1 Chronicles 19 Study Notes

19:1-2 King Nahash of the Ammonites was a consistent presence in the time of Saul and David. Unless this is a successor with the same name, it was he who had first given Saul the occasion to rise to the responsibilities of being king of Israel. He had besieged the town of Jabesh-gilead and agreed to a truce with the citizens of this village on the condition that he could gouge out each person’s eye (1Sm 11:2). This threat had enabled Saul to rally the Israelites in a united war against the Ammonites, in which he roundly defeated them. The Bible does not disclose the details of the occasion when Nahash had treated David kindly, but when Nahash died, David sent a delegation to the new king Hanun to express his condolences.

19:3-4 Hanun’s advisers persuaded him that David’s ambassadors were spies looking for a way to conquer the Ammonites. Hanun gave the order that David’s delegates should be humiliated and sent home. The Chronicler does not indicate why Hanun thought he could get away with this rash act.

19:5-7 The humiliated men did not return directly to David; instead, they hid in shame in Jericho, where David told them to stay. It then dawned on the Ammonites that they had made a serious mistake. Still, rather than making amends, they gathered a large army to ward off David’s inevitable retribution. Hanun mobilized various people who were friendly to him and acquired a huge mercenary force of Arameans, complete with many chariots. With this impressive force, the Ammonites thought they were ready to go against the Israelite army.

19:8-9 David delegated the responsibility for taking on the Ammonites to Joab as his commander in chief. By the time Joab arrived on the field and took stock of the situation, he found himself wedged between the Ammonites, who had their backs protected by the walls of the town of Medeba, and their Aramean allies on the other side. Israel’s defeat seemed inevitable.

19:10-13 Joab decided to have his army fight on two fronts at the same time. He took command of one front against the Arameans and let his brother Abishai lead the other front against the Ammonites. They pledged that if either one ran into trouble, the other would come to his aid. If Joab had any anxiety, he did not show it as he encouraged his brother and expressed reliance on the Lord.

19:14-15 Apparently the Arameans had not expected this aggressive response from Joab and his brother. When they saw the Israelite army advancing, they turned and fled. This was enough for the Ammonites to lose heart as well. When they saw the Arameans fleeing, they barricaded themselves behind the walls of Medeba.

19:16 Now it was the Arameans’ turn to make an error in judgment. Even though they had already been defeated once by David, they decided to take advantage of the situation and turn back on David’s forces. While Joab returned victoriously to Jerusalem (v. 15), the Arameans made another alliance, this time with their kinsman all the way on the eastern side of the Euphrates River, in order to take revenge against David.

19:17-18 This time David himself took charge of the Israelite army. With an even greater force than before, he defeated the combined Aramean army.

19:19 Being defeated by David was nothing new to Hadadezer (see 18:3 and note there). Twice now, this king’s attempts to establish superiority among the Arameans had been thwarted by David. Regardless of their king’s ambitions, his subjects had seen enough. They submitted to David—and blamed it all on the Ammonites.