1 Samuel 27:5

THE TOWN OF ZIKLAG WAS GIVEN TO DAVID BY ACHISH

"Then David said to Achish, "If I have found favor in your eyes, let a place be given me in one of the country towns, that I may dwell there; for why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you"? So that day Achish gave him Ziklag; therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day. And the number of the days that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months."

We are not given much information about the conditions upon which Achish settled David in Ziklag, but part of David's obligation, as proved by subsequent developments, included his report back to Achish in Gath after each military expedition, including, no doubt, a sharing of the spoil from such endeavors with Achish, David's overlord.

"Ziklag" was an ideal location for David. "Scholars now generally agree that Ziklag is the modern Tel el-Khuweilifeh, about twelve miles north-northeast of Beersheba."[5] Following the Conquest, Ziklag was assigned to Simeon but later incorporated into the territory of Judah (Joshua 19:5). Although David had suggested this change as a convenience to Achish, that could not possibly have been his real motive. David needed to be at a distance from the observation of Achish in order to carry out his plans for deceiving the king of Gath. Furthermore, as Young wrote, "In a district of his own David could observe his own religious rites without being under the surveillance of the king."[6]

"Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day" (1 Samuel 27:6). This writer believes that such expressions as this are in all probability interpolations due to some later copyist adding the words in the margin and which eventually found their way into the text. Note that this expression is no part whatever of the narrative. The use which most scholars make of an expression such as this is that of making it a device for late-dating the Biblical book where it is found. To this writer, it seems very suspicious that critical scholars such as H. P. Smith who could always find anywhere from two or three to thirty or forty `interpolated verses' in a single chapter, always takes a comment like that at the head of this paragraph as the gospel truth and positive evidence of a late date. Such maneuvers are absolutely unbelievable.

"The number of days that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months" (1 Samuel 27:7). This is a mistranslation, representing some "scholarly guess" instead of what the Hebrew text says. Dummelow wrote that, "The Hebrew text here is literally, `days and four months,'"[7] thus being no definite statement whatever of the time David was with the Philistines. The RSV (the version we are following) guessed the time as a year and four months; but the Septuagint (LXX) guessed it as only four months; and according to H. P. Smith, both versions missed it, being far "Too short in the light of Achish's own statement in 1 Samuel 29:3."[8]