2 Samuelchapter 5
25 verses · Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition · 10th century BC · History
Also in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: and the Lord said to thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel.
Introduction
Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition, History, 2 Samuel Overview.
In this chapter the tribes of Israel stop being a loose league with a war leader and become one kingdom with one capital. Its first hearers knew the city that capital became and had worshipped there for generations. They knew it had once belonged to neither Judah nor the northern tribes. Listen for the words the elders use when they come to David, and for the reason the writer gives for his success. Watch also how he fights the Philistines twice, and how the second battle begins with a sound in the trees.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who now had one king, one capital, and a Philistine problem
- What
- The anointing of David over all Israel, the capture of Jerusalem from the Jebusites, and two victories over the Philistines.
- Where
- Hebron, then the Jebusite stronghold on the ridge above the Gihon spring, and the Valley of Rephaim southwest of the city.
- When
- About 1004 to 1003 BC, the start of the thirty-three years at Jerusalem that 5:5 records.
- Why
- To show the LORD establishing David as king over the whole nation and giving him a capital and peace from the Philistines.
Historical context
2 Samuel names no author, and Samuel himself is dead before the book opens. The oldest internal lead is 1 Chronicles 29:29, which names the histories of Samuel the seer, Nathan the prophet and Gad the seer behind the acts of David. The chapter opens the thirty-three years at Jerusalem that 5:5 records, about 1004 to 1003 BC, on a reckoning inferred from the text's own figures. The places are Hebron and then the Jebusite stronghold on the ridge above the Gihon spring. A first hearer knew how small that city was, a narrow spur of perhaps ten or twelve acres with steep valleys on two sides, running south from where the temple would later stand. Its whole reason for existing was the Gihon spring at the foot of the eastern slope, the only reliable water for miles. The ridge also sat on the seam between Judah and the northern tribes and had belonged to neither, so it became the king's own city rather than any tribe's prize. The Hebrew word for the way in appears so rarely that its sense is still argued, and older guides identified it confidently with Warren's Shaft, a chimney linking the city to the spring. Newer study has made that identification less certain, with water channel and even grappling hook still proposed, though the text is clear the way in ran through the water system. Hiram of Tyre sending cedar and craftsmen is Israel entering the region's trade network, since Phoenician builders were the recognised masons and carpenters of the coast.
Significance
For the first hearers this is the chapter where the nation stops being a loose federation of tribes with a war leader and becomes a kingdom with a capital. The elders come and say the thing that matters, that they are the king's own bone and flesh. The Philistines read it the same way, which is why they came up twice as soon as they heard. A united Israel holding a fortified ridge city was a different neighbour from the scattered hill clans they had raided for a century.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The corpus for this chapter holds twenty-four commentary entries and forty rabbinic locators. Eleven entries carry English text under a licence that permits quotation. Ten are Rashi in the Metsudah translation, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY, and one is Metzudat David in the Jerusalem Anthology translation of Rabbi Mike Feuer, CC-BY. Both are named here once and cited below by ref alone.
The taking of the stronghold draws the longest comment in the chapter, and it is a tradition rather than a topographical note. Rashi writes that the Jebusites held two idols, one of a blind man and one of a lame man, made to stand for Isaac and for Jacob. In their mouths, he says, was set the oath Abraham swore to Abimelech. On that reading the city was left in their hands for centuries because of an oath. Rashi brings Rabbi Joshua son of Levi on the verse in Joshua that says Judah could not drive them out. His words are "They had the ability to [expel the Yevusim] but they were not permitted to" (Rashi on II Samuel 5:6:1). Metzudat David reads the same ground plainly, calling the stronghold of Zion "the name of a strong fortress next to Jebus" (Metzudat David on II Samuel 5:7:1).
