UST 1 CHR Chapter 19

◄ 1 CHR 19 ► ║ ═ ©

19 Sometime later, Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, died. His son became the next Ammonite king. 2 David thought to himself, “Nahash was kind to me, so I will be kind to his son Hanun.” So David sent some of his officials to tell Hanun that David was sorry that Hanun’s father had died.

When those officials arrived in the land of Ammon to give Hanun David’s message, 3 the Ammonite military leaders said to King Hanun, “You should not think that when David sent these men to tell you he is sorry that your father died, he did that to honor your father. He sent them here to look around the land to determine how his army can conquer us!”

4 Hanun believed what they said, so he commanded some of his soldiers to seize David’s officials and insult them by shaving off their beards. He also had them cut off the lower part of their robes so that their buttocks would show. Then he made them leave Ammon

5 and go back to Israel. The officials felt very ashamed. When David found out about what had happened to his officials, he sent some messengers to them to tell them, “Stay at Jericho until your beards have grown again, and then return home.”

6 Then the Ammonite leaders realized that they had greatly insulted David. So Hanun and the Ammonites sent about 34,000 kilograms of silver to hire chariot drivers and soldiers who rode horses to help defend them. They hired them from the Aramean regions of Naharaim and Maacah and from Zobah. 7 They hired 32,000 chariots and their drivers. They also paid the king of the region of Maacah to come with his army. The forces they hired came and set up their tents near the city of Medeba in the region of Moab. The Ammonite soldiers also marched out from their cities and joined them to fight against the Israelites.

8 When David heard about that, he sent Joab with all of the best Israelite soldiers to fight against them. 9 The Ammonite soldiers came out of the city and formed a battle line in front of its wall. At the same time, the foreign kings who had come with their armies formed a separate battle line in the open fields nearby.

10 Joab saw that there were enemy armies in front of his troops and behind his troops. So he chose some of the best Israelite soldiers and put them in position to fight against the soldiers who were in the fields. 11 He told his brother Abishai to command the rest of the soldiers. They would oppose the Ammonite soldiers who had formed a battle line in front of the city wall. 12 Joab told Abishai, “If the soldiers from Aram are too strong for my men to defeat, then your men must come and help us. But if the Ammonite soldiers are too strong for your men, then my men will come and help them. 13 We must be strong and fight hard so that our enemies do not defeat us and then come and kill our people and destroy the cities in Israel, where we worship the true God. We will depend on Yahweh to make the right army win this battle.”

14 Then Joab and the soldiers he commanded advanced to attack the army of Aram. They defeated the Arameans so badly that the Arameans ran away from them. 15 When the Ammonites saw that the Arameans were running away, they also ran away from Abishai and the soldiers he was commanding. They retreated back inside the city. So Joab and his army stopped fighting against them and went back to Jerusalem.

16 The Arameans thought about how the Israelite army had defeated them, and they decided that they needed a much bigger army. So they sent messengers to the Aramean kingdoms that were on the other side of the Euphrates River. Those kingdoms sent many soldiers, and Shophach, the man who commanded the army of King Hadadezer, was leading them.

17 When David learned about this, he gathered all of the Israelite fighting men and led them across the Jordan River. They marched to Helam and formed a battle line there. Then David led his soldiers to attack the Arameans, and the two armies fought. 18 The Israelites defeated the Arameans so badly that the Aramean soldiers ran away from the Israelite soldiers. David and his army killed 7,000 of their chariot drivers and 40,000 other soldiers. They also killed Shophach, the army commander.

19 Then the kings who were Hadadezer’s subjects thought about how the Israelites had defeated their combined armies. They decided to make a peace treaty with David. They agreed to accept him as their ruler. The Arameans would not help the Ammonites after that.

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UST 1 CHR Chapter 19

UST 1 CHR Chapter 19