1 Samuel 21:15

Study note

Setting — Achish speaks to his Philistine servants at the moment David pretends to lose his mind to avoid capture.

The words — The king cites מְשֻׁגָּעִים (me.shu.ga.'Im), literally "madmen," and the verb לְהִשְׁתַּגֵּעַ (le.hish.ta.ge.a'), meaning "to behave like a madman," to label the feigned insanity.

The thread — The passage tracks a ruler’s rejection of a perceived threat, framing the presentation of a raving man as an unwelcome burden rather than a diplomatic offering.

Why it lands — The text forces a reader to weigh whether the displayed instability is genuine danger or a calculated performance, exposing how authority figures dismiss perceived madness as an inconvenience.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.