6 and David hath great distress, for the people have said to stone him, for the soul of all the people hath been bitter, each for his sons and for his daughters; and David doth strengthen himself in Jehovah his God.
The day I am afraid I am confident toward Thee. In God I praise His word, in God I have trusted, I fear not what flesh doth to me.
In mine adversity I call Jehovah, And unto my God I cry. He heareth from His temple my voice, And My cry before Him cometh into His ears.
And Moses crieth to Jehovah, saying, `What do I to this people? yet a little, and they have stoned me.'
By David. Jehovah `is' my light and my salvation, Whom do I fear? Jehovah `is' the strength of my life, Of whom am I afraid? When evil doers come near to me to eat my flesh, My adversaries and mine enemies to me, They have stumbled and fallen. Though a host doth encamp against me, My heart doth not fear, Though war riseth up against me, In this I `am' confident.
To the Overseer. -- A Psalm of David. I have diligently expected Jehovah, And He inclineth to me, and heareth my cry, And He doth cause me to come up From a pit of desolation -- from mire of mud, And He raiseth up on a rock my feet, He is establishing my steps.
Compassed me have cords of death, And straits of Sheol have found me, Distress and sorrow I find. And in the name of Jehovah I call: I pray Thee, O Jehovah, deliver my soul,
For we do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, of our tribulation that happened to us in Asia, that we were exceedingly burdened above `our' power, so that we despaired even of life; but we ourselves in ourselves the sentence of the death have had, that we may not be trusting on ourselves, but on God, who is raising the dead, who out of so great a death did deliver us, and doth deliver, in whom we have hoped that even yet He will deliver;
so that we do boldly say, `The Lord `is' to me a helper, and I will not fear what man shall do to me.'
Trust in Him at all times, O people, Pour forth before Him your heart, God `is' a refuge for us. Selah. Only -- vanity `are' the low, a lie the high. In balances to go up they than vanity `are' lighter.
Only -- for God, be silent, O my soul, For from Him `is' my hope.
By David, in his changing his behaviour before Abimelech, and he driveth him away, and he goeth. I do bless Jehovah at all times, Continually His praise `is' in my mouth. In Jehovah doth my soul boast herself, Hear do the humble and rejoice. Ascribe ye greatness to Jehovah with me, And we exalt His name together. I sought Jehovah, and He answered me, And from all my fears did deliver me. They looked expectingly unto Him, And they became bright, And their faces are not ashamed. This poor `one' called, and Jehovah heard, And from all his distresses saved him. A messenger of Jehovah is encamping, Round about those who fear Him, And He armeth them. Taste ye and see that Jehovah `is' good, O the happiness of the man who trusteth in Him.
Look unto Jehovah -- be strong, And He doth strengthen thy heart, Yea, look unto Jehovah!
Lo, He doth slay me -- I wait not! Only, my ways unto His face I argue.
Pilate saith to them, `What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?' They all say to him, `Let be crucified!'
Though the fig-tree doth not flourish, And there is no produce among vines, Failed hath the work of the olive, And fields have not yielded food, Cut off from the fold hath been the flock, And there is no herd in the stalls. Yet I, in Jehovah I exult, I do joy in the God of my salvation.
And she cometh in unto the man of God, unto the hill, and layeth hold on his feet, and Gehazi cometh nigh to thrust her away, and the man of God saith, `Let her alone, for her soul `is' bitter to her, and Jehovah hath hidden `it' from me, and hath not declared `it' to me.'
And she is bitter in soul, and prayeth unto Jehovah, and weepeth greatly,
And the sons of Dan say unto him, `Let not thy voice be heard with us, lest men bitter in soul fall upon you, and thou hast gathered thy life, and the life of thy household;'
And Hushai saith, `Thou hast known thy father and his men, that they `are' heroes, and they are bitter in soul as a bereaved bear in a field, and thy father `is' a man of war, and doth not lodge with the people;
What! bowest thou thyself, O my soul? Yea, art thou troubled within me? Wait for God, for still I confess Him: The salvation of my countenance -- My God!
Deep unto deep is calling At the noise of Thy water-spouts, All Thy breakers and Thy billows passed over me.
Better to take refuge in Jehovah than to trust in man, Better to take refuge in Jehovah, Than to trust in princes. All nations have compassed me about, In the name of Jehovah I surely cut them off. They have compassed me about, Yea, they have compassed me about, In the name of Jehovah I surely cut them off. They compassed me about as bees, They have been extinguished as a fire of thorns, In the name of Jehovah I surely cut them off. Thou hast sorely thrust me to fall, And Jehovah hath helped me.
