And the woman took and spread a covering over the well's mouth, and spread ground corn thereon; and the thing was not known.
The woman ... spread a covering over the well's mouth х hamaacaak (H4539)] - the covering. It is used specially for the veil or curtain before the entrance of the tabernacle and of the court (Exodus 26:36, etc.; 35:17; 39:40) - generally for a door hanging curtain. The meaning of the clause therefore is, 'the woman took the mesek, the door hanging, which, as the most convenient at the moment, she had taken down, and spread it upon the mouth of the well; and to give a greater air of naturalness to the appearance of the place, she threw upon the covering a heap of bruised grain.' Josephus says, 'she laid fleeces of wool over them' ('Antiquities, b.
vii., ch. 9:, sec. 7). Thus the kind providence of God, who watched so wondrously over the interests of David, protected the imperilled lives of the two messengers until they carried Hushai's important message to the fugitive king. Following the counsel given him, not to stop all night in the wilderness, he went down the steep mountain pass by which the Israelites first penetrated into the interior of Palestine (Joshua 7:1-26) to Jericho and Gilgal, then hastened to cross the river (the mode of transit is not described), and by dawn of the following day the whole party had gotten safely over. The circumstances of that distressing flight, aggravated by the lone hour of midnight, and the roar of the numerous cataracts of the Jordan, are graphically depicted in Psalms 42:1-11; Psalms 43:1-5, which, although bearing the name of the sons of Korah, represent vividly and fully the feelings of the disconsolate but pious monarch. The spreading of a covering over the well's mouth for the drying of grain is a common practice.