2 Samuele 10:4 Commento

This chapter gives us an account of a war David has with the Ammonites and the Syrians their allies, with the occasion and success of it. I. David sent a friendly embassy to Hanun king of the Ammonites (Sa2 10:1, Sa2 10:2). II. He, upon a base surmise that it was ill intended, abused David's ambassadors (Sa2 10:3, Sa2 10:4). III. David resenting it (Sa2 10:5), and the Ammonites prepared for war against him (Sa2 10:6). IV. David carried the war into their country, sent against them. Joab and Abishai, who addressed themselves to the battle with a great deal of conduct and bravery (Sa2 10:7-12). V. The Ammonites, and the Syrians their allies, were totally routed (Sa2 10:13, Sa2 10:14). VI. The forces of the Syrians, which rallied again, were a second time defeated (Sa2 10:15-19). Thus did David advance his own reputation for gratitude, in returning kindness, and for justice, in repaying injuries.

INTRODUCTION TO SECOND SAMUEL 10 This chapter gives an account of the ill treatment of David's messengers to the king of Ammon, who were sent to condole the death of his father, and were basely used by him, which David resented, Sa2 10:1; which the Ammonites perceiving prepared for war, and got the Syrians to be confederates with them; of which David being informed, sent Joab and Abishai into their country, Sa2 10:6; who divided the army between them, and attacked the Ammonites and Syrians with great courage, and routed them both, and returned to Jerusalem, Sa2 10:9; after which the Syrians gathered together again to fight with David, who went out to meet them, and got an entire conquest over them, and made them servants to him, Sa2 10:15.

Wherefore Hanun took David's servants,.... His ambassadors: and shaved off one half of their beards; that is, he ordered them to be shaved off; than which a greater indignity could not have been well done to them and to David, whom they represented, since the Israelites shaved not their beards, and were very careful of preserving them; for had it been the custom to shave, they might have shaved off the other half, and then they would not have appeared so ridiculous; and with other people it has been reckoned a very great punishment as well could be inflicted, and as great an affront as could well be offered, to mar a man's beard, or shave it off in whole or in part (p). The Lacedemonians, as Plutarch (q) relates, when any fled from battle, used, by way of reproach, to shave off part of their beards, and let the other part grow long; and with the Indians, as Bishop Patrick observes from an ancient writer, the king used to order the greatest offenders to be shaven, as the heaviest punishment he could inflict upon them; but what comes nearest to the case here is what the same learned commentator quotes from Tavernier, who in his Indian Travels tells us, that the sophi of Persia caused an ambassador of Aurengzeb to have his beard shaved off, telling him he was not worthy to wear a beard, and thereupon commanded it should be shaved off; which affront offered him in the person of his ambassador was most highly resented by Aurengzeb, as this was by David: and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks; and as they wore long garments in those countries, without any breeches or drawers under them, those parts by these means were exposed to view which modesty requires should be concealed (r); so that they must be put to the utmost shame and confusion: and sent them away; in this ridiculous manner, scoffing and leering at them no doubt; that since they came with compliments of condolence, it was proper they should appear in the habit of mourners, with their beards shaved, and their garments rent; cutting of garments, and standing in them from morning tonight, was a punishment of soldiers with the Romans, when they offended (s). (p) Apollon. Vit. Philostrat. l. 7. c. 14. (q) In Agesitao. (r) "Dimidiasque nates Gallica palla tegit". Martial. (s) Valer. Maxim. l. 2. c. 2.

The king of Ammon being dead, David sends ambassadors to comfort his son Hanun, Sa2 10:1, Sa2 10:2. Hanun, misled by his courtiers, treats the messengers of David with great indignity, Sa2 10:3-5. The Ammonites, justly dreading David's resentment, send, and hire the Syrians to make war upon him, Sa2 10:6. Joab and Abishai meet them at the city of Medeba, and defeat them, Sa2 10:7-14. The Syrians collect another army, but are defeated by David with great slaughter, and make with him a separate peace, Sa2 10:15-19.

Shaved off the one half of their beards - The beard is held in high respect in the East: the possessor considers it his greatest ornament; often swears by it; and, in matters of great importance, pledges it. Nothing can be more secure than a pledge of this kind; its owner will redeem it at the hazard of his life. The beard was never cut off but in mourning, or as a sign of slavery. Cutting off half of the beard and the clothes rendered the men ridiculous, and made them look like slaves: what was done to these men was an accumulation of insult.

