Poole on 2 Samuel 12:31: David's Cruelty towards the Ammonites?

Verse 31:[1]  And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brickkiln:  and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon.  So David and all the people returned unto Jerusalem.

The people that were therein:  the words are indefinite, and therefore not necessarily to be understood of all the people; for it had been barbarous to use women and children thus; but of the men of war, and especially of those who had been the chief actors or abettors of that villainous action against David’s ambassadors, (which was contrary to the law of nature, and of nations, and of all humanity,) and of the dreadful war ensuing upon it; for which they might seem to deserve the severest punishments.  Although indeed there seems to have been too much rigour used; especially, because these dreadful deaths were inflicted not only upon those great counsellors, who were the only authors of that vile usage of the ambassadors; but upon a great number of the people, who were innocent from that crime.  And therefore it is probably conceived that David exercised this cruelty whilst his heart was hardened and impenitent, and when he was bereaved of that free and good Spirit of God which would have taught him more mercy and moderation.

[And bringing forth its people, he sawed them, etc., וגו״ ‎וַיָּ֣שֶׂם בַּ֠מְּגֵרָה]  And he put them under the saw (upon saws [Munster]) and under sleighs (threshing-sledges [Junius and Tremellius]) of iron, and under axes of iron (Pagnine, similarly most interpreters).  [But the Syriac has it:  he cast them into shackles and chains of iron (similarly the Arabic).]  Sawing was not an unknown punishment in those lands, wherewith Isaiah was afflicted by Manasseh, as the Hebrews say.  See Hebrews 11:37.  The Emperor Valens[2] used the same upon certain soldiers.[3]  There are also examples of this punishment in the Swedish, Turkish, and Neopolitan histories (Grotius).  They were dismembering them with saws (Malvenda out of Vatablus).  Thus in 1 Chronicles 20:3, he sawed them on a saw.[4]  Others maintain that these were condemned to cut or saw workable stones, to which formerly holy Martyrs were condemned (Malvenda).

Put them under saws:  he sawed them to death; of which punishment we have examples, both in Scripture, Hebrews 11:37, and in other authors.

[And under sleighs, ‎וּבַחֲרִצֵי]  On the sharp tips of iron (Cajetan in Malvenda).  On wheels of iron (Marinus); which sort of punishment is now in use in Italy (Malvenda).  With threshing-sledges, or sleighs (bristling with flint, or sharp tips [Sanchez]), which were drawn by horses, he attended those to be trodden under foot (Vatablus, Malvenda).

Under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron; he caused them to be laid down upon the ground, and torn by sharp iron harrows drawn over them, and hewed in pieces by keen axes.

[He made them pass through in the form of bricks]  That is, through that place in which bricks are formed, and are hardened by fire (Menochius).  But, while the place here is twofold, 1.  the Area in which the bricks are formed out of clay; 2.  the Furnace in which they are baked:  many refer it to the former; that is to say, David made the Ammonites to pass in the area and perhaps the brick-making workshop; that is, he rolled, ground, trampled upon, cut up, and divided into pieces, just as bricks are wont to be divided, which are made of straw and clay, says Jerome:  all the preceding things signify laceration, not burning.

