More Amalekite Lessons. I think it is instructive to think about the Amalekites as a sort of business entity. What they did was raid unprotected towns in Palestine, carry off the women and children to sell in the Egyptian slave markets (see Joseph and his brothers) and liquidate the rest of the booty. With many towns unprotected because the warriors were off fighting the Philistine/Hebrew wars, it was high cotton.

Other lessons include the very obvious one of not anticipating that David and his warriors might come home early. The question should have been "What can go wrong? What can go wrong?" They forgot to keep asking that question. I think a business that doesn't keep asking that question will finally fail.

This has a family dimension as well. I often see clients who "cash in" too early and point themselves at a life of leisure. In fact, I think I see an entire "demographic", the one that I am in, the aging yuppies, who are ready to do that and, if they cannot, are pretty upset. (The favorite retirement goal of South Florida, non-Latin white yuppies seems to be to retire to the mountains of North Carolina and play golf or tennis for the rest of their lives.)

That generation may ask: "What can go wrong?" All kinds of things. Stock market crash. Hyperinflation. Serious illness. Sudden single-ness for those who are married, brought about by death or total disability of the other spouse or by a broken marriage. Unanticipated and dramatic need among the younger generations that you believed were "set" and for whom you thought you had no further responsibility.