1 Chronicles 18: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter lists David's military victories over the Philistines, Moab, Hadarezer king of Zobah, the Arameans of Damascus, and Edom, and the tribute and treasure that came in from them. David dedicates the gold, silver, and bronze to the LORD, and some of the bronze is later used by Solomon. The chapter closes by saying David ruled all Israel with justice, and it names the officials who served under him.

Claim by Claim

1. 18:1
   • After this David struck the Philistines.
   • David subdued the Philistines.
   • David took Gath and its surrounding villages out of the hand of the Philistines.
2. 18:2
   • David struck Moab.
   • The Moabites became servants to David.
   • The Moabites brought tribute.
3. 18:3
   • David struck Hadadezer king of Zobah.
   • Hadadezer's defeat extended as far as Hamath.
   • The one who marched out went to establish his control at the river Euphrates.
   • The Hebrew leaves it unclear whether it was David or Hadadezer who went to establish control at the Euphrates.
4. 18:4
   • David captured from Hadadezer a thousand chariots.
   • David captured from Hadadezer seven thousand horsemen.
   • David captured from Hadadezer twenty thousand foot soldiers.
   • David hamstrung all the chariot horses.
   • David kept back from them a hundred chariots.
5. 18:5
   • The Arameans of Damascus came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah.
   • David struck down twenty-two thousand Aramean men.
6. 18:6
   • David placed garrisons in Aram of Damascus.
   • The Arameans became servants to David.
   • The Arameans brought tribute.
   • The LORD gave David victory everywhere he went.
7. 18:7
   • David took the shields of gold that were carried by the servants of Hadadezer.
   • David brought those shields to Jerusalem.
8. 18:8
   • Tibhath and Chun were cities of Hadadezer.
   • David took a very large amount of bronze from Tibhath and Chun.
   • Solomon made the bronze sea from that bronze.
   • Solomon made the pillars from that bronze.
   • Solomon made the bronze vessels from that bronze.
9. 18:9
   • Tou was king of Hamath.
   • Tou heard that David had struck down the entire army of Hadadezer king of Zobah.
10. 18:10
    • Tou sent his son Hadoram to king David.
    • Hadoram was sent to ask after David's welfare.
    • Hadoram was sent to bless David for fighting against Hadadezer and defeating him.
    • Hadadezer had been at war with Tou.
    • Hadoram brought with him all kinds of vessels of gold, silver, and bronze.
11. 18:11
    • King David dedicated those vessels to the LORD.
    • David also dedicated the silver and gold he had carried off from all these nations.
    • David had taken silver and gold from Edom.
    • David had taken silver and gold from Moab.
    • David had taken silver and gold from the Ammonites.
    • David had taken silver and gold from the Philistines.
    • David had taken silver and gold from Amalek.
12. 18:12
    • Abishai was the son of Zeruiah.
    • Abishai struck down eighteen thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt.
13. 18:13
    • He put garrisons in Edom.
    • All the Edomites became servants to David.
    • The LORD gave David victory everywhere he went.
14. 18:14
    • David reigned over all Israel.
    • David executed judgment and righteousness for all his people.
15. 18:15
    • Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army.
    • Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was recorder.
16. 18:16
    • Zadok son of Ahitub was a priest.
    • Abimelech son of Abiathar was a priest.
    • Shavsha was scribe.
17. 18:17
    • Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites.
    • David's sons were chief officials at the king's side.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

18:1

The Philistines were a people settled in five fortified cities along the coastal plain southwest of Israel, Israel's most persistent enemy for generations and the people David had fought since his youth. Gath was one of those five cities; the "villages around it" were the smaller unwalled settlements that depended on a fortified city, in Hebrew literally its "daughters."

18:2

Moab was a kingdom on the high plateau east of the Dead Sea. To "become subjects" and bring payment means Moab kept its own people and land but paid an annual levy of goods to David and could not act independently in war or diplomacy, the standard arrangement between a strong king and a defeated neighbor.

18:3

Zobah was an Aramean kingdom north of Damascus, in what is now southern Syria; Hamath lay further north on the Orontes River. The king's name appears in other books as Hadadezer, which is the more usual spelling; both stand for the same man. Setting up rule "along the Euphrates" means claiming the trade routes at the far northern edge of the region: this was a contest between two expanding powers, not a border raid.

18:4

Cutting the leg tendons permanently crippled a horse for war without killing it. Chariots were the heavy weaponry of the age, and Israel had no tradition of maintaining large chariot forces; disabling the captured animals denied them to any future enemy rather than absorbing them into an army that could not feed or train them.

18:5

The King James calls these people Syrians; the Hebrew word is Aramean. They were the peoples of the small kingdoms spread across what is now Syria, of whom Damascus was the strongest. They are not the Syrians of later Greek and Roman usage.

18:6

A garrison was a permanent unit of troops stationed in conquered territory to hold it down and collect the tribute. "Syriadamascus" is the King James running two words together for the Aramean kingdom centered on Damascus. "The LORD preserved David whithersoever he went" means kept him safe and gave him victory wherever he campaigned.

18:7

Gold shields of this kind were ceremonial, carried by royal attendants on parade rather than used in battle. Taking them was a public seizure of another king's dignity as much as of his wealth.

18:8

The bronze Sea was an enormous basin, roughly fifteen feet across, that stood in the courtyard of the temple Solomon later built, holding water for the priests' washing. The pillars were the two free-standing bronze columns at the temple entrance. Solomon was David's son and successor; the writer is pointing forward to a building that did not yet exist.

18:10

Sending a son rather than an ordinary messenger, and sending him with valuables, was the recognized way one king acknowledged another's superior position while asking for friendly relations. The King James "enquire of his welfare" translates the ordinary Hebrew greeting, asking after someone's peace and wellbeing.

18:11

"Dedicated" means placed in a reserved treasury for the LORD's use rather than kept for the king's own household. Edom lay south of the Dead Sea, Ammon east of the Jordan north of Moab, and the Amalekites were a nomadic people of the southern desert.

18:12

Zeruiah was David's sister, so Abishai and Joab were the king's nephews; the Hebrew names them by their mother, which is unusual and may point to her standing in the family. The Valley of Salt lay in the arid country south of the Dead Sea. The parallel account in 2 Samuel 8:13 credits this victory to David himself, and a heading in Psalm 60 to Joab; the sources differ, and Chronicles gives it to Abishai.

18:14

"Executed judgment and justice" describes the king's job as chief judge of the nation. In Israel the king was expected to hear cases himself, especially from people with no one else to protect them, and this pair of words was the standard measure of whether a reign was good or bad.

18:15

The recorder's title comes from the Hebrew for "one who causes to remember." He was not a clerk but a senior minister who kept the official record of the reign and controlled what reached the king, the equivalent of a chief of staff.

18:16

Israel would later have a single high priest, but here two priestly families hold office at once: Zadok's line, tied to the older sanctuary, and Abiathar's, which had served David through his years as a fugitive. The name Abimelech is almost certainly a copying variation on Ahimelech, and the father-son order is reversed from what 1 Samuel reports, where Abiathar is the son of Ahimelech. The scribe or secretary drafted royal correspondence and treaties.

18:17

The Cherethites and Pelethites were foreign professional soldiers, probably of Cretan and Philistine origin, who served as the king's personal bodyguard. Their loyalty was to David alone rather than to any Israelite tribe, which made them dependable in a dispute between Israelites. The parallel verse in 2 Samuel 8:18 says David's sons were "priests"; Chronicles instead calls them chief officials at the king's side.