2 Samuel 10:2

_THEN SAID DAVID, I WILL SHEW KINDNESS UNTO HANUN THE SON OF NAHASH, AS HIS FATHER SHEWED KINDNESS UNTO ME. AND DAVID SENT TO COMFORT HIM BY THE HAND OF HIS SERVANTS FOR HIS FATHER. AND DAVID'S SERVANTS CAME INTO THE LAND OF THE CHILDREN OF AMMON._ I will show kindness unto Hanun, the son of Nahash, as his father showed kindness unto me. It is probable that this was the Nahash against whom Saul waged war at Jabesh-gilead (1 Samuel 11:11). David, on leaving Gath, where his life was exposed to danger, found an asylum with the king of Moab; and as Nahash, king of the Ammonites, was his nearest neighbour, it may be that, during the feud between Saul and David, he, through enmity to the former, was kind and hospitable to David....

1-5 Nahash had been an enemy to Israel, yet had showed kindness to David. David therefore resolves gratefully to return it. If a Pharisee gives alms in pride, though God will not reward it, yet he that receives the alms ought to return thanks for it. Those who bear ill-will to their neighbours, are resolved not to believe that their neighbours bear any good-will to them. There is nothing so well meant, but it may be ill interpreted, and is wont to be so, by men who love nobody but themselves. The best men must not think it strange if they are thus misrepresented. Charity thinketh no evil. According to the usages of those days and countries, Hanun treated David's ambassadors in the most contemptuous manner. David showed much concern for his servants. Let us learn not to lay unjust reproaches to heart; they will wear off, and turn only to the shame of those who utter or do them; while the...

Verse 2 Samuel 10:2. _I WILL SHOW KINDNESS UNTO HANUN THE SON OF NAHASH_] We do not know exactly the nature or extent of the obligation which David was under to the king of the Ammonites; but it is likely that the Nahash here mentioned was the same who had attacked Jabesh-gilead, and whom Saul defeated: as David had taken refuge with the Moabites, (1 Samuel 22:3), and this was contiguous to the king of the Ammonites, his hatred to Saul might induce him to show particular kindness to David....

The history does not record any instance of Nahash’s kindness to David, but the enmity of the house of Nahash against Saul may have disposed him favorably toward Saul’s enemy David, and if there was any family connection between David’s house and Nahash 2 Samuel 17:25 this may have increased the friendship....

EXPOSITION 2 SAMUEL 10:1 THE KING OF THE CHILDREN OF AMMON DIED. This war is very briefly referred to in 2 Samuel 8:12; but we have now entered upon a narrative, the interest of which is altogether unlike all that has gone before. There we saw David crowned with earthly glory, and made the monarch of a vast empire; he is also a prophet, and, as such, not only restores, but enriches and enlarges, the worship of the sanctuary; and, as prophet and king, he becomes not only the type, but the ancestor of the Messiah. In this narrative he is a sinner, punished with terrible, though merited, severity, and must henceforth walk humbly and sorrowfully as a penitent before God. From...

THEN SAID DAVID, I WILL SHOW KINDNESS TO HANUN THE SON OF NAHASH,.... Send him a friendly compliment of condolence on the death of his father: AS HIS FATHER SHOWED KINDNESS UNTO ME; when David was persecuted by Saul, he sent him aid, and invited him into his country for protection it may be, and some way or other showed respect unto him; though not out of real love and friendship to David, but in enmity to Saul, who had defeated him at Jabeshgilead, and had often wars with him: the Jews say o the particular kindness was, that when David left his father, mother, and brethren, with the king of Moab, he slew all but one, who fled to the king of the children of Ammon, and was by him saved alive: AND DAVID SENT TO COMFORT HIM BY THE HAND OF HIS SERVANTS FOR HIS FATHER; for the death of his father; to condole the loss of him, which was the custom of kings in friendship and alliance in former...

7. THE WAR WITH AMMON AND THE SYRIANS CHAPTER 10 _ 1. David and Hanun (2 Samuel 10:1)_ 2. Ammon and the Syrians smitten (2 Samuel 10:6) The chapter with the war against Ammon and the Syrians is the prelude to the great sin of David. While Joab is carrying on the siege of Rabbah, the last city of the Ammonites, David, no doubt flushed with the great victory and prosperity, remained in his house and committed his awful sin. The war with Ammon originated through the insults which Hanun the King of Ammon had heaped upon David's ambassadors. David wanted to show kindness also to Hanun as his father Nahash had shown kindness to David. We have no record of this kindness. In this endeavour David did certainly not follow the right course, for Ammon was an enemy, and while Nahash

2 SAMUEL 10. WAR WITH THE AMMONITES AND THE SYRIANS (J). 2 Samuel 10:1. The king of Ammon insults David's ambassadors. [J. G. Frazer (_Taboo and the Perils of the Soul,_ p. 273) connects Hanun's action with the well-known belief that to get possession of the hair of a person is to have him in one's power. He supposes that Hanun, distrusting David's designs and desirous to have some guarantee of peace, thought he secured this by retaining half the beards and garments He quotes as a parallel the treatment of a traitor by two Moabite Arabs who shaved completely one side of his head and his moustache on the other, and set him at liberty. A. S. P.] 2 SAMUEL 10:6. The Ammonites hire mercenaries from the Syrian states; Joab takes command of the general levy of Israel and the standi

KINDNESS. lovingkindness, or grace. Compare 2 Samuel 9:1. AS. according as....

David's ambassadors insulted by the Ammonites 1. _And it came to pass after this_ On this formula of transition see note on ch. 2 Samuel 8:1. _the king of the children of Ammon_ Forty years at least had passed since the events of 1 Samuel 11, so that this Nahash was probably the son or grandson of the king defeated by Saul at Jabesh. On the Ammonites see note on 1 Samuel 11:1. _Hanun_ This name is identical with the Phoenician _Hanno_, which appears so frequently in Carthaginian history. In Greek both take the form Ἄννων (_Annon_)....