The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
The Amalekites Raid Ziklag
1 Samuel 30:1–6 — The Amalekites Raid Ziklag. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
1On the third day David and his men arrived in Ziklag, and the Amalekites had raided the Negev, attacked Ziklag, and burned it down.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
haš·šə·lî·šî bay·yō·wm way·hî ḏā·wiḏ wa·’ă·nā·šāw bə·ḇō ṣiq·laḡ wa·‘ă·mā·lê·qî p̄ā·šə·ṭū ’el- ne·ḡeḇ wə·’el- ṣiq·laḡ way·yak·kū ’eṯ- ṣiq·laḡ way·yiś·rə·p̄ū ’ō·ṯāh bā·’êš
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-it-came-to-pass, at-the-coming-of David and-his-men toward-Ziklag on-the-day the-third — and-Amalek had-spread-themselves-out against the-Negev and-against Ziklag, and-they-struck Ziklag and-they-burned her with-the-fire.
Where the English smooths the original
The Amalekites had invaded the south. —This was partly in retaliation for the late raids of David in the Amalekite country, partly because Amalek had heard that, owing to the Philistine and Israelite armies having left the southern districts for the central part of Canaan, all the south country was left unguarded.
The word for invaded is the same as in 1 Samuel 27:8 , and implies that they spread themselves over the country to drive off cattle and booty, but with no intention of fighting battles.Pulpit alone in this unit names the lexical identity with 1 Samuel 27:8 that the Verifier independently confirms.
not that they smote the inhabitants of it, there were no men in it, and the women and children they carried captive; but they demolished the buildings in it, pulled down the houses after they had rifled them, and burnt them with fire, that David and his men might dwell there no more.
On the third day - This indicates that Aphek was three days' march from Ziklag, say about 50 milesBarnes reads “third day” as march-distance from Aphek; Ellicott and K&D read it as days since Achish dismissed David. We record the disagreement rather than choose.
2They had taken captive the women and all who were there, both young and old. They had not killed anyone, but had carried them off as they went on their way.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yiš·bū ’eṯ- han·nā·šîm ’ă·šer- bāh miq·qā·ṭōn wə·‘aḏ- gā·ḏō·wl hê·mî·ṯū lō ’îš way·yin·hă·ḡū way·yê·lə·ḵū lə·ḏar·kām
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-took-captive the-women who were-in-her, from-small and-unto-great; they-did-not put-to-death a-man; and-they-drove them, and-they-went to-their-way.
Where the English smooths the original
Their conduct seems to stand in favorable contrast to that of David (1Sa 27:11). But their apparent clemency did not arise from humane considerations.
but principally to God’s overruling and wonderful providence, who set these bounds to their rage; and though he designed to chastise David’s sin and folly, yet would not deliver him nor his up to death.Poole states plainly what the narrative only implies — that this is chastisement, not abandonment. It is a theological judgment laid over the text, offered as such.
These possessed a marketable value, and were carried off to be sold into slavery, probably in Egypt, with which country the Amalekites, as neighbours, had constant dealings.
3When David and his men came to the city, they found it burned down and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḏā·wiḏ wa·’ă·nā·šāw way·yā·ḇō ’el- hā·‘îr wə·hin·nêh śə·rū·p̄āh bā·’êš ū·nə·šê·hem ū·ḇə·nê·hem ū·ḇə·nō·ṯê·hem niš·bū
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-David came, and-his-men, unto the-city — and-behold! burned with-the-fire; and-their-wives and-their-sons and-their-daughters had-been-taken-captive.
Where the English smooths the original
The language implies that the smoke of the conflagration was still visible, and the sacking very recent.
not one of all their dear ones, whom they had left behind—as they thought in security—left to tell the story of the disaster.
For those only remained in the city, when the men were gone to war.
But, observe, that David was brought thus low, only just before he was raised to the throne.Henry's note covers 30:1–6 as a block, so this sentence is not a comment on v. 3 alone; it is his reading of the whole unit's place in the story.
4So David and the troops with him lifted up their voices and wept until they had no strength left to weep.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḏā·wiḏ wə·hā·‘ām ’ă·šer- ’it·tōw ’eṯ- way·yiś·śā qō·w·lām way·yiḇ·kū ‘aḏ ’ă·šer ’ên- bā·hem kō·aḥ liḇ·kō·wṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-lifted-up David and-the-people who were-with-him their-voice, and-they-wept — until that there-was-none in-them strength to-weep.
