Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Samuel 10:6 - 10:6
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
When the Ammonites saw that they had made themselves stinking before David, and therefore that David would avenge the insult offered to the people of Israel in the persons of their ambassadors, they looked round for help among the powerful kings of Syria. They hired as auxiliaries (with a thousand talents of silver, i.e., nearly half a million of pounds sterling, according to 1Ch 19:6) twenty thousand foot from Aram-Beth-Rehob and Aram-Zoba, and one thousand men from the king of Maacah, and twelve thousand troops from the men of Tob. Aram-Beth-Rehob was the Aramaean kingdom, the capital of which was Beth-rehob. This Beth-rehob, which is simply called Rehob in v. 8, is in all probability the city of this name mentioned in Num 13:21 and Jdg 18:28, which lay to the south of Hamath, but the exact position of which has not yet been discovered: for the castle of Hunin, in the ruins of which Robinson imagines that he has found Beth-rehob Bibl. Researches, p. 370), is to the south-west of Tell el Kadi, the ancient Laish-Dan, the northern boundary of the Israelitish territory; so that the capital of this Aramaean kingdom would have been within the limits of the land of Israel, - a thing which is inconceivable. Aram-Naharaim is also mentioned in the corresponding text of the Chronicles, and for that reason many have identified Beth-Rehob with Rehoboth, on “the river” (Euphrates), mentioned in Gen 36:37. But this association is precluded by the fact, that in all probability the latter place is to be found in Rachabe, which is upon the Euphrates and not more than half a mile from the river (see Ritter, Erdk. xv. p. 128), so that from its situation it can hardly have been the capital of a separate Aramaean kingdom, as the government of the king of Zoba extended, according to 2Sa 10:16, beyond the Euphrates into Mesopotamia. On Aram-Zoba, see at 2Sa 8:3; and for Maacah at Deu 3:14. אִישׁ־טֹוב is not to be taken as one word and rendered as a proper name, Ish-Tob, as it has been by most of the earlier translators; but אִישׁ is a common noun used in a collective sense (as it frequently is in the expression יִשְׂרָאֵל אִישׁ), “the men of Tob.” Tob was the district between Syria and Ammonitis, where Jephthah had formerly taken refuge (Jdg 11:5). The corresponding text of the Chronicles (1Ch 19:6-7) is fuller, and differs in several respects from the text before us. According to the Chronicles, Hanun sent a thousand talents of silver to hire chariots and horsemen from Aram-Naharaim, Aram-maacah, and Zobah. With this the Ammonites hired thirty-two thousand receb (i.e., chariots and horsemen: see at 2Sa 8:4), and the king of Maacah and his people. They came and encamped before Medeba, the present ruin of Medaba, two hours to the south-east of Heshbon, in the tribe of Reuben (see at Num 21:30, compared with Jos 13:16), and the Ammonites gathered together out of their cities, and went to the war. The Chronicles therefore mention Aram-Naharaim (i.e., Mesopotamia) as hired by the Ammonites instead of Aram-Beth-Rehob, and leave out the men of Tob. The first of these differences is not to be explained, as Bertheau suggests, on the supposition that the author of the Chronicles took Beth-rehob to be the same city as Rehoboth of the river in Gen 36:37, and therefore substituted the well-known “Aram of the two rivers” as an interpretation of the rarer name Beth-rehob, though hardly on good ground. For this conjecture does not help to explain the omission of “the men of Tob.” It is a much simpler explanation, that the writer of the Chronicles omitted Beth-rehob and Tob as being names that were less known, this being the only place in the Old Testament in which they occur as separate kingdoms, and simply mentioned the kingdoms of Maacah and Zoba, which frequently occur; and that he included “Aram of the two rivers,” and placed it at the head, because the Syrians obtained succour from Mesopotamia after their first defeat. The account in the Chronicles agrees with the one before us, so far as the number of auxiliary troops is concerned. For twenty thousand men of Zoba and twelve thousand of Tob amount to thirty-two thousand, besides the people of the king of Maacah, who sent a thousand men according to the text of Samuel. But according to that of the Chronicles, the auxiliary troops consisted of chariots and horsemen, whereas only foot-soldiers are mentioned in our text, which appears all the more remarkable, because according to 2Sa 8:4, and 1Ch 18:4, the king of Zoba fought against David with a considerable force of chariots and horsemen. It is very evident, therefore, that there are copyists' errors in both texts; for the troops of the Syrians did not consist of infantry only, nor of chariots and horsemen alone, but of foot-soldiers, cavalry, and war-chariots, as we may see very clearly not only from the passages already quoted in 2Sa 8:4 and 1Ch 18:4, but also from the conclusion to the account before us. According to 2Sa 10:18 of this chapter, when Hadarezer had reinforced his army with auxiliaries from Mesopotamia, after losing the first battle, David smote seven hundred receb and forty thousand parashim of Aram, whilst according to the parallel text (1Ch 19:18) he smote seven thousand receb and forty thousand foot. Now, apart from the difference between seven thousand and seven hundred in the case of the receb, which is to be interpreted in the same way as a similar difference in 2Sa 8:4, the Chronicles do not mention any parashim at all in 2Sa 10:18, but foot-soldiers only, whereas in 2Sa 10:7 they mention only receb and parashim; and, on the other hand, there are no foot-soldiers given in 2Sa 10:18 of the text before us, but riders only, whereas in 2Sa 10:6 there are none but foot-soldiers mentioned, without any riders at all. It is evident that in both engagements the Syrians fought with all three (infantry, cavalry, and chariots), so that in both of them David smote chariots, horsemen, and foot.