And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them; (now the Gibeonites [were] not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah.)
Ver. 2. And Saul sought to slay them.] Taxing them with supposed faults, saith Diodate, aggravating their true faults, extending the particular ones into the general, depriving them of all commodity and favour, and raising great dissensions amongst them. Others think that when Saul expelled sorcerers and witches out of Israel, under that pretence he also sought to root out the Gibeonites, as being a remnant of the Canaanites, who were much addicted to those devilish studies.
In his zeal to the children of Israel.] Not to God - whose law, nevertheless, he might seem to have on his side, Deu 7:16 Exo 23:32-33 and would be ready to say as those vainglorious hypocrites, Isa 66:5 Let the Lord be glorified - but to the children of Israel and Judah, whose good he pretended, whose applause he sought. And yet he might also be moved to this by covetousness, to gain their lands and goods: as also by malice against all that any way appertained to the priests whom he slew, as did these Gibeonites, who were hewers of wood and drawers of water to the tabernacle. The hypocrite is fitly compared to the eagle, which soareth aloft, not for any love of heaven, for her eye is all the while upon the prey which, by this means, she spyeth sooner, and seizeth upon better.