Rashi then explains what David built. The word the verse uses for the earthwork he describes as a low wall filled in with earth, sloping away on every side, with houses built upon it (Rashi on II Samuel 5:9:1). At the end of the chapter he reads the sound in the tops of the trees as angels. He writes: "These are angels stepping on the tops of the trees that I am sending to help you" (Rashi on II Samuel 5:24:1). Radak stands at ten places with no English version in the corpus, among them Radak on II Samuel 5:1:1 and Radak on II Samuel 5:17:1. Malbim stands at Malbim on II Samuel 5:19:1. Both are cited and never quoted.
What the rabbis say
Forty locators stand on this chapter in the corpus, thirty-five from the Midrash and five from the Talmud, every one of them a locator without text. The Jebusites and the oath behind their long tenure draw Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 36:1, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 36:18, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 36:19 and Otzar Midrashim, Baraita of Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair 1:37. That is the same tradition Rashi carries above. The stronghold itself draws Pesikta Rabbati 47:1, and the assault on it draws Midrash Tehillim 18:23 and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 16:12. The elders' words at Hebron draw Midrash Tehillim 29:1, Sifrei Zuta 27:17:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 103:1. The years of the reign draw Seder Olam Rabbah 13:1, Seder Olam Rabbah 13:2 and Jerusalem Talmud Rosh Hashanah 1:1:5. The wives and concubines taken at Jerusalem draw Sanhedrin 21a:17 and Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 2:11. The idols the Philistines left behind, which David and his men burned, draw Avodah Zarah 44a:9, Avodah Zarah 44a:12 and Jerusalem Talmud Avodah Zarah 3:3:6. The question in those places is what may be done with such objects.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Samuel 5:6:1, 5:9:1 and 5:24:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Samuel 5:7:1, Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on II Samuel 5:1:1, 5:17:1 and eight further places, cited only, no English version in the corpus; Malbim, Malbim on II Samuel 5:19:1, cited only; The Midrash and the Talmud on this chapter, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 36:1, 36:18, 36:19 and 16:12; Pesikta Rabbati 47:1; Midrash Tehillim 18:23 and 29:1; Sanhedrin 21a:17; Avodah Zarah 44a:9 and 44a:12; Seder Olam Rabbah 13:1 and 13:2, as the corpus records them.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
All Israel makes the shepherd their king
2 Samuel 5:1-3
thy bone and thy flesh: The tribes call David bone and flesh, then recall that even under Saul it was David who led Israel out and brought them in, the shepherd's work the Lord names next: thou shalt feed my people Israel. Verse 3 is the third stage of one anointing, private at Bethlehem in 1 Samuel 16:13, over Judah alone at 2 Samuel 2:4, and now over all Israel here before the Lord at Hebron. The years between the private anointing and this public throne, spent as a hunted outlaw, are read by later writers as a figure of Christ's own time between his anointing and his coming kingdom, a reading Blaikie draws out in his exposition of the outlaw years.
2 Samuel 5:1
“Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron,.... All the rest of the tribes, save the tribe of Judah, who had made him king over them in Hebron seven years ago.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Samuel 5:1
“Compare the marginal reference. The chronicler adds some interesting details 2Sa. 12:23-40 of the manner in which the various tribes from both sides of the Jordan came to Hebron to make David king, and of the joyful festivities on the occasion. The consummation to which events in God’s Providence had been leading had now come.”
John Wesley reads shepherd as rule and care, the work a shepherd does for his sheep, and he sets it beside Psalm 78:70-71, where God took David from the sheepfolds. The title binds the throne to the good of the flock. Matthew Henry notes that under Saul the king held the name while David did the work.
2 Samuel 5:2
“Shalt feed - That is, rule them, and take care of them, as a shepherd doth of his sheep, Psalm lxxviii, 70, 71. This expression, he useth to admonish David, that he was not made a king to advance his own glory, but for the good of his people; whom he ought to rule with all tenderness, and to watch over with all diligence.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The covenant set the terms between the king and the tribes. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that such a covenant was made when a new royal house began, as again when Joash was made king in 2 Kings 11:17. Barnes places the priests Abiathar and Zadok with David at Hebron, while the ark stayed at Kiriath-jearim.
