2 Samuel 18:8

8 And the fighting went on over all the face of the country: and the woods were responsible for more deaths than the sword.

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

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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 fight took place in the woods of Ephraim.

7 And the people of Israel were overcome there by the servants of David, and there was a great destruction that day, and twenty thousand men were put to the sword.

8 And the fighting went on over all the face of the country: and the woods were responsible for more deaths than the sword.

9 And Absalom came across some of David's men. And Absalom was seated on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great tree, and his head became fixed in the tree and he was lifted up between earth and heaven, and the beast under him went on.

10 And a certain man saw it and said to Joab, I saw Absalom hanging in a tree.