'As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be
that tarrieth by the stuff.'--1 Samuel xxx. 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.