³And he brought forth the people that were therein, and cut them with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes. And thus did David unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. And David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.
3. and cut them with saws] Read probably (compare 2 Samuel xii. 31, Revised Version margin) and put them with saws, i.e. put them to work with saws, etc. Compare 2 Chronicles ii. 17, 18; Joshua ix. 21–23. The implements mentioned here and in the parallel passage of 2 Samuel suggest task-work, not massacre. The Ammonites were reduced to bondage like that of Israel in Egypt. The exceptionally harsh treatment of the Ammonites was doubtless due to the exceptional insults which David’s ambassadors had received from them. A very different spirit towards Ammon is shown in Deuteronomy ii. 19.
4–8 (= 2 Samuel xxi. 18–22).
Philistine champions slain.
This section is the last in which the Chronicler notices David’s wars. It is taken from 2 Samuel xxi., where, however, it is preceded by an account (verses 15–17) of David’s narrow escape in an encounter with a Philistine.
Between the two sections of this chapter the Chronicler omits the account of the rebellions of Absalom and of Sheba, and the story of the Gibeonite vengeance on the house of Saul (2 Samuel xiii. i–xxi. 14).
⁴And it came to pass after this, that there arose war at Gezer[¹] with the Philistines: then Sibbecai the Hushathite slew Sippai, of the sons of the giant[²]: and they were subdued.
[¹] In 2 Samuel xxi. 18, Gob.
[²] Hebrew Rapha. According to another reading, giants; Hebrew Rephaim.
4. at Gezer] See vi. 67, note. In 2 Samuel at Gob, but no place called Gob is known. In 2 Samuel v. 25 it is said that David smote the Philistines “from Geba until thou come to Gezer.”
Sippai] In 2 Samuel “Saph.”