1 Samuel 30 1 Now it happened, when David and his men came to Ziklag, on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the South and Ziklag, attacked Ziklag and burned it with fire, 2 and had taken captive the women and those who were there, from small to great; they did not kill anyone, but carried them away and went their way. 3 So David and his men came to the city, and there it was, burned with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive. 4 Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep. 5 And David’s two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite, had been taken captive. While David and his men were away, the Amalekites had invaded the South and Ziklag— “The word for ‘invaded’ is the same as in 1 Samuel 27:8, and implies that they spread themselves over the country to drive off cattle and booty, but with no intention of fighting battles.— “‘and burned it with fire,’yet God holds in these tigers, and will not let the lions devour their prey.” (C. H. Spurgeon). He laid money on their hearts so that they took captive “the women and those who were there, from small to great; they did not kill anyone, but carried them away and went their way.” “‘They slew not any.’ No resistance was made, as the men of war were all away. It was probably for thus leaving their wives and families absolutely defenceless that David's people were so angry with him. As we are told in 1 Samuel 27:3 that the refugees with David had brought each his household with him into the Philistine territory, the number of women must have been large. The Amalekites spared their lives, not because they were more merciful than David, but because women and children were valuable as slaves. All the best would be picked out, and sent probably to Egypt for sale.”” (Pulpit Commentary) 6 Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in Yahweh his God. “‘Now David was greatly distressed,’ because of his men’s response, ‘for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved,’ Hebrew, ‘was bitter.’ Their great sorrow is pathetically described in 1 Samuel 30:4. [David also wept bitterly.] But, as is often the case with those in distress, from grief they [his men] turned to anger, and sought relief for their feelings by venting their rage upon the innocent. Possibly David had not taken precautions against a danger which he had not apprehended; but, left almost friendless in the angry crowd who were calling out to stone him.” (Pulpit Commentaries) “His men fretted at their loss, the soul of the people was bitter; their own discontent and impatience added to the affliction and misery.” (Mathew Henry) “‘But David strengthened himself in Yahweh his God.” “Yes! the Lord his God, properly so called.” (Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary) His men “gave liberty to their passions, but he set his graces to work; and while they dispirited each other, he, by encouraging himself in God, kept his spirit calm.” (Matthew Henry) “He turned into his counting house, and there saw himself well stored, and well underlaid, as we say. He had that which supported him in the fail of outward comforts - viz., the power, promises, and fatherly providence of God; who is here called his God, as being in covenant with him, never to fail him nor forsake him. No marvel that God remembereth David in all his troubles, since David did in all his troubles thus remember his God.” (John Trapp) 7 Then David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech’s son, “Please bring the ephod here to me.” And Abiathar brought the ephod to David. 8 So David inquired of the Lord, saying, “Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?” And He answered him, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.” Then by faith David “summoned the priest to ask counsel and guidance of God by the ephod.” (Pulpit Commentaries) “For notwithstanding all David's unworthiness and undeservings, God was still his God in covenant. Reader! do not overlook this whatever else you lose sight of in this sweet scripture. There may be, and no doubt there is, much unworthiness, much undeserving, in the best of saints. There will be changes in God's people, like the ebbings and flowings of the tide. But there is no change in the covenant security of God's love. The efficacy of this is eternally and everlastingly the same. God in Christ is an ocean that never dries, never lessens, never abates. He is a rock, His work is perfect. Lord! give me grace, that whatever leanness or barrenness there may be in me, I may, like David, encourage myself in the Lord my God.” (Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary)
1 Samuel 30
9 So David went, he and the six hundred men who were with him, and came to the Brook Besor, where those stayed who were left behind. 10 But David pursued, he and four hundred men; for two hundred stayed behind, who were so weary that they could not cross the Brook Besor.
“The Brook Besor— This had its source in the mountain of Idumea, and fell into the Mediterranean Sea beyond Gaza. Some suppose it to have been the same with the river of the wilderness, or the river of Egypt. The sense of this and the following verse is, that when they came to the brook Besor, there were found two hundred out of his six hundred men so spent with fatigue that they could proceed no farther. The baggage or stuff was left there, 1 Samuel 30:24, and they were appointed to guard it.” (Clarke)
11 Then they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David; and they gave him bread and he ate, and they let him drink water. 12 And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs and two clusters of raisins. So when he had eaten, his strength came back to him; for he had eaten no bread nor drunk water for three days and three nights.
Then they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David; and they gave him bread etc… “All this they did for him out of their humanity and charity, before they knew whether he could or would do them any service. So when he had eaten, his strength came back to him;— his spirit came again to him.— For in nature were it not for nutrition, the natural life would be soon extinguished.” (Trapp) “David's kindness to a perishing stranger and slave was the means of his success, and proved the truest policy. Job 31:13-15; Proverbs 12:10; James 2:13.” (R. A. Torrey)
13 Then David said to him, “To whom do you belong, and where are you from?” And he said, “I am a young man from Egypt, servant of an Amalekite; and my master left me behind, because three days ago I fell sick. 14 We made an invasion of the southern area of the Cherethites, in the territory which belongs to Judah, and of the southern area of Caleb; and we burned Ziklag with fire.”
