2 Samuel 18:8

8 For the battle there was scattered over the face of the whole countryside, and the woods 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 of battle against Israel. And the battle was in the woods of Ephraim.

7 The people of Israel were overthrown there before the servants of David, and a great slaughter of twenty thousand took place there that day.

8 For the battle there was scattered over the face of the whole countryside, and the woods devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.

9 Then Absalom met the servants of David. Absalom rode on a mule. The mule went under the thick boughs of a great terebinth tree, and his head caught in the terebinth; so he was left hanging between heaven and earth. And the mule which was under him went on.

10 Now a certain man saw it and told Joab, and said, "I just saw Absalom hanging in a terebinth tree!"