Where the English smooths the original
In doleful shrieks, and loud lamentations: and wept, until they had no more power to weep; till nature was quite exhausted, and no moisture left
Till either the humour was wholly spent, or the consideration of their calamity had made them stupid.Poole's second alternative is bleaker than the English suggests: not exhausted tears but shock. He offers it as a genuine either/or, and we leave it open.
It is no disparagement,” says Henry, “to the boldest, bravest spirits to lament the calamities of friends or relations.Benson is here quoting Matthew Henry; the sentence is Henry's, recorded by Benson.
5David’s two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel, had been taken captive.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḏā·wiḏ ū·šə·tê nə·šê- ’ă·ḥî·nō·‘am hay·yiz·rə·‘ê·lîṯ wa·’ă·ḇî·ḡa·yil ’ê·šeṯ nā·ḇāl hak·kar·mə·lî niš·bū
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-two wives-of David had-been-taken-captive: Ahinoam the-Jezreelitess, and-Abigail the-woman-of Nabal the-Carmelite.
Where the English smooths the original
that is, who had been his wife; for he was now dead, 1 Samuel 25:39 , and was so before she was married to David
Among those who had been carried off were David's two wives, Ahinoam and AbigailK&D's note on this unit is a single block printed under several verses; this sentence is its closing clause.
6And David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of every man grieved for his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the LORD his God.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
lə·ḏā·wiḏ mə·’ōḏ wat·tê·ṣer kî- hā·‘ām ’ā·mə·rū lə·sā·qə·lōw kî- ne·p̄eš ’îš mā·rāh kāl- hā·‘ām ‘al- bə·nō wə·‘al- bə·nō·ṯāw dā·wiḏ way·yiṯ·ḥaz·zêq Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·hāw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-it-was-pressed-hard for-David exceedingly, for the-people said to-stone-him, for bitter was the-soul of-all the-people, each-man over his-sons and-over his-daughters — but-David strengthened-himself in-YHWH his-God.
Where the English smooths the original
the conviction that welled up in his heart that, in spite of it all, he had a grip of God’s hand as his very own, and God had hold of him.Maclaren's entry is capped in our source; this sentence is from the opening movement of the sermon, on “the Lord his God.”
They laid the blame on him, because he had left no force to guard Ziklag. was grieved ] Was exasperated , lit. “was bitter.” Cp. 1 Samuel 22:2 . encouraged himself ] Strengthened himself.Cambridge's note is in lemma form; the bracket marks quote the English phrase being glossed.
Thus we see that in trouble and adversity we do not consider God's providence, but like raging beasts forget both our own duty and contemn God's appointment over us.Geneva reads the mutiny as a failure of providence-faith. The text itself assigns no verdict to the people, so this is the Reformers' judgment laid on the scene, not the narrator's.
he encouraged himself in the power and providence of God; in the promises of God, and his faithfulness in keeping them; in a view of his covenant relation to God
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The unit opens on a word David himself had owned. פָֽשְׁט֗וּ (pâshaṭ, H6584) means to spread out over open ground and strip it, and Pulpit states the plain lexical fact: “The word for invaded is the same as in 1 Samuel 27:8” — the verse where David is the one spreading out over Amalekite country. The Verifier confirms the shared lexeme independently. Nearly every commentator in this brief, working without each other, reaches the same conclusion about motive: Ellicott (“partly in retaliation for the late raids of David in the Amalekite country”), Benson, Barnes, JFB, Gill, Cambridge and K&D all read the raid as reprisal for 27:8. ⚙ What the Hebrew adds to their agreement is that the text does not merely report a reprisal, it reuses the verb — the narrator files the second raid under the same heading as the first.
The second verse then withholds the one thing the reader expects. הֵמִ֖יתוּ לֹ֥א — “they did not put to death a man” — where David, by Gill's own account of 1 Samuel 27:9, had left nobody alive. The commentators split cleanly on why. JFB is coldest: “The women and boys were reserved for slaves, and the old people were spared out of respect to age.” Ellicott agrees it was market value, with Egypt the likely buyer. Poole alone refuses the transactional reading as sufficient and goes behind it: the sparing is “principally to God's overruling and wonderful providence, who set these bounds to their rage.” Gill, characteristically, holds both — covetousness in the raiders, restraint from God.
