(8) The wood devoured more.--The battle and the pursuit covered a wide range of country; more were slain in the pursuit through the wood, both by accident and by the sword, than in the actual battle itself.
Verse 8. - The battle was there scattered. The word in the Hebrew is a noun, which the Massorites have changed into a participle. But the noun is right: "The battle became a scattering," that is, it was a series of disconnected encounters, in which David's three divisions attacked and routed Absalom's men, while still on the march, without giving them an opportunity of collecting and forming in order of battle. And the wood devoured more people that day thin the sword devoured. The woodland was difficult, full of gorges and begs and steep defiles leading down to the Jordan, and the fugitives easily lest their way in it, and wandered about till they were hopelessly entangled in thicket and morass.
18:1-8 How does David render good for evil! Absalom would have only David smitten; David would have only Absalom spared. This seems to be a resemblance of man's wickedness towards God, and God's mercy to man, of which it is hard to say which is most amazing. Now the Israelites see what it is to take counsel against the Lord and his anointed.
For the battle was there scattered over the face of all the country,.... Or the warriors were scattered, as the Targum; Absalom's soldiers, their ranks were broken, and they were thrown into the utmost confusion, and ran about here and there all over the field or plain in which the battle was fought, and into the neighbouring wood:
and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured; there were more slain in it the in the field of battle, what by one thing or another; as by falling into pits and on stumps of trees, and being entangled in the bushes, and could make but little haste, and so were overtaken by David's men, and slain; insomuch that, as Josephus (h) observes, there were more slain fleeing than fighting, and perhaps some might perish by wild beasts; so the Targum,"and the beasts of the wood slew more of the people than were slain by the sword;''and so the Syriac and Arabic versions render the words to the same purpose.
and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured; there were more slain in it the in the field of battle, what by one thing or another; as by falling into pits and on stumps of trees, and being entangled in the bushes, and could make but little haste, and so were overtaken by David's men, and slain; insomuch that, as Josephus (h) observes, there were more slain fleeing than fighting, and perhaps some might perish by wild beasts; so the Targum,"and the beasts of the wood slew more of the people than were slain by the sword;''and so the Syriac and Arabic versions render the words to the same purpose.
(h) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 7. c. 10. sect. 2.)