{"id":60227,"date":"2019-07-28T15:49:27","date_gmt":"2019-07-28T12:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=60227"},"modified":"2023-02-20T14:22:15","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T12:22:15","slug":"unrequited-grace-to-an-unspecified-favor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/unrequited-grace-to-an-unspecified-favor\/","title":{"rendered":"Unrequited Grace To An Unspecified Favor"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[834,434],"acf":{"old_id":"60227","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"273","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"And another striking victory for David and Israel \u00a0","content":"

David attempted to be gracious to the Ammonites\u2014in return for an undisclosed favor\u2014but his ambassadors suffered grievous insult at their hands and war was declared pitting Israel against the combined forces of Ammon and its ally, Aram.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joab, David\u2019s commander-in-chief, assessed the dire situation and came up with a successful strategy: he divided the command of his forces between himself and his brother Abishai. He himself took \u201cselect\u201d forces (9) and faced off against the Arameans, while the remainder of the army faced off against Ammon (10), with the explicit understanding that should one force be overwhelmed, the other would come to its rescue (11). Joab then declared: \u201cBe of good courage, and let us prove strong for our people and for the cities of our God, and the Lord will do that which seems good to Him\u201d (12), which, to be candid, can be read as a protestation of faith or of resignation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although Joab\u2019s choice of the select force implies that he saw Aram as the greater threat, their forces fled before him, inspiring a similar flight by the Ammonites, enabling Abishai to enter \u201cthe city\u201d (14), by implication, its capital, Rabbat Ammon (whose biblical name carries on today in the Jordanian capital Amman). The Arameans, fearful of David seizing this advantage to consolidate his hold over them, gathered an even larger force and met Israel in another pitched battle at Helam (somewhere between present day Syria and Jordan) and the result is another striking victory for David and Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

As to that unspecified favor David was intent on repaying in the first place, the best the exegetes can offer is a Midrash that stipulates that a sole survivor of his family of the Moabite perfidy against David\u2019s family found refuge in Ammon. While this serves to link this chapter to his harsh treatment of the Moabites in chapter 8, since the entire matter of the tragic fate of his family (<\/span>see our comments there<\/span><\/a>) is hypothetical, this would be a speculation built on another speculation. Yet, it seems the best explanation that has been offered.<\/span><\/p>\n

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