K&D's syntactic observation is the key to reading these verses as the Hebrew builds them: vv. 1–4 “form one period,” and “the apodosis to 'It came to pass, when,' etc., does not follow till 1 Samuel 30:4.” Everything — the march, the raid, the fire, the captives, the arrival — is subordinate clause. The sentence does not land until men weep. Verse 3 refuses even a verb of perception: וְהִנֵּ֥ה, and behold, then a feminine passive participle, burned-with-the-fire. JFB reads the smoke as still rising: “the sacking very recent.” Ellicott presses the silence — “not one of all their dear ones … left to tell the story of the disaster” — and Geneva explains why the city was empty of defenders at all: “For those only remained in the city, when the men were gone to war.”
Then the one shared voice. וַיִּשָּׂ֨א is singular, and קוֹלָ֖ם is singular: David lifts, the people are joined to him, and it is one voice. They weep until כֹּ֖חַ — vigour, capacity, the body's means — is simply not in them. Gill takes it physically (“till nature was quite exhausted, and no moisture left”); Poole leaves the alternative open, that “the consideration of their calamity had made them stupid.” Benson, quoting Henry, defends the tears themselves. Verse 5 then delays its verb to the last word, walking the reader past both names and both home towns before saying נִשְׁבּ֑וּ — the third appearance of the exile-root shâbâh in three verses. ⚙ Read from the original up, the unit's structure is an emptying: the city emptied, the household emptied, and finally the men emptied of the very strength to grieve.
Verse 6 is built of three kî-clauses running backwards down a chain of cause: it was pressed hard for David, because the people said to stone him, because the soul of all the people was bitter, each man over his sons and daughters. מָ֙רָה֙ is the word Cambridge insists on: “was grieved ] Was exasperated, lit. 'was bitter.'” Pulpit traces the turn — “from grief they turned to anger, and sought relief for their feelings by venting their rage upon the innocent” — and Ellicott and Poole both add the older grievance underneath it, the humiliation of having marched under Achish at all. Cambridge sends the reader to Exodus 17:4, where Moses cries that the people are “almost ready to stone me”; Gill adds Numbers 14:10. Geneva delivers the verdict the narrator withholds: “in trouble and adversity we do not consider God's providence, but like raging beasts forget both our own duty.”
Against all of that stands one Hitpael. וַיִּתְחַזֵּ֣ק — châzaq, “to fasten upon,” in the reflexive stem: he made himself strong, and the preposition says where he fastened. Gill itemises the handholds: “the power and providence of God; in the promises of God, and his faithfulness in keeping them; in a view of his covenant relation to God.” Benson names the same ground. Maclaren stakes everything on the possessive suffix, arguing that what held David was “the conviction that welled up in his heart that, in spite of it all, he had a grip of God's hand as his very own, and God had hold of him.” Pulpit keeps it from evaporating into sentiment by naming the next thing David actually did: he “summoned the priest to ask counsel and guidance of God by the ephod.” Henry sets the whole unit on its hinge: David “was brought thus low, only just before he was raised to the throne.”
⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested by the text. The unit is a lesson in what a man is left holding when every other support is burned. Note what is absent from v. 6: no oracle has yet been given, no plan formed, no enemy located, no comfort from the men. The only thing available to David is a relation — YHWH his God — and the Hebrew makes his response reflexive and deliberate: וַיִּתְחַזֵּ֣ק, he fastened himself on. That is not the same as feeling better. Verse 4 has already told us what his own כֹּ֖חַ amounted to: none. The strength named in v. 6 is therefore not a recovered reserve but a borrowed one, and the grammar is precise about the direction of the borrowing.
Two honest cautions. First, the commentators' unanimous reading of the raid as retaliation for 1 Samuel 27:8 is an inference from the shared verb and from the chronology, not a statement the narrator makes; he reports the reprisal without moralising it, and we should not manufacture a verdict on David he declines to give. Second, the text never says the people were wrong. Ellicott, Poole and Pulpit all concede they had a case — Ziklag was left undefended — and Geneva's sharp censure of them is the Reformers' judgment, not the narrator's. ⚙ What the passage actually asserts is narrower and harder: that a man who may well have deserved the blame took hold of God rather than of his defence. The line set below in the pull-quote is our own summary sentence — machine commentary, not a verse of Scripture.
The verb he used on Amalek came back for his wives; the only thing not burned in Ziklag was the possessive in “his God.”
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
At 1 Samuel 27:8 David פָּשַׁטs the Geshurites, the Gezrites and the Amalekites; here Amalek פָֽשְׁט֗וּs the Negev and Ziklag. Pulpit names the identity without hedging: “The word for invaded is the same as in 1 Samuel 27:8.” The Verifier independently records both the verb and the ethnic name as shared between the two verses. Ellicott, Benson, Barnes, JFB, Gill, Cambridge and K&D all read this chapter's raid as reprisal for that one. ⚙ We tier this as verbal because the link rests on a genuine, computed lexical identity — not because the narrator draws a moral from it; he does not.