DAVID'S MESSENGERS, SENT TO COMFORT HANUN, ARE DISGRACEFULLY TREATED. (Sa2 10:1-5) Then said David, I will show kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father showed kindness unto me--It is probable that this was the Nahash against whom Saul waged war at Jabesh-gilead (Sa1 11:11). David, on leaving Gath, where his life was exposed to danger, found an asylum with the king of Moab; and as Nahash, king of the Ammonites, was his nearest neighbor, it may be that during the feud between Saul and David, he, through enmity to the former, was kind and hospitable to David.

Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards--From the long flowing dress of the Hebrews and other Orientals, the curtailment of their garments must have given them an aspect of gross indelicacy and ludicrousness. Besides, a knowledge of the extraordinary respect and value which has always been attached, and the gross insult that is implied in any indignity offered, to the beard in the East, will account for the shame which the deputies felt, and the determined spirit of revenge which burst out in all Israel on learning the outrage. Two instances are related in the modern history of Persia, of similar insults by kings of haughty and imperious temper, involving the nation in war; and we need not, therefore, be surprised that David vowed revenge for this wanton and public outrage.

III. David's Reign in Its Decline - 2 Samuel 10-20 In the first half of David's reign he had strengthened and fortified the kingdom of Israel, both within and without, and exalted the covenant nation into a kingdom of God, before which all its enemies were obliged to bow; but in the second half a series of heavy judgments fell upon him and his house, which cast a deep shadow upon the glory of his reign. David had brought these judgments upon himself by his grievous sin with Bathsheba. The success of all his undertakings, and the strength of his government, which increased year by year, had made him feel so secure, that in the excitement of undisturbed prosperity, he allowed himself to be carried away by evil lusts, so as to stain his soul not only with adultery, but also with murder, and fell all the deeper because of the height to which his God had exalted him. This took place during the war with the Ammonites and Syrians, when Joab was besieging the capital of the Ammonites, after the defeat and subjugation of the Syrians (2 Samuel 10), and when David had remained behind in Jerusalem (Sa2 11:1). For this double sin, the adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah, the Lord announced as a punishment, that the sword should not depart from David's house, and that his wives should be openly violated; and notwithstanding the sincere sorrow and repentance of the king, when brought to see his sin, He not only caused the fruit of his sin, the child that was born of Bathsheba, to die (2 Samuel 12), but very soon afterwards allowed the threatened judgments to fall upon his house, inasmuch as Amnon, his first-born son, violated his half-sister Thamar, and was murdered in consequence by her own brother Absalom (2 Samuel 13), whereupon Absalom fled to his father-in-law at Geshur; and when at length the king restored him to favour (2 Samuel 14), he set on foot a rebellion, which nearly cost David his life and throne (2 Samuel 15-17:23). And even after Absalom himself was dead (2 Samuel 17:24-19:1), and David had been reinstated in his kingdom (2 Samuel 19:2-40), there arose the conspiracy set on foot by the Benjaminite Sheba, which was only stopped by the death of the chief conspirator, in the fortified city of Abel-Beth-Maachah (2 Samuel 19:41-20:26). The period and duration of these divine visitations are not stated; and all that we are able to determine from the different data as to time, given in Sa2 13:23, Sa2 13:38; Sa2 14:28; Sa2 15:7, when taken in connection with the supposed ages of the sons of David, is that Amnon's sin in the case of Thamar did not take place earlier than the twentieth year of David's reign, and the Absalom's rebellion broke out seven or eight years later. Consequently the assumption cannot be far from the truth, that the events described in this section occupied the whole time between the twentieth and thirtieth years of David's reign. We are prevented from placing it earlier, by the fact that Amnon was not born till after David became king over Judah, and therefore was probably about twenty years old when he violated his half-sister Thamar. At the same time it cannot be placed later than this, because Solomon was not born till about two years after David's adultery; and he must have been eighteen or twenty years old when he ascended the throne on the death of his father, after a reign of forty years and a half, since, according to Kg1 14:21, compared with Kg1 11:42, Kg1 11:43, he had a son a year old, named Rehoboam, at the time when he began to reign.