2 Samuel 18:8

8 For the battle was there spread over the face of all the country; and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.

2 Samuel 18:8 Meaning and Commentary

2 Samuel 18:8

For the battle was there scattered over the face of all the
country
Or the warriors were scattered, as the Targum; Absalom's soldiers, their ranks were broken, and they were thrown into the utmost confusion, and ran about here and there all over the field or plain in which the battle was fought, and into the neighbouring wood:

and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured;
there were more slain in it the in the field of battle, what by one thing or another; as by falling into pits and on stumps of trees, and being entangled in the bushes, and could make but little haste, and so were overtaken by David's men, and slain; insomuch that, as Josephus

---

FOOTNOTES:

F8 observes, there were more slain fleeing than fighting, and perhaps some might perish by wild beasts; so the Targum,

``and the beasts of the wood slew more of the people than were slain by the sword;''

and so the Syriac and Arabic versions render the words to the same purpose.

F8 Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 7. c. 10. sect. 2.)

2 Samuel 18:8 In-Context

6 So the people went out into the field against Israel: and the battle was in the forest of Ephraim.

7 And the people of Israel were smitten there before the servants of David, and there was a great slaughter there that day of twenty thousand men.

8 For the battle was there spread over the face of all the country; and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.

9 And Absalom chanced to meet the servants of David. And Absalom was riding upon his mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between heaven and earth; and the mule that was under him went on.

10 And a certain man saw it, and told Joab, and said, Behold, I saw Absalom hanging in an oak.