1 Chronicles 20:3
David brought out the people who were there and put them to work with saws, iron picks, and axes. And he did the same to all the Ammonite cities. Then David and all his troops returned to Jerusalem.
Sermons
The Barbarity of Man to ManJ.R. Thomson 1 Chronicles 20:3
The Horrors of WarR. Tuck 1 Chronicles 20:3
Further Consequences of Folly, EtcW. Clarkson 1 Chronicles 20:1-3
The Capture of RabbahJ. Wolfendale.1 Chronicles 20:1-8
The Loss of a CrownJ. Parker, D. D.1 Chronicles 20:1-8
The Wasting of the Ammonites, and David's Wars with the GiantsF. Whitfield 1 Chronicles 20:1-8














There are signal inconsistencies in the character of David. He was capable of kindness, self-denial, and generosity, but he was capable also of cruelty amounting to inhumanity and savagery. Perhaps no act more disgraceful and inexcusable is related to have been performed by him than that recorded in the text. The people of Rabbah had long resisted his arms; and when the city fell David seems to have given the reins to his passions, and to have treated the captive population with what seems to us all but incredible cruelty. But allowance must be made for the manners and morals of the age. Humanity towards enemies is comparatively a modern virtue. Though history records a few striking exceptions to the general rule, that rule was undoubtedly one of utter insensibility to the miseries of a vanquished foe. The chronicler here relates, evidently as a matter calling for no surprise or indignation, that David in cold blood cut the people with saws, broke their limbs with threshing-instruments, and flung them, whilst still alive, into the red-hot brick-kilns!

I. CRUELTY IS AN OUTCOME AND A FORM OF SIN. From the time, and in consequence of, man's original departure from God, human society has been cursed with all the horrors which result from the violation of Divine law, the defiance of Divine authority. Hatred, envy, and strife have run riot, and their manifestations have been the main factors in what is called human history. Hence the barbarities heartlessly and ruthlessly practised among all rude nations. Modern war is nothing but a disgraceful survival of the savage barbarism of the sinful and inhuman past. Even now the practices common in war are enough to sadden and to sicken every sensitive mind. "Whence come wars and fightings? Come they not hence of your lusts?"

II. RESTRAINTS AND CHECKS UPON CRUELTY HAVE BEEN COMPARATIVELY FEEBLE AND INEFFECTIVE. David was a very religious man, but his religion did not preserve him from adultery and murder; nor did it restrain him from cold-blooded cruelty. The ancient civilizations, the ancient religions, failed to check the prevalent insensibility to suffering, the prevalent habit of revenge. Even the religion of the Old Testament had very partial power to secure these ends. Mitigations of the horrors of war have doubtless been introduced by Christianity and by chivalry. Yet the professed servants of the meek and holy Jesus have too often sanctioned and applauded the barbarities of war, the infamies of slavery, the tortures of the Inquisition.

III. VITAL AND SCRIPTURAL CHRISTIANITY ALONE CAN COPE WITH AND VANQUISH THIS EVIL. Rules and maxims are of little avail to contend with the fierce passions of our fallen nature. The new heart, with its changed dispositions, is alone sufficient. The example and the spirit of our Divine Saviour are incompatible with cruelty. In proportion as Christ himself lives in the hearts and governs the lives of men, will inhumanity diminish until it disappear, and until such deeds as those described in the text become impossible. The prophecies and promises of God's Word point forward to a day when the "new commandment" shall be everywhere observed, and when cruelty shall be no more. - T.

And it came to pass, that after the year was expired.
From its capture and punishment of its people we learn —

I. THAT IN SPIRITUAL WARFARE THERE MUST BE NO CESSATION. Rest gives advantage to the enemy, and may delay or frustrate the end in view. "Forwards, children, forwards"! urged Blucher, in meeting Wellington at Waterloo.

