And he brought them before the king of Moab,.... Having leave from him for it, and left them with him; so the Targum,
"caused them to remain before him:''
and they dwelt with him all the whole time that David was in the hold; either in the cave of Adullam, as some think; or rather at Mizpeh in Moab, which might be a fortified place; or the sense may be, while he was in any hold in those parts, as he might go from one to another; what became of David's parents afterwards, we nowhere else read. The Jews z say the king of Moab slew his father and his mother, and his brethren, all but one, whom Nahash the Ammonite preserved; and is the kindness David speaks of, 2 Samuel 10:2; and if this was the case, now it was that his father and mother forsook him, and God took him up, Psalms 27:10.
z Bemnidbar Rabba, sect. 14. fol. 212. 1. Tanchuma apud Jarchium in loc.