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into the sea to the south of Gaza, two hundred of his men, who, considering the state
in which they had found Ziklag, must have been but ill-provisioned, had to be left
behind.^234
They soon came on the track of the Amalekites. They had found an Egyptian slave,
whom his inhuman master had, on the hasty retreat from Ziklag, left by the wayside
to starve rather than hamper himself with the care of a sick man. Food soon revived
him; and, on promise of safety and freedom, he offered to be the guide of the party
to the place which, as he knew, the Amalekites had fixed upon as sufficiently far
from Ziklag to permit them to feast in safety on their booty. A short-lived security
theirs. It was the twilight - the beginning, no doubt, of a night of orgies - when
David surprised them, "lying about on the ground," "eating and drinking, and
dancing." No watch had been set; no weapon was in any man's hands; no danger was
apprehended. We can picture to ourselves the scene: how David probably
surrounded the camping-place; and with what shouts of vengeance the infuriated
Hebrews fell on those who could neither resist nor flee. All night long, all the next
day the carnage lasted. Only four hundred servant-lads, who had charge of the
camels, escaped. Everything that had been taken by the Amalekites was recovered,
besides the flocks and herds of the enemy, which were given to David as his share of
the spoil. Best of all, the women and children were safe and unhurt.
It was characteristic of the wicked and worthless among the followers of David, that
when on their return march they came again to those two hundred men who had been
left behind "faint," they proposed not to restore to them what of theirs had been
recovered from the Amalekites, except their wives and children. Rough, wild men
were many among them, equally depressed in the day of adversity, and recklessly
elated and insolent in prosperity. Nor is it merely the discipline which David knew to
maintain in such a band that shows us "the skillfulness of his hands" in guiding
them, but the gentleness with which be dealt with them, and, above all, the earnest
piety with which he knew to tame their wild passions prove the spiritual "integrity,"
or "perfectness, of his heart" (Psalm 78:72). Many a wholesome custom, which ever
afterwards prevailed in Israel, as well as that of equally dividing the spoil among
combatants and non-combatants in an army (1 Samuel 30:24, 25), must have dated
not only from the time of David, but even from the period of his wanderings and
persecutions. Thus did he prove his fitness for the government long ere he attained to
it.
Yet another kindred trait was David's attachment to friends who had stood by him in
seasons of distress. As among his later servants and officials we find names
connected with the history of his wanderings (1 Chronicles 27:27-31), so even now
he sent presents from his spoil to "the elders" of the various cities of the South,^235
(^)