2 Samuel 5:3
“King David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord--(see on 1Sa 10:17). This formal declaration of the constitution was chiefly made at the commencement of a new dynasty, or at the restoration of the royal family after a usurpation (2Ki 11:17), though circumstances sometimes led to its being renewed on the accession of any new sovereign (1Ki 12:4).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 5:3
“Before the Lord - Abiathar and Zadok the priests were both with David, and the tabernacle and altar may have been at Hebron, though the ark was at Kirjath-jearim.”
2 Samuel 5:4-5
thirty years old when he began to reign: David is thirty when he begins to reign, the same age at which Luke says the Son of David entered his public ministry, a parallel Gill and Henry both draw without forcing it. Verse 5 breaks the round forty years of verse 4 into its own two halves, seven years and six months over Judah alone in Hebron, then thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah once the capital moves to Jerusalem. The months at Hebron are the residue verse 4 rounds away, a small honesty in the record before the larger reign begins.
2 Samuel 5:4
“David was thirty years old when he began reign,.... Over Judah, which was the age of his antitype Christ, when he entered upon his public ministry, Luk 3:23, and he reigned forty years; and six months, as appears by 2Sa 5:5; but the months are not mentioned, only the round number of years given: two reasons the Jews (a) give for this; the one, that he fled six months from Absalom; the other is, that he was ill in Hebron so long, and therefore are not reckoned. (a) Hieron. Trad. Heb. in lib. Reg. fol. 77. I.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 5:4
“The age of David is conclusive as to the fact that the earlier years of Saul’s reign (during which Jonathan grew up to be a man) are passed over in silence, and that the events narrated from 1 Sam. 13 to the end of the book did not occupy more than 10 years.”
2 Samuel 5:4
“At that age the Levites were at first appointed to begin their administration, Num. iv. About that age the Son of David entered upon his public ministry, Luke iii. Then men come to their full maturity of strength and judgment.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jerusalem enters the reign here as the seat of thirty-three years. Matthew Henry judges it likely to be the Salem where Melchizedek was king, citing Psalm 76:2, where Salem stands beside Zion as the dwelling place of God. The city of that priest-king becomes the city of David.
2 Samuel 5:5
“And David built round about from Millo and inward. 10 And David went on, and grew great, and the L ORD God of hosts was with him. If Salem, the place of which Melchizedec was king, was Jerusalem (as seems probable from Ps. lxxvi.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The blind and the lame cannot hold Zion
2 Samuel 5:6-7
take away the blind and the lame: The Jebusites trust Jerusalem's height and defenses enough to taunt David with the boast that even the blind and the lame could hold it against him, thinking David cannot come in hither. He proves them wrong, and verse 7 names what he took in four words that outlast the taunt: the strong hold of Zion, the same is the city of David. This is Zion's first appearance anywhere in Scripture, the name that will carry the temple, the psalms, and the prophets' hope, entering the record as a captured Jebusite fortress rather than anything grander.
2 Samuel 5:6
“The king and his men went to Jerusalem - This city was now in the hands of the Jebusites; but how they got possession of it is not known, probably they took it during the wars between Ish-bosheth and David. After Joshua’s death, what is called the lower city was taken by the Israelites; and it is evident that the whole city was in their possession in the time of Saul, for David brought the head of Goliath thither, 1Sa 17:54. It appears to have been a very strong fortress, and, from what follows, deemed impregnable by the Jebusites.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Barnes places the ancient Zion on the temple hill, with the fortress of David just to its north. The hill called Zion today lies southwest of the temple. Gill held that the fortress stood apart from the city, and its capture opened the way into Jerusalem.
