1 Samuel 30
v.1
David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it,
v.2
and had taken captive the women and all who were in it, both young and old. They killed none of them, but carried them off as they went on their way.
v.3
When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive.
v.4
So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.
v.5
David’s two wives had been captured—Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel.
v.6
David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the LORD his God.
Seek the strength from the Lord amidst bitter spirits rather than self-rationale.
David is further grieved because his men blame him for their plight. They even consider “stoning him.” Convinced that they will never see their children again, the men are “bitter in spirit” (cf. 1:10; 2Ki 4:27). While in 22:2 people who were “discontented” flocked to David’s leadership, here his men are so distraught that they are ready to harm him.
v.7
Then David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, “Bring me the ephod.” Abiathar brought it to him,
Before Achish, David is a pretender who resorts to extreme deceit to stay alive. On both occasions God, speaking through the Philistines, confronts David with who he really is and then providentially causes the Philistines to expel him. Once freed from his efforts at self-preservation, David does what he should have been doing in the first place. He seeks the Lord’s guidance through the ephod the Lord has provided (23:1–6, 9–12; 30:7–8) and sees firsthand the Lord’s enabling and protective hand.
v.8
and David inquired of the LORD, “Shall I pursue this raiding party? Will I overtake them?” “Pursue them,” he answered. “You will certainly overtake them and succeed in the rescue.”
v.9
David and the six hundred men with him came to the Besor Ravine, where some stayed behind,
v.10
for two hundred men were too exhausted to cross the ravine. But David and four hundred men continued the pursuit.
v.11
They found an Egyptian in a field and brought him to David. They gave him water to drink and food to eat—
v.12
part of a cake of pressed figs and two cakes of raisins. He ate and was revived, for he had not eaten any food or drunk any water for three days and three nights.
v.13
David asked him, “To whom do you belong, and where do you come from?” He said, “I am an Egyptian, the slave of an Amalekite. My master abandoned me when I became ill three days ago.
v.14
We raided the Negev of the Kerethites and the territory belonging to Judah and the Negev of Caleb. And we burned Ziklag.”
v.15
David asked him, “Can you lead me down to this raiding party?” He answered, “Swear to me before God that you will not kill me or hand me over to my master, and I will take you down to them.”
v.16
He led David down, and there they were, scattered over the countryside, eating, drinking and reveling because of the great amount of plunder they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from Judah.
v.17
David fought them from dusk until the evening of the next day, and none of them got away, except four hundred young men who rode off on camels and fled.
In contrast to Saul, who failed to carry out the Lord’s command to destroy all the Amalekites (chap. 15), David does his best to kill them all. Both before and after Samuel’s reminder to Saul of his failure to destroy the Amalekites (28:18), the narrator depicts David as doing everything in his power to kill them (cf. 27:8).
v.18
David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives.
v.19
Nothing was missing: young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else they had taken. David brought everything back.
v.20
He took all the flocks and herds, and his men drove them ahead of the other livestock, saying, “This is David’s plunder.”
v.21
Then David came to the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to follow him and who were left behind at the Besor Ravine. They came out to meet David and the people with him. As David and his men approached, he greeted them.
v.22
But all the evil men and troublemakers among David’s followers said, “Because they did not go out with us, we will not share with them the plunder we recovered. However, each man may take his wife and children and go.”
As Saul had his “troublemakers” (10:27) at the beginning of his reign, so also David has his.
v.23
David replied, “No, my brothers, you must not do that with what the LORD has given us. He has protected us and handed over to us the forces that came against us.
Deuteronomy 8 17-18 Deut8 md v 17-18
David, generously calling the troublemakers “my brothers,” reminds them that the booty is not, as they think, “the plunder we recovered” but rather “what the LORD has given us.” God has enabled them to defeat those who came against them.
God’s intervention on behalf of David and his men stands in stark contrast to his abandonment of Saul and the Israelite army, whom he handed over to the Philistines (28:19).
v.24
Who will listen to what you say? The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike.”
My oap prayer team: Katlyn, Paul Bae, and Garrett.
However exhausted the men who remained behind might have been, they deserve a reward for staying with and guarding the “supplies” (see 10:22).
v.25
David made this a statute and ordinance for Israel from that day to this.
Though not yet king, David is already exercising an authoritative leadership role, foreshadowing his accession to the throne
v.26
When David arrived in Ziklag, he sent some of the plunder to the elders of Judah, who were his friends, saying, “Here is a present for you from the plunder of the LORD’s enemies.”
v.27
He sent it to those who were in Bethel, Ramoth Negev and Jattir;
v.28
to those in Aroer, Siphmoth, Eshtemoa
v.29
and Racal; to those in the towns of the Jerahmeelites and the Kenites;
v.30
to those in Hormah, Bor Ashan, Athach
v.31
and Hebron; and to those in all the other places where David and his men had roamed.