[וְהֶעֱבִ֤יר אוֹתָם֙ בַּמַּלְכֵּ֔ן]  [Thus it is read in the text, but in the margin it is ‎בַּמַּלְבֵּן,[5] which most follow, and translate, through the furnace (Septuagint, Pagnine, Piscator).  He cast them into the kiln for lime (Tigurinus, thus Castalio), or brick (Munster, Strigelius), or tiles:]  In which bricks were baked (Vatablus).  That is, he burned them (Mariana).  Some think that they were dragged through sharp bricks, or through heaps of bricks, and that thus by this slow and cruel dragging they were lacerated and dismembered.  Others think that in an area covered and leveled with bricks artfully laid out they endured either spiked wheels of chariots, or sharp flints of threshing-sledges (Sanchez).  [Others thus translate it:]  And he made them to pass along the length (Syriac).  He made them pass before his face, with a certain length appointed (Arabic).  [Others read ‎בַּמַּלְכֵּן, as in the text, and translate it:]  Through Malchen, that is, through the place of the idol Molech; that is, through the fire (Vatablus).  That is, in the place where for the honor of their god Molech they were offering their children to be consumed in flames (Munster, similarly Junius).  He brought them unto the furnace of Molech (Junius and Tremellius).  A punishment suited to wicked and inhuman crime (Junius).  He lacerated them in the streets (Jonathan in Pagnine’s Lexicon according to Lapide).  Question:  Whether David sinned in this punishment?  Response:  1.  Some answer in the affirmative (thus Sanchez).  These punishments were savage, and of pernicious example, which the Ammonites afterwards imitated, Amos 1.  Indeed, this example was more pernicious to mankind, than for the crime of the dishonored legation[6] to go unpunished.  But not all the Ammonites had deserved this.  From these, therefore, I am compelled to think that David exacted such frightful punishments, while he was blind because of sin, especially of luxury, which had banished from him all decency and humanity.  It is well-known that the luxurious are generally cruel.  David would not have done such things, when he had heard that his sin was taken away, and that the punishment of death was taken from his head.[7]  David had certainly sinned more grievously than the Ammonites, etc.  Where it was a different David, a sinner, from the David that so many time spared Saul, who was unwilling to avenge injuries, etc.  I judge, therefore, that this history, from verse 26 to the end of this chapter, is to be conjoined with the end of chapter 11; and that all those things from verse 1 of this chapter to verse 25 by hyperbaton were interjected into an alien place.  (For, Prolepsis is common in Scripture, neither are events always narrated in the order in which they were conducted.)  Otherwise, in the siege of Rabbah more than twenty months were spent; for within that space he was captivated with the love of Bath-sheba; conceived and born was both the son begotten in adultery, and also Solomon.  Moreover, at the time of the siege the ark was in the camp, 2 Samuel 11:11, which, at the time the infant died, appears to have been restored to its seat (Sanchez on verse 26).  But others think that David did these things in the order in which they are here narrated, that is, after his repentance (for God appears to have given this victory to David as a recompense for this [Lapide]).  Now, this siege lasted more than a year, because David had at that time prostrated himself in filth.  God had promised victory to the obedient, etc., but the contrary to the obstinate (Martyr).  Response 2:  Others acquit David from the charge of cruelty (thus Tostatus in Sanchez, Lapide, Martyr).  For, 1.  David is said to have done all things rightly, with the exception of the word of Uriah, 1 Kings 15:5[8] (Tostatus in Sanchez).  Response:  Not with reason is it said, not the sin of Uriah, but the word, that is, the history of Uriah; because to that word or history pertains whatever was done by the King under that time period (Sanchez).  2.  The Ammonites were altogether wicked; they had dishonored the Legates contrary to the law of nations:  when they had killed Uriah and other vigorous men, they mocked God, as has already been mentioned.  And, when they had injured David, they first raised arms against him, and disquieted all Syria; and, which is the greatest, they were burning their children for the favor of their idol (Martyr).  Moreover, they had invaded repeatedly invaded Judah, and had threatened the plucking out of their eyes, 1 Samuel 11 (Lapide).  3.  God was inciting David to those things, and that not without cause [as we have seen].  And in those punishments that are not reproved in the Scriptures I think that God was always governing those Fathers.  Otherwise many were able to seem like cruelties:  for example, the cutting off of the great fingers and toes of Adoni-bezek, Judges 1; the punishment exacted from the men of Succoth, Judges 8; the crucifixion of the sons of Saul.[9]  Those things that God will inflict upon the wicked in hell are not cruel (Martyr).  4.  If anything was more cruelly perpetrated, perhaps it can be ascribed to Joab (Menochius out of Salian).  5.  These punishments were not inflicted upon the whole people, but to some of the individual citizens, those who had been the authors or patrons of the previously mentioned injury (Lapide out of Lyra and Dionysius).  I myself believe that some were excepted from those punishments:  for, in 2 Samuel 17, help is brought to David by Shobi the son of king Nahash, whom (with his brother killed) David appears to have put in charge of the region (Martyr).

Made them pass through the brickkiln, that is, to be burnt in brickkilns.  Or, made them to pass through the furnace of Malchen, that is, of Moloch, called also Milchom, and here Malchen; punishing them with their own sin, and with the same kind of punishment which they inflicted upon their own children:  see 2 Kings 16:3; 23:10; Leviticus 18:21; 20:2; Deuteronomy 18:10.

[1] Hebrew: וְאֶת־הָעָ֙ם אֲשֶׁר־בָּ֜הּ הוֹצִ֗יא וַיָּ֣שֶׂם בַּ֠מְּגֵרָה וּבַחֲרִצֵ֙י הַבַּרְזֶ֜ל וּֽבְמַגְזְרֹ֣ת הַבַּרְזֶ֗ל וְהֶעֱבִ֤יר אוֹתָם֙ בַּמַּלְכֵּ֔ן וְכֵ֣ן יַעֲשֶׂ֔ה לְכֹ֖ל עָרֵ֣י בְנֵֽי־עַמּ֑וֹן וַיָּ֧שָׁב דָּוִ֛ד וְכָל־הָעָ֖ם יְרוּשָׁלִָֽם׃ פ

[2] Valens was the Roman Emperor from 364 to 378.

[3] Sozomen’s Ecclesiastical History 6:8.

[4] 1 Chronicles 20:3:  “And he brought out the people that were in it, and cut them with saws (‎וַיָּ֙שַׂר בַּמְּגֵרָ֜ה), and with harrows of iron, and with axes.  Even so dealt David with all the cities of the children of Ammon.  And David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.”

[5] לָבַן signifies to make brick.

[6] See 2 Samuel 10.

[7] Verse 13.

[8] 1 Kings 15:5:  “Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter (‎בִּדְבַר) of Uriah the Hittite.”

[9] 2 Samuel 21:1-14.