Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 20

And David fled from Naioth in Ramah, and came and said before Jonathan. —The strange course of events in the prophetic schools at Ramah, while warning David that even the home of his old master, the great seer, was no permanent sanctuary where he could safely rest, still gave him time to flee, and to take counsel with his loved friend, the king's son. It was, no doubt, by Samuel’s advice that he once more went to the city of Saul, but his return was evidently secret.

Alone with his friend, he passionately asserts his entire innocence of the crimes he was accused of by the unhappy, jealous Saul. His words here are found in substance in several of his Psalms, where, in touching language, he maintains how bitterly the world had wronged and persecuted a righteous, innocent man.

God forbid; thou shalt not die. —Jonathan even now refuses to believe that his loved father, when he was himself, really wished ill to David; all that had until then happened the princely Jonathan put down to his father’s unhappy malady. He urges upon his friend that if the king seriously had designs upon David’s life, he would in his calm, lucid days have consulted with him, Jonathan, to whom he always confided all his State secrets.

Will do nothing. —Here the commentators and the versions—LXX, Vulgate, and Chaldee—all agree to read in the Hebrew text, lo “not,” for lo “to him,” that is, for a vau an aleph must be substituted.

Your father certainly knows that I have found grace in your eyes. —David urges that his fall, and even his death, had been decided upon by Saul. Knowing how Jonathan loved him, Saul would shrink from confiding to his son his deadly plans concerning his beloved friend. David, with his clear, bright intellect, looked deeper into Saul’s heart than did the heroic, guileless son. He recognized only too vividly the intensity of the king’s hatred for him; and we see in the next verse that the mournful earnestness of the son of Jesse had its effect on the prince, who consented to make the public test of Saul’s real mind that his friend asked for.

The new moon. — Regarding the religious ceremonies connected with the day of the new moon at the beginning of each month, see the Mosaic enactments in Numbers 10:10; Numbers 28:11–15.

At the court of Saul, the feast seems to have been carefully observed, doubtless with the blast of trumpets and with solemn burnt offerings and sin offerings, for we notice in this narrative that the plea of possible ceremonial uncleanness was immediately accepted as an excuse for absence (see 1 Samuel 20:26).

The sacrificial and ceremonial rites were accompanied by a state and family banquet, at which David, as the king’s son-in-law and also as holding a high position in the royal army, was expected to be present.

Jonathan persisted in viewing his father’s later designs against David’s life as simply frenzied acts, resulting from his distressing illness. He evidently believed that after his father's strange seizure at Ramah, Saul would return and treat David with the confidence of former days when they met at the feast of the new moon. David, however, believed otherwise and was convinced, to use his own expressive words, that there was but a step between him and death. Therefore, he would not entrust himself to Saul’s hands until his friend had carried out the experiment he suggested.

A yearly sacrifice. —The Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 12:5 and following verses) strictly required these great sacrificial feasts to be kept at the Tabernacle, “unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes;” but ever since the destruction of the Tabernacle of Shiloh there had been no central sanctuary, and these solemn feasts had been held, most probably, in tribal centres. “In the then-disorganized condition of public worship to which David first gave regular form, family usages of this sort, after the manner of other nations, had established themselves, which were contrary to the (Mosaic) prescriptions concerning the unity of Divine worship.”—O. von Gerlach, in Lange.

It is highly probable that the festival in question was at this time being held at Bethlehem. It is, however, clear that David did not intend to be present at it, and therefore the excuse was a feigned one. The morality of this request of David is by no means sanctioned by the compiler of the history; he simply relates the story.