Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 23:11

"Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? will Saul come down, as thy servant hath heard? O Jehovah, the God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant. And Jehovah said, He will come down." — 1 Samuel 23:11 (ASV)

Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? —There is a curious inversion of David’s questions here. In their logical sequence, of course, the second, respecting Saul’s coming down, should have been put first, for the men of Keilah could not have delivered him into Saul’s hands if Saul had not come down. Dean Payne Smith suggests that in David’s earnest prayer, “his two questions are put inversely to the logical order, but in accordance with the relative importance in his mind.” The Dean thinks “that when the ephod was brought forward, the questions were of course put, and replied to in their logical sequence.”

And the Lord said, He will come down.
And the Lord said, They will deliver you up.

Thus the answer of the Urim and Thummim was given to the questions in their logical order. The Talmud has an interesting comment here: In consulting the Urim and Thummim, the inquirer is not to ask about two things at a time, for if he does, he will be answered about one only, and only about the one he first uttered, as it is said (1 Samuel 23:11–12).

David asked first, “Will the men of Keilah deliver me into his hands?” and then he also asked, “Will Saul come down?” The answer was to the second query: And the Lord said, He will come down. But it has just been asserted that the inquirer will be answered only about the one thing he first uttered.

To this it is replied, David framed his inquiry not in good order, but the reply of the Urim and Thummim was as though the inquiry had been in proper order. Hence, when David became aware that his question had not been put properly, he repeated it again in better order, as it has been said, Then said David, Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said, They will deliver you up. —Treatise Yoma, fol. 73,Colossians 1:0.