March 29, 2021: Day 23 – I Chronicles 19

There is a lesson to be learned in this chapter, and that is that you just can’t trust the Ammonites nor the Arameans.  It is a bit of a sad story that the Ammonites could have saved themselves a lot of grief.  So the king dies and his son doesn’t trust David, who is probably noticeably stronger and more powerful than the Ammonites.  As a result when David sends people to console the son on the death of his father, the son does something childish and immature.  He mistreats the messengers.  If he had not mistreated the messengers then none of this mess would have happened.

As a result the son, Hanun, had to hire mercenaries, who fled before the Israelites, and also lost many of his soldiers simply because he had insulted King David and his messengers.  Without that insult who knows what would have happened, but certainly not the loss of resources and the loss of life.  It really couldn’t have been worse.  Also, notice in vs.3 that it was the officials of the son who planted this seed of conspiracy in hid mind.  Time to get new counselors.  Be careful who gives you advice. 

I love this final line:  So the Arameans were not willing to help the Ammonites any more.