A tower of strength `is' the name of Jehovah, Into it the righteous runneth, and is set on high.
And Hezekiah taketh the letters out of the hand of the messengers, and readeth them, and Hezekiah goeth up to the house of Jehovah, and Hezekiah spreadeth it before Jehovah. And Hezekiah prayeth unto Jehovah, saying, `Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel, inhabiting the cherubs, Thou `art' God Himself -- Thyself alone -- to all kingdoms of the earth, Thou hast made the heavens and the earth. Incline, O Jehovah, Thine ear, and hear; open, O Jehovah, Thine eyes and see; and hear Thou all the words of Sennacherib that he hath sent to reproach the living God. `Truly, O Jehovah, kings of Asshur have laid waste all the lands and their land, so as to put their gods into fire -- for they `are' no gods, but work of the hands of man, wood and stone -- and they destroy them. And now, Jehovah our God, save us from his hand, and all kingdoms of the earth do know that Thou `art' Jehovah, Thyself alone.'
O Jehovah, my strength, and my fortress, And my refuge in a day of adversity, Unto Thee nations do come from the ends of earth, And say, Only falsehood did our fathers inherit, Vanity, and none among them is profitable.
and at the promise of God did not stagger in unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, having given glory to God,
What, then, shall we say unto these things? if God `is' for us, who `is' against us?
on every side being in tribulation, but not straitened; perplexed, but not in despair;
for also we, having come to Macedonia, no relaxation hath our flesh had, but on every side we are in tribulation, without `are' fightings, within -- fears;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on 1 Samuel 30
Commentary on 1 Samuel 30 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
During David's absence the Amalekites had invaded the south country, smitten Ziklag and burnt it down, and carried off the women and children whom they found there; whereat not only were David and his men plunged into great grief on their return upon the third day but David especially was involved in very great trouble, inasmuch as the people wanted to stone him. But he strengthened himself in the Lord his God (1 Samuel 30:1-6).
1 Samuel 30:1-5
1 Samuel 30:1-4 form one period, which is expanded by the introduction of several circumstantial clauses. The apodosis to “It came to pass, when,” etc. (1 Samuel 30:1), does not follow till 1 Samuel 30:4, “Then David and the people,” etc. But this is formally attached to 1 Samuel 30:3, “so David and his men came,” with which the protasis commenced in 1 Samuel 30:1 is resumed in an altered form. “ It came to pass, when David and his men came to Ziklag ... the Amalekites had invaded ... and had carried off the wives ... and had gone their way, and David and his men came into the town (for 'when David and his men came,' etc.), and behold it was burned ... . Then David and the people with him lifted up their voice .” “ On the third day :” after David's dismission by Achish, not after David's departure from Ziklag. David had at any rate gone with Achish beyond Gath, and had not been sent back till the whole of the princes of the Philistines had united their armies (1 Samuel 29:2.), so that he must have been absent from Ziklag more than two days, or two days and a half. This is placed beyond all doubt by 1 Samuel 30:11., since the Amalekites are there described as having gone off with their booty three days before David followed them, and therefore they had taken Ziklag and burned it three days before David's return. These foes had therefore taken advantage of the absence of David and his warriors, to avenge themselves for David's invasions and plunderings (1 Samuel 27:8). Of those who were carried off, “ the women ” alone expressly mentioned in 1 Samuel 30:2, although the female population and all the children had been removed, as we may see from the expression “ small and great ” (1 Samuel 30:3, 1 Samuel 30:6). The lxx were therefore correct, so far as the sense is concerned, in introducing the words καὶ πάντα before בּהּ עשׁר . “ They had killed no one, but (only) carried away .” נהג , to carry away captive, as in Isaiah 20:4. Among those who had been carried off were David's two wives, Ahinoam and Abigail (vid., 1 Samuel 25:42-43; 1 Samuel 27:3).
