1 Samuel 26:9

But David said to Abishai, “Do not destroy him, for who can lift a hand against the LORD’s anointed and be guiltless?”

Berean Standard Bible

In The King James Version

And David said to Abishai, Destroy him not: for who can stretch forth his hand against the LORD’S anointed, and be guiltless?

In Context

8Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy into your hand. Now, therefore, please let me thrust the spear through him into the ground with one stroke. I will not need to strike him twice!”

10David added, “As surely as the LORD lives, the LORD Himself will strike him down; either his day will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish.

Read all of 1 Samuel 26

Cross References

1 Samuel 24:6So he said to his men, “The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed. May I never lift my hand against him, since he is the LORD’s anointed.”

2 Samuel 1:16For David had said to the Amalekite, “Your blood be on your own head because your own mouth has testified against you, saying, ‘I killed the LORD’s anointed.’”

Psalms 17:4As for the deeds of men— by the word of Your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent.

Psalms 105:15“Do not touch My anointed ones! Do no harm to My prophets!”

Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 26:7-13

David Spares Saul's Life. ( b. c. 1056.) 6 Then answered David and said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother to Joab, saying, Who will go down with me to Saul to the camp? And Abishai said, I will go down with thee. 7 So David and Abishai came to the people by night: and, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the trench, and his spear stuck in the ground at his bolster: but Abner and the people lay round about him. 8 Then said Abishai to David, God hath delivered thine enemy into thine… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study 1 Samuel 26:9