Now I have heard that you have shearers: your shepherds have now been with us, and we did them no hurt, neither was there anything missing to them, all the while they were in Carmel.
"The story of the stupid sheepherder with a beautiful and intelligent wife is one of the most delightful in Samuel. Its purpose is to lay one more brick in the edifice of David’s legitimacy, however, and not to entertain." [Note: Heater, "Young David . . .," p. 56.] 