David inquired of the LORD
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, and
had taken captive the women and everyone else in it, both young and
old. They killed none of them, but carried them off as they went on
their way.
When David and his men reached Ziklag, they found it
destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive.
So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to
weep. David’s two wives had been captured. 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.
Then David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of
Ahimelek, “Bring me the ephod.” Abiathar brought it to him, 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.”
David
and the six hundred men with him came to the Besor Valley, where some
stayed behind. Two hundred of them were too exhausted to cross the
valley, but David and the other four hundred continued the pursuit.
They
found an Egyptian in a field and brought him to David. They gave him
water to drink and food to eat— 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.
David asked him, “Who do you belong to? 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. We raided the Negev of
the Kerethites, some territory belonging to Judah and the Negev of
Caleb. And we burned Ziklag.”
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.”
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. 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. David
recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives.
Nothing was missing: young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else
they had taken. David brought everything back.
