1 Samuel 30:23 David replied, “No, my brothers, you must not do that with what the LORD has given us. He has protected us and delivered into our hands the raiding party that came against us.
Too often people take credit for what is not theirs to take credit for. Or to put it another way, people don’t give credit where credit is due. We are very quick to pass along blame to other people, but we are not so quick to reassign credit that came our way, but wasn’t ours to own.
We see it everyday with the people in charge in this world, those with wealth and power, those at the top, those who make decisions for other people, but don’t live by those decisions. They are quick to take credit for the times things go well. That is what the powerbrokers of this world do. And it has always been this way down through history.
Nobody likes bad news. But what is worse than that is having to be the one to deliver the bad news. But the worst is when you are the cause of the bad news!
Our text comes near the end of the first half of the double volume book of Samuel. It is one book in the Hebrew original that was broken into two in our English translations. The split happens at the place in the story when Saul dies and David becomes Israel’s leader. That is the place where Second Samuel starts.
Our text highlights the character of David in contrast to that of Saul. David has just rescued his family and the families of his men from raiders who attacked his town when he had gone off to begin a battle with his temporarily adopted king, the king of the Philistines. He hadn’t been loyal to him, but had hidden his loyalty to Israel from Israel’s enemy, the Philistines.
At this point, Saul was still a danger to David, having repeatedly attempted to kill him. David had fled to Philistine territory in an attempt to stay alive. He knows he will be king of Israel one day, but has chosen to allow the LORD’s timing to rule this decision.
David has on at least two occasions not killed Saul, even when he could have done so very easily. His men wanted him to do it. Logic seemed to dictate it, since, after all, Saul was trying to kill him. Who wouldn’t kill the person trying to kill you! Self-preservation!
But David took a different path. He was willing to wait. And this is where our text comes in.
David has returned from the battle and meets the two hundred men who had to stop the battle pursuit because of exhaustion. The spoils of war are being divided and his men don’t want to include these two hundred in the distribution. David sees it very differently.
David sees the spoils of war, not as his to own, but as the LORD’s to distribute. It was the LORD who gave him victory. The spoils were not his! They were not his men’s! They were the LORD’s.
And since the plunder was the LORD’s, who was he to withhold the blessing from those who stayed behind. If it had been wages for effort, then a varied distribution would have been warranted. But since they were given freely by the LORD, they would be freely distributed.
David was not about amassing power, at least at this point in his life. He still had humility on his side. If only humility were a trait valued today!
So instead, we have power-grabbers and credit-takers running the place. Do we exhibit humility, or have we adopted the attitude and actions of the world’s powerful?
The Arnold Journey 