2 Samuel 5:7
“Nevertheless, David took the strong hold of Zion,.... A fortress without the city, and separate from it, and which was very strong; and the taking it might facilitate the taking of the city, which yet as appears by what follows, was very difficult to do: the same is the city of David; it was afterwards so called, where he built an house, and dwelt.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 5:7
“The stronghold of Zion - Or castle 1Ch 11:5, 1Ch 11:7. The ancient Zion was the hill on which the temple stood, and the castle seems to have been immediately to the north of the temple. The modern Zion lies to the southwest of the temple. The same is the city of David - The name afterward given to it 2Sa 5:9, and by which it was known in the writer’s time.”
2 Samuel 5:8-9
getteth up to the gutter: David's men climb up through the water gutter, the only way into the fortress, and the defenders' own taunt becomes his soldiers' watchword: the blind and the lame shall not come into the house. Matthew Henry reads the whole capture as a figure of Christ's kingdom, Zion's old enemies dispossessed before the true King takes his residence there by the Spirit, a reading he states as his own and not as the text's own sense. Verse 9 closes the scene: David dwells in the fort, names it for himself, and builds outward from Millo, the fortress becoming a city he will live in for the rest of the chapter's story.
2 Samuel 5:8
“To the gutter - That is, whosoever scaleth the fort, or getteth up to the top of it, where the gutter was. That are hated - The Jebusites, and the lame, and the blind, Who had probably themselves insulted him, and blasphemed God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 5:8
“For (here is one of Marcion's antitheses): whereas David long ago, in the capture of Zion, was offended by the blind who opposed his admission (into the stronghold). In this respect (I should rather say) that they were a type of people equally blind, who in later times would not admit Christ to be the son of David. So, on the contrary, Christ helped the blind man to show, by this act, that he was not David's son and how different in disposition he was, by being kind to the blind while David ordered them to be slain.”
Tertullian · written before 220 · AGAINST MARCION 4.36patristic
The supporting terraces translate the Hebrew Millo, which Barnes takes as the Canaanite name of the northern defence of Zion. Judges 9:6 names a Beth-millo at Shechem. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the terraces as stone bastions David built against the Jebusites still living in the lower city.
2 Samuel 5:9
“David built round about from Millo and inward--probably a row of stone bastions placed on the northern side of Mount Zion, and built by David to secure himself on that side from the Jebusites, who still lived in the lower part of the city. The house of Millo was perhaps the principal corner tower of that fortified wall.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 5:9
“The church is called Sion, and the city of the living God. The Jebusites, Christ's enemies, must first be conquered and dispossessed, the blind and the lame taken away, and then Christ divides the spoil, sets up his throne there, and makes it his residence by the Spirit.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 5:9
“David dwelt in the fort - or stronghold, (as in 2Sa 5:7) i. e. eventually, when the buildings were completed, which may not have been for two or three years. Millo appears to have been a fortress of some kind, the northern defense of the city of David, and to have been a part of the original Canaanite defenses of Zion, as appears probable also from there having been a fortress called the house of Millo in the Canaanite city of Shechem. (Jdg 9:6 note, and 2Sa 9:1-13:20.) Millo may be the native name.”
2 Samuel 5:10-12
the Lord God of hosts: David's rise is credited past his own generalship, the Lord God of hosts was with him, the same title David gave the battle at Elah when no sword was yet drawn. Hiram of Tyre sends cedar and craftsmen who build David a literal house, and that house of cedar is what makes David's own question in the next chapter possible, when he asks why he should live in cedar while the ark sits in curtains. Verse 12 reads David's own reflection on it, that the Lord established the kingdom for his people Israel's sake and not for his own, the note the covenant of chapter seven will expand at length.
2 Samuel 5:10
“And David went on, and grew great,.... In honour and wealth, in fame and reputation, in subduing his enemies, obtaining conquests over them, and enlarging his dominions: and the Lord God of hosts, of armies above and below: was with him: to whom all his prosperity and success was owing. The Targum is,"the Word of the Lord God of hosts was for his help,''or his helper.”
