Chapter 8
In 2 Sam 7, God promised a descendant of David on the throne forever. This chapter opens with "After this..." in the ESV, so that gives a time stamp, though not a very precise one. David defeats the Philistines, and takes Metheg-ammah from them. Here is an interesting explanation of the word:
METHEG-AMMAH
me-theg-am'-a, meth-eg-am'-a (mathegh ha-'ammah, "bridle of the metropolis"; Septuagint ten aphorismenen): It is probable that the place-name Metheg-Ammah in 2 Samuel 8:1 the King James Version should be rendered as in the Revised Version (British and American), "the bridle of the mother city," i.e. Gath, since we find in the parallel passage in 1 Chronicles 18:1 gath ubhenotheha, "Gath and her daughters," i.e. daughter towns. The Septuagint has an entirely different reading: "and David took the tribute out of the hand of the Philistines," showing that they had a different text from what we now have in the Hebrew. The text is evidently corrupt. If a place is intended its site is unknown, but it must have been in the Philistine plain and in the vicinity of Gath.
The link is here: https://bibleatlas.org/metheg-ammah.htm
I have seen VERY FEW places where the words "corrupt text" are used, as it is here. MSB note takes no notice of the words, other than to say David's first priority was to subdue the Philistines, and that he took their "chief city".
Moab defeated. David has them lie down in three lines. He puts two lines to death, and spares the third. They pay tribute to David after that. It does not say where these three lines came from. Survivors of a defeated army? Prisoners taken during a lengthy campaign? Residents of a large city? We don't know. But we know David had 2/3's of them executed. MSB says the measuring could mean that David spared the young ones, who were only a cord tall, and executed all the adults. This was common practice at the time. Seems very outrageous to us today.
Syria. He convincingly defeats them when they come to the aid of Hadad-Ezer of Zobah. They begin paying tribute to Jerusalem and to David.
He also defeated Edom and put garrisons throughout that land. The phrase "the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went" shows up twice in the last half of the chapter. David defeated all of the surrounding countries.
vss 15-18 are sort of a "who's who" in David's kingdom. Here are the names:
16 Joab the son of Zeruiah was over the army, and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was recorder, 17 and Zadok the son of Ahitub and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar were priests, and Seraiah was secretary, 18 and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites, and David's sons were priests. [2Sa 8:16-18 ESV]
Many of these names are familiar to me, so we either saw them before or we will be seeing more about them soon. Joab especially. The MSB notes on these verses are pretty extensive. That last phrase about David's sons being priests bothers me. The MSB note says this translation is from the Hebrew text and that the LXX used the phrase "princes of the court". He says that 1 Ch 18:17 - the parallel passage - refers to them as "chiefs at the king's side" which supports the non-priest interpretation. Further, I note that none of this is about doctrine, but is a telling of the historical facts of the time.