(10) The javelin.--This is the great spear, which in so many of the scenes in the First Book of Samuel is represented as in the hand of Saul or by his side.

Verses 10-12. - Saul sought to smite David. The verb used here is not that rendered cast in 1 Samuel 18:11, where probably we had the record of a purpose threatened, but not carried out. Here Saul actually threw his javelin at David with such violence that it was fixed into the wall. But David, though playing some instrument of music at the time, was on his guard, and slipped away. And David fled, and escaped that night. As usual, the historian gives the ultimate results of Saul's violence first, and then returns and gives the particulars; for plainly David first went home, and it was only when he found that the house was surrounded by Saul's emissaries that he fled away to find refuge with Samuel. Saul also sent messengers. As is often the case, this outbreak of violence on Saul's part broke down all the former restraints of upright feeling and conscience. He had lost his self-respect, was openly a murderer as regards everything but the success of his attempt, and he determined that that should not be long wanting. He sends persons, therefore, to watch David's house, with orders that when in the morning he came out, suspecting no danger, they should fall upon him and slay him. But Michal in some way or other became aware of her husband's danger. Possibly she had been at her father's house in the afternoon, and with quick observation had noticed that more than usual was going on, and seeing that her own house was the object of these preparations, had divined their intent; or possibly Jonathan may have given her information, and so she warned David of his danger. As the entrance was guarded, he was let down through a window, like St. Paul afterwards, and so began the weary life of wandering which lasted through so many troubled years.

19:1-10 How forcible are right words! Saul was, for a time, convinced of the unreasonableness of his enmity to David; but he continued his malice against David. So incurable is the hatred of the seed of the serpent against that of the woman; so deceitful and desperately wicked is the heart of man without the grace of God, Jer 17:9.And Saul sought to smite David even to the wall with his javelin,.... To strike it through him, and fasten him to the wall with it, as he had attempted before, 1 Samuel 18:11,

but he slipped away out of Saul's presence: he perceived his design, and being of great agility of body, moved out of his place before him very nimbly:

and he smote the javelin into the wall; he threw it with suck force that it entered into the wall, and stuck there; so great was his resolution to destroy David, and such the rage and passion that he was in, and such his strength of body, and which, in person; in his circumstances, is strangely exerted at times:

and David fled, and escaped that night; it being towards night, or in the evening, very probably, when this affair happened; upon which he departed from Saul's court, and went to his own house, and so escaped the danger he was exposed to for the present.