28:1 In those days the Philistines gathered their troops1 for war in order to fight Israel. Achish said to David, “You should fully understand that you and your men must go with me into the battle.”2
tc The translation follows the LXX (εἰς πόλεμον, eis polemon) and a Qumran msמלחמה במלחמה ([m]lkhmh) bammilkhamah (“in the battle”) rather than the MT’s בַמַּחֲנֶה (bammakhaneh, “in the camp”; cf. NASB). While the MT reading is not impossible here, and although admittedly it is the harder reading, the variant fits the context better. The MT can be explained as a scribal error caused in part by the earlier occurrence of “camp” in this verse.