“Then David said to him, ‘To whom do you belong, and where are you from?’ And he said, ‘I am a young man from Egypt, servant of an Amalekite;’— “God by his providence so ordering it, that he was not one of that cursed race of the Amalekites, who were to be utterly destroyed, but an Egyptian, who might be spared.” (John Wesley)
“‘And my master left me behind, because three days ago I fell sick.’— This was very inhuman: though they had booty enough, and no doubt asses sufficient to carry the invalids, yet they left this poor man to perish; and God visited it upon them, as he made this very person the means of their destruction, by the information which he was enabled to give to David and his men.” (Adam Clarke)—“‘Three days and three nights ago’—This was a note of time as to the amount of start the Amalekite leader with the plunder had. It may well be conceived there was no time to lose.” (C. J. Elllicott) “We made an invasion of the southern area of the Cherethites, in the territory which belongs to Judah, and of the southern area of Caleb; and we burned Ziklag with fire.” He was part of the raiders!
15 And David said to him, “Can you take me down to this troop?” So he said, “Swear to me by God that you will neither kill me nor deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will take you down to this troop.” 16 And when he had brought him down, there they were, spread out over all the land, eating and drinking and dancing, because of all the great spoil which they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah. 17 Then David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men who rode on camels and fled. 18 So David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away, and David rescued his two wives. 19 And nothing of theirs was lacking, either small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything which they had taken from them; David recovered all. 20 Then David took all the flocks and herds they had driven before those other livestock, and said, “This is David’s spoil.”
“Mark also how providence corresponded with the oracle. They found a servant in the field, cruelly abandoned of his master, but graciously left as a guide to David. They overtook the enemy on the confines of his country, when he supposed all dangers past; when he was making a feast, exulting in his success, and saying, this is David’s spoil! Ah, little did he think that this night God would execute the residue of the sentence, and blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. And little do the wicked think, during their cups and their feasts, that perhaps the long suspended strokes of insulted heaven are about to be inflicted in the severest manner, and that God will strike them as Amalek and Belshazzar, in the midst of their riot.
David, poor and ruined three days ago, having no hope but in his God, was now rich and victorious. He recovered all the women and children, all the cattle and spoil that Amalek had taken from the Philistines or Cherethites, from Judah, and from Ziklag;” (Joseph Sutcliffe)
“Then David took all the flocks and herds they had driven before those other livestock,— all the rest of the flocks and herds which the enemy had pillaged from other places’— and said, ‘This is David’s spoil.’”— to do with as he saw fit.
21 Now David came to the two hundred men who had been so weary that they could not follow David, whom they also had made to stay at the Brook Besor. So they went out to meet David and to meet the people who were with him. And when David came near the people, he greeted them. 22 Then all the wicked and worthless men of those who went with David answered and said, “Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil that we have recovered, except for every man’s wife and children, that they may lead them away and depart.” 23 But David said, “My brethren, you shall not do so with what the LORD has given us, who has preserved us and delivered into our hand the troop that came against us. 24 For who will heed you in this matter? But as his part is who goes down to the battle, so shall his part be who stays by the supplies; they shall share alike.” 25 So it was, from that day forward; he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel to this day.
26 Now when David came to Ziklag, he sent some of the spoil to the elders of Judah, to his friends, saying, “Here is a present for you from the spoil of the enemies of the Lord”— 27 to those who were in Bethel, those who were in Ramoth of the South, those who were in Jattir, 28 those who were in Aroer, those who were in Siphmoth, those who were in Eshtemoa, 29 those who were in Rachal, those who were in the cities of the Jerahmeelites, those who were in the cities of the Kenites, 30 those who were in Hormah, those who were in Chorashan, those who were in Athach, 31 those who were in Hebron, and to all the places where David himself and his men were accustomed to rove.
Not all of David’s men were righteous. Some are here called “wicked and worthless men of those who went with David.” They wanted to keep the spoils to themselves. But they belonged to Yahweh, according to David. and thus they would not be coveted but given freely shared with Israel. This was a policy of David’s government from that day forward. “We learn last of all, that David as a prince was distinguished by equity. He fairly shared the immense booty with the two hundred men who had guarded his baggage, and were detained by extreme weakness [as well as with the elders of Judah]. A prince of known probity and honour has the confidence of all his country; and the lustre of his moral character far exceeds the lustre of his fortune and his birth.” (Joseph Sutcliffe)
“That which was over and above what had been taken from Ziklag was very properly appropriated by David. (20) I thought, as I read that ‘David recovered all,’ how truly it can be said that the greater Son of David has recovered all. All that was lost by sin, our glorious and victorious Captain has recovered. What then shall be his spoil? It was foretold that ‘He shall divide the spoil with the strong.’ Let your hearts and mine, and all we are, and all we have, be yielded up to him, and let us say of it all, ‘This is Jesus’ spoil, and to him be glory evermore!’” (C. H. Spurgeon)