Bible Strands
1 Samuel 26:5
Then David set out and went to the place where Saul had camped. He saw the place where Saul and Abner son of Ner, the general of his army, had lain down. Saul was lying inside the inner circle of the camp, with the troops camped around him.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — David advances to the Israelite encampment after scouts confirm Saul’s arrival, positioning himself at the perimeter of the army’s night camp. The words — The Hebrew verbs וַיָּקָם (va/yāqôm, “he arose”) and וַיָּבֹא (va/yābō’, “he went”) track David’s physical movement toward the specific location (הַמָּקוֹם, ha-māqôm) where Saul had encamped (חָנָה, ḥānâ). The thread — This camp observation parallels David’s earlier journey to the battlefield in 1 Samuel 17:20 and echoes the repeated identification of Abner as the army commander in 1 Samuel 14:50 and 1 Samuel 17:55. Why it lands — The text records the tactical reality of Saul sleeping inside the inner circle with troops surrounding him, demanding the reader confront the precise moment David could have ended the king’s life but chose restraint.
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.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And David arose, and came to the place where Saul had pitched: and David beheld the place where Saul lay, and Abner the son of Ner, the captain of his host: and Saul lay in the trench, and the people pitched round about him.
Cross-references
- 1 Samuel 17:55 As Saul had watched David going out to confront the Philistine, he said to Abner the commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is this young man?” “As surely as you live, O king,” Abner replied, “I do not know.”
- 1 Samuel 14:50 His wife’s name was Ahinoam daughter of Ahimaaz. The name of the commander of his army was Abner, the son of Saul’s uncle Ner.
- 1 Samuel 17:20 So David got up early in the morning, left the flock with a keeper, loaded up, and set out as Jesse had instructed him. He reached the camp as the army was marching out to its position and shouting the battle cry.
- 1 Samuel 9:1 Now there was a Benjamite, a powerful man, whose name was Kish son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah of Benjamin.
- 2 Samuel 2:8 Meanwhile, Abner son of Ner, the commander of Saul’s army, took Saul’s son Ish-bosheth, moved him to Mahanaim,
- 2 Samuel 3:7 Now Saul had a concubine named Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah. So Ish-bosheth questioned Abner, “Why did you sleep with my father’s concubine?”
- 2 Samuel 3:27 When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab pulled him aside into the gateway, as if to speak to him privately, and there Joab stabbed him in the stomach. So Abner died on account of the blood of Joab’s brother Asahel.
- 2 Samuel 3:33 And the king sang this lament for Abner: “Should Abner die the death of a fool?
- 1 Chronicles 9:39 Ner was the father of Kish, Kish was the father of Saul, and Saul was the father of Jonathan, Malchishua, Abinadab, and Esh-baal.