Completing the Conquest

The author of 2 Samuel puts a final bookend on the narrative of chapters 11 and 12 by telling us here about the outcome of the Israelite assault on Ammon. It was David’s failure to go with his army when it began this attack that led to his sin with Bathsheba. Now he returns to his proper role, though he does not appear to handle it as well as we might hope.

Joab has been fighting against Rabbah and finally takes “the royal city,” the part of the city where the palace is located. Apparently the city’s water supply can be controlled from this point in some way, so Joab now holds the key to Rabbah. But instead of pressing ahead and completing his siege, he sends word to David to come and assume command, that he might have the honor of the conquest, not Joab. David accepts this counsel. Gathering all his remaining forces, he marches to Rabbah, takes command from Joab for the final assault, and takes the city.

David launched this attack on Ammon out of a desire to avenge the Ammonites’ humiliation of his ambassadors (ch. 10). Now that he has conquered Ammon, he exacts a harsh vengeance, proving himself “too haughty and too severe,” according to Matthew Henry. First, he takes the crown of the king of Ammon. This crown weighs about 75 pounds, far too much for actual use, but David has it set on his head anyway. He also takes a great deal of plunder from Rabbah. Significantly, however, we are not told that David dedicates the crown or the plunder to God (see 8:11). Second, he subjects the Ammonite people to hard labor rather than tribute payments as in his earlier conquests. And it is not just the people of Rabbah whom he subjects—it seems that the other major cities of Ammon surrender when Rabbah falls, so a whole people is conquered and put to slave labor.

Henry speculates that this harsh behavior by David indicates that these events occur before God brings him to repentance for his sin. David’s rigorous treatment of Ammon is “a sign that David’s heart was not yet made soft by repentance, else the bowels of his compassion would not have been thus shut up—a sign that he had not yet found mercy, else he would have been more ready to show mercy,” he writes in his commentary on 2 Samuel.