2Sa 10:15-19 | Clarke

2 Samuel 10:15-19

Verse 16

The Syrians that were beyond the river - That is, the Euphrates.

Hadarezer - This is the same that was overthrown by David, 2Sam 8:3 and there called Hadadezer; which is the reading here of about thirty of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS. But the ר resh and ד daleth are easily interchanged. Verse 17

David - gathered all Israel together - He thought that such a war required his own presence. Verse 18

Seven Hundred chariots - and forty thousand Horsemen - In the parallel place, 1Chr 19:18, it is said, David slew of the Syrians Seven Thousand men, which fought in chariots. It is difficult to ascertain the right number in this and similar places. It is very probable that, in former times, the Jews expressed, as they often do now, their numbers, not by words at full length, but by numeral letters; and, as many of the letters bear a great similarity to each other, mistakes might easily creep in when the numeral letters came to be expressed by words at full length. This alone will account for the many mistakes which we find in the numbers in these books, and renders a mistake here very probable. The letter ז zain, with a dot above, stands for seven thousand, נ nun for seven hundred: the great similarity of these letters might easily cause the one to be mistaken for the other, and so produce an error in this place. Verse 19

Made peace with Israel - They made this peace separately, and were obliged to pay tribute to the Israelites. Some copies of the Vulgate add here after the word Israel, Expaverunt et fugerunt quinquaginta et octo millia coram Israel; "and they were panic-struck, and fled fifty-eight thousand of them before Israel." This reading is nowhere else to be found. "Thus," observes Dr. Delaney, "the arms of David were blessed; and God accomplished the promises which he had made to Abraham, Gen 15:18, and renewed to Joshua, Jos 1:2, Jos 1:4." And thus, in the space of nineteen or twenty years, David had the good fortune to finish gloriously eight wars, all righteously undertaken, and all honourably terminated; viz.

1. The civil war with Ish-bosheth.

2. The war against the Jebusites.

3. The war against the Philistines and their allies.

4. The war against the Philistines alone.

5. The war against the Moabites.

6. The war against Hadadezer.

7. The war against the Idumeans.

8. The war against the Ammonites and Syrians.

This last victory was soon followed by the complete conquest of the kingdom of the Ammonites, abandoned by their allies. What glory to the monarch of Israel, had not the splendor of this illustrious epoch been obscured by a complication of crimes, of which one could never have even suspected him capable!

We have now done with the first part of this book, in which we find David great, glorious, and pious: we come to the second part, in which we shall have the pain to observe him fallen from God, and his horn defiled in the dust by crimes of the most flagitious nature. Let him that most assuredly standeth take heed lest he fall.