Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 22:5

"And the prophet Gad said unto David, Abide not in the stronghold; depart, and get thee into the land of Judah. Then David departed, and came into the forest of Hereth." — 1 Samuel 22:5 (ASV)

The prophet Gad. From this time onward throughout the life and reign of David, Gad the prophet evidently occupied a marked place. He is mentioned as the king’s seer in 2 Samuel 24:11; and in 1 Chronicles 29:29 he appears as the compiler of the acts of David, along with Samuel and Nathan. In 2 Chronicles 29:25, he is mentioned with his brother prophet Nathan again, as the man who had drawn up the plan of the great Temple services, which for eighteen centuries have been the model for the countless Christian Liturgies in all the Churches.

It was Gad also who, well into the golden days of the exile’s rule, dared to reprove the mighty king for his deed of numbering the people—an act that involved a great sin, or the design of a great sin, not recorded for us—and who brought as a message from the Highest the terrible choice of three evils (2 Samuel 24:11 and following verses). As he appears in the last years of the great king’s life, and apparently survived his master and friend, Gad must have been still young, or in any case in the prime of life, when he joined the fugitive and his outlawed band. He had, therefore, very likely been a fellow student and friend of David in the Naioth of Samuel by Ramah.

It seems hardly a baseless conjecture that sees in Gad a direct messenger from the old prophet Samuel to his loved pupil David—whom Samuel well knew to be “the anointed of the Lord.” As has been previously observed, among the many who were educated and brought up in the Schools of the Prophets as historians, preachers, musicians, and teachers, very few seem to have received the Divine influence (the Spirit’s “afflatus”) needed to constitute a prophet in the true, high sense of that solemn word as we now understand it. Gad, however, appears to have been one of these rarely favoured few, and the presence of such a one in this outlaw camp of David must have been of great advantage to the captain.

Abide not. The wise advice of the prophet, suggested by a Divine influence, told David not to estrange himself from his own country and people by remaining in a foreign land, but to return with his followers to the wilder districts of Judah. There was work for him and his followers to do in that distracted, harassed land.

The forest of Hareth. The Septuagint and Josephus here read “the city of Hareth.” Lieutenant Conder, whose recent investigations have thrown so much light upon the geography of the Promised Land, can find no trace of forest on the edge of the mountain chain of Hebron, where Kharas now stands, and he therefore believes the Septuagint text is the true one. Dean Payne Smith, however, considers that “the thickets,” which still grow here abundantly, are what the Hebrew word yar, here translated “forest,” signifies.