Against the south, &c.— The answer was true, but ambiguous; for all those people actually dwelt on the south of Judah. But Achish understood the answer as meaning that the incursion was made on Judah, on the Jerahmeelites and the Kenites themselves, though David asserted no such thing. David, therefore, did not utter a falsity, as some writers suppose, and labour to palliate or to condemn. If he was to blame, it was for giving an ambiguous answer to a question which he was not obliged to give a direct reply to. Achish well knew that David had made an incursion upon some of the neighbouring tribes, and in this David did not deceive him; but he thought he was no ways obliged to tell him who they were; and therefore said only, in general, that they were such as dwelt on the south of Judah. Dr. Delaney observes upon this deception which David appears to have passed upon Achish, "I will not stand up in a strict defence of this conduct. It was indeed a deception; but if it injured nobody, as I apprehend it did not, I must own that I am utterly at a loss what degree of guilt to charge upon it. This must be allowed, that all habits of deception have a natural tendency to bias the mind, and warp it from truth, and therefore ought carefully to be avoided, even where the deception is innocent," or (I should rather have said,) harmless.
Note; Let the sins of great and good men be looked upon, not as an exculpation for our imitation of them, but as an admonition to avoid them.