Note One

A note on 2 Samuel 8:1
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This final, decisive defeat of the Philistines is recorded after David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and after God made his promise to build a house for David. For now, we will skip internal affairs and follow David's conquests of surrounding nations until they are finished. After that, we will return to internal affairs and David's family life.

The reference to Metheg Ammah (2 Samuel 8:1) is puzzling. The words may be taken as a place name (as in NIV and KJV), but no such place is mentioned elsewhere. Another possibility is that the words to refer to the "reins of the forearm." This alludes to the way a person controls a horse and suggests that David wrested from Philistia the reins of the land, that is, control of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River (Hertzberg as reported in EBC, 1992, p. 903). The NASB takes the words as a description: "the chief city" (literally, the bridle of the mother city) meaning that David took the control of Philistine villages out of the hands of the mother city, which was Gath. 1 Chronicles 18:1 may support this view when it says that David took "Gath and its surrounding villages (literally, daughters) out of the hands of the Philistines."