what follows, in what the commission with which Jehovah entrusted Nathan consisted: “And he (Nathan, not Jehovah)called his (the boy's) name Jedidiah.” And if Nathan is the subject to “called,” there is nothing to astonish in the expression “because of the Lord.” The idea is this: Nathan came to David according to Jehovah's instructions, and gave Solomon the name Jedidiah for Jehovah's sake, i.e., because Jehovah loved him. The giving of such a name was a practical declaration on the part of Jehovah that He loved Solomon, from which David could and was intended to discern that the Lord had blessed his marriage with Bathsheba. Jedidiah, therefore, was not actually adopted as Solomon's name.
Verses 26-28
Conquest of Rabbah, and Punishment of the Ammonites (comp. 1Ch 20:1-3). - “Joab fought against Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and took the king's city.” המּלוּכה עיר, the capital of the kingdom, is the city with the exception of the acropolis, as 2Sa 12:27 clearly shows, where the captured city is called “the water-city.” Rabbah was situated, as the ruins of Ammân show, on both banks of the river (Moiet) Ammân (the upper Jabbok), in a valley which is shut in upon the north and south by two bare ranges of hills of moderate height, and is not more than 200 paces in breadth. “The northern height is crowned by the castle, the ancient acropolis, which stands on the north-western side of the city, and commands the whole city” (see Burckhardt, Syria ii. pp. 612ff., and Ritter, Erdkunde xv. pp. 1145ff.). After taking the water-city, Joab sent messengers to David, to inform him of the result of the siege, and say to him, “Gather the rest of the people together, and besiege the city (i.e., the acropolis, which may have been peculiarly strong), and take it, that I may not take the city (also),and my name be named upon it,” i.e., the glory of the conquest be ascribed to me. Luther adopts this explanation in his free rendering, “and I have a name from it.”
Verse 29
Accordingly David “gathered together all the people,” - i.e., all the men of war who had remained behind in the land; from which we may see that Joab's besieging army had been considerably weakened during the long siege, and at the capture of the water-city, - “and fought against the acropolis, and took it.”
Verse 30
He then took their king's crown (“their king,”
