Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Samuel 5:8

"And David said on that day, Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites, let him get up to the watercourse, and [smite] the lame and the blind, that are hated of David`s soul. Wherefore they say, There are the blind and the lame; he cannot come into the house." — 2 Samuel 5:8 (ASV)

Getteth up to the gutter. —The sense of this passage is obscure, partly from the difficulty of the Hebrew construction and partly from the uncertainty of the meaning of the word translated gutter.

This word occurs elsewhere only in Psalms 42:7, where it is translated waterspouts. The ancient versions differ in their interpretations, but the most probable sense is watercourses, such as were connected with the precipices around Mount Zion. The two clauses also are unnecessarily transposed in our version, and the word getteth, by a very slight change in the Masoretic vowels, becomes cast or hurl. The whole clause will then read: Whosoever smites the Jebusites, let him hurl into the watercourses (i.e., down the precipice) the lame and the blind.

David thus applies to all the Jebusites the expression they had just used of those who would suffice to resist his attack. The clause that are hated of David’s soul, shows that in this siege no quarter was to be given; the Jebusites were under the old ban resting upon all the Canaanites and were to be destroyed.

The English version inserts the clause, he shall be chief and captain, which is not in the original and is obscure here. In 1 Chronicles 11:6, however, the same statement is made more fully and is important: David said, Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites first shall be chief and captain. So Joab the son of Zeruiah went first up and was chief.

It thus appears that David promised the command of his army to the man who would successfully lead the forlorn hope. Joab did this and won the place in the armies of all Israel which he had previously filled in that of Judah. This fact helps to explain the sense of obligation and restraint which David afterwards felt towards Joab.

Wherefore they said. —Rather, they say. This became a proverbial expression: no dealings are to be had with such people as the Jebusites, here again called the blind and the lame.