Against whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom are you pursuing? A dead dog? A flea?
We have here David's warm and pathetic speech to Saul, wherein he endeavours to convince him that he did him a great deal of wrong in persecuting him thus and to persuade him therefore to be reconciled. I. He calls him father (Sa1 24:11), for he was not only, as king, the father of his country, but he was, in particular, his father-in-law.
Commenting on 1 Samuel 24:9-15
After whom is the king of Israel come out?.... From his court and palace, with an army of men, and at the head of them: after whom dost thou pursue? with such eagerness and fury: after a dead dog; as David was in the opinion, and according to the representation of his enemies, a dog, vile, mean, worthless, of no account; a dead dog, whose...
After a dead dog - A term used among the Hebrews to signify the most sovereign contempt; see Sa2 16:9. One utterly incapable of making the least resistance against Saul, and the troops of Israel. The same idea is expressed in the term flea. The Targum properly expresses both thus: one who is weak, one who is contemptible.