2 Samuel 18:6

THE SLAUGHTER OF ABSALOM'S ARMY IN THE FOREST OF EPHRAIM

"So the army went out into the field against Israel; and the battle was fought in the forest of Ephraim. And the men of Israel were defeated there by the servants of David, and the slaughter was great on that day, twenty thousand men. The battle spread over the face of all the country; and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword."

"The forest of Ephraim" (2 Samuel 18:6). "This place is not otherwise known to us."[7] Keil was certain that `the forest of Ephraim' was west of the Jordan river;[8] Willis located it east of Jordan,[9] and there are excellent arguments that may be advanced supporting either view. My own opinion favors an east of Jordan site, because Absalom had crossed the Jordan with all those men (2 Samuel 17:24). And furthermore, David's men returned to Mahanaim that day after the battle ended; and that was east of Jordan.

If we may hazard a guess as to how the `forest of Ephraim' received its name and yet lay outside of Ephraim's territory (which was west of Jordan), it was from that disastrous defeat of Ephraim in that very forest by the troops of Jephthah, which slew forty-two thousand Ephraimites there (Judges 12:1-6).

"The slaughter there was great ... twenty thousand men" (2 Samuel 18:7). It is not difficult to account for this awful butchery of Absalom's men. They were surprised by the three detachments of David's army which fell upon them as they were marching, their weapons perhaps still in wagons for their conveyance, and David's hardened veterans simply butchered them by the thousands.

"The battle spread over the face of all the country" (2 Samuel 18:8). The panic which seized Absalom's forces scattered them for miles in all directions, but David's well-organized and disciplined men merely pursued them and executed them by the sword.

"The forest devoured more people that day than the sword" (2 Samuel 18:8). It is difficult to know how this verse should be understood. It may mean that another twenty thousand men were destroyed by the forest in addition to the twenty thousand men destroyed by the sword. Another possible understanding of it is that the forest destroyed so many because of the advantages it gave to David's men. "Because of the pits, precipices, and unevenness of the ground, more were slain in the pursuit through the forest than were slain in the battle itself."[10] Bennett understood the passage as meaning that, "Many fugitives lost their lives by falling headlong in the broken rocky country; and some, perhaps many of the wounded, died of hunger, thirst, and exhaustion."[11] Matthew Henry placed the total number of deaths at "More than 40,000; as the Chaldee paraphrast understands it, `the wild beasts of the forest were probably the death of multitudes of the dispersed and distracted Israelites.'"[12] However, one reads the place, the slaughter that day was indeed great.