Ah yes, David escaped from battling against his own people!
But alas, when he arrived back home, Ziklag was gone. The Amalekites had invaded and taken
everything and everybody. Now, you want
to talk about being alone... when David's men realized what had happened, they
were ready to kill him. But, David
sought for God's face in the middle of this trial too.
With God's approval, David and 2/3 of his men went after the
Amalekites in order to rescue their wives and children. With help from an
Egyptian servant who had been abandoned by those same Amalekites, David found
them and retrieved everything. He soundly defeated the Amalekites and returned
to Ziklag. And, not only did he and his
men take back all that was rightfully theirs, but they took all the belongings
of the Amalekites too and divided them with their fellows who had been too weak
to go to battle. They had such a great quantity of spoils that they even sent
gifts to his friends in Judah who had allowed him to hide among them during all
the time that he had been fleeing from Saul.
David was truly a man of war (1st Chronicles 28:3). It seems
that everywhere he turned there was conflict. And, although he was truly
destroying the enemies of God and of Israel, all his fighting had a distinct
effect on him. Read his last words as he lay on his deathbed and you will find
that David's violent life affected him to the end (1st Kings 2:1-9).
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