Paul Kretzmann Commentary - 1 Samuel 30:11 - 30:20

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Paul Kretzmann Commentary - 1 Samuel 30:11 - 30:20


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David Recovers the Spoil

v. 11. And they,
the men with David, found an Egyptian in the field, for the Amalekites could easily obtain Egyptian slaves, and brought him to David, and gave him bread, and he did eat; and they made him drink water, in order to revive him from his utter exhaustion, for he was almost famished;

v. 12. and they gave him a piece of a cake of figs,
a slice of pressed figs, and two clusters, pressed cakes, of raisins; and when he had eaten, his spirit came again to him, he recovered, he was filled with new life; for he had eaten no bread nor drunk any water three days and three nights.

v. 13. And David said unto him,
when he was strong enough to talk, To whom belongest thou? And whence are thou? And he said, I am a young man of Egypt, servant, slave, to an Amalekite; and my master left me because three days agone I fell sick. He had simply been abandoned because his master could not bother with him on their hasty flight.

v. 14. We made an invasion upon the south of the Cherethites,
a Philistine tribe of the south country, and upon the coast which belongeth to Judah, and upon the south of Caleb, the neighborhood of Hebron; and we burned Ziklag with fire.

v. 15. And David said to him, Canst thou bring me down to this company,
to the place where the raiding troop had its permanent camp? And he said, Swear unto me by God that thou wilt neither kill me nor deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will bring thee down to this company. The caution of the Egyptian was due to the fact that informers and guides were often put to death by those whom they had served, while the hatred of those whom they had betrayed may well be understood.

v. 16. And when he,
the Egyptian, had brought him, David with his men, down, behold, they, the Amalekites, were spread abroad upon all the earth, having abandoned themselves entirely to the enjoyment of their successful raid, not dreaming of the nearness of any enemy, eating, and drinking, and dancing, because of all the great spoil that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines and out of the land of Judah, celebrating the event with rejoicing.

v. 17. And David,
finding them so utterly unprepared, smote them from the twilight, from the break of day, even unto the evening of the next day, literally, "of their morrow," for the Israelites began their day at sundown; it was an all day battle. And there escaped not a man of them, save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels and fled.

v. 18. And David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away; and David rescued his two wives.
The pursuit was a complete success.

v. 19. And there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil, nor anything that they had taken to them; David recovered all,
all the booty from the entire raided district.

v. 20. And David took all the flocks and the herds,
those captured from the Amalekites in addition to the recovered property of the raided territory, which they drave before those other cattle, at the head of David's little band, and said, This is David's spoil. If matters are only begun with the Lord, then He will give His blessing and success in due season.