Wars of David - Great Ammonite and Syrian Campaign against Israel - The Auxiliaries are Defeated in turn -

The capital of Moab Is taken - Edom subdued - Record of David's officers - His kindness to Mephibosheth.

(2 SAMUEL 8, 9; 1 CHRONICLES 18-20)

BY a fitting arrangement, the record of God's promise to establish the kingdom of David is followed by an

account of all his wars, though here also the order is not strictly chronological. In fact, we have merely a

summary of results, which is all that was necessary in a history of the kingdom of God - the only exception

being in the case of the war with Ammon and their allies the Syrians, which is described in detail in 2 Samuel

10 and 11 because it is connected with David's great sin. As might be expected, the first war was with the

Philistines, whom David subdued, taking "out of the hand of the Philistines the bridle of the mother"  288 - that

is, as we learn from 1Chronicles 18:1, the command of Gath, "the mother," or principal city of the Philistine

confederacy - which henceforth became tributary to Israel.

The next victory was over the Moabites, who must have, in some way, severely offended against Israel,

since the old friendship between them was not only broken (1 Samuel 22:3, 4), but terrible punishment meted

out to them - the whole army being made to lie down, when two -thirds, measured by line, were cut down,

and only one third left alive. It was, no doubt, in this war that Benaiah, one of David's heroes, "slew two

lion-like men of Moab" (1 Chronicles 11:22).

The next contest, mentioned in 2 Samuel 8:3-6, evidently formed only an incident in the course of the great

war against Ammon and its confederates, which is detailed at length in the tenth and eleventh chapters of 2

Samuel. From the number of auxiliaries whom the Ammonites engaged against Israel, this was by far the

greatest danger which threatened the kingdom of David. As such it is brought before the Lord in Psalm 44

and 60, while the deliverance Divinely granted, with all that it typically implied concerning the future victory

of God's kingdom, is gratefully celebrated in Psalm 68. In fact, Ammon had succeeded in girdling the whole

Eastern frontier of the land with steel. Up in the far north-east rose Hadad-Ezer (Hadad, the sun-god, is

help), and arrayed against Israel his kingdom of Zobah, which probably lay to the north-east of Damascus.

Nor was he alone. With him were the forces of the Syrian (probably) vassal-territory, south of Hamath,

between the Orontes and the Euphrates, of which Rehob (Numbers 13:21; Judges 18:28), or Beth-Rehob, was

the capital. Descending still further south, along the northeastern frontier of Palestine, was the kingdom of

Maacah (Deuteronomy 3:14), which joined in the war against Israel, as well as the men of Tob, who

inhabited the territory between Syria and Ammon, where Jephthah had erewhile found refuge (Judges 11:5).

Next we reach the territory of Ammon, from which the war originally proceeded. In the far south Moab had

been only just subdued, while the Edomites made a diversion by overrunning the valley south of the Dead

Sea - and a stubborn enemy they proved. Thus, as already stated, the whole eastern, northeastern, and

south-eastern frontier was threatened by the enemy.

The occasion of this war was truly Oriental. Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, seems on some occasion,

not otherwise known, to have shown kindness to David (2 Samuel 10:2). On his death, David, who never lost

grateful remembrance, sent an embassy of sympathy to Hanun, the son and successor of Nahash. This the

Ammonite p rinces chose to represent as only a device, preparatory to an attack on their capital, similar in

character to that which so lately had laid Moab waste (8:2). There was something cowardly and deliberately

provocative in the insult which Hanun put upon David's ambassadors, such as Orientals would specially

feel, by shaving off the beard on one side of their face, and cutting off their long flowing dress from below

up to the middle. It was an insult which, as they well knew, David could not brook; and Ammon accordingly

prepared for war by raising, as we have described, all the border tribes as auxiliaries against Israel. A sum of

not less than a thousand talents, or about 375,000 pounds, was spent on these auxiliaries (1 Chronicles 19:6),

who amounted altogether to thirty-two thousand men - consisting of chariots, horsemen, and footmen289 -

besides the one thousand men whom the king of Maacah furnished (2 Samuel 10:6; 1 Chronicles 19:6, 7).