Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 27:11

"And David saved neither man nor woman alive, to bring them to Gath, saying, Lest they should tell of us, saying, So did David, and so hath been his manner all the while he hath dwelt in the country of the Philistines." — 1 Samuel 27:11 (ASV)

And David saved neither man nor woman. —This verse and the following one (verse 12) give the reason for these atrocious acts of murder. The wild and irresponsible Arab chief alone seemed represented in David in this dark portion of his career. This saddest of all the chapters in David’s life follows closely after the death of Samuel. It appears that the holy man of God had exercised, as long as he lived, a great and beneficent influence over the son of Jesse; and when he passed away, other and less wise counselors prevailed upon David.

Lack of trust in God and a craven fear for his own life (see his words, 1 Samuel 26:20, 24) drove him to leave the land of Israel and to seek refuge among his Philistine foes. One sin led to another when, in Philistia—to preserve his life—he began a course of duplicity, and to carry this out, he was driven to commit these terrible cruelties. “The prisoners taken would naturally have been part of the spoil; but David dared not bring them to Gath, for fear that his deceit should be discovered. Obviously, these tribes (Geshurites, Gezerites, and Amalekites) were allies of the Philistines.”

Saying, So did David, and so will be his manner. —The English Version of this passage aligns with the current punctuation in the Hebrew Bible and represents these words as being said by the slaughtered enemies. This is in itself highly improbable. The Hebrew, too, will hardly support this interpretation, for the verb in question is past tense and cannot correctly be rendered with the present tense form “while he dwelleth.” The Masoretic punctuation of the current Hebrew text is relatively recent. It is better, then, following Maurer and Keil, the Septuagint, and Vulgate Versions, to simply place a period after the words “so did David,” and then begin a new sentence, which will read, “And so was his manner all the while he dwelt in the land of the Philistines.” These words should be understood as a remark by the narrator of the history.