Matthew Henry

Now please listen to your servant and let me set a morsel of bread before you so you may eat and have the strength to go on your way.”

“She had a fat calf at hand (and the word signifies one that was made use of in treading out the corn, and therefore could the worse be spared); this she prepared for his entertainment,”

Saul refused, saying, “I will not eat.” But his servants joined the woman in urging him, and he heeded their voice.

“Had he laboured only under a defect of animal spirits, food might have helped him; but, alas! his case was out of the reach of such succours. What are dainty meats to a wounded conscience?”

The woman had a fattened calf at her house, and she quickly slaughtered it. She also took flour, kneaded it, and baked unleavened bread.

“Josephus is large in applauding the extraordinary courtesy and liberality of this woman, and recommending what she did as an example of compassion to the distressed, and readiness to communicate for their relief, though we have no prospect of being recompensed.”

She served it to Saul and his servants, and they ate. And that night they got up and left.

“Perhaps, indeed, now that rage and envy possessed him to the uttermost, he was the better reconciled to his hard fate, being told that his sons, and Jonathan among the rest, whom he hated for his affection to David, should die with him.”

As the Philistine leaders marched out their units of hundreds and thousands, David and his men marched behind them with Achish.

“If Saul should be killed (as it proved he was) in this engagement, the fault would be laid at David's door, as if he had killed him. So that on each side there seemed to be both sin and scandal.”

“But what have I done?” David replied. “What have you found against your servant, from the day I came to you until today, to keep me from going along to…

“He seemed anxious to serve him when he was at this juncture really anxious to leave him, but he was not willing that Achish should know that he was.”

Achish replied, “I know that you are as pleasing in my sight as an angel of God.

“What Achish says of David, God, by the prophet, says of the house of David ( Zech. xii. 8 ), that it shall be as the angel of the Lord. But the former is a court-compliment; the latter is a divine promise.”

On the third day David and his men arrived in Ziklag, and the Amalekites had raided the Negev, attacked Ziklag, and burned it down.

“The cruelty of Saul's pity (as it proved) in sparing the Amalekites; if he had utterly destroyed them, as he ought to have done, these would not have been in being to do this mischief.”

So David and the troops with him lifted up their voices and wept until they had no strength left to weep.

“Note, It is no disparagement to the boldest and bravest spirits to lament the calamities of relations and friends. This trouble came upon them when they were absent. It was the ancient policy of Amalek to take Israel at an advantage.”

And David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of every man grieved for his sons and daughters.

“Great faith must expect such severe exercises. But it is observable that David was reduced to this extremity just before his accession to the throne. At this very time, perhaps, the stroke was struck which opened the door to his advancement.”

and David inquired of the LORD: “Should I pursue these raiders? Will I overtake them?” “Pursue them,” the LORD replied, “for you will surely overtake them and rescue the captives.”

“Perhaps he was ashamed to own his religion so far among the uncircumcised; but now he begins to apprehend that this trouble is brought upon him to correct him for that oversight, and therefore the first thing he does is to call for the ephod.”

a piece of a fig cake and two clusters of raisins. So he ate and was revived, for he had not had any food or water for three days and…

“Those are unworthy the name of Israelites who shut up the bowels of their compassion from persons in distress.”

We raided the Negev of the Cherethites, the territory of Judah, and the Negev of Caleb, and we burned down Ziklag.”

“The countries which David had pretended to Achish to have made an incursion upon ( ch. xxvii. 10 ) they really had invaded and laid waste. What was then false now proved too true.”

“Will you lead me to these raiders?” David asked. And the man replied, “Swear to me by God that you will not kill me or deliver me into the hand…

“This he promised David to inform him of upon condition he would spare his life and protect him from his master, who, if he could hear of him again (he thought), would add cruelty to cruelty.”

So he led David down, and there were the Amalekites spread out over all the land, eating, drinking, and celebrating the great amount of plunder they had taken from the…

“Justly did Providence make this poor servant, that was thus basely abused, instrumental towards the destruction of a whole army of Amalekites and his master among the rest; for God hears the cry of oppressed servants.”

So he led David down, and there were the Amalekites spread out over all the land, eating, drinking, and celebrating the great amount of plunder they had taken from the…

“In this posture David surprised them, which made the conquest of them, and the blow he gave them, the more easy to him and the more dismal to them.”

And David struck them down from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man escaped, except four hundred young men who fled, riding off on camels.

“Thus is the triumphing of the wicked short, and wrath comes on them, as on Belshazzar, when they are in the midst of their jollity. The spoil was recovered and brought off, and nothing was lost, but a great deal gotten.”

So David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives. Nothing was missing, young or old, son or daughter, or any of the plunder the Amalekites had taken.

“Providence had so ordered it that the Amalekites carefully preserved all that they had taken, concluding that they kept it for themselves, though really they preserved it for the right owners, so that there was nothing lacking to them; so it proved, when they concluded…”

And he recovered all the flocks and herds, which his men drove ahead of the other livestock, calling out, “This is David’s plunder!”

“This drove was put in the van of the triumph, with this proclamation, " This is David's spoil. This we may thank him for."”

but all the wicked and worthless men among those who had gone with David said, “Because they did not go with us, we will not share with them the plunder…

“What joy could they have of their families if they had nothing to maintain them with? Was this to do as they would be done by?”

And so it has been from that day forward. David established this statute as an ordinance for Israel to this very day.

“If we help others to recover their right, we must not think that this alienates the property and makes it ours. God appointed that the spoil of Midian should be divided between the soldiers and the whole congregation, Num. xxxi.”

When David arrived in Ziklag, he sent some of the plunder to his friends, the elders of Judah, saying, “Here is a gift for you from the plunder of the…

“Several places are here named to which he sent of these presents, all of them in or near the tribe of Judah.”

and to those in Hebron and in all the places where David and his men had roamed.

“He was fit to be a king who thus showed the bounty and liberality of a king. Munificence recommends a man more than magnificence.”

Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa.

“The best of the troops were put into disorder, and multitudes slain, probably those whom Saul had employed in pursuing David.”

When his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his own sword and died with him.

“This was an aggravating circumstance of the death of Saul, that, by the example of his wickedness in murdering himself, he drew in his servant to be guilty of the same wickedness, and perished not alone in his iniquity.”