Skip to main content
Psalmlog Logo

1 Samuel 27

David escapes Saul’s pursuit through refuge among the Philistines, then sustains Achish’s trust through false reports and lethal concealment.

David fears that Saul will kill him, so he takes six hundred men and their households into Philistine territory under Achish, king of Gath. Saul stops searching for him. Achish grants David Ziklag, where he lives during a sixteen-month stay in Philistine country. From there, David raids nearby peoples, killing every man and woman to prevent reports from reaching Gath. He tells Achish that his raids target Judah and its neighbors, securing the king’s trust through deception.

fear for the futurea big decisionleadership weight
Read
1David said in his heart, “I will now perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul will despair of me, to seek me any more in all the borders of Israel. So I will escape out of his hand.”
2David arose and passed over, he and the six hundred men who were with him, to Achish the son of Maoch, king of Gath.
3David lived with Achish at Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, even David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal’s wife.
4Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, so he stopped looking for him.
5David said to Achish, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, let them give me a place in one of the cities in the country, that I may dwell there. For why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you?”
6Then Achish gave him Ziklag that day: therefore Ziklag belongs to the kings of Judah to this day.
8David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites; for those were the inhabitants of the land who were of old, on the way to Shur, even to the land of Egypt.
9David struck the land, and saved no man or woman alive, and took away the sheep, the cattle, the donkeys, the camels, and the clothing. Then he returned, and came to Achish.
10Achish said, “Against whom have you made a raid today?” David said, “Against the South of Judah, against the South of the Jerahmeelites, and against the South of the Kenites.”
11David saved neither man nor woman alive to bring them to Gath, saying, “Lest they should tell about us, saying, ‘David did this, and this has been his way all the time he has lived in the country of the Philistines.’”
12Achish believed David, saying, “He has made his people Israel utterly to abhor him. Therefore he will be my servant forever.”
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
1 Samuel 27:1David’s inward prediction of death drives his move into Philistine territory and frames the chapter’s search for safety.
1 Samuel 27:8The named targets establish whom David attacks, exposing the gap between his raids and his reports to Achish.
1 Samuel 27:10David’s false account leads Achish to believe that David has turned against his own people.
Where this chapter reaches

Joshua names Ziklag among the towns allotted to Judah and then Simeon, linking David’s refuge here with Israel’s land inheritance. 1 Chronicles records warriors joining David at Ziklag while he was keeping away from Saul, sharing this chapter’s setting and people.

1 Samuel 27's chapter linksAll strongest linksHover or tap a book
Notice

After reading the whole chapter

What do you notice about David’s opening fear and Achish’s closing confidence?

Write on this

How does the account of the raids complicate your reading of David’s escape from Saul?

Write on this

Questions people ask about 1 Samuel 27

Why did David go to the Philistines in 1 Samuel 27?

David believed Saul would one day kill him and judged Philistine territory his best escape. He took his men and their households to Achish at Gath. The plan stopped Saul’s pursuit, as verse 4 reports. The chapter records David’s reasoning without reporting any prayer or command from God to make this move.

Why did David kill everyone during his raids?

Verse 11 states David’s reason: survivors might report his actions to Gath. He was attacking the Geshurites, Girzites, and Amalekites while telling Achish that he had raided Judah and neighboring groups. The chapter reports these killings without recording a divine command for them; its stated explanation is concealment.

Why did Achish trust David?

Achish accepted David’s reports that he was raiding Judah and neighboring groups. He concluded that David had made Israel hate him and would therefore remain his servant. The reader knows that David’s actual targets were different. Achish’s confidence rests on false information that David’s killing of potential witnesses keeps concealed.

Read it. Now write it.

Start an entry on 1 Samuel 27. Your words go beside the text, and you get one next step for the week.

1 Samuel · 31 chapters
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031
What the Bible says about fear →

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).