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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Samuel 12:31 - 12:31
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He also had the inhabitants executed, and that with cruel tortures. “He sawed them in pieces with the saw and with iron harrows.” בַּמְּגֵרָה וַיָּשֶׂם, “he put them into the saw,” does not give any appropriate sense; and there can be no doubt, that instead of וישׂם we should read וַיָּשַׂר (from שׂוּר): “he cut (sawed) them in pieces.” הַבַּרְזֶל וּבְמַגְזְרֹות, “and with iron cutting tools.” The meaning of the ἁπ. λεγ. מַגְזְרֹות cannot be more precisely determined. The current rendering, “axes or hatchets,” is simply founded upon the circumstance that גָּזַר, to cut, is applied in 2Ki 6:4 to the felling of trees. The reading in the Chronicles, וּבַמְּגֵרֹות, is evidently a copyist's error, as we have already had בַּמְּגֵרָה, “with the saw.” The meaning of the next clause is a disputed point, as the reading itself varies, and the Masoretes read בַּמַּלְבֵּן instead of the Chethibh במלכן, “he made them go through brick-kilns,” i.e., burnt them in brick-kilns, as the lxx and Vulgate render it. On the other hand, Thenius takes the Chethibh under his protection, and adopts Kimchi's explanation: “he led them through Malchan, i.e., through the place where the Ammonites burned their children in honour of their idol.” Thenius would therefore alter בְּמַלְכָּם into בְּמַלְכָּם or בַּמִּלְכֹּם: “he offered them as sacrifices in their image of Moloch. ” But this explanation cannot be even grammatically sustained, to say nothing of the arbitrary character of the alteration proposed; for the technical expression לַמֹּלֶךְ בָּאֵשׁ חֶעֱבִיר, “to cause to go through the fire for Moloch” (Lev 18:21), is essentially different from בַּמֹּלֶךְ חֶעֱבִיר, to cause to pass through Moloch, an expression that we never meet with. Moreover, it is impossible to see how burning the Ammonites in the image of Moloch could possibly be “an obvious mode of punishing idolatry,” since the idolatry itself consisted in the fact that the Ammonites burned their children to Moloch. So far as the circumstances themselves are concerned, the cruelties inflicted upon the prisoners are not to be softened down, as Daaz and others propose, by an arbitrary perversion of the words into a mere sentence to hard labour, such as sawing wood, burning bricks, etc. At the same time, the words of the text do not affirm that all the inhabitants of Rabbah were put to death in this cruel manner. בָּהּ אֲשֶׁר הָעָם (without כֹּל) refers no doubt simply to the fighting men that were taken prisoners, or at the most to the male population of the acropolis of Rabbah, who probably consisted of fighting men only. In doing this, David merely retaliated upon the Ammonites the cruelties with which they had treated their foes; since according to Amo 1:13 they ripped up women who were with child, and according to 1Sa 11:2 their king Nahash would only make peace with the inhabitants of Jabesh upon the condition that the right eye of every one of them should be put out. It is sufficiently evident from this, that the Ammonites had aimed at the most shameful extermination of the Israelites. “Thus did he unto all the cities of the Ammonites,” i.e., to all the fortified cities that resisted the Israelites. After the close of this war, David returned to Jerusalem with all the men of war. The war with the Syrians and Ammonites, including as it did the Edomitish war as well, was the fiercest in which David was ever engaged, and was also the last great war of his life.