1 Samuel 29:2-3

The lords of the Philistines passed on. Evidently they were on their march northward, with their troops arranged in divisions, when David's presence in the rearward with the contingent of Achish was noticed. The princes —not the strict word for the Philistine lords (see on 1 Samuel 5:8 ), but a loose, general term used again in 1 Samuel 29:4 —on having it reported to them in the course of a day or two that there was a body of strange troops in the army of Gath, asked, What do these Hebrews here? Hebrew, "What these Hebrews?" i.e. What mean these Hebrews? using of them the ordinary Philistine term of contempt. Achish answers that these men were the followers of David, who, having deserted from Saul, had been with him these days or these years , i.e. an indefinitely long time, during which he had conducted himself with the utmost fidelity to his new master.