1 Samuel 27:8
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6584 pâshaṭ (in 42 vv) and H6003 ʻĂmâlêqîy (in 12 vv) — a rare ethnic name plus the identical raid-verb; Pulpit independently names the same identity
Eight verses on, an abandoned Egyptian slave describes the raid in the narrator's own vocabulary: 1 Samuel 30:14 uses פָּשַׁט again of the Negev, names צִקְלַג again, and says it was שָׂרַףed with fire. Ellicott identifies him: “It was the Egyptian slave who had fallen sick, and, in consequence, had been deserted … who gave them the details, and told them the story of the invasion.” ⚙ The structural point is that the men who stood dumb before the ash in v. 3 — Ellicott: “not one … left to tell the story” — receive the story back from the mouth of the enemy's own discarded slave, in the narrator's exact three verbs.
1 Samuel 30:14
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6860 Tsiqlag (in 12 vv, rare), H6584 pâshaṭ (in 42 vv), H8313 sâraph (in 107 vv) — a rare proper noun with the two governing verbs repeated
לְסָקְל֔וֹ (çâqal, H5619) is the community's judicial killing, and the Verifier links this verse to 1 Kings 21:15 — Naboth stoned by the contrivance of a Jezreelite queen's letters, the same rare stoning-verb and the same Jezreel-word that names David's wife Ahinoam here. Cambridge points instead to the nearer pattern: “spake of stoning him ] Cp. Exodus 17:4; Numbers 14:10,” where it is Moses who stands before a people ready to stone their leader. Gill cites Numbers 14:10 as well. ⚙ We tier this structural, not verbal: the 1 Kings link is a real shared-lexeme coincidence but carries no quotation, and the Exodus and Numbers parallels rest on the commentators' own cross-referencing, not on any basis the Verifier computed. The pattern is the claim; the wording is not.
1 Kings 21:15 · Exodus 17:4 · Numbers 14:10
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H5619 çâqal (in 20 vv) and H3158 Yizrᵉʻêʼlîy (in 13 vv) for 1 Kings 21:15. The Exodus 17:4 and Numbers 14:10 refs carry NO Verifier basis — they are Cambridge's and Gill's own cross-references, recorded as such
The dual וּשְׁתֵּ֥י binds Ahinoam and Abigail as a set, and the Verifier tracks that set across the David narrative: 1 Samuel 25:3, 25:39 and 25:43 (the marriages), 27:3 (the flight to Gath), here (the captivity), and 2 Samuel 2:2 and 1 Chronicles 3:1, where the same two women go up with David to Hebron and he is made king. Gill supplies the continuity for this verse: “both these came with him to Gath, and were left at Ziklag when he went with Achish.” ⚙ The shared lexemes are personal names, so the link is one of shared cast, not of quotation. Its force is narrative: what is carried off in 30:5 is exactly what walks into the coronation city in 2 Samuel 2:2.
1 Samuel 25:43 · 1 Samuel 27:3 · 2 Samuel 2:2 · 1 Chronicles 3:1
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H26 ʼĂbîygayil (in 17 vv), H293 ʼĂchîynôʻam (in 7 vv, rare), H3158 Yizrᵉʻêʼlîy (in 13 vv), H5037 Nâbâl (in 18 vv) — all proper names, so shared cast rather than shared diction; no quotation claimed
Cambridge glosses וַיִּתְחַזֵּ֣ק as “Strengthened himself” and sends the reader in two directions at once: back to 1 Samuel 23:16, where Jonathan “strengthened his hand in God,” and forward to Ephesians 6:10. Gill independently ends his note on this verse at the same place, quoting the Targum's “he strengthened himself in the Word of the Lord his God” and then naming Ephesians 6:10. ⚙ This link cannot be tiered verbal: Ephesians is Greek and 1 Samuel is Hebrew, so no shared Strong's number is possible in either direction, and the Verifier computed no basis for it. What can be recorded is that two independent public-domain commentators, working from the Hebrew, reached for the same apostolic imperative — the reflexive act of fastening oneself on God because one's own strength has run out.
