Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 23:28

"So Saul returned from pursuing after David, and went against the Philistines: therefore they called that place Sela-hammahlekoth." — 1 Samuel 23:28 (ASV)

Sela-hammahlekoth. —Literally, as in the margin of our Bibles, the rock (or, still better, the cliff) of divisions. Other scholars, with greater reason, prefer the derivation from a Hebrew word signifying to be smooth— the cliff of smoothness: that is, of slipping away or escaping. Ewald rather fancifully interprets the term as the “Cliff of Destiny or of Fate.”