And when the children of Ammon. — Up to this point the narrative has substantially coincided with 2 Samuel 10, and might have been derived immediately from it; but this and the following verses differ considerably from the older account, and add one or two material facts, which suggest another source.
Made themselves odious. — “Had become in bad odonr.” A unique (Aramaized) form of the same verb as is used in Samuel (hithbâ’ăshû for nib’ăshû).
A thousand talents of silver. — The talent was a weight, not a coin, coined money being unknown at that epoch. The sum specified amounts to £400,000. estimating the silver talent at £400. This detail is peculiar to the Chronicles.
Out of Mesopotamia, and out of Syria-maachah, and out of Zobah. — Out of Aram-naharaïm, and out of Aram-maachah, &c Samuel has, “And they hired Aram-beth-rehob and Aram-zobah, 20,000 foot, and the king of Maachah, 1,000 men, and the men (or chieftain) of Tôb, 12,000men.”Aram-naharaïm, i.e., Aram of the two rivers, was the country between the Tigris and Euphrates (see Judges 3:8); Aram-beth-rehob may have been one of its political divisions, and is perhaps to be identified with Rehoboth-hannahar (1 Chronicles 1:48), on the Euphrates. Another Rehoboth (“Rehoboth-ir,” Genesis 10:11) lay on the Tigris, north-east of Nineveh, and was a suburb of that great city. Aram-maachah imply the dominions of “the king of Maachah,” who is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 19:7; and Zobah, the Aram-zobah of Samuel. The chronicler makes no separate mention of the “men of Tòb” (Judges 11:3), perhaps because they were subject to Hadadezer, and as such, included in his forces. The Syriac and Arabic here have “from Aram-naharaïm, Haran, Nisibis, and Edom.”