When Doeg the Edomite was there. — The Talmudical tradition evidently pre-supposes that a bitter enmity existed between David and Saul’s too faithful friend Doeg. If the Rabbinical belief that the identity between the family servant, or steward, who accompanied the young man Saul on that journey when we first meet with him (see 1 Samuel 9) be accepted, this enmity would be partly accounted for. The Edomite Doeg, brought up with Saul in the family of Kish, no doubt was jealous for his master and his master’s house with the passionate jealousy we so often find in old servants. He would share and probably fan his royal master’s envy and fear respecting the brilliant young hero who was so rapidly supplanting Saul and Saul’s house in the affections of Israel. So when David, flying for his life from Saul, met Doeg at the Sanctuary of Nob, he was seized with grave misgivings as to what would happen; and now, after the terrible vengeance of Saul, seems to reproach himself with having in Doeg’s presence exposed the hapless priest Ahimelech to Saul’s furious anger.
The Talmud says the servant (1 Samuel 16:18) who first searched out and brought David to play to the sick king was Doeg, anxious to relieve his master’s sufferings, but curiously adds that even then the praises bestowed on David by Doeg were unreal: “All the praises of David enumerated by Doeg in 1 Samuel 16:18 had a malicious object.” — Sanhedrin, fol. 93, Colossians 2.