The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Two Victories over the Philistines
2 Samuel 5:17–25 — Two Victories over the Philistines. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
17When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over Israel, they all went in search of him; but David learned of this and went down to the stronghold.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
p̄ə·liš·tîm way·yiš·mə·‘ū kî- dā·wiḏ mā·šə·ḥū ’eṯ- lə·me·leḵ ‘al- yiś·rā·’êl pə·liš·tîm ḵāl way·ya·‘ă·lū lə·ḇaq·qêš ’eṯ- dā·wiḏ dā·wiḏ way·yiš·ma‘ way·yê·reḏ ’el- ham·mə·ṣū·ḏāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-heard the-Philistines that they-had-anointed [obj] David for-king over-Israel, and-went-up all-the-Philistines to-seek [obj] David; and-heard David, and-went-down unto-the-stronghold.
Where the English smooths the original
This Philistine invasion probably followed soon after the capture of Jebus. The Philistines were alarmed by the union of the Israelites under a king of proved vigour, who had inaugurated his reign by a brilliant military achievement. They therefore mustered their whole force (cp. 1 Samuel 29:1 ), for a strenuous effort to crush him.
Whilst the civil war lasted between the houses of Saul and David, they wisely forbore all hostilities, and left them to tear out one another’s bowels, that afterwards they might make a more easy conquest of bothPoole's reading of Philistine strategy is inference, not text; the narrative says only that they heard and came up.
Moreover, when the Philistines approached, David "went down to the hold," or mountain fortress, by which we cannot possibly understand the citadel upon Zion
18Now the Philistines had come and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·p̄ə·liš·tîm bā·’ū way·yin·nā·ṭə·šū bə·‘ê·meq rə·p̄ā·’îm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-Philistines had-come, and-they-spread-themselves in-the-Valley-of Rephaim.
Where the English smooths the original
It was a fruitful valley, stretching some three miles S. and S.W. from Jerusalem, and only separated from the valley of Hinnom by a narrow ridge.
The name preserves a trace of the ancient gigantic race of the Rephaim, to which Og the king of Bashan belonged
The idea that they were giants has no more to be said in its favour than that they were ghostsPulpit is deliberately set against Cambridge, Poole, Gill and JFB here. We record the disagreement rather than resolve it: the brief's own lexicon glosses H7497 as “a giant.”
19So David inquired of the LORD, “Should I go up against the Philistines? Will You deliver them into my hand?” “Go up,” replied the LORD, “for I will surely deliver the Philistines into your hand.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
dā·wiḏ way·yiš·’al Yah·weh lê·mōr ha·’e·‘ĕ·leh ’el- pə·liš·tîm hă·ṯit·tə·nêm bə·yā·ḏî ‘ă·lêh way·yō·mer Yah·weh ’el- dā·wiḏ kî- nā·ṯōn ’et·tên ’eṯ- hap·pə·liš·tîm bə·yā·ḏe·ḵā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-inquired David in-YHWH, saying: “Shall-I-go-up against the-Philistines? Wilt-thou-give-them into-my-hand?” And-said YHWH unto David: “Go-up, for giving I-will-give the-Philistines into-thy-hand.”
Where the English smooths the original
Though David went into a strong hold, he did not trust to that, nor intended merely to stand upon his defence. But yet he would not give them battle till he had asked counsel of God, and was encouraged by him to do it.
David owns dependence on God for victory; and refers himself to the good pleasure of God, Wilt thou do it?Henry is quoting the older English rendering of the second question; the Hebrew verb is nâthan, “give,” not “do.”
by which oracle he had both the mind of God that he should go up, and was assured of victory.
David inquired of the Lord by the Urim whether he should go out against the foe, and whether God would give them into his handThat the medium was the Urim is K&D's and Gill's inference from the ephod, not a statement of this verse; the text says only that David inquired in YHWH.
20So David went to Baal-perazim, where he defeated the Philistines and said, “Like a bursting flood, the LORD has burst out against my enemies before me.” So he called that place Baal-perazim.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḏā·wiḏ way·yā·ḇō bə·ḇa·‘al- pə·rā·ṣîm way·yak·kêm šām dā·wiḏ way·yō·mer kə·p̄e·reṣ mā·yim Yah·weh ’eṯ- pā·raṣ ’ō·yə·ḇay lə·p̄ā·nay ‘al- kên qā·rā šêm- ha·hū ba·‘al ham·mā·qō·wm pə·rā·ṣîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-came David into-Baal-Perazim, and-smote-them David there, and-said: “Has-broken-through YHWH [obj] my-enemies before-me like-a-breach-of waters.” Therefore he-called the-name of-that place Baal-Perazim.
