2 Samuel 10:5

_WHEN THEY TOLD IT UNTO DAVID, HE SENT TO MEET THEM, BECAUSE THE MEN WERE GREATLY ASHAMED: AND THE KING SAID, TARRY AT JERICHO UNTIL YOUR BEARDS BE GROWN, AND THEN RETURN._ Tarry at Jericho - or in the neighbourhood, after crossing the fords of the Jordan....

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 10:5. _TARRY AT JERICHO_] This city had not been rebuilt since the time of Joshua; but there were, no doubt, many cottages still remaining, and larger dwellings also, but the _walls_ had not been repaired. As it must have been comparatively a _private_ place, it was proper for these men to tarry in, as they would not be exposed to public notice....

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...

WHEN THEY TOLD [IT] UNTO DAVID,.... Not the ambassadors, for they were not yet arrived, but some of their servants, perhaps, they sent before them to acquaint David of the usage they had met with: HE SENT TO MEET THEM: he sent men to meet them with proper garments to put on, and to assure them how much he resented the indignity done to them and him, and would avenge it in due and proper time, and to direct them where to go for the present, as follows: BECAUSE THE MEN WERE GREATLY ASHAMED: to proceed on their journey, and come to court in the condition they were: AND THE KING SAID; gave orders by the messengers he sent to them: TARRY AT JERICHO UNTIL YOUR BEARDS BE GROWN, or "bud" t, AND [THEN] RETURN; that is, to Jerusalem; Jericho, though not yet built, might have some cottages at or near the spot on which it had stood, for the convenience of shepherds, and gatherers of fruit,

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

MEN. Heb _'enosh._ App-14....

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_)....

TARRY AT JERICHO— As Jericho had not been rebuilt since the day on which it was miraculously overthrown, the king humanely judged that his ambassadors would be glad to conceal themselves to more advantage in the desolations of that city till their beards were grown. It should seem from the text, that the ambassadors had taken refuge there before David sent to them to _tarry_ there. Possibly Jericho might have been then pretty much in the same condition in which Mr. Baumgarten found it in the beginning of the 15th century. He tells us, that Zaccheus's house was the only one then standing there, and even that without a roof. He then adds, "There are round about, about a dozen of small cottages, if I may properly call them so; for nothing of building is to be seen in them, being only fenced with tall hedges of thorns, having within a large place for cattle to stand and be shut up in: but in...