1 Samuel 30:24

1 Samuel AT THE FRONT OR THE BASE1 Samuel 30:24 . David’s city of Ziklag had been captured by the Amalekites, while he and all his men who could carry arms were absent, serving in the army of Achish, the Philistine king of Gath. On their return they found ruin, their homes harried, their wives, children, and property carried off. Wearied already with their long march, they set off at once in pursuit of the spoilers, who had had a long start of them. When they reached the brook Besor, two hundred of them were too weary and footsore to ford it, and so had to be left behind. But these were not useless, for the heavy baggage was left in their charge, and the other four hundred were thus enabled to march more lightly, and therefore more swiftly. They picked up a sick slave, whom his Amalekite master had heartlessly abandoned to die on the ‘veldt.’ He was almost dead, so they fed him, and when he was able to answer, questioned him. He undertook to guide David and his band, and thus, as twilight was beginning to fall and the Amalekites were ‘spread abroad over all the ground, eating and drinking and feasting because of all the great spoil that they had taken.’ the four hundred burst on them, routed them utterly, and won back all their goods and much more. Then came a quarrel. The four hundred who had gone to the fight insisted that the booty was theirs, and that the two hundred who had had no hand in winning it should have no share in the distribution.

But David over-ruled this and laid down a principle of distribution which was adopted as the standing law of Israel-that the soldiers who were actually in the fight and those who stayed behind guarding the baggage, looking after ‘the base of operations,’ should share alike. It was fair that they should do so, for the two hundred would willingly have been in the thick of battle, and, further, though they did not fight, they helped the fighters, and by guarding the heavy baggage contributed to the victory as really as if they had been in the fray and come out of it with swords dripping with Amalekite blood. I. God’s battle requires two forms of service. In David’s raid, as in every campaign, some of the available strength has to be taken to guard the camp, the place where the supplies are, the base of operations, and pickets and detachments have to be left behind all the way, to keep open the communication. The sword is not more needful than the long train of baggage carts, and the forwarding of supplies to the front is as indispensable to the conduct of the war as the headlong charge. In every great work there is the same distinction of parts and functions, all co-operating to produce the effect which seems to be entirely due to that cause which happens to come last in the series. Organisation of labour associates many hands in the different stages of the one result. There are very few things in this world which are the product of one simple cause alone.

24 . For who , &c.] Better, And who will hearken unto you as regards this saying? A negative answer is implied: No one; for, &c. The Sept. adds, “for they are not inferior to us.” as his part , &c.] The rule for the division of the spoil between combatants and non-combatants was an ancient one. See Numbers 31:27 ; and cp. Joshua 22:8 . David now enforced a special application of it with reference to the divisions of the army. A similar law existed at Rome. According to Polybius (x. 16. 5), Scipio after the sack of New Carthage directed the tribunes to divide the booty in equal portions to all, including the reserves, the guards of the camp, and the sick. the stuff ] The baggage. See on 1 Samuel 10:22 . they shall part alike ] “Part” = share . The use of the verb in this sense is an archaism. Cp. Acts 2:45 . 1 Samuel 30:24