1 Samuel 30:2

2. Taken the women captives The men were all absent with David, but the wives and children (see 1 Samuel 27:3, and note) remained in Ziklag. Upon finding the town burned and their wives and children gone, David and his men probably thought first of all that plunderers from the south had been wreaking vengeance for David’s late conquests in that country, and had every reason to suppose that their families had been massacred.