1 Samuel 30:6-10
David was greatly distressed in consequence; “ for the people thought ('said,' sc., in their hearts) to stone him ,” because they sought the occasion of their calamity in his connection with Achish, with which many of his adherents may very probably have been dissatisfied. “ For the soul of the whole people was embittered (i.e., all the people were embittered in their souls) because of their sons and daughters ,” who had been carried away into slavery. “ But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God ,” i.e., sought consolation and strength in prayer and believing confidence in the Lord (1 Samuel 30:7.). This strength he manifested in the resolution to follow the foes and rescue their booty from them. To this end he had the ephod brought by the high priest Abiathar (cf. 1 Samuel 23:9), and inquired by means of the Urim of the Lord, “ Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake it? ” These questions were answered in the affirmative; and the promise was added, “ and thou wilt rescue .” So David pursued the enemy with his six hundred men as far as the brook Besor , where the rest, i.e., two hundred, remained standing (stayed behind). The words עמדוּ והנּותרים , which are appended in the form of a circumstantial clause, are to be connected, so far as the facts are concerned, with what follows: whilst the others remained behind, David pursued the enemy still farther with four hundred men. By the word הנּותרים the historian has somewhat anticipated the matter, and therefore regards it as necessary to define the expression still further in 1 Samuel 30:10 . We are precluded from changing the text, as Thenius suggests, by the circumstance that all the early translators read it in this manner, and have endeavoured to make the expression intelligible by paraphrasing it. These two hundred men were too tired to cross the brook and go any farther. ( פּגר , which only occurs here and in 1 Samuel 30:21, signifies, in Syriac, to be weary or exhausted.) As Ziklag was burnt down, of course they found no provisions there, and were consequently obliged to set out in pursuit of the foe without being able to provide themselves with the necessary supplies. The brook Besor is supposed to be the Wady Sheriah , which enters the sea below Ashkelon (see v. Raumer, Pal . p. 52).
On their further march they found an Egyptian lying exhausted upon the field; and having brought him to David, they gave him food and drink, namely “ a slice of fig-cake (cf. 1 Samuel 25:18), and raisin-cakes to eat; whereupon his spirit of life returned (i.e., he came to himself again), as he had neither eaten bread nor drunk water for three days .”
When David asked him whence he had come (to whom, i.e., to what people or tribe, dost thou belong?), the young man said that he was an Egyptian, and servant of an Amalekite, and that he had been left behind by his master when he fell sick three days before (“to-day three,” sc., days): he also said, “ We invaded the south of the Crethites, and what belongs to Judah, and the south of Caleb, and burned Ziklag with fire .” הכּרתי , identical with כּרתים (Ezekiel 25:16; Zephaniah 2:5), denotes those tribes of the Philistines who dwelt in the south-west of Canaan, and is used by Ezekiel and Zephaniah as synonymous with Philistim. The origin of the name is involved in obscurity, as the explanation which prevailed for a time, viz., that it was derived from Creta , is without sufficient foundation (vid., Stark, Gaza , pp. 66 and 99ff.). The Negeb “belonging to Judah” is the eastern portion of the Negeb. One part of it belonged to the family of Caleb, and was called Caleb's Negeb (vid., 1 Samuel 25:3).
This Egyptian then conducted David, at his request, when he had sworn that he would neither kill him nor deliver him up to his master, down to the hostile troops, who were spread over the whole land, eating, drinking, and making merry, on account of all the great booty which they had brought out of the land of the Philistines and Judah.
David surprised them in the midst of their security, and smote them from the evening twilight till the evening of the next day, so that no one escaped, with the exception of four hundred young men, who fled upon camels. Nesheph signifies the evening twilight here, not the dawn, - a meaning which is not even sustained by Job 7:4. The form מחרתם appears to be an adverbial formation, like יומם .
Through this victory David rescued all that the Amalekites had taken, his two wives, and all the children great and small; also the booty that they had taken with them, so that nothing was missing.
1 Samuel 30:20 is obscure: “ And David took all the sheep and the oxen: they drove them before those cattle, and said, This is David's booty .” In order to obtain any meaning whatever from this literal rendering of the words, we must understand by the sheep and oxen those which belonged to the Amalekites, and the flocks taken from them as booty; and by “ those cattle ,” the cattle belonging to David and his men, which the Amalekites had driven away, and the Israelites had now recovered from them: so that David had the sheep and oxen which he had taken from the Amalekites as booty driven in front of the rest of the cattle which the Israelites had recovered; whereupon the drovers exclaimed, “ This (the sheep and oxen) is David's booty .” It is true that there is nothing said in what goes before about any booty that David had taken from the Amalekites, in addition to what they had taken from the Israelites; but the fact that David had really taken such booty is perfectly obvious from 1 Samuel 30:26-31, where he is said to have sent portions of the booty of the enemies of Jehovah to different places in the land. If this explanation be not accepted, there is no other course open than to follow the Vulgate, alter לפני into לפניו , and render the middle clause thus: “ they drove those cattle (viz., the sheep and oxen already mentioned) before him ,” as Luther has done. But even in that case we could hardly understand anything else by the sheep and oxen than the cattle belonging to the Amalekites, and taken from them as booty.
