¹¹These also did king David dedicate unto the Lord, with the silver and the gold that he carried away from all the nations; from Edom, and from Moab, and from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines, and from Amalek.
11. from Amalek] So 2 Samuel viii. 12, but we have no record of any war of David with Amalek except the account in 1 Samuel xxx.
¹²Moreover Abishai[¹] the son of Zeruiah smote of the Edomites in the Valley of Salt eighteen thousand. ¹³And he put garrisons in Edom; and all the Edomites became servants to David. And the Lord gave victory[²] to David whithersoever he went.
[¹] Hebrew Abshai.
[²] Or, saved David.
12. Abishai the son of Zeruiah] In 2 Samuel viii. 13 David, and in Psalms lx. (title) Joab, receives the credit of this victory. Abishai might have commanded in the battle, while Joab (compare 1 Kings xi. 16) completed the conquest of the country; but it is highly probable that the reading Abishai the son of Zeruiah has arisen here through a copyist’s mistake and that the true reading is And when he (David) returned he smote Edom, etc.
of the Edomites] Literally “of Edom,” so Psalms lx. (title), but in 2 Samuel “of the Syrians,” literally “Aram.” The two words “Edom” and “Aram” when written in Hebrew are very much alike and are easily confused. The reading “Edom” is right here.
the Valley of Salt] Probably the marshy flat (Bädeker, Palestine⁵, p. 174) at the south end of the Dead Sea. This valley is dominated by the Jebel Usdum, a hill consisting “almost entirely of pure crystallised salt” (Bädeker, Palestine⁵, p. 174).
eighteen thousand] Psalms lx. (title), “twelve thousand,” not an important variation.
14–17 (= 2 Samuel viii. 15–18; compare 2 Samuel xx. 23–26).
David’s Officials.