Where the English smooths the original
The victory was so signal as to give a new name to the locality, and to be remembered centuries afterwards as a memorable instance of Divine aid ( Isaiah 28:21 ). The name has no reference to the heathen deity Baal.
has smitten them before me, and broken their power as a flood breaks through and carries away whatever opposes it.
And his onset was sudden and irresistible, like the rush of the waters of some mountain lake when, swollen with rains, it bursts through the opposing dam, and carries hasty destruction to everything that lies in its way.The reconstruction of David creeping round by night up the Ben-Hinnom ridge is Pulpit's own conjecture; the text places the circling manoeuvre at the second battle, not the first.
Thus ascribing all to God, and giving the place this name, that it might put him and his posterity in mind of God’s great power and goodness shown in that place.
21There the Philistines abandoned their idols, and David and his men carried them away.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šām way·ya·‘az·ḇū- ‘ă·ṣab·bê·hem ’eṯ- dā·wiḏ wa·’ă·nā·šāw way·yiś·śā·’êm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-abandoned there their-idols, and-lifted-them-away David and-his-men.
Where the English smooths the original
But behold here the difference between the ark and these images! When the ark fell into the hands of the Philistines it consumed them; but when these images fell into the hands of the Israelites, they could neither hurt them, nor save themselves from being consumed.
The E. V. here “burned them” is a gloss, adopted from the Targum and the passage in 1 Chr. Thus the old disgrace of the capture of the Ark by the Philistines was avenged.
This translation of the Authorized Version, made to force the words into verbal agreement with 1 Chronicles 14:12 , is utterly indefensible; and, like most wrong things, it is absurd. The Bible cannot be improved by frauds, and really the two narratives complete one another.A rare case where a public-domain commentator names a translation as a fraud. We record it because the Hebrew here plainly reads “took them away,” and the honesty is the point.
22Once again the Philistines came up and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yō·si·p̄ū ‘ō·wḏ pə·liš·tîm la·‘ă·lō·wṯ way·yin·nā·ṭə·šū bə·‘ê·meq rə·p̄ā·’îm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-added yet the-Philistines to-come-up, and-they-spread-themselves in-the-Valley-of Rephaim.
Where the English smooths the original
As David had not followed up his victory (probably because he was not yet in condition to do so) the Philistines repeated their attack in the same place.
Their first defeat had probably not been accompanied by much slaughter; for David's men were few in number, though brave as lions.
as Josephus says (z), with an army three times larger than the formerThe threefold figure is from Josephus, Antiquities VII.4.1 — an extra-biblical source Gill reports, not a datum of the Hebrew text.
Meaning the valley of giants, which David called Baalperazim, because of his victory.Geneva identifies the valley with Baal-perazim; Gill, Poole and Pulpit distinguish the valley from the hill above it. Treat the gloss as one reading among several.
23So David inquired of the LORD, who answered, “Do not march straight up, but circle around behind them and attack them in front of the balsam trees.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
dā·wiḏ way·yiš·’al Yah·weh way·yō·mer lō ṯa·‘ă·leh hā·sêḇ ’el- ’a·ḥă·rê·hem ū·ḇā·ṯā lā·hem mim·mūl bə·ḵā·’îm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-inquired David in-YHWH, and-he-said: “Thou-shalt-not-go-up; turn-around unto behind-them, and-thou-shalt-come to-them from-over-against the-baka-trees.”
Where the English smooths the original
Probably however a tree called bâcâ by the Arabs, resembling the balsam shrub, is meant. The name is derived from bâcâh , “to weep,” from the tear-like sap which exudes when a leaf is torn off.
The attack in front is forbidden, and the answer shows that the priest with the ephod did more than give a mere affirmative or negative reply. For David receives full instructions. Taking advantage of the valleys, he is to creep round into the rear of the Philistines, and approach them under cover of a thicket of baca trees.
