So Achish was obliged to dismiss David. “The princes will not have you,” he said. “Come now, to-morrow morning by the first light, rise up and get you gone.” And when the sun rose on the morrow, David and his men were on their way to Ziklag.
But when they came in sight of Ziklag, their joy was turned to lamentation; for, behold, the whole place was on fire. A cloud of black smoke covered the town, and underneath the smoke were heaps of ashes. Not a living soul remained. The Amalekites had come and destroyed the town, and had carried away the women and children into captivity.
At first, the whole six hundred sat down upon the ground and cried. Then they got up with stones in their hands, and began to mutter something about throwing them at David’s head. But Abiathar, the priest said: “The thing to do is to follow the Amalekites. Quick! let us pursue and overtake them!”
So off they started on the run, and never stopped till they came to the bank of the brook Besor. And then two hundred men lay down and declared that they could go no further. But the others pushed still forward over the brook.
By and by, in a field, they found a man who, at first sight, seemed to be dead. But they raised him up, and gave him bread and he did eat, and they made him drink water, and they gave him a piece of a cake of figs and two clusters of raisins. And when he had eaten, his spirit came to him again. For he had eaten no bread, nor drunk any water three days and three nights.
And David said, “To whom belongest thou? and whence art thou?”
And he said, “I am a young man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite, and my master left me, because three days ago I fell sick. We had been on a raid, and had burned Ziklag.”
And David said, “Canst thou bring me down to this company?”
And after David had promised neither to kill him nor to give him up to his master, the man agreed to act as guide.
As the sun was setting, they came in sight of the Amalekites, eating and drinking and dancing like wild Indians, because of the great spoil which they had taken. And David smote them so suddenly and fiercely that they were surprised and overcome. Four hundred of them, young men on swift camels, escaped, but all the spoil remained. There was nothing lacking, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters: David recovered all.