properly · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
Egyptian
אִישׁ'ish-
H376
a man as an individual or a male person · noun, common masculine singular absolute
field
בַּשָּׂדֶ֔הba.sa.Deh
H7704
a field (as flat) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
brought
וַיִּקְח֥וּvai.yik.Chu
H3947
to take (in the widest variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
David
דָּוִ֑דda.Vid
H1732
David · proper noun, a man's name
gave
וַיִּתְּנוּvai.yi.te.nu-
H5414
to give · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
bread
לֶ֙חֶם֙le.chem
H3899
food (for man or beast) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
eat
וַיֹּ֔אכַלvai.Yo.khal
H398
to eat (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
drink
וַיַּשְׁקֻ֖הוּvai.yash.Ku.hu
H8248
to quaff · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
water
מָֽיִםMa.yim
H4325
water · noun, common masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Deuteronomy 23:7 Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land.
Romans 12:20-21 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Deuteronomy 15:7-11 If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt n…
Proverbs 25:21 If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:
Matthew 25:35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Luke 10:36-37 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 30:7-20
Solomon observes that the righteous is delivered out of trouble and the wicked cometh in his stead, that the just falleth seven times a-day and riseth again; so it was with David. Many were his troubles, but the Lord delivered him out of them all, and particularly out of this of which we have here an account.
I. He enquired of the Lord both concerning his duty - Shall I pursue after this troop? and concerning the event - Shall I overtake them? Sa1 30:8. It was a great advantage to David that he had the high priest with him and the breast-plate of judgment, which, as a public person, he might consult in all his affairs, Num 27:21. We cannot think that he left Abiathar and the ephod at Ziklag,…
they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David--Old and homeborn slaves are usually treated with great kindness. But a purchased or captured slave must look to himself; for, if feeble or sick, his master will leave him to perish rather than encumber himself with any additional burden. This Egyptian seems to have recently fallen into the hands of an Amalekite, and his master having belonged to the marauding party that had made the attack on Ziklag, he could give useful information as to the course taken by them on their return.
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 30:9
The brook Besor - This had its source in the mountain of Idumea, and fell into the Mediterranean Sea beyond Gaza. Some suppose it to have been the same with the river of the wilderness, or the river of Egypt. The sense of this and the following verse is, that when they came to the brook Besor, there were found two hundred out of his six hundred men so spent with fatigue that they could proceed no farther. The baggage or stuff was left there, Sa1 30:24, and they were appointed to guard it.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 30:11
And they found an Egyptian in the field,.... As they passed along, lying there, having been sick, and was half starved, almost dead:
and brought him to David; to know what was to be done with him; being in the habit of a soldier, they concluded he might be one of the company they were in pursuit of; but whether they should kill him, or make use of him for intelligence and as a guide, could they bring him to himself, they knew not, and therefore brought him to David:
and gave him bread, and he did eat, and they made him drink water; both which they had with them for their own use; had he been an Amalekite, and not an Egyptian, they might not have relieved or spared him, but must have destro…
The Church Fathers
And they found an Egyptian man in the field, etc. The Catholic teachers hastening to engage in the battle with the heretics often find men abandoned by them, notable for the dark stain of their sins, unable to follow the teachers of error to devastate the Church due to the tenderness of their intellect; and they bring them to hear the Catholic faith, giving them the bread and water of the word; but they also add the sayings of preceding teachers, who, from the most beautiful tree of the present Church, as it were, from the fig tree, or severed at the brink of life and death, throughout the entire year of this current age which is now being lived, do not cease to preserve the mature memory of their teaching to refresh the souls of the faithful. And they well give a fragment of the dough, because they suggest not complete works to such people, but the sayings of the fathers deemed sufficient. They well give two clusters of grapes; because they show that they are to be united to Christ and the Church by the bonds of dual love.
The poor and the feeble, the blind and the lame, are called and come because the weak and the despised in this world are often quicker to hear the voice of God, as in this world they have nothing to delight them.The Egyptian servant of the Amalekites is a good example of this. When the Amalekites were plundering and moving about, he was left behind on the road sick and fainting from hunger and thirst. When David found him, he provided him with food and drink, and as soon as he revived he became David's guide, found the celebrating Amalekites, and with great bravery overthrew the people who had left him behind sick. Amalekite means "a people that laps." What does "a people that laps" signify but the hearts of the worldly? Going about after the things of earth, it is as if they are lapping them up when they take delight in temporal things alone. A lapping people takes plunder, so to speak, when out of its love for earthly things it heaps up profit from others' losses. The Egyptian servant is left behind on the road sick, because all sinners, once they begin to grow weak from the situation of this world, soon come to be despised by worldly minds. David found him and provided him with food and drink, because the Lord, who is "brave in hand" (if we attribute to him the meaning of David's name), does not despise what the world has cast aside. Often he directs to the grace of his love those who are not strong enough to follow the world, and who are, so to speak, left behind on the road, holding out to them the food and drink of his word. It is as if he chooses them as guides for himself on the road when he makes them his preachers. When they bring Christ to the hearts of sinners, it is as if they are leading David upon the enemy, and, like David, they strike the celebrating Amalekites with the sword, because by the Lord's power they overthrow all the proud who had despised them in the world.
Dictionary and topics
Amalekites — a nomadic tribe of uncertain origin, which occupied the peninsula of Sinai and the wilderness intervening between the southern hill-ranges of Palestine and the border of Egypt. (Numbers 13:29; 1…
Robbery — Practised by the Ishmaelites (Gen. 16:12), the Chaldeans and Sabeans (Job 1:15, 17), and the men of Shechem (Judg. 9:25. See also 1 Sam. 27:6-10; 30; Hos. 4:2; 6:9). Robbers infested Judea in our…
Abiathar · .Consults the ephod for David — .Consults the ephod for David
Abigail · .Taken — .Taken
Amalekites · General references — General references
Amalekites, The · Pursued and slain by David — Pursued and slain by David
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
On their further march they found an Egyptian lying exhausted upon the field; and having brought him to David, they gave him food and drink, namely "a slice of fig-cake (cf. Sa1 25:18), and raisin-cakes to eat; whereupon his spirit of life returned (i.e., he came to himself again), as he had neither eaten bread nor drunk water for three days."
Tyndale Open Study Notes on 1 Samuel 30:11-12
David had once received bread when he was famished (21:3-7). He and his men helped this Egyptian man before they even knew his identity or his ability to help their cause.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 30:10
Who were too exhausted. Who refrained; and I say that this is Aramaic, the translation of וְנֶהֶרְסוּ1Yechezkeil 30:4. [=and they will be destroyed].