Bible Strands
1 Samuel 30:1
On 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
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Study note
Setting — David and his men return to Ziklag on the third day after departing Philistine territory. They discover the city already raided, attacked, and burned by the Amalekites.
The words — The Hebrew construction וַיְהִי (va/y.Hi) and the temporal phrase בְּבֹא (be./Vo') mark the narrative pivot at the moment of arrival. The text explicitly identifies the raiders as עֲמָלֵקִי (Amalekites) before detailing their actions.
The thread — 1 Samuel 30:2 immediately follows by noting the captives spared from death and taken along the route. The Amalekite presence connects to the earlier military campaign recorded in 1 Samuel 15:7 where Saul struck them from Havilah to Shur.
Why it lands — The verse documents a completed destruction preceding the protagonist's arrival, establishing an immediate crisis. It requires the reader to note the sequence of events without providing theological commentary or narrative resolution.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire;
Cross-references
- 1 Samuel 15:7 Then Saul struck down the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, which is east of Egypt.
- 1 Samuel 29:11 So David and his men got up early in the morning to return to the land of the Philistines. And the Philistines went up to Jezreel.
- Joshua 11:6 Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, for by this time tomorrow I will deliver all of them slain before Israel. You are to hamstring their horses and burn up their chariots.”
- 1 Samuel 27:8 Now David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites. (From ancient times these people had inhabited the land extending to Shur and Egypt.)
- 1 Samuel 29:4 But the commanders of the Philistines were angry with Achish and told him, “Send that man back and let him return to the place you assigned him. He must not go down with us into battle only to become our adversary during the war. What better way for him to regain the favor of his master than with the heads of our men?
- Genesis 24:62 Now Isaac had just returned from Beer-lahai-roi, for he was living in the Negev.
- 2 Samuel 1:2 On the third day a man with torn clothes and dust on his head arrived from Saul’s camp. When he came to David, he fell to the ground to pay him homage.