The Ziphites' question was a way of telling Saul where to find David. They had done this before, with almost the same words (1 Samuel 23:19). Why they came again, the text does not say. Gill thinks it uncertain whether Saul had privately encouraged them or they acted on their own, but he considers the second "probable," since having once tried to betray David "they might fear, that should he come to the throne, he would remember it." Matthew Henry also allows both: "Perhaps (though it is not mentioned) Saul had given them intimation, under-hand"; if not, they were "very officious to Saul." Henry adds that Saul might have stayed in his better mind "if the Ziphites had not put him on."

Saul did not answer in words. "Then Saul arose, and went down to the wilderness of Ziph, having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph" (1 Samuel 26:2). He camped "in the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon," the very place the Ziphites named (1 Samuel 26:3). David "sent out spies, and understood that Saul was come in very deed" (1 Samuel 26:4).

This question reopened a pursuit that had stopped. At Engedi, Saul had wept and said, "I know well that thou shalt surely be king" (1 Samuel 24:20). Now, given new information, he went straight back to the hunt. Matthew Henry writes, "How soon do unsanctified hearts lose the good impressions which their convictions have made upon them." Keil & Delitzsch see in this second chapter a time "when Saul's enmity and hardness had increased."

Yet the same chapter shows God guarding David again. Saul brought three thousand men, but "a deep sleep from the LORD was fallen upon them" (1 Samuel 26:12). Keil & Delitzsch say this phrase "points to the fact that the Lord favoured David's enterprise." The informers could point Saul to David's hiding place, but they could not hand David over.