1 Samuel 30 Bible study: They shall share alike

The raid took everything. The Amalekites "had struck Ziklag and burned it with fire, and had taken captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great" (30:1-2). But the same verse adds, "They didn’t kill any, but carried them off and went their way" (30:2). When David asks whether to pursue, the answer comes: "Pursue, for you will surely overtake them, and will without fail recover all" (30:8) (tap recovered). In Hebrew without fail recover is one verb said twice, hatsel tatsil. And it happens as it was said: "David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken, and David rescued his two wives" (30:18). "There was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither plunder, nor anything that they had taken. David brought them all back" (30:19). The raid's "both small and great" (30:2) comes back as "neither small nor great" (30:19).

1 Samuel 30:24→leads toMatthew 20:14

David's rule: "For as his share is who goes down to the battle, so shall his share be who stays with the baggage. They shall share alike" (30:24). In a parable of Jesus, the workers hired first see the last paid the same and say, "These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!" (Matthew 20:12). The master answers, "Friend, I am doing you no wrong" (Matthew 20:13), and "It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you" (Matthew 20:14). Jesus doesn't cite 1 Samuel 30, so setting them side by side is a reading. Some see the same thing in both: those who did less are given the same, over the objection of others, and the answer turns on whose the goods are: to David the plunder is "that which the LORD has given to us" (30:23); the master asks, "Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own?" (Matthew 20:15). Others keep them apart: David makes a rule for plunder among his fighting men, "a statute and an ordinance for Israel" (30:25), while Jesus' parable is about "the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 20:1) and ends, "So the last will be first, and the first last" (Matthew 20:16).

נָצַלnatsalsay na-TSAL

Strong's: "to snatch away"; Brown-Driver-Briggs gives "snatch away, deliver", and for the form used here, "rescue, recover". The chapter uses it five times. The LORD's answer has it twice: "will without fail recover all" (30:8), in Hebrew hatsel tatsil. "David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken, and David rescued his two wives" (30:18) is the verb twice again, and the wicked men call it "the plunder that we have recovered" (30:22). David used it before he faced Goliath: "I went out after him, struck him, and rescued it out of his mouth" (17:35), and "The LORD, who delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine" (17:37).