1 Chronicles14chapter 14

Hiram of Tyre sending cedar, masons, and carpenters is diplomacy in the form of building materials. Tyre was a merchant city on the Phoenician coast with the timber of Lebanon behind it and no farmland of its own; Israel had grain, oil, and the inland trade routes. Cedar logs were floated down the coast in rafts and hauled inland, an operation only a state could manage.

A large household of wives and sons was standard royal policy, since each marriage bound another family or town to the crown. The list of children born in Jerusalem is a statement that the dynasty was now secure.

The valley of Rephaim runs southwest from Jerusalem toward the coastal plain, and it is the natural approach for an army coming up from Philistia. Twice the Philistines spread out in it, and both times David asked God before moving — and got a different answer each time. The second answer was a flanking maneuver: circle behind them and wait by the balsam trees for the sound of marching in the treetops as the signal to attack.

The abandoned Philistine gods left on the field are burned, which is what the Law required. Capturing an enemy's images and keeping them was the normal ancient practice; destroying them was not.