2 Samuel 12:29 - Printer Friendly

ESV: So David gathered all the people together and went to Rabbah and fought against it and took it.

NIV: So David mustered the entire army and went to Rabbah, and attacked and captured it.

NASB: So David gathered all the people and went to Rabbah, and he fought against it and captured it.

CSB: So David assembled all the troops and went to Rabbah; he fought against it and captured it.

NLT: So David gathered the rest of the army and went to Rabbah, and he fought against it and captured it.

KJV: And David gathered all the people together, and went to Rabbah, and fought against it, and took it.

NKJV: So David gathered all the people together and went to Rabbah, fought against it, and took it.

The year before, the king of the Ammonites, Nahash, died. David had liked Nahash and sent messengers to comfort his son, Hanun. Hanun thought the messengers were spies and that David wanted to know how to defeat his royal city. He treated the Israelites disgracefully and hired foreign armies to defend him against Israel (2 Samuel 10:1–6). When the Syrians couldn't help, Hanun fled to Rabbah, his walled city. With the Ammonites out of reach, Joab returned home (2 Samuel 10:14).

The next spring, David told Joab to complete the mission (2 Samuel 2:1). Aside from a few skirmishes, it's likely his strategy was to set a siege against the city. The Israelites kept the Ammonites from leaving while the Ammonite archers shot whomever they could from the walls (2 Samuel 11:19–20). Finally, Joab has apparently gained control of the city's water supply (2 Samuel 12:27). The Ammonites don't have a lot of time.

This battle is a war of honor. Hanun humiliated David's official messengers, thus dishonoring David and all of Israel (2 Samuel 10:1–5). Joab knows David needs to witness Hanun's humiliation. Before Joab enters the city, he sends a messenger, telling David to come quick (2 Samuel 12:28). David gathers the forces which aren't already with Joab and marches in. The city falls easily.

The first thing David does is to shame Hanun by taking his enormous crown (2 Samuel 12:30). Hanun's self-fulfilling prophecy has come true, but it's all his own fault. David was ready to be a friend.

Second Samuel 12:26–31 explains how David finishes what Hanun started. The Ammonite king disgraced David's messengers, and David sent Joab to war (2 Samuel 10). They fought to a stalemate until the spring, when Joab returned while David sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah. The walled city of Rabbah is set to fall, and Joab calls David to finish the fight. First Chronicles 20:4 gives a shortened version of 2 Samuel 10 and this passage.

In 2 Samuel 12, David learns the consequences of his sins against Bathsheba and Uriah (2 Samuel 11). David thought no one of consequence knew what he'd done. Nathan the prophet reveals that God knows; the Lord demands justice for David's victims. David's household will rebel, and Bathsheba's son will die. David humbly repents, and Bathsheba later conceives Solomon, the future king. Joab, about to defeat the Ammonites, calls David to finish the fight. In 2 Samuel 13, the seeds of the promised rebellion are sown. Psalm 51 is David's expression of remorse for his sins.

David begins to lose control of his seemingly perfect situation. While the respected soldier Uriah was fighting Ammonites with Joab (2 Samuel 10), David slept with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. To cover her pregnancy, David arranged for Uriah to die in battle (2 Samuel 11). Nathan, the prophet, confronts David over his crimes. God takes the child's life and will allow David's household to rebel against him. This begins when David's son rapes his own half-sister, Tamar (2 Samuel 13), starting a series of events that will result in another son, Absalom, taking the throne from his father (2 Samuel 14—16).

Second Samuel continues the story of David, who will become king over Judah. The other tribes of Israel are resistant, eventually sparking a civil war. David wins and makes Jerusalem his capital. Early success is followed by moral failure and controversy in David's house. The book of 1 Kings will begin by detailing David's decline and death.