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This verse is taken from:
1 Samuel 30. 1-8
“search the scriptures” John 5:39
Achish, the Philistine king of Gath, had given David the city of Ziklag for the one year and four months that he lived in exile, 1 Sam. 27. 5-7.
He and his men were returning there one day after a long journey and found that the Amalekites had invaded the district, burned their city and taken the inhabitants captive, including their families. They were distraught and cried ‘until they had no more power to weep’, 1 Sam. 30. 4. David’s great distress for his two wives who had been taken captive (Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite) was compounded by the talk amongst his men that he was personally to blame, and they would stone him.
When all things seemed against him, ‘David strengthened himself in the Lord his God’, v. 6 RV; see 2 Tim. 4. 17; Heb. 13. 6 and cp. Ps. 52. 7. This strengthening naturally resulted in prayer and, making use of the ephod, David asked the Lord if he and his men should pursue the enemy and if they could then overtake them. The answer was very positive and specific, ‘Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all’, v. 8.
David and his six hundred men left immediately, but soon two hundred ‘were so faint that they could not go over the brook Besor’, v. 10. As the rest went on, they came across a sick young Egyptian who was a slave of one of the Amalekites. He had not eaten for three days, but they soon revived him with food and drink. From him they found the details of the invasion, and he was able to lead them to the enemy. They found them off-guard, celebrating their great victories and spoil. David and his army fought them ‘from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day: and there escaped not a man of them, save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels, and fled’, v. 17.
The Lord had said that without fail David would recover all, and indeed he did, for the story ends, ‘there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great’, vv. 18-20. The Lord had answered exactly as He had promised.
God hears and answers prayer!
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