1 Samuel 23:16 · Ephesians 6:10
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew): no shared Strong's lexeme is possible, and the Verifier returned no basis. The recorded basis is that Cambridge and Gill each cite Ephesians 6:10 on this clause independently; 1 Samuel 23:16 shares the Hebrew root H2388 châzaq by Cambridge's citation, which the Verifier did not compute for this pair
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
Gill closes his note on v. 6 by recording the Targum's rendering: “he strengthened himself in the Word of the Lord his God” — the Aramaic Memra — and Gill then reads that Word christologically, “in Christ the Word of God, and in the power of his might, and in the grace that is in him,” citing Ephesians 6:10. ⚙ We report this as what it is: an ancient Jewish paraphrase that Christian exegesis has long taken as a bridge, and a reading Gill makes explicitly. The Hebrew of v. 6 says only בַּיהוָ֖ה אֱלֹהָֽיו, in YHWH his God; the Memra is the Targum's supplement, not the Masoretic text, and we do not claim otherwise.
Ephesians 6:10 · John 1:1
David is at this hour already anointed and not yet reigning, blamed by the people he leads for a loss he did not cause, and לְסָקְל֔וֹ — they speak of stoning him. Cambridge places him in a line with Moses (Exodus 17:4) and Gill with the congregation at Numbers 14:10: the mediator whom Israel would stone. ⚙ The pattern reaches its end in John 10:31 and 8:59, where the Jews “took up stones again to stone him,” and in Acts 7:58, where the stones fall on the first witness instead. Henry's observation makes the shape unmistakable without any of this: David “was brought thus low, only just before he was raised to the throne.” ⚙ Rejection by the people, then the throne, is a road the New Testament says its King walked; but the stoning-link itself is ours, drawn from the commentators' own Moses parallel, and we mark it novel rather than claiming the fathers for it.
John 10:31 · Acts 7:58 · Exodus 17:4
Maclaren's whole sermon hangs on the suffix in אֱלֹהָֽיו: he argues David was “the very first of all the ancient singers to grapple that thought that he stood in a personal, individual relation to God,” and that this is precisely what he laid hold of at Ziklag. ⚙ That same possessive, in the Psalms attributed to him, becomes Eli, Eli — and the Gospels put it in the mouth of David's son at the point where every other support had been burned away. The parallel is not a quotation of this verse and we do not tier it as one; it is a resonance between the grammar of David's worst hour and the grammar of the cross. Maclaren's historical claim about David's priority is his own and is disputable; the exegetical point does not depend on it.
Psalm 22:1 · Matthew 27:46
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
Text. BSB (CC0) with the Berean interlinear and Strong's numbering. Two surface words in this unit carry no Strong's number in our source — בָּהּ֙ at 30:2 (i.4) and בָּהֶ֛ם at 30:4 (i.11), both preposition-plus-suffix — and we have written no notes keyed to them. At 30:6 (i.14) the surface is written בְּנוֹ while the parse supplied is masculine plural construct with a 3ms suffix (“his sons”); we record the parse as given rather than adjudicating the orthography.
Chronology is genuinely contested. “On the third day” is read three different ways by our sources: Ellicott and K&D count from Achish's dismissal of David; Barnes converts it to distance, “Aphek was three days' march from Ziklag, say about 50 miles”; Gill allows either “from their departure from thence … or rather from the time of their leaving Achish,” and elsewhere gives eighty-eight miles. K&D argues from v. 11 that the sack itself happened three days before David's return. We have not chosen between these and none of them is stated by the text.
Versions. K&D notes that the LXX inserted καὶ πάντα before בּהּ עשׁר at 30:2 and judges the sense correct, since the women alone are named though the children were taken too. That is a versional supplement, not the Masoretic reading.
Sources. The Maclaren entry is capped in our brief (roughly nine thousand further characters unread), so his exposition is represented here only from its opening movement; his claim that David was the first Israelite singer to speak of God as “my God” is his own historical judgment and we flag it as disputable. Henry's note is a single block printed across 30:1–6, as is K&D's, so quotations drawn from them are not comments on any one verse. Poole has no entry for 30:3 or 30:5, and Geneva's entries for 30:2 and 30:5 reproduce the verse text without gloss; no voices were drawn from those.
What we have not claimed. The commentators are unanimous that the raid was reprisal for 1 Samuel 27:8, but the narrator never says so; the shared verb pâshaṭ is the evidence, and it is evidence of vocabulary, not of stated motive. The Exodus 17:4 / Numbers 14:10 stoning parallels and the Ephesians 6:10 link are the commentators' own cross-references and carry no Verifier-computed basis; they are tiered and labelled accordingly. Both christological readings we have marked “novel” are ⚙ machine synthesis offered to be tested, not the consensus of the sources above.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)