1 Samuel 30:26 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 30:26
And when David came to Ziklag, he sent of the spoil unto the elders of Judah, even to his friends, saying, Behold a present for you of the spoil of the enemies of the LORD;
old · preposition + adjective, masculine plural construct
Judah
יְהוּדָ֖הye.hu.Dah
H3063
Jehudah (or Judah) · proper noun, a place name
friends
לְרֵעֵ֣הוּle.re.'E.hu
H7453
an associate (more or less close) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
saying
לֵאמֹ֑רle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
present
בְּרָכָ֔הbe.ra.Khah
H1293
benediction · noun, common feminine singular absolute
spoil
מִשְּׁלַ֖לmi.she.Lal
H7998
booty · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
enemies
אֹיְבֵ֥י'o.ye.Vei
H341
hating · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct
LORD
יְהוָֽהYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
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
1 Samuel 25:27 And now this blessing which thine handmaid hath brought unto my lord, let it even be given unto the young men that follow my lord.
Genesis 33:11 Take, I pray thee, my blessing that is brought to thee; because God hath dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough. And he urged h…
2 Kings 5:15 And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no…
1 Chronicles 12:1-15 Now these are they that came to David to Ziklag, while he yet kept himself close because of Saul the son of Kish: and they were among the mi…
Psalms 35:27 Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pl…
Psalms 68:18 Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD G…
Proverbs 18:16-24 A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.
Isaiah 32:8 But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 30:21–end
We have here an account of the distribution of the spoil which as taken from the Amalekites. When the Amalekites had carried away a rich booty from the land of Judah and the Philistines they spent it in sensuality, in eating, and drinking, and making merry with it; but David disposed of the spoil taken after another manner, as one that knew that justice and charity must govern us in the use we make of whatever we have in this world. What God gives us he designs we should do good with, not serve our lusts with. In the distribution of the spoil,
I. David was just and kind to those who abode by the stuff. They came forth to meet the conquerors, and to congratulate them on this success, though t…
when David came to Ziklag, he sent of the spoil to the elders of Judah--This was intended as an acknowledgment to the leading men in those towns and villages of Judah which had ministered to his necessities in the course of his various wanderings. It was the dictate of an amiable and grateful heart; and the effect of this well-timed liberality was to bring a large accession of numbers to his camp (Ch1 12:22). The enumeration of these places shows what a numerous and influential party of adherents to his cause he could count within his own tribe [Sa1 30:27-31].
Next: 1 Samuel Chapter 31
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 30:26
Unto the elders of Judah - These were the persons among whom he sojourned during his exile, and who had given him shelter and protection. Gratitude required these presents.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 30:26
And when David came to Ziklag,.... Perhaps with an intention to rebuild it, and make it still the place of his residence; and it is possible there might be some houses that escaped flames, and if not, tents might be pitched until the city was rebuilt, and it appears that he continued there some time:
he sent of the spoil to the elders of Judah: of that part of it which belonged to himself as a general:
even to his friends; such as had been kind to him when he sojourned among them; so that this was a piece of gratitude, as well as of policy in him, to make his way to the throne the easier, he perceiving the time drawing on for the expiration of the kingdom in the family of Saul; and besides…
The Church Fathers
And he sent gifts from the spoil to the elders of Judah, etc. The Lord loves and urges all the members of His Church, in various persons, conditions, and ages, to always rejoice in His victory, in the perpetual increase of His kingdom, and whenever they see souls previously corrupted by the devil's sedition restored to the Church, to glorify and bless the Father who is in heaven. He especially delights to see those doing this who have preserved their love in a pure heart and have held on to the sayings or examples of the saints in the diligent memory of a chaste conscience. For this is the true David exulting and either hosting or defending his men. Likewise, any catholic teacher, when investigating, exposing, and conquering the thorns of heretics, must not delay revealing these things to other brothers, whether by conversing or even writing, for the sake of the knowledge of avoiding and overcoming such things. And note, not only in believing in God but also in loving neighbors, the heretics greatly differ from the catholic and gentiles greatly from Christian perfection. The Amalekites leave behind their tired and dying companion of their journey and expose him as if to be torn apart by wild beasts and birds. But David prepares his tired companions in a safe place for battle and enriches them with abundant peace and blessing upon his return. The title of the fifty-second psalm also recalls this lesson, which reads, "To the end for Amalech, the understanding of David," signifying Christ, who is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Rom. X), for the understanding of the figurative David in bearing with, persecuting, and fighting the Amalekites, what the city of the true David is to suffer from the faithless and what he himself is to repay to them. But the text of the psalm, very easy to understand, throughout rejoices in the mysteries of this lesson; because it begins with the endeavors of the wicked faithless saying, "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God' (Psalm LII)," either claiming there is no God who cares for human affairs or considering within a foolish heart that any person in the holy Trinity is not truly God; and it ends in the triumph of the true David, "When the Lord restores the fortunes of His people, Jacob will exult and Israel will rejoice (Psalm XIII)."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Aroer — Ruins. (1.) A town on the north bank of the Arnon (Deut. 4:48; Judg. 11:26; 2 Kings 10:33), the southern boundary of the kingdom of Sihon (Josh. 12:2). It is now called Arair, 13 miles west of the…
Booty — Captives or cattle or objects of value taken in war. In Canaan all that breathed were to be destroyed (Deut. 20: 16). The “pictures and images” of the Canaanites were to be destroyed also (Num.…
Elder — A name frequently used in the Old Testament as denoting a person clothed with authority, and entitled to respect and reverence (Gen. 50:7). It also denoted a political office (Num. 22:7). The “elders…
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…
Ziklag — A town in the Negeb, or south country of Judah (Josh. 15:31), in the possession of the Philistines when David fled to Gath from Ziph with all his followers. Achish, the king, assigned him Ziklag as…
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).
When David came back to the two hundred men whom he had left by the brook Besor (יושׁיבם, they made them sit, remain), they went to meet him and his warriors, and were heartily greeted by David.
Sa1 30:22
Then all kinds of evil and worthless men of those who had gone with David to the battle replied: "Because they have not gone with us (lit. with me, the person speaking), we will not give them any of the booty that we have seized, except to every one his wife and his children: they may lead them away, and go."
Sa1 30:23-24
David opposed this selfish and envious proposal, saying, "Do not so, my brethren, with that (את, the sign of the accusative, not the preposition; see Ewald, 329, a.: lit.…
elders of Judah . . . his friends: David extended his generosity to influential people throughout his own tribal area, possibly to secure their support for him as king.
