Friday, October 7, 2011

Spilled Lemonade

Reflections on 2 Samuel 10:15-19

Someone once said that when life gives you a lemon, make lemonade.  Joab gave Hadadezer and his Aramean army a lemon at Medeba.  Hadadezer decided to make lemonade, though I am sure he had more than that in mind.  He hoped to make sure that Ammon remained his vassal and perhaps even hoped to gain control over Israel.  God dumped his pitcher of lemonade.

EMBARRASSMENT REPEATED.  After the embarrassing defeat at Medeba, Hadadezer king of Zobah (2 Samuel 8:3) sought reinforcements from his Aramean kinsmen on the other side of the Euphrates River.  Shobach, Hadadezer's commander, led this army south to aid the Ammonites a second time, but David led his army out to meet Hadadezer at Helam just east of the Sea of Galilee and well north of Ammon.  When the two armies clashed, the Arameans again fled before David.  This time David's army did not retire to Jerusalem but pressed their advantage and killed a large number of foot soldiers, horsemen, and charioteers.  (See any of the commentaries listed regarding the different numbers of the slain in Samuel and Chronicles.)  Furthermore, they killed Shobach, the commander of the combined armies.

VASSALS STATES LOST.  When the kings who were Hadadezer's vassals, saw that David had defeated Hadadezer decisively, many of them abandoned Hadadezer and made peace with David becoming subject to him.  This alliance with the kings immediately north of Israel gave David an additional source of revenue and strengthened his control "over the Via Maris and the King's Highway, the two most important international roads of that region" (Bergen, 2001, p. 361).

AMMONITE ALLIANCE CANCELLED.  Hadadezer lost a large part of his army and the allegiance of several vassals in the battle at Helam.  Consequently, Hadadezer was unwilling to come to the aid of the Ammonites any more.  The Ammonites lost the alliance they were depending on and for which they had paid about 37 tons of silver.  The next time the Ammonites faced David, they would face him alone.

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