(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
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1 Samuel 30:7–20, “And David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech’s son, I pray thee, bring me hither the ephod. And Abiathar brought thither the ephod to David. And David enquired at the LORD, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all. So David went, he and the six hundred men that were with him, and came to the brook Besor, where those that were left behind stayed. But David pursued, he and four hundred men: for two hundred abode behind, which were so faint that they could not go over the brook Besor. And they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David, and gave him bread, and he did eat; and they made him drink water; 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. And David said unto him, To whom belongest thou? and whence art thou? And he said, I am a young man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite; and my master left me, because three days agone I fell sick. We made an invasion upon the south of the Cherethites, and upon the coast which belongeth to Judah, and upon the south of Caleb; and we burned Ziklag with fire. And David said to him, Canst thou bring me down to this company? And he said, Swear unto me by God, that thou wilt neither kill me, nor deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will bring thee down to this company. And when he had brought him down, behold, they were spread abroad upon all the earth, eating and drinking, and dancing, because of all the great spoil that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines, and out of the land of Judah. And David smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day: and there escaped not a man of them, save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels, and fled. And David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away: and David rescued his two wives. And there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil, nor any thing that they had taken to them: David recovered all. And David took all the flocks and the herds, which they drave before those other cattle, and said, This is David’s spoil.”
It is interesting to note that, while Saul was unable to contact the Lord in any way without resorting to contacting a medium, David had a priest with him and had no trouble contacting the Lord. David asked the Lord if he should try to retrieve everything that was taken and the Lord told him to go after his family and the families of his men. By this stage, David had his own private army of 600 hundred men. These men had just been up north to Jezreel and then traveled three more days until they came back to Ziklag. When they arrived at their home base they weren’t given any time to rest and some of the men were too tired to go with the main band. These men were left behind while the others moved out. They went towards the south east and came across and Egyptian man who was nearly perishing from thirst and hunger. They took the man, gave him water and food and revived him. He was given bread, water and some figs. All these were carried by an army going on patrol or into battle. When the man revived David questioned him and he told David that he was the slave of an Amorite man and he was afraid of any repercussions. David promised the man that he would be safe and he showed David were the raiders were camped. David, with his men, attacked these raiders and defeated them. David’s men were able to recover everything that had been taken from them, except the houses that had been burnt. Not only did David take everything that belonged to his army, he took, as spoil, everything else that belonged to the raiding party.
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