2 Samuel 8:15

8:15-18 David neither did wrong, nor denied or delayed right to any. This speaks his close application to business; also his readiness to admit all addresses and appeals made to him. He had no respect of persons in judgment. Herein he was a type of Christ. To Him let us submit, his friendship let us seek, his service let us count our pleasure, diligently attending to the work he assigns to each of us. David made his sons chief rulers; but all believers, Christ's spiritual seed, are better preferred, for they are made kings and priests to our God, Re 1:6.

And David reigned over all Israel,.... Not only over Judah, but over all the tribes of Israel, and over the whole land of Canaan, as promised to Abraham, Genesis 15:18 ; reaching to the river Euphrates, as Syria did, now conquered by David: and David executed judgment and justice unto all his people; when he returned from his wars, he heard and tried all causes impartially, brought before him, and gave sentence according to the law of God, and administered righteous judgment without any respect to persons; all had justice done them that applied unto him, whether high or low, rich or poor; and indeed during his wars he was not negligent of the civil government of his subjects, and the distribution of justice to them by proper officers, in which he was a type of Christ; see Isaiah 11:5.

2 Samuel 8:15 . David reigned over all Israel — He has no disturbance at home, while he was engaged in wars abroad: but all Israel obeyed him. And David executed judgment and justice — That is, either, 1st, Having now finished his foreign wars, he applied himself to the civil government of his people, according to the law of God, which he executed duly by himself, or his judges: or, rather, 2d, Even while he was engaged in so many wars abroad, he did not neglect his people at home; but took care that justice should be administered to them, according to that divine admonition recorded in his last words, 2 Samuel 23:3 , He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.

15 . executed judgment and justice ] Proving himself the true representative of Jehovah, whose attributes these are ( Psalm 33:5 ; Psalm 89:14 ); and a true type of the perfect Messianic King ( Isaiah 9:7 ; Isaiah 32:1 ; Jeremiah 23:5-6 ). 15–18. David’s administration and officers A summary notice of the internal administration of the kingdom, with a list of David’s chief officers of state, is appended to the account of his wars. Another list of these officers is given in ch. 2 Samuel 20:23-26 : on the differences between them see notes there. A similar list of Solomon’s officers is to be found in 1 Kings 4:1-6 .

Verse 15. - David executed judgment and justice. There was very little real truth in Absalom's fault finding with the administration of justice ( 2 Samuel 15:3, 4 ), unless we suppose - what is only too probable - that David, after his terrible crimes of murder and adultery, became lax in the discharge of his judicial duties. Here, at this period of his life, he was a zealous judge at home, as well as a brave and skilful general. He was one of those many sided characters who are great in a multitude of ways. Like Julius Caesar and our own Alfred, he was as distinguished in the arts of peace as in those of war. And thus, while his first care was for the establishment of religion, and while even the singing in the sanctuary was not beneath his notice, he also, even in the midst of dangerous wars, gave careful attention to the orderly government of his kingdom and the maintenance of right and law. We have already seen with what consummate skill he selected a capital immediately that he was made king of all Israel. Saul had done much in war. Though finally defeated at Gilboa, he had taught the Israelites their strength, and laid the foundations of David's empire; but he had done nothing to consolidate the tribes, or provide tribunals for the settlement of disputed legal rights or the punishment of crimes. Israel was as loose an aggregate of discordant atoms at his death as it was at his appointment; and the maintenance of order was left to the caprice of local sheiks.

Samuel had done far more for the internal development and consolidation of the people than Saul; but it was David who made them into a nation. The continuance of his work was frustrated by the extravagance of Solomon, the folly of Rehoboam, and the ambition of the restless tribe of Ephraim; but the two parts into which his realm was broken at least held together, and there never again was danger of such anarchy and threatened disintegration as existed in the times of the judges. 2 Samuel 8:15

The Syrians - Read the Edomites, as in marginal references (compare Psalm 60:1-12 title), and as the context 2 Samuel 8:14 requires. For a further account of this war of extermination with Edom, see 1 Kings 11:15-16 . The war with Edom was of some duration, not without serious reverses and dangers to the Israelites ( 2 Samuel 8:2 note). The different accounts probably relate to different parts of the campaign.

"And David made (himself) a name, when he returned from smiting (i.e., from the defeat of) Aram, (and smote Edom) in the valley of Salt, eighteen thousand men." The words enclosed in brackets are wanting in the Masoretic text as it has come down to us, and must have fallen out from a mistake of the copyist, whose eye strayed from את־ארם to את־אדום; for though the text is not "utterly unintelligible" without these words, since the passage might be rendered "after he had smitten Aram in the valley of Salt eighteen thousand men," yet this would be decidedly incorrect, as the Aramaeans were not smitten in the valley of Salt, but partly at Medeba ( 1 Chronicles 19:7 ) and Helam ( 2 Samuel 10:17 ), and partly in their own land, which was very far away from the Salt valley. Moreover, the difficulty presented by the text cannot be removed, as Movers supposes, by changing את־ארם (Syria) into את־אדום (Edom), as the expression בּשׁבו ("when he returned") would still be unexplained. The facts were probably these: Whilst David, or rather Israel, was entangled in the war with the Ammonites and Aramaeans, the Edomites seized upon the opportunity, which appeared to them a very favourable one, to invade the land of Israel, and advanced as far as the southern extremity of the Dead Sea. As soon, therefore, as the Aramaeans were defeated and subjugated, and the Israelitish army had returned from this war, David ordered it to march against the Edomites, and defeated them in the valley of Salt.

This valley cannot have been any other than the Ghor adjoining the Salt mountain on the south of the Dead Sea, which really separates the ancient territories of Judah and Edom (Robinson, Pal. ii. 483). There Amaziah also smote the Edomites at a later period ( 2 Kings 14:7 ). We gather more concerning this war of David from the text of the Chronicles ( 2 Samuel 8:12 ) taken in connection with 1 Kings 11:15-16 , and Psalm 60:2 . According to the Chronicles, it was Abishai the son of Zeruiah who smote the Edomites. This agrees very well not only with the account in 2 Samuel 10:10 ., to the effect that Abishai commanded a company in the war with the Syrians and Ammonites under the generalship of his brother Joab, but also with the heading to Psalm 60:1-12 , in which it is stated that Joab returned after the defeat of Aram, and smote the Edomites in the valley of Salt, twelve thousand men; and with 1 Kings 11:15-16 , in which we read that when David was in Edom, Joab, the captain of the host, came up to bury the slain, and smote every male in Edom, and remained six months in Edom with all Israel, till he had cut off every male in Edom. From this casual but yet elaborate notice, we learn that the war with the Edomites was a very obstinate one, and was not terminated all at once.