Raisins

Dried grapes appear four times in the books of Samuel-Chronicles, always as part of a provision-list and always around David. The pattern is consistent: clusters of raisins are listed beside loaves, figs, parched grain, wine, or sheep, given as concrete supplies that meet a present need.

Abigail's Provision for David

When Nabal refuses to feed David's company, Abigail intercepts the threat with a swift, well-stocked train. Raisins appear in the inventory between the parched grain and the cakes of figs:

"Then Abigail hurried, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five seahs of parched grain, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys." (1Sa 25:18).

Reviving the Starving Egyptian

After the Amalekite raid on Ziklag, David's men find an exhausted Egyptian abandoned in the field. Two clusters of raisins, joined to a cake of figs, are enough food to revive him:

"And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs, and two clusters of raisins: and when he had eaten, his spirit came again to him; for he had eaten no bread, nor drank any water, three days and three nights." (1Sa 30:12).

The same dried fruit that filled Abigail's tribute pack now functions as concentrated emergency rations.

Ziba's Gift to the Fleeing King

When David flees Jerusalem during Absalom's revolt, Ziba meets him on the ascent with a saddled donkey-train. Raisins again appear in the loaded inventory:

"And when David was a little past the top [of the ascent], look, Ziba the attendant of Mephibaal met him, with a couple of donkeys saddled, and on them two hundred loaves of bread, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and an ephah of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine." (2Sa 16:1).

The Tribes' Provision at Ziklag

The crowning instance comes when the tribes converge on David at Ziklag to make him king. The Chronicler records a wide regional gathering — Issachar, Zebulun, Naphtali — bringing victuals on every kind of pack animal, with raisins again named among the staples:

"Moreover those who were near to them, [even] as far as Issachar and Zebulun and Naphtali, brought bread on donkeys, and on camels, and on mules, and on oxen, victuals of meal, cakes of figs, and clusters of raisins, and wine, and oil, and oxen, and sheep in abundance: for there was joy in Israel." (1Ch 12:40).

In each scene the cluster of raisins is part of a larger gift: hospitality, revival, loyalty, or coronation joy.