Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 30:17

"And David smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day: and there escaped not a man of them, save four hundred young men, who rode upon camels and fled." — 1 Samuel 30:17 (ASV)

From twilight even unto the evening of the next day. —Keil thinks the fighting went on from the evening twilight until the evening of the next day. Bishop Hervey, in the Speaker’s Commentary, with greater probability, suggests that “the twilight is the morning twilight, as the contrast between twilight and evening rather suggests.” David thus arrived at night. And, finding his enemies eating and drinking, he delayed his attack until the morning dawn or twilight, when they would still be sleeping after their drunken revelry.

Although thus taken by surprise, their great numbers and their natural bravery enabled them to prolong the fierce struggle all through the day, and when the shades of evening were falling, four hundred (we read) of the young men, a body of fugitives equal to David’s own force, managed to get clear of the rout and escape. The number of those killed on this occasion must have been very great.