Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 30:6

"And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David strengthened himself in Jehovah his God." — 1 Samuel 30:6 (ASV)

For the people spoke of stoning him. —Probably the discontent and anger of the people had been previously aroused by David’s close connection with Achish, which had imposed upon these valiant Israelites the bitter degradation of having had to march against their own countrymen under the banner of the Philistine King of Gath. And now, finding that David had neglected to provide against the Amalekite raid, their pent-up fury expressed itself in this way. Then David, as we shall see, threw himself, with all his old perfect trustfulness, upon the mercy of his God.

But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. —He encouraged himself in prayer, thereby casting himself and his fortunes on the God who, years before, had chosen him to be “His anointed.” It was this trust, as we have seen before in his own case, and in the case of Jonathan too, as it had been in former days with all the heroes of Israel—this perfect, childlike, implicit trust in the “Glorious Arm”—which had been the source of the marvelous success of the chosen people. When they forgot the invisible King, who for His own great purposes had chosen them, their fortunes at once declined; they fell to the level, and often below the level, of the surrounding nations.

We have many notable examples of this. For instance, in the lives of Samson and Saul, we see how, when, with weeping and mourning, they returned to their allegiance and again leaned on the “Arm,” success and victory returned to them. This is what then happened to David at Ziklag, while around the same time Saul, alone and distrustful, fought and fell on the bloody day of Gilboa. David, with the help of his God, on whose mercy he had thrown himself, obtained his brilliant success over Amalek and restored his prestige not only among his own immediate followers but also throughout all the cities and villages of Southern Canaan.