1 Samuel 30

1 And when David and his men came into Ziklag on the third day, Amalek had raided the southern country and Ziklag; they had struck Ziklag and burned it with fire. [a] 2 As for the women and everything that was in it, from the least to the greatest, they killed no man and no woman, but carried them off captive and went on their way.

3 And David and his men came to the city, and there it was, burned with fire, and their wives and their sons and their daughters carried off captive. 4 And David and his men lifted up their voice and wept, until there was no strength left in them to weep. 5 Both of David’s wives had been carried off captive as well — Ahinoam the Jezreelite woman, and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite. 6 And David was in great distress, because the people were talking of stoning him; the soul of all the people was in bitter pain, each man for his sons and for his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.

7 And David said to Abiathar the priest, son of Ahimelech, “Bring the ephod here.” 8 And David asked of the Lord, “Shall I go after this raiding party? Will I overtake them?” And he said to him, “Go after them. You will certainly overtake them, and you will certainly rescue them.” [b]

9 So David went, he and the six hundred men with him, and they came as far as the brook Besor; and those who were left over halted there. 10 And he kept up the pursuit with four hundred men; two hundred men stayed behind, who sat down on the far side of the brook Besor.

11 And they found an Egyptian in a field and took him and brought him to David in the field. And they gave him bread and he ate, and they gave him water to drink; 12 and they gave him a piece of a pressed fig cake, and he ate, and his spirit came back into him — for he had not eaten bread or drunk water for three days and three nights.

13 And David said to him, “Whose man are you, and where are you from?” And the young Egyptian said, “I am the slave of an Amalekite, and my master left me behind because I fell sick three days ago. 14 We raided the southern country of the Cherethites, and the parts belonging to Judah, and the southern country of Chelub; and we burned Ziklag with fire.” [c] 15 And David said to him, “Will you take me down to this raiding party?” And he said, “Swear to me now by God that you will not kill me, and that you will not hand me over to my master, and I will take you down to this raiding party.”

16 So he took him down there, and there they were, scattered over the face of the whole country, eating and drinking and celebrating over all the great spoils they had taken out of the land of the Philistines and out of the land of Judah. 17 And David came on them and struck them from first light until evening, and on into the next day; and not one man of them got away, except four hundred young men who mounted camels and fled. [d]

18 And David took back everything the Amalekites had taken, and he rescued both his wives. 19 Nothing of theirs was missing, from the least to the greatest, from the spoils to the sons and the daughters, down to everything they had taken from them: David brought it all back. 20 And David took all the flocks and the herds and drove them on ahead of the rest of the spoils; and of those spoils it was said, “These are David’s spoils.” [e]

21 And David came to the two hundred men who had been too worn out to go on after David, and whom he had left sitting by the brook Besor. They came out to meet David and to meet the people with him; and David came up to the people, and they asked him how he was. 22 Then every plague of a man, every troublemaker among the fighting men who had gone with David, spoke up and said, “Since they did not join the pursuit with us, we will not give them any of the spoils we recovered. Let each man take his own wife and his own children and go.”

23 And David said, “You are not to do that, after the Lord has handed them over to us and kept us safe, and the Lord has given into our hands the raiding party that came against us. 24 And who will listen to you in this? They are no less than you are. As the share of the man who goes down to the battle, so will be the share of the man who stays with the baggage: they divide it alike.” 25 And from that day on it became a decree and a rule in Israel, and it is so to this day. [f]

26 And David came to Ziklag and sent part of the spoils to the elders of Judah and to his friends, saying, “This is from the spoils of the enemies of the Lord” 27 — to those in Beth-zur, and to those in Ramah of the south, and to those in Jethor, [g] 28 and to those in Aroer, and to those in Ammadi, and to those in Saphi, and to those in Esthie, 29 and to those in Geth, and to those in Cinan, and to those in Saphec, and to those in Themath, and to those in Carmel, and to those in the cities of Jerahmeel, and to those in the cities of the Kenizzite, [h] 30 and to those in Jerimuth, and to those in Beersheba, and to those in Noo, 31 and to those in Hebron, and to all the places David had passed through, he and his men.