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2 Samuel 10 of 24

2 Samuel 10

A diplomatic insult — the shaving of David's ambassadors' beards — sets off a war that is still going when chapter 11 begins.

Summary

Nahash the king of the children of Ammon dies and his son Hanun reigns in his stead. David says he will show kindness to Hanun as his father showed kindness to David, and sends servants to comfort him concerning his father. The servants come to Hanun in the land of Ammon. The princes of the Ammonites speak to Hanun: do you think David is honouring your father by sending comforters? Has not David sent his servants to search the city and to spy it out and to overthrow it? Hanun seizes David's servants, shaves off half of each man's beard, cuts off their garments in the middle — at the buttocks — and sends them away. David, told of their humiliation, sends word to meet them at Jericho because their beards are great shame. The Ammonites see they are a stench before David and hire thirty-three thousand Aramean soldiers, who take up position in the field while the Ammonites come from their city.

Joab sees the battle set against him before and behind and divides the chosen men of Israel to set against the Arameans, giving the rest to his brother Abishai to set against the Ammonites. He tells Abishai: if the Arameans be too strong for me, then you shall help me; if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will help you. Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people and for the cities of our God, and the Lord do that which seemeth him good. Joab draws near and the Arameans flee before him; the Ammonites, seeing this, also flee before Abishai. Joab returns to Jerusalem. The Arameans regroup, cross the river, and assemble at Helam. David gathers all Israel and goes to Helam, where he smites the Arameans with seven hundred charioteers and forty thousand horsemen killed and Shobach their general dead on the field. All the kings who were servants to Hadadezer make peace with Israel and serve them. Syria fears to help the Ammonites any more.

Appears
David Joab
Themes
Military Expansion Diplomatic Insult Honour and Shame
All 24 chapters — click to jump
  1. 2 Samuel 1Chapter 1 is the hinge between 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel.
  2. 2 Samuel 2Chapter 2 opens the period of civil war that will occupy much of the first half of the book.
  3. 2 Samuel 3Chapter 3 is one of the most politically complex chapters in the book.
  4. 2 Samuel 4Chapter 4 closes the civil war with a brief, ugly episode.
  5. 2 Samuel 5Chapter 5 is the pivotal chapter of the book's first half.
  6. 2 Samuel 6Chapter 6 is one of the most dramatically charged chapters in 2 Samuel, covering two episodes that frame the ark's arrival in Jerusalem.
  7. 2 Samuel 7Chapter 7 is the theological centre of the entire David narrative and one of the most consequential passages in the Hebrew Bible for later Jewish and Christian thought.
  8. 2 Samuel 8Chapter 8 reads differently from everything around it.
  9. 2 Samuel 9Chapter 9 is the chapter the Court History uses to establish one key dimension of David's character before the crisis arrives.
  10. 2 Samuel 10Chapter 10 establishes the military context of the Bathsheba episode.
  11. 2 Samuel 11Chapter 11 is the turning point of 2 Samuel and one of the most consequential chapters in biblical narrative.
  12. 2 Samuel 12Chapter 12 contains the most famous confrontation in the book.
  13. 2 Samuel 13Chapter 13 is the first fulfilment of Nathan's sentence in chapter 12.
  14. 2 Samuel 14Chapter 14 covers the three years in which David longs for Absalom but will not recall him, and Joab's intervention to change that.
  15. 2 Samuel 15Chapter 15 is the emotional nadir of the first movement of the Absalom crisis.
  16. 2 Samuel 16Chapter 16 covers three encounters as David makes his way out of Jerusalem.
  17. 2 Samuel 17Chapter 17 is the intelligence chapter of the Absalom revolt and turns on a moment of competitive counsel.
  18. 2 Samuel 18Chapter 18 is the emotional climax of 2 Samuel.
  19. 2 Samuel 19Chapter 19 covers David's return to Jerusalem and the political settlements it requires.
  20. 2 Samuel 20Chapter 20 is the coda to the Absalom crisis.
  21. 2 Samuel 21Chapter 21 opens the appendix section of 2 Samuel — chapters 21-24 are not chronological narrative but supplementary materials: two episodes of famine and plague bracketing two poems and two hero lists.
  22. 2 Samuel 22Chapter 22 is an extended psalm, found also as Psalm 18 in the Psalter, which the editors of 2 Samuel have placed near the end of the book as David's retrospective meditation on his life.
  23. 2 Samuel 23Chapter 23 contains two distinct sections.
  24. 2 Samuel 24Chapter 24 is the second appendix episode bracketing the poems of chapters 22-23, and it closes the book on an unexpected note.
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2 Samuel 9
Next · Chapter 11 →
2 Samuel 11
The book itself
Summary & story
What 2 Samuel is, why it matters.
Analysis
Themes
Power, consequence, grief, the dynastic promise, and the realism of the prose.
Who's who
David's court
The household of a king who has everything and gives most of it away.

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