2 Samuel 8:5

5 Arameans from Damascus came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah, but David killed twenty-two thousand of them.

2 Samuel 8:5 Meaning and Commentary

2 Samuel 8:5

And when the Syrians of Damascus came to succour Hadadezer king
of Zobah
These seem to have had no king at this time, or, if they had, Hadadezer was their king, which is not improbable; and Nicholas of Damascus ^F15; an Heathen writer, is clear for it, whom he calls Adad, who, he says, reigned over Damascus, and the other Syria without Phoenicia, who made war with David king of Judea, and was routed by him at Euphrates: and he seems to be the first king of Damascus, which he joined to the kingdom of Zobah, and all the kings of Damascus afterwards were called by the same name; though Josephus ^F16, who also speaks of Adad being king of Damascus and of the Syrians, yet makes him different from this Hadadezer, to whose assistance he says he came:

David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men;
that is, of the Syrians of Damascus.

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FOOTNOTES:

F15 Apud Joseph. ib. (l. 7. c. 5.) sect. 2.
F16 Ibid.

2 Samuel 8:5 In-Context

3 David also defeated Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to take control again at the Euphrates River.

4 David captured one thousand chariots, seven thousand men who rode in chariots, and twenty thousand foot soldiers. He crippled all but a hundred of the chariot horses.

5 Arameans from Damascus came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah, but David killed twenty-two thousand of them.

6 Then David put groups of soldiers in Damascus in Aram. The Arameans became David's servants and gave him the payment he demanded. The Lord gave David victory everywhere he went.

7 David took the shields of gold that had belonged to Hadadezer's officers and brought them to Jerusalem.