1 Samuel 23:19

19. Came up the Ziphites to Saul to Gibeah From which it appears that Saul had now for a season given up his search for David. The treachery of the Ziphites is mentioned in marked contrast with the constancy of Jonathan. Encouraged by his interview with Jonathan, and strong in hope and faith, David composes on this occasion Psalms 54:0.

The hill of Hachilah Perhaps the same eminence mentioned in 1 Samuel 23:14, for no hill of this name has been discovered in the neighbourhood of Ziph. The word Hachilah means dark, and may be regarded as an adjective descriptive of the hill in question, which was then covered with dark forest shades.

On the south of Jeshimon Rather, as in the margin, on the right hand of the wilderness; that is, as we see at 1 Samuel 26:1, before, or in front of the wilderness. Uncertainty as to the particular hill in question leads to like uncertainty as to the desert mentioned here and 1 Samuel 23:24, but the reference is most probably to the desert wastes lying between the wilderness of Ziph and the Dead Sea. A person at Gibeah would naturally speak of the wildernesses of Ziph and of Maon as lying to the right of the desert, on the west of the Dead Sea.