Then answered Doeg the Edomite, which was set over the servants of Saul, and said, I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub.
Ver. 9. Then answered Doeg.] So soon as ever the word was out of Saul's mouth, concerning the preferring of such as should inform him against David, Doeg answered, snapping at that bait, and not sparing maliciously and slanderously to traduce an innocent, and one that so well deserved of the public. Thus was Scipio dealt with by Carbo, Alcibiades by Hyperbolus, Cicero by Clodius, &c. Habuerunt et suos cuculos omnes docti et heroici quolibet tempore. Every Zopyrus is sure to have his Zoilus, every David his Doeg, that will seek to raise himself upon the ruins of another.
Which was set over the servants of Saul.] That is, Over his herdsmen; but that seemed to him to be too low a place. Ambition, like the crocodile, groweth as long as it liveth.
I saw the son of Jesse.] This language he had learned of his master, Saul, whom he striveth to humour: as princes are never without their Aiones and Negones, that will say as they say, and not stick to lick up their very spittle.
Coming to Nob, to Ahimelech.] With this Ahimelech Doeg had been, in pretence of great piety, not long before, "detained before the Lord." 1Sa 21:7 See Trapp on " 1Sa 21:7 " Now he impeacheth him of high treason, making the worst of everything he said or did, as done by way of conspiracy with David against Saul; whose false suspicion of David he hereby confirmed, and is therefore rightly reputed a liar, Psa 52:3 and because, though he told the truth, yet he wrested it to an evil intention. He is no better than a slanderer, who uttereth the truth, not for any love to it, nor for respect to justice, nor for the bettering of the hearer or the delinquent, but only to disgrace the one and to incense the other.