When David and his men were come to Ziklag.
David in three situations
at Ziklag in his distress, on his way to the Amalekites, and among the Amalekites.
I. David in his distress. See in it the frequent benefit, of affliction to the people of God. In this instance it did immediately two things for David.
1. It restored him to his spiritual courage and strength. Look ones more to chap. 27. We find there his heart failing him; and, like a frightened deer, he runs away from Judah into the land of the Philistines. Now when did this happen? You will say, “Doubtless when Saul was close behind him ready to take his life;” but no; it was at, a time when it seemed least likely to happen--when David had humbled Saul to the dust by his magnanimity. David says in his heart, “I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul,” and there goes the once bold champion of Israel, timid and crouching, to seek the protection of a heathen king. See here what man is; see what even a servant of God is, when left to himself. He can fall down without a blow. Now, come again to the chapter before us. Here is this same David, the frightened runaway, calm and fearless, and where? In a situation of the utmost distress and danger; with his home burnt, his family in the hands of his enemies, and with six hundred half frantic men around him threatening to take his life. O, how God sometimes glorifies his grace in our world! “What time I am afraid,” not, in a quiet hour, no, in a fearful hour--“what time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.”
2. David’s affliction restored him also to a holy caution and self-distrust. It led him, though he feared nothing else, to fear himself. He seeks now counsel of the Lord. We should have expected him to have done this before in his fear when he fled into the land of the Philistines, or when he followed the army of Achish against Israel, but he did not do it. “David enquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue this troop? shall I overtake them?” This is what the Scripture means by acknowledging God in our ways. And thus the affliction of David was a benefit to him--it restored him to his spiritual courage and strength, it led him to seek counsel of the Lord and submit his ways to Him. In His people’s case, the Lord turns even these bitter things to a blessed account. So does He love His people, that He cannot even smite them without blessing them. His very judgments become mercies. Thus we find David, in Psalm, of coupling together mercy and judgment, and saying He will rejoice in both and sing of both.
II. Let us now look at David in another situation--on his way to the Amalekites. We shall see that he met in it with discouragement and also encouragement, a mixture of both.
1. The discouragement he encountered at the outset. We know not the number of these Amalekites, but it is clear that it was great, for these that escaped, verse 17 says, were four hundred, and they are spoken of as a remnant, a small part of the whole. These soldiers, these fugitives and exiles, can not only weep as though their hearts would break for their wives and children, but the moment there is a prospect of recovering them, they are so eager in the pursuit, that one-third of their number speedily sink down in exhaustion. “They came,” we read, “to the brook Besor,” and there they “were so faint that they could not go over.” But how will this operate on David? Will not his old fears now return? Shall we not see him halting and hesitating and perhaps turning back? No; a man never hesitates or turns back in the path of duty, who is making the Lord his strength.
2. David’s encouragement. And let me say that in your journey go heaven, or in setting about any good work on that journey, you must calculate on meeting with both these things, with both discouragements and encouragements. Your path will not be a uniform one. David’s discouragement was the loss of two hundred men, apparently a formidable loss; it turned out nothing. His encouragement was what? It came from one man one sick man, a man scarcely alive; and he did all that David wanted. The case was this. One of the Amalekites in going from Ziklag, had a slave ill, an Egyptian. He abandons him, leaves him in a field to die. Three days afterwards David’s men come up and find him: they kindly give him food and restore him. “Can you tell us,” asks David, “where we may find the Amalekites?” “I can,” the man says, and in a little time he brings him within sight of their camp. Here, you observe, was help for David from one who could not help himself; and, as it turned out, effectual help; and help, observe, too, from the very host of his enemies. Anything will serve the Lord when the Lord has to overthrow his enemies or help His people, He needs not move heaven or earth, he needs not create powerful instruments to do it; anything in his mighty hand will do it--a castaway thing, a despised, abandoned thing.
III. But look now at David in a third situation--at the camp of the Amalekites. When he came upon them, he found them in a state of riot and disorder. “Peace and safely” are fearful words in a pleasure taking, prosperous man’s mouth; then often “sudden destruction cometh, and he shall not escape.” Belshazzar revelled joyously and fearlessly in the banquet he had made; but “in that night,” the very night of his festivity, “was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain.” And mark--it was the great spoil these Amalekites had taken which so rejoiced them. They were exulting in their spoil at, the very moment when they were about to lose their spoil and their lives together. Is there a man here whose chief joy is in the spoil he has taken? the acquisitions he has made? his honours or his wealth? Let such a man see that he and they may be separated in an hour. Tomorrow they may be in other hands, and he in another world. David, we read, smote these Amalekites, smote them from the twilight, of one day even unto the evening of the next. Their destruction was complete or nearly so. You remember who these men were. They were a nation condemned by God to be exterminated in consequence of their determined hatred to Him and His people. David know this. He was not therefore indulging his own revenge, but obeying the Lord’s command, in smiting them. But observe--though these men were God’s enemies, He had just before employed them in His work. There is a servant of His to be chastened; they shall be the rod in His hand to chasten him. “We will go and plunder Ziklag,” they say; He lets them go, and while they are accomplishing their ends, He makes them accomplish His; He overrules their plundering incursion to bring back the wandering David to Himself. It is a solemn thought, but it is a glorious one, that wicked men and wicked spirits, that hell with its legions as well as heaven with its glorious hosts, are doing every hour Jehovah’s work. This must not reconcile us to sin, but it goes far to quiet the mind when sickened and distressed with the sin, “the wrong and outrage,” with which the world is filled. Another incident in this history we must notice--this victory over these Amalekites was attended with a recovery of all that David had lost. Twice this is mentioned and particularly mentioned. It is not only we who are safe in God’s hands if we are his, all that belongs to us is safe there. It is safe no where else. When we give it up to him, He remembers that we have done so, and takes it as His charge. There is an hour coming when God will let us see that He has taken good care of all that is ours as well as of us, such care as we had scarcely thought of. The health we have lost in His service, the property we may have expended in His cause, the earthly gain or earthly love or honour we have sacrificed for His cake--we shall hear of them again in heaven. O what a recompence for them awaits us there! (C. Bradley, M. A.)