1 Chronicles Chapter 19
The same info as in 2Sam10.
2 Samuel has many parallel chapters with 1 Chronicles. We will see where the "connection points" are between 1,2 Sam, 1,2 Kings, 1,2 Chronicles. For some reason we get two versions of much of the history of this time. Sometimes it takes both versions to understand. Sometimes the numbers are different from one to the other, and sometimes the names are a little different, but it is very obvious that the history is the same.
We learn here how much Ammon paid the Syrian mercenaries
2022 - 1000 talents of silver, is 75,000 lbs of silver, 900,000 troy ounces of silver, and at $18/oz, that is $16.2 million dollars. That surely was a lot of money to pay foreign mercenaries for protection - . Ammon must have been quaking in fear to part with that kind of money! As I read it, they obtained "tanks", that is chariots and horsemen to drive them, from Mesopotamia, Aram-maacah, and Zobah. So this gave them a force, but not leadership. So they hired the King of Maacah and his army, apparently to lead, and to supplement the foot soldiers with his own army. Additionally, the Ammonites trotted out their own army, and this whole force assembled outside Medeba. A map I found puts this east of the Dead Sea, quite a long way from downtown Jerusalem, Even so, David hears of it he sends Joab and the army of Israel to meet them. Offense is the best defense?
Then there is a reference to the Syrians? These must have been those who were NOT Ammonites, all lumped together. It is confusing....I am not sure where everyone actually came from.
We learn that the city nearest this coming battle was Medeba. It was at the gates of this city that the Ammonites formed up, and the mercenaries were...out in the plain somewhere.
The problem for Joab was that if he attacked the city where the Ammonites were, he could be attacked from the rear by the mercenaries. And if he attacked the mercenaries, he could also be attacked from the city. So Joab does a militarily erroneous thing. He divides his forces and attacks in both directions.
Joab and his men attack the Syrian mercenaries, and rout them. As they flee, the Ammonites in the city see it and they retreat into the city. They must have been formed up right outside the gates of Medeba.
The Syrians, seeing that they chose the wrong side, are apparently afraid that Israel will now attack them - having defeated a good portion of them already. Israel is thought to be about to finish the job. So they muster their national army. David learns they are mustering, and "returns fire". There is a battle and David and his men are victorious. The commander of the Syrian army is killed/executed? Killed in battle seems more likely from the wording in the two accounts. Hadad-ezer is not killed. His servants (vassal kingdoms paying tribute to him) switch to David, and become subject to him. It does not say what becomes of Hadad-ezer at this time.
The MSB note on 19:18 says there is an apparent copyist error and another difference in wording between this chapter and the account in 2 Sam. These are minor - the first having to do with the number killed, and the second to do with their roles - one says they were horsemen, the other that the dead were foot soldiers.
2024 - What we have here, even according to MSB, is a contradiction within the Bible. There ARE two differences in these two accounts of the same event.
Looking at more details - 19 Chr says Ammon hired 32,000 chariots - so there would have been drivers and attendants and caretakers for the horses and so on...easily 50,000 men and possibly twice that, PLUS the King of Maacha "and his people". Could have been a large contingent of foot soldiers here.
After the battle near Medeba, the mercenaries from Syria (the Arameans) prepare for battle east of the Jordan. They are defeated, and 7000 charioteers and 40,000 foot soldiers die. This would be IN ADDITION TO those killed at Medeba who fled from Joab. This is the 1Chr account.
In 2Sam 10 it was 700 charioteers and 40,000 horsemen who die in this same battle. This is how 700 is written in this passage:
שִׁבְעַת
And here is 7000 in 1Chr 19
שְׁבַע
Looks like one letter is added to the left to turn 7000 into 700. So if the copier "forgot" that last letter, we would be off by a factor of 10. So the most likely explanation is indeed a copying error.
As for the roles, things are more complicated. It turns out that the word for charioteers appears in both passages, and it is the word AFTER that, which is shown without a direct translation, that shades the meaning. In 2Sam 10 that second word is:
מֵאוֹת֙
...and in 1Chr 19 it looks like this:
אֲלָפִים֙
Not at all the same, and yet each passage says 40,000 of them were killed. So. The only thing I can think of right now that would explain this is a difference in how the two writers "designated" the role of the 40,000. This happens. As in "lancers" and "light horse" in the British army, or fusiliers and so on and so forth. Perhaps there were two different names, depending on which side you were on, for the same function. I think this is a reasonably likely possibility.
2024 - Another note here. We see Joab and his brother Abishai fighting on the same side. I had thought Joab killed one of his brothers with a sneaky concealed sword attack, but that was not one of his brothers - Abishai and Asahel - and the one killed in a cowardly way was Abner.