1 Chronicles 19

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WAR WITH AMMON AND SYRIAChapter 19 records an incident that reveals God has a sense of humor. It also suggests that David was a hotheaded fellow, but that he did try to live in peace. Ammon was an enemy of Israel. David didn’t want to make war. David is on the defensive as he was most of his life, as we have seenGod’s man will usually find himself on the defensive. As we mentioned in the previous chapter, we are told to put on the whole armor of God. What is it for? To march? No, we are to put it on to stand. That is the important thing. The tragedy of the hour is that so few of God’s people will stand. Wanting to repay an old kindness, David sent a message of comfort to Hanun upon the death of his father.

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Now notice what happened.

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This is a very serious charge made by these menapparently young menwho are around the king. They say, “David is not your friend. He wasn’t a friend of your father’s. These men he has sent are spies!” Now notice what they did to David’s ambassadors.

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They shaved them, which was a disgrace for a Jewhe was told not to even trim his beard. Then for their complete humiliation, they cut off their uniforms. You can imagine how these fellows felt. That was not a day of nudism, and they were greatly embarrassed. Of course it was an insult that could not be ignored, and David was a hotheaded fellow.

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Since these men were too humiliated to return to Jerusalem, David went down to Jericho to meet with them. David told them to stay in retirement until their beards were grown out again. And, of course, they would be given new uniforms. Word got back to the people of Ammon what David had said when he heard how his ambassadors had been treated.

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Instead of David being the one who wanted to make war, this new king of the Ammonites wanted to. He wanted to demonstrate that he could overthrow David. I am sure this was in his mind when he humiliated David’s ambassadors. So he hires an army from Syria to help him overcome David. When David hears of this, he goes into action.

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The Syrians had the best army, so Joab chose the best of his forces to put them over against the Syrians. The Syrians were coming from the north and Ammon was coming from the south.

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His strategy was very good. He told his brother that he would come to his aid if he were to be overcome but his brother should come to his aid in case he were overcome. They were going to concentrate their forces at the place of the most heavy attack. That was good strategy. (It was the strategy which was used by both sides in the American Civil War, by the way.)

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Joab was a real army man, a real soldier. He would have been trained under David, and he and David were probably tops as far as military men were concerned.

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He came back to Jerusalem to report.

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They sent for reinforcements.

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David did not want to go into battle. Remember we are getting God’s viewpoint of the situation, and He makes it very clear that David wanted peace with the Ammonites. He didn’t want to fight them. When he had seen an army prepared against him, he had sent Joab on the first campaign and the enemy had fled. But that didn’t end the war. The enemy went out to get reinforcements, and with allies on their side they again gathered against Israel. This time David himself went out to lead the battle. May I say to you that when David led Israel into battle, he went into battle to win! It is a tragedy for any nation to fight a war without the determination to win. How tragic that is. My friend, we are not to fight wars just to fight wars! Our nation has found itself in very tragic circumstances because we have fought wars we did not intend to win. If we had fought to win, we would have spared thousands of lives. Some people will read this part of the history of Israel and say that God is a bloody God. No, friend, God is not bloody. He knows the way to save human lives. That way is to subdue the aggressor and win the war. We live in a sinful world, my friend. It is a brutal world. It is a mean world. If you like to quote Browning, “God’s in His heaven and all’s right with the world,” you are not quoting what Scripture teaches. We are getting God’s viewpoint here. All is not right with the world. We live in a day of permissiveness. This is the day of the foul-mouthed. We no longer have personal honesty or personal integrity or human sincerity. We need to face the fact that we are in a world of sin. Laws should be enforced, and criminals should be punished. God says that as long as we are in a world like this, a strong man armed will keep his house. We are getting God’s viewpoint here, which is quite interesting.