1 Samuel 27:4

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

It was told Saul that David was fled to Gath: and he sought no more again for him.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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גַּ֑ת

Gath

H1661

“Gath”

Noun, Proper

Appears 33× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Joshua 11:22

Full BDB Definition

Origin: the same as H1660

TWOT: None

Gath = "winepress" - one of the five royal or chief cities of the Philistines and the native city of Goliath

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

11: words
10: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

גַּ֑ת Gath H1661 occurs in 31 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

5 verbs
3 nouns
1 conjunction
1 adverb
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיֻּגַּ֣ד Hophal · Sequential Imperfect
בָרַ֥ח Qal · Perfect
יוסף Qal · Participle Active
יָסַ֥ף Qal · Perfect
לְבַקְשֽׁוֹ Piel · Infinitive Construct

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

יוסף to add H3254 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 18 words from the Hebrew and 18 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 11 Hebrew tokens and 15 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to 1 Samuel 27:4 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

1 Samuel 26:21 Then said Saul, I have sinned: return, my son David; for I will no more do you harm, because my life was precious in your eyes this day: behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew 1 Samuel 27:4 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֻּגַּ֣ד לְשָׁא֔וּל כִּֽי בָרַ֥ח דָּוִ֖ד גַּ֑ת וְלֹֽא יוסף יָסַ֥ף ע֖וֹד לְבַקְשֽׁוֹ

It was told Saul that David was fled to Gath: and he sought no more again for him.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 1 Samuel 27:4 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ἀναἀγγέλλω ὁ σαούλ ὅτι φεύγω δαυίδ εἰς γεθ καί οὐ προςτίθημι ἔτι ζητέω αὐτός

And it was told Saul that David had fled to Geth; and he no longer sought after him.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וְאִתְחַוָא לְשָׁאוּל אֲרֵי עֲרַק דָוִד לְגַת וְלָא אוֹסִיף עוֹד לְמִבְעוֹהִי:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on 1 Samuel 27:4 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

1Sa 27:4 And it was told Saul that David was fled to Gath: and he sought no more again for him.

Ver. 4. That David was fled to Gath.] Such news would fly amain, and make good sport amongst the courtiers his enemies, but grieve good Jonathan and his party there.

And he sought no more again for him.] As he would have done, if to any purpose; for malice is restless and irreconcilable.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(4) And it was told Saul.—This short statement tells us plainly that up to the moment when Saul heard that David had crossed the frontier, he had not ceased to pursue after him and to seek his life. Ewald considers that it was during the residence at Gath that David exercised himself as a musician in the Gittite—i.e., the Philistine—style, which he afterwards transferred from there to Judah and Jerusalem. (See titles of Psalms 8, 81, 84, “upon the Gittith.”) Gittith is a feminine adjective derived from Gath; the words possibly signify, “after the Gittith manner: some peculiar measure of style of Philistine music, or else the reference may be to a Philistine musical instrument.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And it was told Saul that David was fled to Gath,.... Who very probably had his spies out to watch his motions, and report to him where he was, and what he was doing:

and he sought no more again for him; by which it seems as if he would have sought after him again, had he continued in the land of Israel; but now being gone, and in an enemy's country, and having nothing to fear from him while there, he laid aside all thoughts of seeking after him.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

By which it is implied that he would have gone on in persecuting David, if he had continued in his dominions.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

Sought no more for him - At their meeting Saul's heart was deeply wounded, and he had said, "Return, my son David, Be with me as in time past." Nor have we the least proof, that he would have sought for him again, with any other design.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

1 Samuel, in the Historical, opens this verse with 11 words (10 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Gath (“Gath”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “Gath” (Gath) shape what this verse is saying?
How does Joshua 11:22, which shares the word «Gath», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to add” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«וַיֻּגַּ֣ד» is a Hophal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 11 Hebrew ↔ 15 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
“to add” occurs 2× in this single verse.
10 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 11 words in this verse.