They arose, and went to Ziph before Saul: but David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah on the south of the desert.
"That place was called the Rock of Escape"  (1 Samuel 23:28).  This was that rock in the wilderness of Maon  (1 Samuel 23:25).  There is some uncertainty about the name given to it.  The Hebrew name is, "Sela-hammah-lekoth, Rock of Smoothness (in the sense of slipping away, or escaping)."[24]  Matthew Henry thought that the name meant, "The Rock of Division, because it divided between Saul and David ...  This mountain (the rock) was an emblem of the Divine Providence coming between David and the destroyer."[25]