Bible Verses About Achish

David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath.

The servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David the king of the land? Didn’t they sing one to another about him in dances, saying, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, David his ten thousands?’”

David laid up these words in his heart, and was very afraid of Achish the king of Gath.

He changed his behavior before them, and pretended to be mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down on his beard.

Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you see the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me?

Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”

David said in his heart, “I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul will despair of me, to seek me any more in all the borders of Israel. So shall I escape out of his hand.”

David arose, and passed over, he and the six hundred men who were with him, to Achish the son of Maoch, king of Gath.

David lived with Achish at Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, even David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal’s wife.

It was told Saul that David was fled to Gath: and he sought no more again for him.

David said to Achish, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, let them give me a place in one of the cities in the country, that I may dwell there. For why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you?”

Then Achish gave him Ziklag that day: therefore Ziklag belongs to the kings of Judah to this day.

The number of the days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a full year and four months.

David and his men went up, and made a raid on the Geshurites, and the Girzites, and the Amalekites; for those were the inhabitants of the land, who were of old, as you go to Shur, even to the land of Egypt.

David struck the land, and saved neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the cattle, and the donkeys, and the camels, and the clothing; and he returned, and came to Achish.

Achish said, “Against whom have you made a raid today?” David said, “Against the South of Judah, against the South of the Jerahmeelites, and against the South of the Kenites.”

David saved neither man nor woman alive, to bring them to Gath, saying, “Lest they should tell of us, saying, ‘David this, and this has been his way all the time he has lived in the country of the Philistines.’”

Achish believed David, saying, “He has made his people Israel utterly to abhor him. Therefore he shall be my servant forever.”

In those days, the Philistines gathered their armies together for warfare, to fight with Israel. Achish said to David, “Know assuredly that you shall go out with me in the army, you and your men.”

David said to Achish, “Therefore you shall know what your servant will do.” Achish said to David, “Therefore will I make you my bodyguard for ever.”

Now the Philistines gathered together all their armies to Aphek: and the Israelites encamped by the spring which is in Jezreel.

The lords of the Philistines passed on by hundreds, and by thousands; and David and his men passed on in the rear with Achish.

Then the princes of the Philistines said, “What about these Hebrews?” Achish said to the princes of the Philistines, “Isn’t this David, the servant of Saul the king of Israel, who has been with me these days, or rather these years, and I have found no fault in him since he fell away to this day?”

But the princes of the Philistines were angry with him; and the princes of the Philistines said to him, “Make the man return, that he may go back to his place where you have appointed him, and let him not go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he become an adversary to us. For with what should this fellow reconcile himself to his lord? Should it not be with the heads of these men?

Is not this David, of whom they sang one to another in dances, saying, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, David his ten thousands?’”