1 Samuel 23:6 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

With an ephod in his hand. — The difficulty-here with the version and commentators is that they failed to understand that enquiry of the Lord could be made in any other mode than through the Urim. (See Note above on 1 Samuel 23:2.) Saul in happier days, we know, enquired and received replies “through prophets,” for before he had recourse to forbidden arts we read how, in contrast evidently to other and earlier times, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets (1 Samuel 28:6). The LXX. here must have deliberately altered the Hebrew text, with the view of escaping what seemed to these translators a grave difficulty. They render. “And it came to pass, when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David, that he came down with David to Keilah, having an ephod in his hand,” thus implying that Abiathar had come down with David to Keilah, having joined him previously. The Hebrew text is, however, definite and clear, and tells us that Abiathar first joined David when he was at Keilah. But the difficulty which puzzled the LXX. and so many others vanishes when we remember that the enquiry of the Lord was not unfrequently made through the prophet; and this was evidently done by David through Gad, a famous representative of that order, in the case of the enquiry referred to in 1 Samuel 23:2; 1 Samuel 23:4 of this chapter.