2 Samuel 18:5-18

The Pulpit Commentary - 2 Samuel 18:14

Three darts; Hebrew, three staves (see 2 Samuel 23:21 ). The weapons of the ancients were of a very inferior kind, and stakes sharpened at the end and hardened in the fire were used by the infantry, until the increasing cheapness of iron made it possible to supply them with pikes. Joab's act was not one of intentional cruelty, but, picking up the first weapons that came to hand, he hurried away to kill his victim. His thrusts with these pointed sticks were brutal, and inflicted mortal... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - 2 Samuel 18:14-18

( THE WOOD OF EPHRAIM .) The end of Absalom. After a long course of flagrant and persistent wickedness, Absalom (at the age of twenty-seven) met his deserved doom. There is not in all history a more signal instance of retribution. In it we see punishment following crime, in the way of natural consequence, and corresponding with it in the manner of its infliction. The sinner reaps as he sows. "But Justice hastes t' avenge each impious deed: Some in day's clear and open light; ... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - 2 Samuel 18:16

Joab blew the trumpet. Stem and unscrupulous as he was, yet Joab is always statesmanlike. He had slain Absalom more for public than for private reasons, though he may have grimly remembered his own blazing barley field. But the rebellion being now crushed, further slaughter was impolitic, and would only cause sullen displeasure. The people, at the end of the verse, are those under Joab's command, and a translation proposed by some, "Joab wished to spare the people," is to be rejected. read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - 2 Samuel 18:17

A great pit; Hebrew, the great pit; as though there was some great hollow or well known depression in the wood, into which they cast Absalom's dead body, and raised a cairn over it. Such cairns were used as memorials of any event deemed worthy of lasting remembrance, but the similar cairn piled over the dead body of Achan ( Joshua 7:26 ) makes it probable that the act was also intended as a sign of condemnation of Absalom's conduct. All Israel fled every one to his tent. The Israelites... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - 2 Samuel 18:18

Absalom … had taken and reared up for himself a pillar. In contrast with the heap of stones cast over his dishonoured body, the narrator calls attention to the costly memorial erected by Absalom in his lifetime. The three unnamed sons mentioned in 2 Samuel 14:27 seem to have died in their infancy, and probably also their mother; and Absalom, instead of taking other wives to bear him sons, which would have been in unison with the feelings of the time, manifested his grief by raising this... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - 2 Samuel 18:18

( THE KING 'S DALE .) Posthumous fame. "Absalom's place" (literally, "hand," equivalent to "monument," or "memorial," 1 Samuel 15:12 ). To live in the memory of men after death is, in a sense, to be immortal on earth ( 2 Samuel 7:9 ). Of this earthly immortality observe that: 1 . It is an object of natural and legitimate desire. To be wholly forgotten as soon as we are laid in the dust is a prospect from which we instinctively turn away with aversion, as from death... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - 2 Samuel 18:18

Absalom's monument. The contrast between 2 Samuel 18:17 and 2 Samuel 18:18 is touching. Absalom, whose three sons ( 2 Samuel 14:27 ) were dead, desirous that his name should not therefore die, erected a monument to perpetuate it, probably connecting with it a tomb in which he purposed that his body should lie, and in which possibly he may have placed the remains of his deceased children. But he was buried in another sepulchre, and had another monument reared to his memory. A pit in... read more

Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - 2 Samuel 18:6

Against Israel - Implying that the revolt was in a great measure that of the ten tribes, Saul’s party, against the kingdom.The wood of Ephraim - This would naturally be sought in the west of Jordan (marginal reference). But on the other hand it seems certain that the scene of this battle was on the east of Jordan. It seems therefore inevitable to conclude that some portion of the thick wood of oaks and terebinths which still runs down to the Jordan on the east side was for some reason called... read more

Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - 2 Samuel 18:8

The battle was scattered - Probably Absalom’s forces were far more numerous than David’s; but, most likely by Joab’s skillful generalship, the field of battle was such that numbers did not tell, and David’s veteran troops were able to destroy Absalom’s rabble in detail. The wood entangled them, and was perhaps full of pits, precipices, and morasses 2 Samuel 18:17. read more

Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - 2 Samuel 18:9

would seem that the two things which his vain-glory boasted in, the royal mule, and the magnificent head of hair by which he was caught in the “oak” (rather, terebinth or turpentine tree), both contributed to his untimely death. read more

Grupo de Marcas