When David came back to the two hundred men whom he had left by the brook Besor ( יושׁיבם , they made them sit, remain), they went to meet him and his warriors, and were heartily greeted by David.
1 Samuel 30:22
Then all kinds of evil and worthless men of those who had gone with David to the battle replied: “ Because they have not gone with us ( lit . with me, the person speaking), we will not give them any of the booty that we have seized, except to every one his wife and his children: they may lead them away, and go .”
1 Samuel 30:23-24
David opposed this selfish and envious proposal, saying, “ Do not so, my brethren, with that ( את , the sign of the accusative, not the preposition; see Ewald , §329, a .: lit . with regard to that) which Jehovah hath done to us, and He hath guarded us (since He hath guarded us), and given this troop which came upon us into our hand . And who will hearken to you in this matter? But ( כּי , according to the negation involved in the question) as the portion of him that went into the battle, so be the portion of him that stayed by the things; they shall share together .” הורד is a copyist's error for היּרד .
1 Samuel 30:25
So was it from that day and forward; and he (David) made it (this regulation as to the booty) “ the law and right for Israel unto this day .”
1 Samuel 30:26-29
When David returned to Ziklag, he sent portions of the booty to the elders of Judah, to his friends, with this message: “ Behold, here ye have a blessing of the booty of the enemies of Jehovah ” (which we took from the enemies of Jehovah); and this he did, according to 1 Samuel 30:31, to all the places in which he had wandered with his men, i.e., where he had wandered about during his flight from Saul, and in which he had no doubt received assistance. Sending these gifts could not fail to make the elders of these cities well disposed towards him, and so to facilitate his recognition as king after the death of Saul, which occurred immediately afterwards. Some of these places may have been plundered by the Amalekites, since they had invaded the Negeb of Judah (1 Samuel 30:14). The cities referred to were Bethel , - not the Bethel so often mentioned, the present Beitin , in the tribe of Benjamin, but Betheul (1 Chronicles 4:30) or Bethul , in the tribe of Simeon (Joshua 19:4), which Knobel supposes to be Elusa or el Khalasa (see at Joshua 15:30). The reading Βαιθσούρ in the lxx is a worthless conjecture. Ramah of the south, which was allotted to the tribe of Simeon, has not yet been discovered (see at Joshua 19:8). Jattir has been preserved in the ruins of Attir , on the southern portion of the Mountains of Judah (see at Joshua 15:48). Aroër is still to be seen in ruins, viz., in the foundations of walls built in enormous stones in Wady Arara, where there are many cavities for holding water, about three hours E.S.E. of Bersaba, and twenty miles to the south of Hebron (vid., Rob. Pal . ii. p. 620, and v. de Velde, Mem . p. 288). Siphmoth (or Shiphmoth , according to several MSS) is altogether unknown. It may probably be referred to again in 1 Chronicles 27:27, where Zabdi is called the Shiphmite ; but it is certainly not to be identified with Sepham , on the north-east of the sea of Galilee (Numbers 34:10-11), as Thenius supposes. Eshtemoa has been preserved in the village of Semua , with ancient ruins, on the south-western portion of the mountains of Judah (see at Joshua 15:50). Racal is never mentioned again, and is entirely unknown. The lxx have five different names instead of this, the last being Carmel , into which Thenius proposes to alter Racal . But this can hardly be done with propriety, as the lxx also introduced the Philistian Gath , which certainly does not belong here; whilst in 1 Samuel 30:30 they have totally different names, some of which are decidedly wrong. The cities of the Jerahmeelites and Kenites were situated in the Negeb of Judah ( 1 Samuel 27:10), but their names cannot be traced.
1 Samuel 30:30-31
Hormah in the Negeb (Joshua 15:30) is Zephath , the present Zepáta , on the western slope of the Rakhma plateau (see at Joshua 12:14). Cor-ashan , probably the same place as Ashan in the shephelah , upon the border of the Negeb, has not yet been discovered (see at Joshua 15:42). Athach is only mentioned here, and quite unknown. According to Thenius, it is probably a mistaken spelling for Ether in the tribe of Simeon ( Joshua 19:7; Joshua 15:43). Hebron , the present el Khulil , Abraham's city (see at Joshua 10:3; Genesis 23:17).