Beth Shemesh, then he has brought this great calamity on us. But if that is not the case, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us; rather, it just happened to us by accident.”

Then Saul stopped chasing the Philistines, and the Philistines went back home. ¹ 

When David heard in the desert that Nabal was shearing his sheep,

Saul, his son Jonathan, and the army that remained with them stayed in Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin, while the Philistines camped in Micmash. ¹ 

So Saul arose and went down to the desert of Ziph, accompanied by three thousand select men of Israel, to look for David in the desert of Ziph.

We conducted a raid on the Negev of the Kerethites, on the area of Judah, and on the Negev of Caleb. We burned Ziklag.” ¹ 

Then Samuel set out and went up from Gilgal ¹  to Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin. ²  Saul mustered the army that remained with him; there were about six hundred men.

David stayed in the strongholds that were in the desert and in the hill country of the desert of Ziph. Saul looked for him all the time, ¹  but God did not deliver David ²  into his hand.

Saul and his men went to look for him. ¹  But David was informed and went down to the rock and stayed in the desert of Maon. When Saul heard about it, he pursued David in the desert of Maon.

Saul camped by the road on the hill of Hakilah near Jeshimon, but David was staying in the desert. When he realized that Saul had come to the desert to find ¹  him,

All Israel from Dan to Beer Sheba realized that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord.

Saul’s watchmen at Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin ¹  looked on ²  as the crowd of soldiers seemed to melt away first in one direction and then in another. ³ 

Then Samuel went to Ramah, while Saul went up to his home in Gibeah of Saul.