2 Samuel 10:18

Contextual Overview

¹⁵ And when the Syrians saw that they were put to the worse before Israel, they gathered themselves together. ¹⁵ The Arameans now realized that they were no match for Israel. So when they regrouped, ¹⁵ And when the Syrians saw that they were put to the worse before Israel, they gathered themselves together. ¹⁵ When the Arameans saw that Israel had defeated them, they came together into one big army. ¹⁵ When the Arameans realized that they had been defeated by Israel, they consolidated their forces. ¹⁵ And when the Syrians saw that they were smitten before Israel, they assembled themselves. ¹⁵ When the Syrians saw that they were put to the worse before Israel, they gathered themselves together. ¹⁵When the Arameans saw that they were defeated by Israel, they gathered together. ¹⁵ But when the Syrians saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they gathered themselves together. ¹⁵ Forsothe men of Sirye sien that thei hadden feld bifor Israel, and thei weren gaderid to gidere.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

fled: 2 Samuel 8:4, Psalms 18:38, Psalms 46:11

horsemen: 1 Chronicles 19:18, footmen

Shobach: Judges 4:2, Judges 4:22, Judges 5:26

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 20:29 - an hundred thousand 2 Chronicles 12:3 - twelve hundred Psalms 20:7 - Some trust Psalms 76:6 - both

Cross-References

Genesis 10:16
and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites,

Genesis 10:16
and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgashite,

Genesis 10:16
He was also the father of the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites,

Genesis 10:16
the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites,

Genesis 10:16
And the Jebusite, and the Emorite, and the Girgasite,

Genesis 10:16
the Jebusite, the Amorite, the Girgashite,

Genesis 10:16
and the Jebusite and the Amorite and the Girgashite

Genesis 10:16
and Amorrei, Gergesei,

Genesis 10:16
and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgashite,

Genesis 10:16
the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites,

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And the Syrians fled before Israel,.... After an obstinate and bloody fight between them:

and David slew [the men of] seven hundred chariots of the Syrians; the word "men" is rightly supplied, for chariots could not be said to be slain, but the men in them; in 1 Chronicles 19:17, they are said to be seven thousand, here seven hundred; which may be reconciled by observing, that here the chariots that held the men are numbered, there the number of the men that were in the chariots given, and reckoning ten men in a chariot, seven hundred chariots held just seven thousand men; though Kimchi takes another way of reconciling the two places, by observing that here only the choicest chariots are mentioned, there all of them, but the former way seems best:

and forty thousand horsemen; in 1 Chronicles 19:17; it is forty thousand "footmen", and so Josephus c; and the same may be called both horse and foot, be cause though they might come into the field of battle on horseback, yet might dismount and fight on foot; and so one historian calls them horsemen, and the other footmen; or the whole number of the slain, horse and foot mixed together, were forty thousand; Kimchi makes use of another way of removing this difficulty, and which perhaps is the best, that here only the horsemen are numbered that were slain, and there the footmen only, and both true; an equal number of each being slain, in all eighty thousand, besides the seven thousand in the chariots:

and smote Shobach the captain of their host, who died there; of his wounds upon the spot.

c Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 7. c. 6. sect. 3.)

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Seven hundred chariots - More probable than the “seven thousand” of 1 Chronicles 19:18. The frequent errors in numbers arise from the practice of expressing numerals by letters, with one or more dots or dashes to indicate hundreds, thousands, etc.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 2 Samuel 10:18. SEVEN HUNDRED chariots - and forty thousand HORSEMEN — In the parallel place, 1 Chronicles 19:18, it is said, David slew of the Syrians SEVEN THOUSAND men, which fought in chariots. It is difficult to ascertain the right number in this and similar places. It is very probable that, in former times, the Jews expressed, as they often do now, their numbers, not by words at full length, but by numeral letters; and, as many of the letters bear a great similarity to each other, mistakes might easily creep in when the numeral letters came to be expressed by words at full length. This alone will account for the many mistakes which we find in the numbers in these books, and renders a mistake here very probable. The letter ז zain, with a dot above, stands for seven thousand, נ nun for seven hundred: the great similarity of these letters might easily cause the one to be mistaken for the other, and so produce an error in this place.