Ammon, Aram and the Shaved Envoys

"I will shew kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father shewed kindness unto me." The princes of Ammon: "Hath not David rather sent his servants unto thee, to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it?" Hanun shaves off half of each man's beard and cuts their garments "in the middle, even to their buttocks." "Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown."

Ammon hires 20,000 Arameans of Beth-rehob and Zobah, a thousand men from the king of Maacah and 12,000 of Tob. Joab, caught between two armies, splits his force: "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."

The Arameans flee, and the Ammonites retreat into the city. Hadadezer brings Arameans from beyond the Euphrates under Shobach. David crosses the Jordan to Helam and kills "the men of seven hundred chariots… and forty thousand horsemen." The Aramean vassals make peace and serve Israel.

The insult

Shaving half a beard and exposing envoys was a deliberate humiliation; in many ancient cultures the beard was a sign of dignity and manhood, and envoys were under the protection of their king.

Rabbah

Rabbah of the Ammonites is the Amman Citadel in modern Jordan, securely identified. Ammonite inscriptions from the 9th century BC onward show Ammon's identity; none mentions Hanun.

Numbers in Samuel and Chronicles

2 Samuel 10:18 has 700 chariots and 40,000 horsemen; 1 Chronicles 19:18 has 7,000 charioteers and 40,000 foot. See the passage page on 8:4.