Era 6 · The First Kings1 Chronicles
The Ammonite Insult and the Aramean War
"Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown"
"I will shew kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, because his father shewed kindness to me." Hanun's princes: "are not his servants come unto thee for to search, and to overthrow, and to spy out the land?" "Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved them, and cut off their garments in the midst hard by their buttocks."
Ammon hires 32,000 chariots and the king of Maachah. Joab: "Be of good courage, and let us behave ourselves valiantly for our people, and for the cities of our God: and let the LORD do that which is good in his sight."
"And David slew of the Syrians seven thousand men which fought in chariots, and forty thousand footmen, and killed Shophach the captain of the host." Hadarezer's servants make peace with David.
700 or 7,000?
2 Samuel 10:18 reads 700 charioteers and 40,000 horsemen; Chronicles 7,000 charioteers and 40,000 footmen. Copying of numbers in Hebrew is easily confused. See the 2 Samuel passage page.
Medeba
Chronicles adds that the Arameans camped before Medeba, a Moabite town named on the Mesha Stele.
What the evidence shows
- 2 Samuel 10:18 and 1 Chronicles 19:18 give different numbers.
Continue the journey
Journey of a Passage2 Samuel 8:4; 10:18: Horsemen and chariots: Samuel, the Greek and ChroniclesIn 8:4 the Hebrew has 1,700 horsemen; the library's Greek and 1 Chronicles 18:4 have 1,000 chariots and 7,000 horsemen.More from this lesson
Why this matters to the rest of Scripture
- The parallel.