Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy into your hand. Now, therefore, please let me thrust the spear through him into the ground with one stroke. I will not need to strike him twice!”
Parallel translations
- WEB Then Abishai said to David, “God has delivered up your enemy into your hand today. Now therefore please let me strike him with the spear to the earth at one stroke, and I will not strike him the second time.”
- KJV Then said Abishai to David, God hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day: now therefore let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear even to the earth at once, and I will not smite him the second time.
- NKJV Then Abishai said to David, “God has delivered your enemy into your hand this day. Now therefore, please, let me strike him at once with the spear, right to the earth; and I will not have to strike him a second time!”
- NASB Then Abishai said to David, “Today God has handed your enemy over to you; now then, please let me pin him with the spear to the ground with one thrust, and I will not do it to him a second time.”
- NLT “God has surely handed your enemy over to you this time!” Abishai whispered to David. “Let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I won’t need to strike twice!”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Abishai offers to kill the sleeping Saul, calling it God's deliverance of David's enemy. He sees the chance as divine sanction to end Saul once and for all.
Overview
While Saul's army sleeps, Abishai interprets the moment as God handing the enemy over for execution. His logic seems reasonable, yet he presumes to read God's providence as permission to seize the throne by violence. The scene sets up David's contrasting refusal, testing whether God's man will trust God's timing rather than grasp the crown for himself.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- 1 Sam 24:4So David’s men said to him, “This is the day about which the LORD said to you, ‘Behold, I will deliver your enemy into your hand, that you may do with him as you wish.’” Then David crept up secretly and cut off a corner of Saul’s robe.
- 1 Sam 26:23May the LORD repay every man for his righteousness and faithfulness. For the LORD delivered you into my hand today, but I would not stretch out my hand against the LORD’s anointed.
- Deut 32:30How could one man pursue a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?
- Josh 21:44And the LORD gave them rest on every side, just as He had sworn to their fathers. None of their enemies could stand against them, for the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand.
- 1 Sam 23:14And David stayed in the wilderness strongholds and in the hill country of the Wilderness of Ziph. Day after day Saul searched for him, but God would not deliver David into his hand.
- Judg 1:4When Judah attacked, the LORD delivered the Canaanites and Perizzites into their hands, and they struck down ten thousand men at Bezek.
- 1 Sam 24:18–19And you have shown this day how well you have dealt with me; for when the LORD delivered me into your hand, you did not kill me.
- Nah 1:9Whatever you plot against the LORD, He will bring to an end. Affliction will not rise up a second time.
- Rom 11:32For God has consigned everyone to disobedience so that He may have mercy on everyone.
- Ps 31:8You have not delivered me to the enemy; You have set my feet in the open.
- Gal 3:22–23But the Scripture pronounces all things confined by sin, so that by faith in Jesus Christ the promise might be given to those who believe.
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Christ at the center
The rise of the anointed king after Israel's failed first choice points to the true Anointed One (Messiah means 'anointed'), the shepherd-king after God's own heart from Bethlehem.
How 1 Samuel 26:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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