Cedar out of Tyre, sons born in Jerusalem
Hiram king of Tyre enters Scripture here. Barnes holds that he outlived David and kept the friendship with Solomon, and Gill takes him as the father of Solomon's Hiram. Henry sets the builders from Tyre beside Isaiah 60:10, where foreigners rebuild the walls of Zion.
2 Samuel 5:11
“Hiram king of Tyre - Now mentioned for the first time. He survived David, and continued his friendship to Solomon (marginal references). The news of the capture of the city of the Jebusites had doubtless reached Tyre, and created a great impression of David’s power.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 5:11
“Many have excelled in arts and sciences who were strangers to the covenants of promise. Yet David's house was never the worse, nor the less fit to be dedicated to God, for being built by the sons of the stranger. It is prophesied of the gospel church, The sons of the strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee, Isa. lx.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Gill says David saw the LORD's hand in the success that met everything he did as king. Henry notes that no rival now questioned his title. Henry reads David here as a figure of Christ, and points to the covenant of Psalm 89.
2 Samuel 5:12
“His kingdom was established, there was nothing to shake it, none to disturb his possession or question his title. He that made him king established him, because he was to be a type of Christ, with whom God's hand should be established, and his covenant stand fast, Ps. lxxxix.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 5:13-16
more concubines and wives: After the throne is secure David multiplies wives and concubines from Jerusalem, against the very law given for Israel's king, that he shall not multiply wives to himself, and the older commentators name the fault without excusing it. The sons born there are listed by name, among them Nathan and Solomon, both borne by Bathsheba, and the name Nathan here belongs to a son rather than to the prophet who will confront David over her in the next chapters, two men sharing one name in one household's story. The list is genealogy without comment, but its placement beside the law it breaks is its own quiet judgment.
2 Samuel 5:13
“And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron,.... He had six when he was at Hebron, 2Sa 3:2, and now he took more, which was not to his honour, and contrary to the law of God, Deu 17:17; the concubines were a sort of half wives, as the word may signify, or secondary ones, and under the others: and there were yet sons and daughters born to David; besides those in Hebron mentioned in 2Sa 3:2.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 5:13
“David took him more concubines - He had, in all conscience, enough before; he had, in the whole, eight wives and ten concubines. That dispensation permitted polygamy, but from the beginning it was not so; and as upon an average there are about fourteen males born to thirteen females, polygamy is unnatural, and could never have entered into the original design of God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Samuel 5:13
“We praise him not; we justify him not; nor can we scarcely excuse him. The bad example of the patriarchs might make him think there was no harm in it, and he might hope it would strengthen his interest, by multiplying his alliances, and increasing the royal family. Happy is the man that has his quiver full of these arrows.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Clarke counts eleven children in the Hebrew list and twenty-four names in the Septuagint, where Nathan and other names appear twice. Gill notes that Shammua is called Shimea in 1 Chronicles 3:5. The list names only sons born in Jerusalem.
2 Samuel 5:14
“And these be the names of those that were born unto him in Jerusalem,.... The names of his sons, for his daughters are not mentioned, and these seem to be such only that were born of his wives, see 1Ch 3:9, Shammua, and Shobab, and Nathan, and Solomon; these four were by Bathsheba; the first of these is called Shimea, 1Ch 3:5.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 5:14
“These be the names - Eleven children are here enumerated in the Hebrew text; but the Septuagint has no less than twenty-four. I shall insert their names, and the reader if he please may collate them with the text: Sammus, Sobab, Nathan, Solomon, Ebear, Elisue, Naphek, Jephies, Elisama, Elidae, Eliphalath, Samae, Jessibath, Nathan, Galimaan, Jebaar, Theesus, Eliphalat, Naged, Naphek, Jonathan, Leasamus, Baalimath, and Eliphaath. There is no doubt some corruption in these names; there are two of the name of Nathan, two of Eliphalath, and two of Naphek; and probably Sammus and Samae are the same.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
ConnectionsLuke 3:31
Gill notes that Elishua is called Elishama in 1 Chronicles 3:6. Clarke gives the Septuagint names for Ibhar, Elishua, Nepheg and Japhia as Ebear, Elisue, Naphek and Jephies. Clarke finds some corruption in these names.
