(7) A full year and four months.--Keil calls attention to the exact statement of time here as a proof of the historical character of the whole narrative. The Hebrew expression, translated "a year," is a singular one: yamim--literally, days--a collective term, used in Leviticus 25:29, 1 Samuel 1:3; 1 Samuel 2:19, &c., to signify a term or period of days which amounted to a full year. This year and four months were among the darkest days of David's life. He was sorely tried, it is true; but he had adopted the very course his bitterest foes would have wished him to select. In open arms, apparently leagued with the deadliest foes of Israel, like an Italian condottiere or captain of free lances of the Middle Ages, he had taken service and accepted the wages of that very Philistine city whose champion he once had slain in the morning of his career. At last his enemies at the court of Saul had reason when they spoke of him as a traitor. From the curt recital in this chapter, which deals with the saddest portion of David's career, we shall see that while he apparently continued to make common cause with the enemies of his race, he still used his power to help, and not to injure, his countrymen; but the price he paid for his patriotism was a life of falsehood, stained, too, with deeds of fierce cruelty, shocking even in these rough, half-barbarous times.
Verse 7. - A full year. Hebrew, "days." Rashi argues in favour of its meaning some days, and Josephus says the time of David's stay in Philistia was "four months and twenty days;" but already in 1 Samuel 1:3; 1 Samuel 2:19, we have had the phrase "from days day-ward in the sense of yearly, and comp. Leviticus 25:29; Judges 17:10; also Judges 19:2, where the A.V. translates the Hebrew days four months as meaning "four months" only. Probably, as here, it is a year and four months, though the omission of the conjunction is a difficulty. So too for "after a time" (Judges 14:8) it should be "after a year" - Hebrew, after days. EXPEDITIONS OF DAVID FROM ZIKLAG (vers. 8-12).
27:1-7 Unbelief is a sin that easily besets even good men, when without are fightings, and within are fears; and it is a hard matter to get over them. Lord, increase our faith! We may blush to think that the word of a Philistine should go further than the word of an Israelite, and that the city of Gath should be a place of refuge for a good man, when the cities of Israel refuse him a safe abode. David gained a comfortable settlement, not only at a distance from Gath, but bordering upon Israel, where he might keep up a correspondence with his own countrymen.
And the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines,.... At Gath and Ziklag:
was a full year and four months; or "days and four months"; days being sometimes put for a year, Judges 17:10; though some interpret it not of a year, but of some few days out of the fifth month, besides the four months; so Jarchi and Kimchi; and Josephus (h) makes his abode to be four months and twenty days; but, according to the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, it was only four months; and so it may be rendered, "days, that is, four months"; for according to the Jewish chronology (i) Samuel died four months before Saul, and this flight of David was after the death of Samuel, and when Saul died he left the land of the Philistines, and took the throne of Judah; See Gill on 1 Samuel 25:1.
(h) Antiqu. l. 6. c. 13. sect. 10. (i) Sepher Olam Rabba c. 13. p. 37.
was a full year and four months; or "days and four months"; days being sometimes put for a year, Judges 17:10; though some interpret it not of a year, but of some few days out of the fifth month, besides the four months; so Jarchi and Kimchi; and Josephus (h) makes his abode to be four months and twenty days; but, according to the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, it was only four months; and so it may be rendered, "days, that is, four months"; for according to the Jewish chronology (i) Samuel died four months before Saul, and this flight of David was after the death of Samuel, and when Saul died he left the land of the Philistines, and took the throne of Judah; See Gill on 1 Samuel 25:1.
(h) Antiqu. l. 6. c. 13. sect. 10. (i) Sepher Olam Rabba c. 13. p. 37.