2 Samuel 10 Introduction

Structure and Formatting

This chapter continues the story of what David did as the king of Israel. It describes how David tried to express sympathy to the new king of the Ammonites for the death of his father but was instead insulted and rebuffed. It describes how the Ammonites, knowing they had offended David, hired Aramean mercenaries to help them fight Israel and how Joab and his brother Abishai, David’s generals, defeated those armies. Finally, it describes how the Arameans gathered an even larger army and how David led the entire army of Israel to defeat them.

Religious and Cultural Concepts in This Chapter

Why did Hanun shave half of the beards of David’s messengers and cut their garments in the middle?

In [10:4](../10/04.md), to insult David’s messengers, the Ammonite king, Hanun, has his servants shave off half of their beards and cut off half of their robes. In just about any context, these actions would have made the men look foolish and exposed them to shame and embarrassment. But in this culture, there may have been a further significance. In this culture, men wore beards, while women did not have them. By leaving the messengers with half-beards, Hanun was symbolically making them neither men nor women. Humans wear clothes, while animals do not. By leaving the messengers with half-robes, Hanun was symbolically making them neither human nor animal. So this was a way of making the messengers symbolically non-existent. Since they represented David personally, it was a way of insulting David by telling him, “You are nothing.” The author of this book does not explain the significance of this action, since his readers would already have understood it. But if it would be helpful to your readers, you could explain it in a footnote.

Translation Issues in This Chapter

Numbers

There are large numbers in [verses 6](../10/06.md) and [18](../10/18.md). Translate these according to the decision you made for [chapter 8](../08/01.md) about how you would represent large numbers in your translation.