Albert Barnes Commentary 1 Chronicles 19
Albert Barnes Commentary
1 Chronicles 19
Albert Barnes Commentary
1 Chronicles 19
"And it came to pass after this, that Nahash the king of the children of Ammon died, and his son reigned in his stead." — 1 Chronicles 19:1 (ASV)
Compare the marginal references and notes. The writer here adds one or two touches and varies in one or two of the numbers.
"And David said, I will show kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, because his father showed kindness to me. So David sent messengers to comfort him concerning his father. And David`s servants came into the land of the children of Ammon to Hanun, to comfort him." — 1 Chronicles 19:2 (ASV)
Hanun - A Philistine king of this name is mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions as paying tribute to Tiglath-pileser and warring with Sargon.
"And when the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves odious to David, Hanun and the children of Ammon sent a thousand talents of silver to hire them chariots and horsemen out of Mesopotamia, and out of Arammaacah, and out of Zobah." — 1 Chronicles 19:6 (ASV)
A thousand talents of silver - The price is not given in Samuel. On the practice of hiring troops about this time in western Asia, see 1 Kings 15:18; 2 Kings 7:6; 2 Chronicles 25:6.
"So they hired them thirty and two thousand chariots, and the king of Maacah and his people, who came and encamped before Medeba. And the children of Ammon gathered themselves together from their cities, and came to battle." — 1 Chronicles 19:7 (ASV)
They hired thirty and two thousand chariots - The reading is corrupt. A number as large as 32,000 chariots alone was never brought into battle on any occasion. Compare the numbers in Exodus 14:7, 1 Kings 10:26, and 2 Chronicles 12:3. The largest force an Assyrian king ever speaks of encountering is 3,940.
The words “and horsemen” have probably fallen out of the text after the word “chariots” (compare 1 Chronicles 19:6). The 32,000 would be the number of warriors serving on horseback or in chariots, and this number would agree closely with 2 Samuel 10:6, as the following table shows.
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