1 Samuel 27:4 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

And it was told Saul. — This short statement tells us plainly that up to the moment when Saul heard that David had crossed the frontier, he had not ceased to pursue after him and to seek his life. Ewald considers that it was during the residence at Gath that David exercised himself as a musician in the Gittite — i.e., the Philistine — style, which he afterwards transferred from there to Judah and Jerusalem. (See titles of Psalms 8, 81, 84, “upon the Gittith.”) Gittith is a feminine adjective derived from Gath; the words possibly signify, “after the Gittith manner: some peculiar measure of style of Philistine music, or else the reference may be to a Philistine musical instrument.”