The Ziphites came to Saul to Gibeah, saying, Doesn't David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before the desert?
 The next chapter (1 Samuel 23:1-29) lets us see some fresh features of David's distressed and dangerous condition, and what and how God was acting there. "Then they told David, saying, Behold, the Philistines fight against Keilah, and they rob the threshing-floors." Surely it had been more natural that they had told king Saul. It was what one might call his business; it was due to him who was raised up and responsible to be the protector of Israel as well as their leader in the battles of Jehovah against the Philistines. But no! heart and conscience told Israel that there was no hope in the king. The outcast man he pursued was the one to whom all hearts turned and thoughts tended. It was to David, himself hunted for the very life, that they looked for whatever protection God might give them against the enemy. And another feature here remark. It is not only that God was morally preparing the people for David, but further David himself is being trained in a deepening dependence on God. "David enquired of Jehovah, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And Jehovah said unto David, Go, and smite the Philistines, and save Keilah." David then clearly is not the mere favourite, as he had been the champion, of the people, but the one that God hears, answers, and uses to His own praise. Saul is ignored in what ought specially to have been his work. "And David's men said unto him, Behold, we be afraid here in Judah: how much more then if we come to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?" David enquires again, "And Jehovah answered him and said, Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand." Obediently he went, fought the Philistines, "brought away their cattle, and smote them with a great slaughter." "So," as the Spirit of God sums it up, "David saved the inhabitants of Keilah." Next we find it recorded that, when Abiathar the son of Abimelech fled to David to Keilah, he came down with (not "an," but  the)   ephod in his hand: on the death of his fellows he succeeded to the highest place.
