1 Samuel 30:21

21 When David came to the 200 men who had been too exhausted to go with him and had been left at the Wadi Besor,^[a] they came out to meet him and to meet the troops with him. When David approached the men, he greeted them,

1 Samuel 30:21 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 30:21

And David came to the two hundred men
Left at the brook Besor:

who were so faint that they could not follow David;
or, as the Targum, were restrained from going over after him; either through faintness of spirits, and weakness of body, or through the order of David that they should not follow him; and which seems to receive some countenance from what follows:

whom they had made also to abide at the brook Besor;
to guard the passage there, and to tarry by and keep the stuff:

and they went forth to meet David, and to meet the people that [were]
with him;
to congratulate them upon the victory they had obtained, and to see and receive their wives and children, and what portion of the spoil might be divided to them:

and when David came near to the people, he saluted them;
asked them of their welfare, whether they were in better health, and recovered of their faintness and weakness, as it should seem they were, by their coming forth to meet him.

1 Samuel 30:21 In-Context

19 Nothing [of theirs] was missing from the youngest to the oldest, including the sons and daughters, of all the plunder the Amalekites had taken. David got everything back.

20 He took all the sheep and cattle, which were driven ahead of the other livestock, and the people shouted, "This is David's plunder!"

21 When David came to the 200 men who had been too exhausted to go with him and had been left at the Wadi Besor, they came out to meet him and to meet the troops with him. When David approached the men, he greeted them,

22 but all the worthless men among those who had gone with David retorted, "Because they didn't go with us, we will not give any of the plunder we recovered to them except for each man's wife and children. They may take them and go."

23 But David said, "My brothers, you must not do this with what the Lord has given us. He protected us and handed over to us the raiders who came against us.

Footnotes

• [a]. 1 Sm 30:9-10