Besor

Besor (meaning: glad news or cold) was a ravine or brook in the extreme southwest of Judah, on the route toward the Egyptian border. It marks the site of one of the most humanly significant episodes in David's wilderness years: when David and his men pursued the Amalekites who had raided and burned Ziklag and carried off the wives and children of all the fighters, two hundred of the six hundred men were too exhausted to cross the brook Besor and remained behind.

The theological importance of Besor lies in the principle David established afterward. When the victorious four hundred returned with recovered families and Amalekite spoil, some of the fighters refused to share the plunder with those who had stayed by the supplies at the brook. David overruled them, establishing as a statute in Israel that as his share is that goes down to the battle, so shall his share be that stays by the baggage; they shall share alike—a principle of covenantal equity that acknowledged different forms of service as equally valid contributions to the common cause.