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 was mistaken. He was recognised at once by the courtiers of Achish. They said to their prince, “''Is not this David the king of the land? Have they not sung in circles, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?''” (cf. 1Sa 18:6-7). “King of the land” they call David, not because his anointing and divine election were known to them, but on account of his victorious deeds, which had thrown Saul entirely into the shade. Whether they intended by these words to celebrate David as a hero, or to point him out to their prince as a dangerous man, cannot be gathered from the words themselves, nor can the question be decided with certainty at all (cf. 1Sa 29:5).

Verses 12-13
But David took these words to heart, and was in great fear of Achish, lest he should treat him as an enemy, and kill him. In order to escape this danger, “he disguised his understanding (i.e., pretended to be out of his mind) in their eyes (i.e., before the courtiers of Achish), behaved insanely under their hands (when they tried to hold him as a madman), scribbled upon the door-wings, and let his spittle run down into his beard.” The suffix to וישׁנּו is apparently superfluous, as the object, את־טעמו, follows immediately afterwards. But it may be accounted for from the circumstantiality of the conversation of every-day life, as in 2Sa 14:6, and (though these cases are not perfectly parallel) Exo 2:6; Pro 5:22; Eze 10:3 (cf. Gesenius’ Gramm. §121, 6, Anm. 3). ויתו, from תּוה, to make signs, i.e., to scribble. The lxx