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.”
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.
- BSB 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!”
- 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!”
- 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 24:4David’s men said to him, “Behold, the day of which Yahweh said to you, ‘Behold, I will deliver your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.’” Then David arose, and cut off the skirt of Saul’s robe secretly.
- 1 Sam 26:23Yahweh will render to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness; because Yahweh delivered you into my hand today, and I wouldn’t stretch out my hand against Yahweh’s anointed.
- Deut 32:30How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and Yahweh had delivered them up?
- Josh 21:44Yahweh gave them rest all around, according to all that he swore to their fathers. Not a man of all their enemies stood before them. Yahweh delivered all their enemies into their hand.
- 1 Sam 23:14David stayed in the wilderness in the strongholds, and remained in the hill country in the wilderness of Ziph. Saul sought him every day, but God didn’t deliver him into his hand.
- Judg 1:4Judah went up, and Yahweh delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand. They struck ten thousand men in Bezek.
- 1 Sam 24:18–19You have declared today how you have dealt well with me, because when Yahweh had delivered me up into your hand, you didn’t kill me.
- Nah 1:9What do you plot against Yahweh? He will make a full end. Affliction won’t rise up the second time.
- Rom 11:32For God has shut up all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all.
- Ps 31:8You have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy. You have set my feet in a large place.
- Gal 3:22–23But the Scriptures imprisoned all things under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ 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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