2 Samuel 5:15
“Ibhar also, and Elishua, and Nepheg, and Japhia. Elishua is called Elishama, 1Ch 3:6.”
Gill reads the seven sons of verses 15 and 16 as born to David's other wives. First Chronicles 3:6-8 counts nine, with a second Eliphelet and a son named Nogah. Kimchi, as Gill reports, held that both died without sons.
2 Samuel 5:16
“And Elishama, and Eliada, and Eliphalet. Seven more by some other wife or wives; nine are mentioned in 1Ch 3:6; there being in that account two Eliphalets, and another called Nogah; which two, one of the Eliphalets, and Nogah, might die without sons, as Kimchi thinks, and so are not mentioned here.”
Baal-perazim, and the marching in the mulberry tops
2 Samuel 5:17-18
went down to the hold: News of an anointed king over all Israel draws every Philistine army up at once, and David withdraws to the hold rather than meeting them in the open, the same caution that marks the enquiries to come. Verse 18 names the ground they camp on, the valley of Rephaim, the valley of the giants, the same word that names the four kinsmen of the giant killed at Gath in the next book's roster and the champion David himself once faced there. The map still carries the name a generation after Goliath fell.
2 Samuel 5:17
“The hold - Not the same place which is so named in 2Sa 5:7, 2Sa 5:9, but probably the cave (or hold) of Adullam 2Sa 23:13. The invasion most probably took place before David had completed his buildings in the city of David; and is probably referred to in 2Sa 23:8-17.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 5:17
“The kingdom of the Messiah, as soon as ever it was set up in the world, was thus vigorously attacked by the powers of darkness, who, with the combined force both of Jews and Gentiles, made head against it. The heathen raged, and the kings of the earth set themselves to oppose it; but all in vain, Ps. ii. The destruction will turn, as this did, upon Satan's own kingdom.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown describe the Valley of Rephaim as a broad plain running down from the hills, the road the Philistines took against Jerusalem. Gill places it west of Jerusalem, on the border of Judah in Joshua 15:8. The spread of the camp marks a large army.
2 Samuel 5:18
“The Philistines also came and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim. Or "of the giants", as Jos 15:8; which lay to the west of Jerusalem; of which; see Gill on Jos 15:8; the Philistines spreading themselves in it, shows that they were very numerous.”
2 Samuel 5:19-21
Shall I go up to the Philistines?: David enquires of the Lord before he moves, the pattern that runs through both books, and the answer here is as direct as the question: Go up, for I will doubtless deliver the Philistines into thine hand. Victory comes at once, and David names the place for what happened there, Baal-perazim, the Lord hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me, as the breach of waters. The Philistines leave their images behind in the flight, and David and his men burn them rather than keep them as spoil, the plain course commanded for Canaan's gods in Deuteronomy 7:25 and too rarely kept elsewhere in Israel's history.
2 Samuel 5:19
“After that [the killing of Goliath] he never entered on a war without seeking counsel of the Lord. Thus he was victorious in all wars, and even to his last years [he] was ready to fight. And when war arose with the Philistines, he joined battle with their fierce troops, being desirous of winning renown, while careless of his own safety. But this is not the only kind of fortitude which is worthy of note.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On the Duties of the Clergy 1.35.177patristic
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 5:19
“David inquired of the Lord - He considered himself only the captain of the Lord’s host, and therefore would not strike a stroke without the command of his Superior.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Albert Barnes renders Baal-perazim master of breaches and places it on a hill near Gibeon. Matthew Henry pictures a dam giving way, the gap widening once the water breaks through. John Wesley hears David giving God the whole victory.