Over against the mulberry trees, where they least expect thee. God’s purposes and promises do not exclude men’s just endeavours, but require them.
24As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, move quickly, because this will mean that the LORD has gone out before you to strike the camp of the Philistines.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wî·hî bə·šå̄·mə·ʿă·ḵå̄ ’eṯ- qō·wl ṣə·‘ā·ḏāh bə·rā·šê hab·bə·ḵā·’îm te·ḥĕ·rāṣ kî ’āz ’āz Yah·weh yā·ṣā lə·p̄ā·ne·ḵā lə·hak·kō·wṯ bə·ma·ḥă·nêh p̄ə·liš·tîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-let-it-be, when-thou-hearest [obj] the-sound of-marching in-the-tops of-the-baka-trees, then-thou-shalt-be-sharp; for then has-gone-out YHWH before-thee to-strike in-the-camp of-the-Philistines.
Where the English smooths the original
A rustling in the tops of the trees like the marching of an army was to be the signal that Jehovah Himself would lead David’s army to victory.
of the advance of an army, was a significant sign of the approach of an army of God, which would smite the enemies of Jehovah and of His servant David
So that God gives David for a sign, the sound of many men’s feet walking, not on the tops of the trees, (for men do not walk there,) but on the ground amidst the treesBenson's is a minority construal of bᵉrāšê; Pulpit, JFB, Cambridge and K&D all keep “tops.” It is preserved here because it rests on a real range of the noun rôʼsh, not on conjecture.
now generally thought not to be mulberry trees, but some other tree, most probably the poplar, which delights in moist situations, and the leaves of which are rustled by the slightest movement of the air [Royle].JFB identifies the tree with the poplar on the authority of the botanist Royle; K&D and Cambridge argue for a balsam-like shrub. The species is genuinely unknown.
25So David did as the LORD had commanded him, and he struck down the Philistines all the way from Gibeon to Gezer.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
dā·wiḏ kên way·ya·‘aś ka·’ă·šer Yah·weh ṣiw·wā·hū way·yaḵ ’eṯ- pə·liš·tîm mig·ge·ḇa‘ ‘aḏ- bō·’ă·ḵā ḡā·zer
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-did David so, as commanded-him YHWH, and-he-struck [obj] the-Philistines from-Geba until-thy-coming-to Gezer.
Where the English smooths the original
The Sept. and Chron., as well as Isaiah 28:21 , which almost certainly refers to this miraculous defeat of the Philistines, all read Gibeon. This seems to be the true reading.
But if "Geba" be the right reading here, then the battle must have been most sternly contested.Pulpit is the one sourced voice here defending the Masoretic reading against emendation; we keep it so the minority case is on the page.
One or the other is a slip of the scribe, and there can be little question that Gibeon is the true reading, since it lies about five and a half miles northwest of Jerusalem, while Geba (Gibeah) is about seven and a half miles north-east.
it lay between the nether Bethhoron and the sea; on the direct route therefore which the Philistines, fleeing from Gibeon, would take.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The trigger is stated with unusual precision: the Philistines moved when they heard מָשְׁחוּ (mā·šə·ḥū, H4886) — “they anointed David for king.” Not when he took Jerusalem. K&D builds a whole chronology on that word order, arguing that both victories “belong in all probability to the interval between the anointing of David at Hebron over all Israel and the conquest of the citadel of Zion,” and that the hunt-verb לְבַקֵּשׁ “presupposes that David had not yet taken up his abode upon Zion.” Cambridge reads the sequence the other way round, dating the invasion “soon after the capture of Jebus,” and Ellicott has the Philistine mustering itself provide the interval in which Jerusalem fell. Three sourced reconstructions, one text. ⚙ What none of them disputes is the causal claim the Hebrew actually makes: the coalition forms around an anointing. Poole and JFB both note the grim political logic of the years before — while Israel tore itself apart the Philistines stood by, and Poole's phrase for it is that they “left them to tear out one another's bowels.” Unity, not conquest, is what they cannot tolerate. Matthew Henry took this as the whole unit's key, hearing Psalm 2 behind it: “The heathen raged, and the kings of the earth set themselves to oppose it; but all in vain.”
