Imagine the scene, I mean really try to imagine it, as David and his men returned to their home, the city of Ziklag, and found the site sacked, burned-out and strewn with bodies. Their wives and little children had been carried off by who knows who, and, if they remained alive, were experiencing who knows what. The kind of scene that they arrived home to would have been all too familiar to these hard men. Back in chapter 27 we were informed that David and his men had set out from Ziklag many times to “strike the land” of the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites and they had made it their policy to “leave neither man nor woman alive” when they did so. And now as they surveyed the bitter wreckage of Ziklag I can only imagine what images, memories, and emotions filled their minds.

1 Samuel 30:4-6, “Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. David’s two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.”

Many times we have made the observation that David is a complicated figure. He’s rarely, if ever, purely a role model or a villain. David is both famous for his faith, and infamous for his failures. He was a shepherd, a giant killer, a musician and song writer, a worshipper, a husband, and father and friend. He was a warrior King, a prophet, and someone whom God’s Word describes as “a man after God’s own heart.” However, he was also, at times, a philanderer, a murderer, a liar, and a self-willed, disobedient man. In the final analysis, despite all of his accomplishments, David was a sinner in need of a Savior just like you and me.

I hope you can listen in as we study what happens next and seek what God has to say to us through this difficult chapter in David’s life.