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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 princes 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 footmen^289 -besides the one thousand men whom the
king of Maacah furnished (2 Samuel 10:6; 1 Chronicles 19:6, 7).
Against this formidable confederacy David sent Joab, at the head of "all the host -
the mighty men," that is, the choicest of his troops (2 Samuel 10:7). Joab found the
enemy in double battle-array. The Ammonite army stood a short distance outside
their capital, Rabbah, while the Syrian auxiliaries were posted on the wide
unwooded plateau of Medeba (1 Chronicles 19:7), about fifteen miles south-west of
Rabbah. Thus Joab found himself shut in between two armies. But his was not the
heart to sink in face of such danger. Dividing his men into two corps, he placed the
best soldiers under his brother Abishai, to meet a possible attack of the Ammonites,
encouraging him with brave and pious words, while he himself, with the rest of the
army, fell upon the Syrians. From the first the victory was his. When the Ammonites
saw the flight of their auxiliaries, they retired within the walls of Rabbah without
striking a blow. But the war did not close with this almost bloodless victory,
although Joab returned to Jerusalem. It rather commenced with it. Possibly this may
explain why only the second act in this bloody drama is recorded in the summary
account given in 2 Samuel 8:3, etc., and in 1 Chronicles 18:4, etc. Combining these
narratives with the fuller details in 2 Samuel 10 and 1 Chronicles 19, we gather that,
on his defeat, or rather after his precipitate flight, Hadad-Ezer "went to turn again his
hand at the river [Euphrates]," that is, to recruit his forces there (2 Samuel 8:3, in 1
Chronicles 18:3: "to establish his hand"^290 ) - a statement which is further explained
(^)