2 Samuel 5:20
“The Lord hath broken forth - He very properly attributes the victory of Jehovah, without whose strength and counsel he could have done nothing. Baal-perazim - The plain or chief of breaches, because of the breach which God made in the Philistine army; and thus he commemorated the interference of the Lord.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nations carried their idols into battle, and Clarke recalls Israel doing the same with the ark in 1 Samuel 4. Barnes sees a hasty flight in the abandoned idols. The Hebrew says David and his men carried them away, and 1 Chronicles 14:12 adds that they were burned.
2 Samuel 5:22-25
came up yet again: The Philistines come up a second time to the same valley, and David enquires again, but the Lord gives a different plan for a second victory, not a straight advance but a flanking march, fetch a compass behind them, and wait for a sign, the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees. Older writers read that sound as the marching of an unseen host sent ahead of David, a signal rather than a weapon, and the point either way is the same: he waits for the sound rather than acting on his own timing. Two victories in one chapter come from two different battle plans, and what carries across both is not the tactic but the enquiry that precedes it.
2 Samuel 5:22
“And the Philistines came up yet again,.... And, as Josephus says (z), with an army three times larger than the former: and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim; in the same place where they were before, 2Sa 5:20. (z) Antiqu. l. 7. c. 4. sect. 1.”
The balsam trees translate the Hebrew baca, a tree Barnes likens to the balsam, named for sap that drips like tears. He links it to the Valley of Baca in Psalm 84:6. Clarke reads the order to circle around behind the Philistines as the LORD using human means.
2 Samuel 5:23
“The mulberry trees - Rather, the Bacah-tree, and found abundantly near Mecca. It is very like the balsam-tree, and probably derives its name from the exudation of the sap in drops like tears when a leaf is torn off. Some think the valley of Baca Psa 84:6 was so called from this plant growing there.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 5:23
“Go up - Directly against them, as the following words explain it. Behind - Where they least expect thee; God's purposes and promises do not exclude men's endeavours.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Clarke takes the sound of marching as a rustling in the tops of the trees, and he notes that the Arabic version hears horses' hooves. Clarke holds that the sign was plain, so David could never credit the victory to his own tactic. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the trees as poplars.
2 Samuel 5:24
“When thou hearest the sound of a going - If there had not been an evident supernatural interference, David might have thought that the sleight or ruse de guerre which he had used was the cause of his victory. By the going in the tops of the mulberry trees probably only a rustling among the leaves is intended. The Targum says, a noise; the Arabic has it, the noise of horses’ hoofs.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Clarke notes that David did exactly as the LORD commanded, and the victory followed. Barnes places Gezer between Lower Beth-horon and the sea, on the direct road home for Philistines fleeing from Gibeon. Pharaoh later gave Gezer to Solomon's wife, at 1 Kings 9:16.
2 Samuel 5:25
“Geba - Better, as in marginal reference “Gibeon.” Gazer should be “Gezer” (Jos 10:33, etc.); it lay between the nether Bethhoron and the sea; on the direct route therefore which the Philistines, fleeing from Gibeon, would take. The exact site has now been identified (1Ki 9:16).”
