And David dwelt with Achish at Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, even David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal's widow.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
“What,” you say, “have you to do with the kings of this world, in whom Christianity has never found anything save envy toward it?” Having said this, you endeavored to reckon up what kings the righteous had found to be their enemies, and [you] did not consider how many more might be enumerated who have proved their friends. The patriarch Abraham was both most friendly treated, and presented with a token of friendship, by a king who had been warned from heaven not to defile his wife. Isaac his son likewise found a king most friendly to him. Jacob, being received with honor by a king in Egypt, went so far as to bless him. What shall I say of his son Joseph, who, after the tribulation of a prison, in which his chastity was tried as gold is tried in the fire, being raised by Pharaoh to great honors, even swore by the life of Pharaoh—not as though puffed up with vain conceit but being not unmindful of his kindness. The daughter of a king adopted Moses. David took refuge with a king of anothe...
“When the Philistines held him in Gath”; this is recounted in the text of the book of Kings [Samuel]. David was terrorized by attacks of Saul and thought that he would be hidden in the city of Gath among the Philistines. But we have said that all this is to be explained as mystical allegory. Gath denotes “winepress,” the squeezing which every Christian endures, but then he makes the harvest most abundant when he has been pressed by the rods of afflictions. So the church reasonably and appropriately speaks in this heading. Though weighed down by the persecutions of the Philistines, that is, by outsiders, [the church] pours forth the deserving merits of its saints with abundant freedom as though they were liquid nectar. - "Exposition of the Psalms 55.1"
