provided David with food and consulted the oracle for him (xxi 2-7, xxii. 6-23).  The fugitive himself Saul failed to lay hands on; he gathered round him his own family and other desperate men, and became their leader in the wilderness of Judah (xxii. 1-5, xxiii. 1-13, xxv. 2 seq.).  To escape the repeated persecutions of Saul, he at length passed over to the country of the Philistines, and received the town of Ziklag in Judah as a fief from the hands of the prince Achish (xxvii. 1 seq.).

Such is the beginning of the history of David according to the simple thread of the old narrative.  The first accretion we notice is the legend of the encounter of the shepherd boy with Goliath (xvii. 1-xviii. 5), which is involved in contradiction both with what goes before and with what follows it.  According to xvi. 14-23, David, when he first came in contact with Saul, was no raw lad, ignorant of the arts of war, but “a mighty valiant man, skilful in speech, and of a goodly presence;” and according to xviii. 6 the women sang at the victorious return of the army, “Saul has slain his thousands of the Philistines, and David his tens of thousands,” so that the latter was the leader of Israel beside the king, and a proved and well-known man.  Evidently something of a different nature must originally have stood between xvi. 23 and xviii. 6.  Now the fate of the story of Goliath (xvii. 1-xviii. 5) involves that of the story of the anointing of David (xvi. 1-13), which is dependent on it (xvi. 12, xvii. 42); and, as we have already decided that chapter xv. is a secondary production, xiv. 52 joins on at once to xvi. 14.  In xviii. 6 seq., where we are told of the origin of Saul’s jealousy, several of the worst additions and interruptions are wanting in the LXX, especially the first throwing of the javelin (xviii. 9-11) and the betrothal to Merab (xviii. 17-19).  The insertions are most varied and confusing in the account of the outbreak of the hostility of Saul and of David’s flight (chapters xix. xx).  Chapter xix. 1-7, a pointless and artificial passage, betrays its later origin by its acquaintance with chapter xvii.; xviii. 29a (LXX) is continued at xix. 8.  After Saul’s spear-cast David takes flight for the first time, but at verse 11 he is still at home, and makes his escape the second time with the aid of feminine artifice, going to Samuel at Ramah, but to appear in chap. xx. at Gibeah as before.  The king remarks his absence from table; Jonathan assures him of his father’s favour, which, however, David doubts, though he has no distinct evidence to the contrary.  When quite certain of the deadly hatred of the king, David takes flight in earnest; in chapter xxi. seq. we find him at Nob on his way to Judah, but at xxi. 10 he goes away afresh from the face of Saul.  It is evident that in reality and in the original narrative the flight took place only once, and that it must from the first have been directed to the place of refuge, i.e., to Judah.