We made a raid against the south of the Cherethites, and against what [belongs] to Judah, and against the south of Caleb; and we burned Ziklag with fire.
David's men have just given the young Egyptian food and water. Now he answers David's questions, and his answer is a confession: he names the raid he joined and the city he helped burn.
The speaker was a slave, left behind by the man he served. Commentators note that what made him useless to his master is what opened David's heart to him.
Now this young man was an Egyptian, servant to an Amalekite, and his master left him because he had fallen sick. This is how his Amalekite master treated him. He abandoned him when he needed help most, because he could no longer be useful to him. But his ruin and misery were the very things that won David's sympathy. David refreshed him and revived his spirit.
His own words place him twice over. He names Egypt and Amalek, and writers read both names as a picture of the person who has not yet come to God.
"I am a young man of Egypt," he says. I am a man of the world. In Scripture Egypt stands for the world — where Satan reigns. Egypt pictures the world as a place of sin, lust, and folly, and it holds every man until he is converted and brought to God. This man says, "I am a young man of Egypt," but he goes further — "servant to an Amalekite." Amalek has a large place in Scripture. It is the flesh, used by the devil to keep a man away from God.
Amalek's standing was different from Egypt's. Mackintosh notes that Egypt and Amalek did not stand in the same place before Israel. Egypt has blessing promised in a day to come. Amalek faces the Lord's war from generation to generation (C. H. Mackintosh).
He answers David with a full admission, naming three areas raided and one city burned.
In verse 14 the man openly confesses his part in the raid the Amalekites had made — on the land of the Cherethites, on Judah's land and on Caleb's. He confesses the burning of Ziklag too. He confesses who he was and whom he belonged to, and he confesses what he had done. This shows the right attitude of anyone who comes to the Lord Jesus for salvation. He hides nothing. He tells the truth, even though it may hurt him to do so.
What makes the admission striking is the person he is making it to. He is telling the owner of the burnt city that he helped set it alight.
The young Egyptian, encouraged by David's grace, makes a clean breast of his sins… He says in effect — I know who you are. You are the one I have sinned against. But I know there is enough grace in your heart to forgive it all, even though I helped set fire to your city. The man who owns his sin always gets blessing from God.
David held Ziklag as payment for siding with Israel's enemies. Writers tie the burning of the city to how he came by it.
David had received Ziklag as his wages for going over to the uncircumcised. Was it not "the wages of unrighteousness?" But the Lord can cut holes in the bags where we put such money as this. And so He does here. While David was in the camp of the Philistines, the people of the south came to Ziklag. They burned it, and they carried off everyone in it — wives, children, cattle and all. These were the people David had beaten and slaughtered earlier.
The people David had beaten earlier were the ones who now burned his city. Yet the loss was not total. The raiders carried the people off alive instead of killing them, and God spared their lives with a good end in view (An Outline of Sound Words).
His answer also told David where to find the raiders. Without it, the chase had no direction.
An Egyptian slave left behind to die puts David on the enemy's track. One sees God's hand in this circumstance. Without this poor man dying of hunger the expedition would have failed miserably. When we strengthen ourselves in the Lord our God, what mighty help He gives us, and how unexpected it is!
- Abandoned. His master threw him away the moment he stopped being useful. That ruin is what brought him within reach of David's kindness.
- Owned. Fed first, questioned after, he tells the whole truth: where he is from, whom he served, and what he burned.
- Faced. He confesses to the very man he wronged, counting on grace enough to cover even the flames he helped light.
- Traced. Ziklag was David's wages for going over to the Philistines. The raiders were the people David himself had attacked earlier.
- Used. God turned a discarded enemy's confession into the help David needed. Without it the pursuit would have failed.
And David said to him, Canst thou bring me down to this troop? And he said, Swear to me by God, that thou wilt neither put me to death nor deliver me up into the hand of my master, and I will bring thee down to this troop.
David and his men find the raiders' trail only through a dying man in a field — an Egyptian slave thrown away by the Amalekite who owned him. Before he will guide them to the enemy camp, he wants an oath: David must not kill him, and must not hand him back to the master who left him to die.
The man has already told David how he came to be lying in that field. One writer reads his abandonment as a picture of how the devil treats those who serve him:
Then, the young man of Egypt was abandoned. He says, "My master left me, because three days ago I fell sick." His heartless master left him in the field to die when he could not use him any longer. And that is the way the devil treats his servants. He uses them as his tools as long as he can. Then, when he cannot use them any more, he leaves them to their fate.
His request has two halves: death at David's hand, and a return to the Amalekite. One writer notes that neither danger was real:
Grace, kindness, and power were all on the side of the new master, and he would gladly give himself to that service at once. As he did so, his greatest fear, next to death itself, was that someone would hand him back into the power and service of the old master. Both of his fears were groundless.
David asks for guidance; the man asks for safety before he moves. That order is the point:
Now note the order. Assurance of salvation first, and service afterwards. It is not service first, and then security. The young man will not make a move in David's service until he has the assurance of his own safety. He was wise in this. Are you as wise, my friend? Have you the assurance of your own salvation? If not, you have no business doing so-called "Christian work." Service does not win security, though many people think it does.
