Went up. — The expression is strictly accurate. The nomad tribes against whom his expeditions were directed dwelt on higher ground than David’s home at Ziklag, apparently on the wide extent of the mountain plateau, that high table-land at the north-east of the desert of Paran.
The Geshurites, and the Gezerites, and the Amalekites. — These were all “Bedaween” tribes, the scourge of the Israelitish families dwelling on the south of Canaan. It is not easy to identify the first two named of these nomades against whom David directed his operations. We hear of these Geshurites in the neighbourhood of Bashan (Deuteronomy 3:14), and of another tribe of them in Syria (2 Samuel 15:8). They were a widely scattered race of nomad Arabs. The Gezerites, or Gizrites, it has been supposed, were the remains of a once powerful race dispossessed by the Amorites. The third named, the Amalekites, were the remnant of that once powerful tribe destroyed by Saul in his famous war, when his disobedience incurred the wrath of Samuel.
For those nations were of old the inhabitants of the land, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt. — The grammar and construction of this sentence is confused and difficult. On the whole, the rendering and explanation of Erdmann in Lange seems the most satisfactory: “David... invaded the... and the Amalekites (for these were inhabitants of the land, who inhabited it of old) as far as Shur and Egypt.” Thus David’s raids extended as far as the desert frontier of Egypt.