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative, an accession account joined to a capture of a city and two battle reports, as table classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Two enquiries, two different answers | David asks the same question twice against the same enemy in the same valley. At verse 19 the answer is a straight advance. At verses 23 and 24 it is a flanking march and a wait for a sound in the tops of the balsam trees. What carries across both is the asking rather than the tactic. | 2 Samuel 5:19, 2 Samuel 5:23, 2 Samuel 5:24 |
| The blind and the lame, turned back on the taunters | The Jebusites boast at verse 6 that even the blind and the lame could turn David away. Verse 8 gives the same words back as his men's watchword after the fortress falls. The taunt becomes the saying of the house, and the site's published exposition names Matthew Henry's messianic reading of the capture as his own reading rather than the text's stated sense.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Samuel 5:8. | 2 Samuel 5:6, 2 Samuel 5:8 |
| The sons born in Jerusalem | Verses 14 to 16 list the sons born after the capital moves, among them Nathan and Solomon. Adam Clarke sets the Septuagint's fuller name list against the Hebrew's eleven, and the kept commentary carries Kimchi and the rabbis Jarchi and Rabbi Isaiah on why some sons drop from the list. The placement beside verse 13 is its own quiet judgment, since the law of Deuteronomy 17:17 forbids a king to multiply wives.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Samuel 5:14. | 2 Samuel 5:13, 2 Samuel 5:14, 2 Samuel 5:15, 2 Samuel 5:16 |
| The name given to the place by what happened there | David names the field Baal-perazim at verse 20 from his own sentence, that the LORD has broken through his enemies before him like a breach of waters. The chapter uses the same habit at 6:8 with Perez-uzzah, so a place in this book carries the verb of its own scene. | 2 Samuel 5:20 |
The archaeology that bears on this chapter
11 more paragraphs on the patterns
The site's published dossier for 2 Samuel carries four finds, and two of them stand on this chapter's ground. The Stepped Stone Structure and the Large Stone Structure in the City of David are the walls Eilat Mazar identified as David's palace. She read them as the house of cedar of verse 11 and dated them to the tenth century BC. Israel Finkelstein, Ze'ev Herzog, Lily Singer-Avitz and David Ussishkin replied in Tel Aviv in 2007 that the walls belong to several periods and that the pottery does not secure a tenth-century date.
The dossier names both sides because the dating of monumental building in tenth-century Jerusalem is the live question and it has not been settled. A row on this chapter states the claim and the reply at their strength and takes no side the dossier does not take.
The Tel Dan Stele bears on the dynasty rather than on the city. It is an Aramaic victory inscription found by Avraham Biran's excavation and published with Joseph Naveh in 1993 and 1995. On the standard reading it names the house of David as the dynastic name of the southern kingdom. Philip Davies argued the letters could be a place name, and André Lemaire and most epigraphers hold the dynastic reading, which is now the majority position.
The two battle plans
The valley of Rephaim at verse 18 is the valley of the giants. The word behind the name stands again behind the four kinsmen of the giant at 21:15 to 22. The map still carries the name a generation after Goliath fell.
The first victory follows a direct word and a direct advance. The Philistines leave their images behind, and David and his men burn them, which is the course Deuteronomy 7:25 commands for the gods of Canaan and one Israel rarely kept. The second victory follows a different plan. Josephus and the Targum are named in the kept commentary on the numbers and on the sound in the balsam trees, and Kimchi, Jarchi and Rabbi Isaiah are named on the angels in the trees. Albert Barnes corrects the place names at verse 25 against the geography of the Philistine rout.
The blind and the lame, read as a type
Tertullian takes verse 8 into Against Marcion. He reads the blind who opposed David's entry into Zion as a type of a people equally blind, who in later times would not admit Christ. He then sets that reading against Christ's own kindness to the blind. The site's judgment file for this chapter records the reading as kept whole, calling it old and pointed. Matthew Henry reads the capture the same direction and states it as his own reading rather than as the sense of the text.
The row keeps both as the holders state them. The text itself says only that the Jebusites taunted David and that his men took the stronghold through the water shaft.
The law the chapter breaks in passing
Verse 13 has David take more concubines and wives from Jerusalem after the throne is secure. Deuteronomy 17:17 forbids exactly that to a king of Israel. The older commentators name the fault without excusing it, and the narrator gives no comment at all, only the list of sons that follows. Two of those sons are Nathan and Solomon, and the prophet who will confront David over Bathsheba shares a name with one of them without being him.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
This site's published book guide, src/components/book/guides/2-samuel/Book2SamuelGuide.tsx, act "The Triumphs: a United Kingdom", beat at chapter 5 and This site's published book sections table, src/lib/bible/book-sections.ts, the entry "2 Samuel": "history".
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and W. G. Blaikie, The Second Book of Samuel (Expositor's Bible).