Even a freed man can still fear his old master. One writer applies this to a believer who is clear about forgiveness but still fears the power of sin inside:
The believer needs to know he is completely free from the rule of his old master, the flesh, before he can give himself with confidence to the service of Christ... Until we know and believe that sin has no rule over us, we must keep thinking about ourselves. We will keep discovering the sin at work inside us, and so we will keep fearing that we may be handed back to our old oppressor. We may be very clear about the theory of justification by faith... and yet be so troubled about the sin inside us that it completely blocks our service to Christ and His Church.
The man asks for a word he can rest on. Once given, that word turns a runaway into a fighter against his old side:
David's oath set the young man's mind at rest and enabled him to act with David against the Amalekites. In the same way, the word of Christ drives fear and hesitation out of the believer's heart, and enables him, through the Spirit, to act against his former master — the flesh.
The verse begins with David's question. One writer hears the Lord's own call in it, and takes David's reply as given:
David then asks the man if he will bring him down to this band of the Amalekites. This is similar to the Lord asking a newly converted person if he will bring Christ to his former friends. The man agreed only on one condition: David must swear to him by God that he would not kill him and would not give him back into the hands of his master. We do not need to be told that David gave him this assurance. God gives similar assurance to all who trust the Lord Jesus as Savior. The words of the Lord Jesus are, "they will never perish" (John 10:28).
Nothing about this encounter looks strategic. Yet the rescue of the entire company hung on it:
An Egyptian slave left behind to die puts David on the enemy's track. One sees God's hand in this circumstance. Without this poor man dying of hunger the expedition would have failed miserably. When we strengthen ourselves in the Lord our God, what mighty help He gives us, and how unexpected!
- Discarded. The old master used the man while he was useful and abandoned him the moment he fell sick — the way the devil treats his servants.
- Asked. David's request for guidance is like the Lord asking a new believer to bring Christ to his former friends.
- Assured. He would not move until a sworn word covered both his fears: David would not kill him, and David would not send him back.
- Freed for service. Assurance came first and service second. A heart still afraid of its old master stays busy with itself and cannot serve.
- Used. The one man everybody else wrote off became the key to the whole recovery — unexpected help for those who strengthen themselves in the Lord.
And he brought him down, and behold, they were spread over the whole land, 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.
The Egyptian slave keeps his word and leads David to the raiders' camp. David finds no army braced for attack — only a crowd spread across the countryside, celebrating over the spoil they have taken.
David only reaches this camp because of a half-dead man his soldiers picked up in a field.
An Egyptian slave left behind to die puts David on the enemy's track. You can see God's hand in this. Without this poor man dying of hunger the expedition would have failed miserably. When we strengthen ourselves in the Lord our God, what mighty help He gives us, and how unexpected it is!
The same man had been a slave of one of these Amalekites. His change of master shapes the scene:
His strength comes back and he is well again. Once a slave of Amalek, he now becomes a servant of David. He leads David down to the enemy, who are resting in careless security, drunk and celebrating their victory.
Some of the goods they were celebrating over were David's own. Ziklag was his town, and he had left it to travel with Achish. One writer draws a warning from that:
David had not been caring for his own city, but was on an ill-advised trip with Achish. This is an important spiritual lesson for us. When we are not on guard and in communion with the Lord, the lusts of the flesh — which Amalek pictures — will almost certainly take advantage of us. This will not completely destroy a believer. But it will rob him of much that God has entrusted to him.
One writer sets this meal beside other feasts in Scripture.
In 1 Samuel 30:16 we get another feast. It pictures the short-lived joy the world has… But the devil never raises a banner of love over his followers. Their passing joy in things that perish really is short-lived. Destruction comes on them suddenly, before the morning light. "While people are saying, 'There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape" (1 Thess. 5:3).
The same writer turns this on the reader's own appetite:
Of course, if you are going to nibble at the fleshly things the world spreads out for its followers, it will spoil your appetite for spiritual things. You cannot be feasting at His banquet table and share in what the world feeds on as well.
David was already on his way while they were celebrating.
They were having a "merry time," as people say, when the vengeance of David was threatening to destroy them. Those Amalekites are like this God-hating, Christ-rejecting, Spirit-resisting, grace-abusing world. The awful judgment of God is threatening them, but they eat and drink and dance and sing as if it were not so.
David attacks, and the party ends.
While the enemy is eating, drinking, and dancing, "sudden destruction comes upon them." David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken. Nothing was missing — small or great, sons or daughters, or any of the spoil. David brought it all back (vv. 18-19), along with an abundance of spoil besides (v. 20).
One writer also reads the whole rescue forward. David suddenly appears, overthrows the Amalekites and frees every captive. In this he is a picture of Christ, who will appear "with all His armies from heaven for the deliverance of Israel, His earthly people, and the judgment of the nations who are at enmity against God."
- Guided. A dying slave nobody valued led David to the enemy. Strengthen yourself in the Lord, and help comes from where you never expected.
- Robbed. David lost Ziklag while he was away. When we are off guard, the lusts of the flesh take what God has entrusted to us.
- Feasting. The eating, drinking and dancing picture the world's short-lived joy. The devil raises no banner of love over his followers.
- Secure. They were merry because they felt safe. That is the mistake of everyone who says "peace and security" while destruction is already on the way.
- Recovered. David broke up the feast and brought everything back. Nothing was missing, small or great — and there was spoil besides.