What Does 1 Samuel 20:41 Mean?

(41) **David arose out of a place toward the south.**—If the text be correct here, which is very doubtful, we must understand these words as signifying that as soon as David perceived that Jonathan was alone (as soon as the lad was gone), he rose from the south side of the rock, where he had been lying concealed. [The “arrow” sign would have been enough to have warned David; and had he not seen that Jonathan was alone and waiting for him, David would, from his place of hiding, have made his escape unseen.] The Chaldee here reads, “from the stone of the sign (or the stone Atha) which is on the south;” the LXX. (Vat. MS.), “from the Argab;” Alex. MS., “from sleep.” The different versions, more or less, have repeated the statement in 1Samuel 20:19, failing altogether to understand the two Hebrew words *mêêtzel hannegev, *translated in our English Version, “out of a place toward the south.” **And fell on his face.**—Josephus’ words, in his traditional account of the event, explain David’s reason for this. “He did obeisance, and called him the saviour of his life.” **Until David exceeded.**—The expression is a strange one, and apparently signifies either simply that while Jonathan wept bitterly at the parting, David wept *still more, *or else that “David broke down,” that is, “was completely mastered by his grief.”—Dean *Payne Smith. *The LXX. translators here are quite unintelligible in their rendering, which represents David as weeping “until a (or the) great consummation.”