The Fall of the Proud

Reflections on 2 Samuel 12:26-31

When Hanun, king of Ammon, insulted David's messengers, he knew he would make David his enemy, but he may also have felt confident that he could defend himself against any resulting aggression. Historians tell us that during six centuries of Ammonite rule in Rabbah, its defenses were breached only once, and that by David's army (George M. Landes, "The Material Civilization of the Ammonites," The Biblical Archaeologist Reader, 2, p. 76). David's accomplishment followed a thorough, if slow, preparation. David defeated Ammon's allies to the north and south, took control of the King's Highway from Aram to Edom, and isolated Rabbah behind its city walls. After two or three years of preparation, David sent Joab out to besiege Rabbah in the spring of the year (1 Chronicles 20:1).

THE SIEGE. Even after such thorough preparations, Rabbah did not fall immediately. It was at least a year before Joab captured the "royal citadel." When he had done so, he informed David that he had captured the water supply, which the royal citadel may have protected, so that David could come and direct the final capture of the city.

THE CAPTURE. The city fell into David's hands like a ripe plum, and he took a great quantity of plunder from the city. One of the notable items was a crown of gold weighing 75 pounds. It is hard to imagine a king lifting let alone wearing a crown weighing 75 pounds, so from ancient times it has been suggested that the crown sat on the idol of the Ammonite god Milcom or Molech (both king and Molech are spelled "mlk" in Hebrew). The crown, or a jewel from the crown, was placed briefly on David's head as a symbol of David's power over the Ammonites (Smith, 2000, p. 434).

THE PUNISHMENT. The price for insulting David's messengers was steep. David put the Ammonites of Rabbah and the surrounding towns to work with stone-cutting saws, picks, and axes and in making bricks. All of these tasks, which require heavy manual labor, are related to building walls and other large structures which David may have used to strengthen the defenses of many Israelite cities (see Bergen, 2001, p. 378). (Some translations such as the KJV and NASB suggest that David tortured and killed the Ammonites with these instruments, but the language is not clear. The ESV and NIV say that David sentenced them to hard labor with them.)