Wednesday Bible Study: Deja vu

Chapter 18 is pretty much a copy of 2 Samuel 8, but as usual with some discrepancies in details. Whether this is because the Chronicler was working from a different copy of Samuel than the one that became canonized, or whether it was sloppy transcription on his part, there ' s no telling. The details aren ' t very important -- 700 horsemen vs. 7,000, of Abiathar and Abimelech which was the son and which was the father? The point is, always keep in mind, there wasn ' t any printing press. All of this stuff was copied out by hand, and discrepancies were presumably commonplace. Both of these may be accidental, but some are intentional. As I say, the Chronicler seems to want to clean up David ' s image, and promote religious orthodoxy. But the point of this is unchanged from Samuel: God shows his favor by having David and his army conquer and slaughter people. Obviously, if these battles ever happened in reality, the numbers of dead are greatly exaggerated. Why David crippled 900 perfectly good horses is not stated.18 In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Gath and its surrounding villages from the control of the Philistines.2 David also defeated the Moabites, and they became subject to him and brought him tribute.3 Moreover, David defeated Hadadezer king of Zobah, in the vicinity of Hamath, when he went to set up his monument at[a] the Euphrates River.4 David captured a thousand of his chariots, seven thousand char...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs