2-Samuel - 8:11



11 These also did king David dedicate to Yahweh, with the silver and gold that he dedicated of all the nations which he subdued;

Verse In-Depth

Explanation and meaning of 2-Samuel 8:11.

Differing Translations

Compare verses for better understanding.
And king David dedicated them to the Lord, together with the silver and gold that he had dedicated of all the nations, which he had subdued:
also them did king David sanctify to Jehovah, with the silver and the gold which he sanctified of all the nations which he subdued:
These King David made holy to the Lord, together with the silver and gold which he had taken from the nations he had overcome--
King David also dedicated these to the LORD, with the silver and gold that he dedicated of all the nations which he subdued;
And king David also sanctified these things to the Lord, with the silver and gold that he had sanctified from all the peoples whom he had subdued:

*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.


Historical Commentaries

Scholarly Analysis and Interpretation.

Which also King David did dedicate unto the Lord,.... He devoted it to sacred uses, particularly to the building of the house of the Lord, as he also had the gold and the brass he took from Hadadezer: together
with the silver and the gold he had dedicated of all nations which he subdued; who are after particularly mentioned; he did not convert the spoils he took to his own use, but observed the law God gave to the kings of Israel, that they should not greatly multiply to themselves silver and gold, Deuteronomy 17:17. He set it apart, and laid it up for the service of the sanctuary; and this accounts for the abundance of gold, silver, and brass, which David had amassed together, and left to his son Solomon to build the temple with; see 1-Chronicles 28:1.

Which also king David did dedicate unto the Lord--Eastern princes have always been accustomed to hoard up vast quantities of gold. This is the first instance of a practice uniformly followed by David of reserving, after defraying expenses and bestowing suitable rewards upon his soldiers, the remainder of the spoil taken in war, to accumulate for the grand project of his life--the erection of a national temple at Jerusalem.

David also sanctified Toi's presents to the Lord (handed them over to the treasury of the sanctuary), together with the silver and gold which he had sanctified from all the conquered nations, from Aram, Moab, etc. Instead of הקדּישׁ אשׁר the text of the Chronicles has נשׂא אשׁר, which he took, i.e., took as booty. Both are equally correct; there is simply a somewhat different turn given to the thought.
(Note: Bertheau erroneously maintains that נשׂא אשׁר, which he took, is at variance with 2-Samuel 8:7, as, according to this passage, the golden shields of Hadadezer did not become the property of the Lord. But there is not a word to that effect in 2-Samuel 8:7. On the contrary, his taking the shields to Jerusalem implies, rather than precludes, the intention to devote them to the purposes of the sanctuary.)
In the enumeration of the conquered nations in 2-Samuel 8:12, the text of the Chronicles differs from that of the book before us. In the first place, we find "from Edom" instead of "from Aram;" and secondly, the clause "and of the spoil of Hadadezer, son of Rehob king of Zobah," is altogether wanting there. The text of the Chronicles is certainly faulty here, as the name of Aram (Syria) could not possibly be omitted. Edom could much better be left out, not "because the conquest of Edom belonged to a later period," as Movers maintains, but because the conquest of Edom is mentioned for the first time in the subsequent verses. But if we bear in mind that in 2-Samuel 8:12 of both texts not only are those tribes enumerated the conquest of which had been already noticed, but all the tribes that David ever defeated and subjugated, even the Ammonites and Amalekites, to the war with whom no allusion whatever is made in the present chapter, we shall see that Edom could not be omitted. Consequently "from Syria" must have dropped out of the text of the Chronicles, and "from Edom" out of the one before us; so that the text in both instances ran originally thus, "from Syria, and from Edom, and from Moab." For even in the text before us, "from Aram" (Syria) could not well be omitted, notwithstanding the fact that the booty of Hadadezer is specially mentioned at the close of the verse, for the simple reason that David not only made war upon Syria-Zobah (the kingdom of Hadadezer) and subdued it, but also upon Syria-Damascus, which was quite independent of Zobah.

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