1. Make needful preparation.

2. Be ready for every advantage. "The time to go out" must be discovered and seized.

II. THAT IN CONDUCTING SPIRITUAL WARFARE OPPORTUNITY IS GIVEN FOR THE DISPLAY OF VIRTUOUS QUALITIES (2 Samuel 12:26-29). We must, transfer the glory of our conquests to our gracious "Commander and Leader."

III. THAT ALL THINGS IN SPIRITUAL WARFARE WILL BE SUBDUED UNDER GOD'S POWER.

(J. Wolfendale.)

And David took the crown of their king from off his head
The loss of a crown is much or nothing. The crown itself is a mere bauble, but it is full of significance as a token. Every office points in the direction of supremacy. The doorkeeper is on the road to the highest seat. Do not have a crown that any one can take from you. Men may steal your clothes, but they cannot steal your character. Start your son with fifty thousand golden, pounds, and he may lose it all, and want fifty thousand more; start him with a fine sense of honour, with a sound practical education, with a love of wisdom, with a knowledge of things real, simple, practical, and of daily occurrence, and he will, be rich all the time. Let no man take thy crown. When Carlyle was so poor as hardly to have a loaf, he was walking by the popular side of Hyde Park, and looking upon all that gay tumult he said to himself, with what in another man might have been conceit, but what in him was heroic audacity: "I am doing what none of you could do"; that is to say, he was writing one of his profoundest and most useful books. There he was rich. Have ideas, convictions, resolutions, ideals, and be faithful as a steward ought to be faithful, and it will never be written of thee that any man took thy crown. A man may throw away such a crown, a man may play the fool in old age; but the truth now to be inculcated is this, that no man, or combination of men, can take away the moral crown, the spiritual diadem, without the man's own consent.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

People
Ammonites, David, Elhanan, Goliath, Jair, Joab, Jonathan, Lahmi, Milcom, Rapha, Rephaites, Shimea, Sibbecai, Sibbechai, Sippai
Places
Gath, Gezer, Jerusalem, Rabbah
Topics
Ammon, Ammonite, Ammonites, Army, Axes, Cities, Cut, Cutting, David, Dealt, Entire, Forth, Grain-crushers, Harrows, Instruments, Iron, Jerusalem, Labor, Picks, Returned, Saws, Setteth, Sharp, Sons, Therein, Thus, Town, Towns, Turneth, Wood-cutting
Outline
1. Rabbah is besieged by Joab, spoiled by David, and the people thereof tortured
4. Three giants are slain in overthrows of the Philistines.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
1 Chronicles 20:3

     4336   iron
     5583   tools

1 Chronicles 20:1-3

     7240   Jerusalem, history

Library
Self-Scrutiny in God's Presence.
ISAIAH, i. 11.--"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." These words were at first addressed to the Church of God. The prophet Isaiah begins his prophecy, by calling upon the heavens and the earth to witness the exceeding sinfulness of God's chosen people. "Hear, O heavens, and give ear O earth: for the Lord hath spoken; I have nourished and brought up children,
William G.T. Shedd—Sermons to the Natural Man

Letter vi. In My Last Two Letters I have Given the State of the Argument as It...
My dear friend, In my last two Letters I have given the state of the argument as it would stand between a Christian, thinking as I do, and a serious well-disposed Deist. I will now endeavour to state the argument, as between the former and the advocates for the popular belief,--such of them, I mean, as are competent to deliver a dispassionate judgment in the cause. And again, more particularly, I mean the learned and reflecting part of them, who are influenced to the retention of the prevailing
Samuel Taylor Coleridge—Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc

Chronicles
The comparative indifference with which Chronicles is regarded in modern times by all but professional scholars seems to have been shared by the ancient Jewish church. Though written by the same hand as wrote Ezra-Nehemiah, and forming, together with these books, a continuous history of Judah, it is placed after them in the Hebrew Bible, of which it forms the concluding book; and this no doubt points to the fact that it attained canonical distinction later than they. Nor is this unnatural. The book
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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