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CHAPTER 18 : 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
(^)