1 Samuel 30

It's actually a good thing that David was dismissed from the Philistine army - he's needed back in Ziklag.

Three days later, David reaches Ziklag. Unfortunately, he finds the city in smoking ruins.

While the men of Ziklag had gone to fight the Hebrew army, Amalekite raiders sacked and pillaged the town. The Amalekites took all the women and children along with the plunder.

Well...this is actually very similar to what David had been doing to Amalekite cities while he was in Ziklag. However, David killed the population and did not carry away women and children.

David's army is mad and want to stone him (reminds me of Moses a few times). He asks the priest if God wants them to chase after the Amalekites and they get an affirmative.

David's army pursues the Amalekites. 200 of his soldiers are too tired to continue, so he presses on with the remaining 400 men.

He finds an Egyptian who was a prior slave of the same Amalekite army who leads David to the Amalekite camp, which is now a big raging party. David's army attacks them, kills most, and sends the rest scurrying off in camels. David's men recover the plunder and as well as all the women and children, including both of David's wives.

The 400 men do not want to share the recovered plunder with the 200, but David demands that they do.

I read an interesting commentary that Ziklag was Davids's "exile" period. Many of the great leaders in the Bible had "exile" periods - Abraham (always in exile), Jacob (with Laban), Joseph (permant exile in Egypt), Moses (with the Midianites), etc...It continued to the New Testament with Christ in Egypt and Paul spent 3 years in the desert.

It's an interesting connection. Of course, many of the important leaders did not have "exile" periods, at least as far as we know - Gideon, Samuel, Saul, Solomon, etc...