2 Samuel 8:1
Metheg-ammah must be the name of some stronghold which commanded Gath, and the taking of which made David master of Gath and her towns.... [ Continue Reading ]
Metheg-ammah must be the name of some stronghold which commanded Gath, and the taking of which made David master of Gath and her towns.... [ Continue Reading ]
David took great numbers of the Moabites prisoners of war, and made them lie down on the ground, and then divided them by a measuring line into three parts, putting two-thirds to death, and saving alive one-third. The cause of the war with the Moabites, who had been very friendly with David 1 Samuel... [ Continue Reading ]
HADADEZER - Not (see the margin) Hadarezer. Hadadezer, is the true form, as seen in the names Benhadad, Hadad (1 Kings 15:18, etc.; 1 Kings 11:14, etc.). Hadad was the chief idol, or sun-god, of the Syrians. TO RECOVER HIS BORDER - literally, to cause his hand to return. The phrase is used sometimes... [ Continue Reading ]
SEVEN HUNDRED HORSEMEN - It should be seven thousand, as in 1 Chronicles 18:4.... [ Continue Reading ]
SYRIANS OF DAMASCUS - The Syrians (Aram), whose capital was Damascus, were the best known and most powerful. Damascus (written Darmesek in marginal references, according to the late Aramean orthography) is first mentioned in Genesis 15:2. According to Nicolaus of Damascus, cited by Josephus, the Syr... [ Continue Reading ]
GARRISONS - The word is used for officers in 1 Kings 4:5, 1 Kings 4:19, and some think that that is its meaning here. Perhaps, however, it is best to take it with the King James Version in the same sense as in 1 Samuel 10:5; 1 Samuel 13:3. BROUGHT GIFTS - Rather, “tribute” (and in 2 Samuel 8:2); me... [ Continue Reading ]
BETAH AND BEROTHAI - These names (see also margin) have not been identified with certainty. EXCEEDING MUCH BRASS - “Wherewith Solomon made the brazen sea, and the pillars, and the vessels of brass” 1 Chronicles 18:8. The Septuagint and Vulgate both add these words here, so that perhaps they have fa... [ Continue Reading ]
HAMATH - This appears as an independent kingdom so late as the time of Senacherib Isaiah 37:13. But in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, both Hamath and Arpad appear to have been incorporated in the kingdom of Damascus Jeremiah 49:23.... [ Continue Reading ]
JORAM - Or, more probably, Hadoram. See the margin.... [ Continue Reading ]
SYRIA - Rather, as in 1 Chronicles 18:11, Edom, which is manifestly the right reading, both because Edom, Moab, and Ammon are so frequently joined together, and because David’s Syrian spoil is expressly mentioned at the end of the verse. (The Hebrew letters for Aram (Syria) and Edom are very similar... [ Continue Reading ]
THE SYRIANS - Read the Edomites, as in marginal references (compare Psalms 60:1 title), and as the context 2 Samuel 8:14 requires. For a further account of this war of extermination with Edom, see 1 Kings 11:15. The war with Edom was of some duration, not without serious reverses and dangers to the... [ Continue Reading ]
For a similar account of the officers of Solomon’s kingdom, see 1 Kings 4:1, where Jehoshaphat is still the recorder, and Benaiah is advanced to be captain of the host in the room of Joab. The recorder seems to have been a high officer of state, a kind of chancellor, whose office was to keep a recor... [ Continue Reading ]