📖WEB · 1 Chronicles 19:5
What does 1 Chronicles 19:5 mean?
"Then some people went and told David how the men were treated. He sent to meet them; for the men were greatly humiliated. The king said, “Stay at Jericho until your beards have grown, and then return.”"
— 1 Chronicles 19:5 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
David said, “I will show kindness to Hanun the son of Nahash, because his father showed kindness to me.” So David sent messengers to comfort him concerning his father. David’s servants came into the land of the children of Ammon to Hanun, to comfort him.
But the princes of the children of Ammon said to Hanun, “Do you think that David honors your father, in that he has sent comforters to you? Haven’t his servants come to you to search, to overthrow, and to spy out the land?”
So Hanun took David’s servants, shaved them, and cut off their garments in the middle at their buttocks, and sent them away.
Then some people went and told David how the men were treated. He sent to meet them; for the men were greatly humiliated. The king said, “Stay at Jericho until your beards have grown, and then return.”
When the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves odious to David, Hanun and the children of Ammon sent one thousand talents of silver to hire chariots and horsemen out of Mesopotamia, out of Aram-maacah, and out of Zobah.
So they hired for themselves thirty-two thousand chariots, and the king of Maacah with his people, who came and encamped near Medeba. The children of Ammon gathered themselves together from their cities, and came to battle.
When David heard of it, he sent Joab with all the army of the mighty men.
Explanation
This verse comes in the middle of a narrative about a diplomatic incident between Israel and Ammon. In plain terms, it describes David's compassionate response after his messengers were publicly shamed: he learns what happened to them, sends someone to intercept them before they reach Jerusalem, and instructs them to wait in Jericho until their beards grow back rather than return home in their humiliated state.
The background is essential to understanding the verse. Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had died, and David sent envoys to express condolences and goodwill to his son Hanun, the new king (1 Chronicles 19:1-2). Hanun's princes, however, convinced him that David's men were actually spies sent to scout out the land before an invasion. Acting on this suspicion, Hanun seized David's servants, shaved off half of each man's beard, and cut their garments in half at the buttocks, then sent them away in this degrading condition (verse 4). In the ancient Near East, a man's beard was a symbol of dignity and honor; to have it partially shaved was a deep public humiliation, akin
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