simple assumption that the unknown Helam was somewhere near to Hamath. Instead of 1700 horse-soldiers, we find in the Chronicles (1Ch 18:4) 1000 chariots and 7000 horsemen. Consequently the word receb has no doubt dropped out after אלף in the text before us, and the numeral denoting a thousand has been confounded with the one used to denote a hundred; for in the plains of Syria seven thousand horsemen would be a much juster proportion to twenty thousand foot than seventeen hundred. (For further remarks, see at 2Sa 10:18.) “And David lamed all the cavalry,” i.e., he made the war-chariots and cavalry perfectly useless by laming the horses (see at Jos 11:6, Jos 11:9), - “and only left a hundred horses.” The word receb in these clauses signifies the war-horses generally, - not merely the carriage-horses, but the riding-horses as well, - as the meaning cavalry is placed beyond all doubt by Isa 21:7, and it can hardly be imagined that David would have spared the riding-horses.
Verses 5-6
After destroying the main force of Hadadezer, David turned against his ally, against Aram-Damascus, i.e., the Aramaeans, whose capital was Damascus. Dammesek (for which we have Darmesek in the Chronicles according to its Aramaean form), Damascus, a very ancient and still a very important city of Syria, standing upon the Chrysorrhoas (Pharpar), which flows through the centre of it. It is situated in the midst of paradisaical scenery, on the eastern side of the Antilibanus, on the road which unites Western Asia with the interior. David smote 22,000 Syrians of Damascus, placed garrisons in the kingdom, and made it subject and tributary. נציבים are not governors of officers, but military posts, garrisons, as in 1Sa 10:5; 1Sa 13:3.
Verse 7
Of the booty taken in these wars, David carried the golden shields which he took from the servants, i.e., the governors and vassal princes, of Hadadezer, to Jerusalem.[1]
- ↑ The lxx has this additional clause: “And Shishak the king of Egypt took them away, when he went up against Jerusalem in the days of Rehoboam the son of Solomon,” which is neither to be found in the Chronicles nor in any other ancient version, and is merely an inference drawn by the Greek translator, or by some copyists of the lxx, from 1Ki 14:25-28, taken in connection with the fact that the application of the brass is given in 1Ch 18:8. But, in the first place, the author of this gloss has overlooked the fact that the golden shields of Rehoboam which Shishak carried away, were not those captured by David, but those which Solomon had had made, according to 1Ki 10:16, for the retainers of his palace; and in the second place, he has not observed that, according to 2Sa 8:11 of this chapter, and also of the Chronicles, David dedicated to the Lord all the gold and silver that he had taken, i.e., put it in the treasury of the sanctuary to be reserved for the future temple, and that at the end of his reign he handed over to his son and successor Solomon all the gold, silver, iron, and brass that he had collected for the purpose, to be applied to the building of the temple (1Ch 22:14., 1Ch 29:2.). Consequently the clause in question, which Thenius would adopt from the lxx into our own text, is nothing more than the production of a presumptuous Alexandrian, whose error lies upon the very surface, so that the question of its genuineness cannot for a moment be entertained.
