And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs, &c.— The eastern people are well known to carry with them in their journies several accommodations, and provisions in particular of various kinds, for, properly speaking, they have no inns. They did so anciently. Those who travel on foot with expedition, content themselves with a very slight viaticum. The writer of the history of the piratical states of Barbary, speaking of the great expedition of the natives of the country about Ceuta in carrying messages, (some of them running one hundred and fifty miles in less than twenty-four hours,) says, "Their temperance is not less admirable; for some meal, with a few figs and raisins, which they carry in a goat's skin, serves them a seven or eight days' journey, and their richest liquor is only honey and water." Not very different from this is the account here given by the sacred writer, of the provisions carried by David and his men, for their support in their hurrying pursuit after the Amalekites, as appears by what they gave the poor famished Egyptian, bread, (water) figs and raisins. The bread of the Israelites answers to the meal of Barbary; the figs and the raisins were the very things which the Moors now carry with them. We do not find any mention of honey in this account of David's expedition; but it is represented in other passages of Scripture as something refreshing to those who were almost spent with fatigue; chap. 1 Samuel 14:27; 1 Samuel 14:29 which is enough to make us think that they sometimes carried it with them in their journies or military expeditions. See Observations, p. 206.
Related Commentaries of 1 Samuel 30:12
1 Samuel 30:12
12 And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs, and two clusters of raisins: and when he had eaten, his spirit came again to him: for he had eaten no bread, nor drunk any water, three days and three nights.