Victories Include Severe Treatment of Moab

Philistines are subdued; Moab is measured for death and life

David smites the Philistines and subdues them, and takes Metheg-ammah out of their hand. He smites Moab and measures them with a line, casting them down to the ground; with two lines he measures to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive. The Moabites become David's servants and bring gifts.

The measuring line is not paperwork. It is a grave sorting of captives into those killed and those spared for service. Administrative wording does not soften the act. Expansion here includes mass killing of defeated people. The notice is not moral approval, and Moab is not a standing enemy people for later hatred.

Hadadezer, hamstrung horses, Syrian dead, and bronze

David smites Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he goes to recover his border at the river Euphrates. He takes a thousand chariots, seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen, and houghs all the chariot horses except a hundred. When the Syrians of Damascus come to help Hadadezer, David slays twenty-two thousand. He puts garrisons in Syria of Damascus; they become servants and bring gifts. The LORD preserved David wherever he went.

He takes the gold shields from Hadadezer's servants to Jerusalem, and exceeding much brass from Betah and Berothai. Numbers, place names, and preserved-wherever language belong to a royal war summary. They do not prove the scale of a later empire, and they do not make hamstringing horses or killing helpers into a rule. Divine preservation in the narrator's sentence still leaves the Moabite line and the Syrian dead on the page.