So David again inquired of God, who answered him, “Do not march up after them, but circle around them and attack them in front of the balsam trees.
This narrative of David's triumph over the Philistines is much the same with that, Sa2 5:17, etc. 1. Let the attack which the Philistines made upon David forbid us to be secure in any settlement or advancement, and engage us to expect molestation in this world. When we are most easy something or other may come to be a terror or vexation to us.
Commenting on 1 Chronicles 14:8-17
Go not up after them--The text in Sa2 5:23, more correctly has, "Go not up." turn away from them--that is, by stealing round a baca-grove, come upon their rear.
1Ch 14:2-17 Instead of נשּׂא כּי, that He (Jahve) had lifted up (נשּׂא, perf. Pi.), as in 2Sa 5:12, in the Chronicle we read למעלה נשּׂאת כּי, that his kingdom had been lifted up on high. The unusual form נשּׂאת may be, according to the context, the third pers. fem. perf. Niph., nisaa't having first been changed into נשּׂאת, and thus contracted into נשּׂאת; cf. Ew. §194, b.
Commenting on 1 Chronicles 14:2-17