And it was told Saul that David was come to Keilah,.... No doubt it was told him what he came thither for, to relieve it, and deliver it out of the hands of the Philistines, and what success he had; which one would have thought would have reconciled his mind to him, and made him think well of them; but instead of that, it only led him to contrive mischief against him:

and Saul said, God hath delivered him into mine hand; as if the success he had given to David was against, him, and in favour of Saul:

for he is shut in, by entering into a town that hath gates and bars; while he betook himself to caves, and fields, and woods, he had no great hopes of finding him out, and coming up with him, and seizing him; but now he had got into a fortified place, enclosed with walls, and that had gates to it, kept bolted and barred; when he brought his army against it, and surrounded it, he imagined he would not be able to get out, and escape his hands.

As soon as Saul received intelligence of David's march to Keilah, he said, "God has rejected him (and delivered him) into my hand." נכּר does not mean simply to look at, but also to find strange, and treat as strange, and then absolutely to reject (Jeremiah 19:4, as in the Arabic in the fourth conjugation). This is the meaning here, where the construction with בּידי is to be understood as a pregnant expression: "rejection and delivered into my hand" (vid., Ges. Lex. s. v.). The early translators have rendered it quite correctly according to the sense מכר, πέπρακεν, tradidit, without there being any reason to suppose that they read מכר instead of נכּר. "For he hath shut himself in, to come ( equals coming, or by coming) into a city with gates and bolts."

And it was told Saul that David was come to Keilah. And Saul said, God hath delivered him into mine hand; for he is shut in, by entering into a town that hath gates and bars.

1Sa 23:7-13. Saul's Coming, and Treachery of the Keilites.

7. it was told Saul that David was come to Keilah-Saul imagined himself now certain of his victim, who would be hemmed within a fortified town. The wish was father to the thought. How wonderfully slow and unwilling to be convinced by all his experience, that the special protection of Providence shielded David from all his snares!

23:7-13 Well might David complain of his enemies, that they rewarded him evil for good, and that for his love they were his adversaries. Christ was used thus basely. David applied to his great Protector for direction. No sooner was the ephod brought him than he made use of it. We have the Scriptures in our hands, let us take advice from them in doubtful cases. Say, Bring hither the Bible. David's address to God is very solemn, also very particular. God allows us to be so in our addresses to him; Lord, direct me in this matter, about which I am now at a loss. God knows not only what will be, but what would be, if it were not hindered; therefore he knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and how to render to every man according to his works.