The verse gives certain additional particulars of David's conquest of Edom (marginal references). Joab was left, or sent, to complete the subjugation of the country, with orders to exterminate all the grown male inhabitants. It was not very often that David acted with any extreme severity in his wars; but he may have considered himself justified by policy, as he certainly was by the letter of the Law Deuteronomy 20:13, in adopting this fierce course against Edom.

Was in Edom - Or, according to another reading, "smote" Edom.

The slain - Probably the Israelites who had fallen in the strnggle. Translate, "when ... Joab was gone up to bury the slain, and had smitten every male," etc.

Was gone up to bury the slain - The slain Edomites; for Joab had in the course of six months exterminated all the males, except Hadad and his servants, who escaped to Egypt. Instead of bury the slain, the Targum has to take the spoils of the slain.

For it came to pass, when David was in Edom,.... Fighting with the Edomites, and subduing them, and putting garrisons in the land, 2 Samuel 8:14.

and Joab the captain of the host was gone up to bury the slain: the Israelites that fell in battle, or whom the Edomites afterwards, through stratagem and surprise, fell upon in their garrisons and destroyed, and which caused Joab to go thither to bury them, and take vengeance on the Edomites for it; or these were the Edomites slain by David and Joab; and it has been always reckoned a piece of humanity to bury the dead of an enemy, and is to the honour of the conqueror, see Ezekiel 39:12 or to suffer the enemy to bury them themselves: it is said (o), that Hercules was the first that brought up this practice, and that before they were left on the field, to be devoured by dogs; so they were in the times of the Trojan war, as appears by the writings of Homer; but burying them, in later times, was used by the Romans (p) and Greeks; and Josephus (q) delivers it as a law of Moses to bury enemies, and not suffer any dead to lie without partaking of the earth, nor to pass by or overlook any unburied; but from whence he took it, or grounds it upon, is not very evident; this is the first mention of it; though the Targum is,

"to strip the slain:''

after he had smitten every male in Edom; as he thought, intending to root out the name of them; being enraged at their falling upon the garrisons, if that was the case.

(o) Aelian. Var. Hist. l. 12. c. 27. (p) Liv. Hist. l. 39. c. 21. Vid. Kirchman. Append. ad. lib. de Funer. Roman. c. 3, 4, & 5. (q) Antiqu. l. 4. c. 8. sect. 24. contr. Apion. l. 2. c. 29.

When David had to do with the Edomites, ... Hadad fled. את היה is analogous to עם היה, to have to do with any one, though in a hostile sense, as in the phrase to go to war with (את) a person, whereas עם היה generally means to be upon the side of any one. The correctness of the reading בּהיוה is confirmed by all the ancient versions, which have simply paraphrased the meaning in different ways. For Bttcher has already shown that the lxx did not read בּהכּות, as Thenius supposes. The words from בּעלות to the end of 1 Kings 11:16 form explanatory circumstantial clauses. On the circumstance itself, compare 2 Samuel 8:13-14, with the explanation given there. "The slain," whom Joab went to bury, were probably not the Israelites who had fallen in the battle in the Salt valley (2 Samuel 8:13), but those who had been slain on the invasion of the land by the Edomites, and still remained unburied. After their burial Joab defeated the Edomites in the valley of Salt, and remained six months in Edom till he had cut off every male. "All Israel" is the whole of the Israelitish army. "Every male" is of course only the men capable of bearing arms, who fell into the hands of the Israelites; for "Hadad and others fled, and the whole of the Idumaean race was not extinct" (Clericus). Then Hadad fled, while yet a little boy, with some of his father's Edomitish servants, to go to Egypt, going first of all to Midian and thence to Paran. The country of Midian cannot be more precisely defined, inasmuch as we meet with Midianites sometimes in the peninsula of Sinai on the eastern side of the Elanitic Gulf, where Edrisi and Abulfeda mention a city of Madian (see at Exodus 2:15), and sometimes on the east of the Moabitish territory (see at Numbers 22:4 and Judges 6:1). Here, at any rate, we must think of the neighbourhood of the Elanitic Gulf, though not necessarily of the city of Madian, five days' journey to the south of Aela; and probably of the country to which Moses fled from Egypt. Paran is the desert of that name between the mountains of Sinai and the south of Canaan (see at Numbers 10:12), through which the Haj route from Egypt by Elath to Mecca still runs. Hadad would be obliged to take the road by Elath in order to go to Egypt, even if he had taken refuge with the Midianites on the east of Moab and Edom.

For it came to pass, when David was in Edom, and Joab the captain of the host was gone up to bury the {i} slain, after he had smitten every male in Edom;

(i) Of the Edomites.

11:15 In Edom - By his army, to war against it. To bury - The Israelites who were slain in the battle, 2Sam 8:13,14, whom he honourably interred in some certain place, to which he is said to go up for that end. And this gave Hadad the opportunity of making his escape, whilst Joab and his men were employed in that solemnity. Had smitten - Or, and he smote, as it is in the Hebrew: which is here noted as the cause of Hadad's flight; he understood what Joab had done in part, and intended farther to do, even to kill all the males and therefore fled for his life.

11:14-25 While Solomon kept close to God and to his duty, there was no enemy to give him uneasiness; but here we have an account of two. If against us, he can make us fear even the least, and the very grasshopper shall be a burden. Though they were moved by principles of ambition or revenge, God used them to correct Solomon.