2 Samuel 12:31 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

He brought forth the people The words are indefinite, and therefore not necessarily to be understood of all the people, but of the men of war, and especially of those who had been the chief actors of that villanous action against David's ambassadors, and of the dreadful war ensuing upon it; for which they deserved severe punishments. Indeed, since David left Shobi in the government of Rabbah, (2 Samuel 17:27,) it must be presumed that he left some besides female subjects under his dominion; and it is most likely that the bulk of the people were received to mercy, and only the king, and the accomplices and instruments of his tyranny, suffered the chastisements due to their guilt. And put them under saws, &c. The Hebrew, וישׂם במגרה, vajasem bammegeerah, &c., may be literally and properly rendered, and he put them to the saw, and to iron harrows, or mines, and to axes of iron, and made them pass by, or to, the brick-kilns; that is, he made them slaves, and put them to the most servile employments, namely, sawing, harrowing, or making iron harrows, or mining, hewing of wood, and making brick. The version of the Seventy, though not very clear, may be interpreted to the same purpose. The Syriac and Arabic versions render the passage, He brought them out, and threw them into chains, and iron shackles, and made them pass before him in a proper measure, or by companies at a time. If the parallel place, 1 Chronicles 20:3, which our version renders, He cut them with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes, be objected, it must be observed, the Hebrew, וישׂר, vajasser, may be rendered, He separated to the saw, &c.; or, He ruled or governed by the saw, harrows, mines, and axes; made them slaves, and condemned them to these servile employments. Thus the words are rendered by Schmidius. And “this interpretation,” says Dr. Dodd, “is far from being forced, is agreeable to the proper sense and construction of the words, and will vindicate David from any inhumanity that can be charged upon the man after God's own heart. The Syriac version is, He bound them with iron chains, &c.; and thus he bound them all. And the Arabic, He bound them all with chains, killing none of the Ammonites, This interpretation may be further confirmed by the next clause: Thus did he unto all the children of Ammon For had he destroyed all the inhabitants by these, or any methods of severity, it would have been an almost total extirpation of them; and yet we read of them as united with the Moabites, and the inhabitants of Seir, and forming a very large army to invade the dominions of Jehoshaphat. It may be added, that if the punishments inflicted on this people were as severe as our version represents them, they were undoubtedly inflicted by way of reprisals. Nahash, the father of Hanun, in the wantonness of cruelty, would admit the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead to surrender themselves to him upon no other condition than their every one consenting to have their right eye thrust out, that he might lay it as a reproach upon all Israel. If these severities of David were now exercised by way of retaliation for former cruelties of this nature, it will greatly lessen the horror that may be conceived upon account of them, and, in some measure, justify David's using them; and as the sacred writers, who have transmitted this history to us, do not pass any censure on David for having exceeded the bounds of humanity in this punishment of the Ammonites, we may reasonably conclude, either that the punishment was not so severe as our version represents it, or that there was some peculiar reason that demanded this exemplary vengeance, and which, if we were acquainted with it, would induce us to pass a more favourable judgment concerning it; or that the law of nations, then subsisting, admitted such kind of executions upon very extraordinary provocations, though there are scarce any that can justify them.” See Delaney and Chandler, p. 178. But in whatever light we view these severities exercised upon the Ammonites, they ought, in no manner, to be proposed as an example to Christians, nor be pleaded as a precedent for any people to do the like. For the divine laws are the rules of our conduct, and not the actions of any men whomsoever.