1 Samuel 26:19

If the Lord. David presents before Saul two possible solutions that might be paraphrased thus: (1) If because of a sin on my part, ignorantly committed against you or against all Israel, over which you are the anointed king, God has impressed you to execute judgment against me, permit me to follow the instructions in the Torah and seek forgiveness in the divinely constituted manner (Lev. 4). (2) But if through vile, slanderous gossip, if through whispered calumnies, you have been urged to hunt me down as a rebel, feeling I am trying to usurp your place, the evidence at En-gedi and again here proves the falsity of such words and actions. Therefore those who are urging you on are cursed before God according to the regulations of the same Torah (Deut. 27:24-26), and you should not follow them, nor be guided by their counsel.

Driven me out. David poured out his heart to Saul as in a fit of despondency. Instead of being accepted as a servant (v. 18), which position he would have been so happy to fill, he had been pursued as an outlaw; his king had become his enemy, and the one he would gladly follow with respect had now compelled him to flee as a partridge on the mountain (v. 20). But far worse than this, he was being driven from “the inheritance of the Lord,” the land of his forefathers, and from the religion that had been his chief joy and solace all these years. He had been forced to live in the holes of the earth, in the wildernesses of the desert, and among the enemies of his own people. Now the only apparent safety for him and his men lay in utter exile.