Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 24:10

"Behold, this day thine eyes have seen how that Jehovah had delivered thee to-day into my hand in the cave: and some bade me kill thee; but [mine eye] spared thee; and I said, I will not put forth my hand against my lord; for he is Jehovah`s anointed." — 1 Samuel 24:10 (ASV)

Your eyes have seen. —David and a crowd of armed men around him were standing at the entrance of the cave which King Saul had just left; thus the king’s eye had seen—indeed, was seeing that very moment—that his life had been in his enemy David’s hand.

And some bade me kill you. —The literal translation here would be Jehovah delivered you today into my hand in the cave, and bade [me] kill you. This rendering has been explained by assuming that God’s allowing Saul to choose the very cavern for his midday slumber where David and his company were lodging was tantamount to directing David to slay his bitter foe, thus given over helpless into his hands; but this is contrary to the spirit of the whole narrative.

The English Version has followed the Syriac and Chaldee Versions here, and by supplying “some”—better, perhaps, one—before “bade me kill you,” has given us the sense in which the Hebrews have always understood the passage. The Vulgate here, with a very slight change in the vowel points, renders “I thought to kill you.”

But my eye spared you. —The English Version supplies an obvious subject in “my eye.” Clericus suggests more aptly, “my soul,” or “my hand,” before “spared you.”