The unit is built on a repetition with one variable. Twice the Philistines וַיִּנָּטְשׁוּ (nâṭash, Nifal) in the Valley of Rephaim — the identical verb, the identical place-name, letter for letter in vv. 18 and 22. Twice David וַיִּשְׁאַל (shâʼal, H7592), inquires in YHWH. And the answer is not the same. In v. 19 the command is ʻălêh, “go up”; in v. 23 it is lō ṯaʻăleh, “thou shalt not go up” — the same root, negated. ⚙ That reversal is the theological heart of the passage, and it is carried entirely by Hebrew morphology. Benson sees the discipline it demands: “though he had been successful before, yet he would attempt nothing further without God's direction.” Gill says the same of the second inquiry — he “would not engage again with them without having the mind and will of God.” The reversal makes yesterday's obedience into today's presumption. Note how uneasy the reversal made the tradition: the Septuagint adds “to meet them” to complete the sense, and Poole and Gill both gloss “not directly,” as Cambridge records. ⚙ The additions are all attempts to keep God consistent; the Hebrew is content to be simply contrary. Against Diestel's claim that the holy lot fell out of use after Saul, K&D points to these two consultations as decisive; Gill and Geneva both name the mechanism as Abiathar with the Urim and Thummim in the ephod, which is inference from the wider narrative rather than from these verses.
David wins and immediately hands the verb away. פָּרַץ (pā·raṣ, H6555) — “YHWH has broken through my enemies before me like a breach of waters” — is a Qal perfect whose subject is God, and the place-name בַּעַל פְּרָצִים is coined from that same root, with the cognate noun perets (H6556) in between. Three occurrences of one root in one verse; English can show none of it. K&D translates the boast and unfolds the image: God “has smitten them before me, and broken their power as a flood breaks through and carries away whatever opposes it.” Poole sees floods “which break the banks,” Pulpit a mountain lake bursting its dam, Cambridge a torrent “swollen by a sudden storm.” Ellicott takes care to rule out the obvious misreading: “The name has no reference to the heathen deity Baal” — baʻal is simply owner, as Cambridge also notes, so the place is “possessor of breaches.” Benson catches David's motive in naming it at all: it was set there “that it might put him and his posterity in mind of God's great power and goodness shown in that place.” Then v. 21, one of the quietest reversals in Samuel. The Philistines וַיַּעַזְבוּ (ʻâzab, the verb of covenant desertion) their ʻăṣabbîm, and David וַיִּשָּׂאֵם — nâsâʼ, “lifted them away.” Benson and Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D all hear 1 Samuel 4 answered: the ark once carried off to Philistia ruined its captors; these gods, carried off from Philistia, could not even save themselves. On the English text itself the sourced voices are unusually blunt. Barnes calls the AV's “burned them” “a gloss”; Cambridge traces it to the Targum and to 1 Chronicles 14:12; Pulpit calls it “utterly indefensible” and adds a sentence worth keeping: “The Bible cannot be improved by frauds.”
The second battle turns on a signal and a tense. David is to wait in a grove of בְּכָאִים (bᵉkāʼîm, H1057) — a noun that occurs only here and in the Chronicles parallel, and which K&D and Cambridge both derive from bâkâh, “to weep,” for the tear-like sap that runs when a leaf is torn off. Nobody knows the tree: pear in the Septuagint and Vulgate, mulberry in the rabbis, a balsam shrub of Mecca in Barnes and K&D, a poplar in JFB on Royle's authority. What he listens for is קוֹל צְעָדָה, “a voice of marching” — tsᵉʻâdâh (H6807) standing in only three verses of the whole canon. Cambridge hears in its cognate verb the marching of Jehovah at Judges 5:4 and Psalm 68:7; K&D hears the armies seen by Jacob and by Elisha's servant; Gill reports that Jarchi, R. Isaiah and the Targum read angels. Then תֶּחֱרָץ (chârats, H2782), literally, as Ellicott and K&D both give it, “be sharp.” ⚙ And the reason clause is a perfect: yātsāʼ, “YHWH has gone out before thee.” Cambridge is the one commentator in the brief to make the grammar carry the weight — “The use of the perfect tense in the original gives an emphasis to the assurance.” David is not told to fight so that God will come; he is told to move because God has already left. Henry's version of this is the best short statement of the unit: “David waited till God moved; he stirred then, but not till then.” The last verse reports the obedience in the flattest available Hebrew — wayyaʻaś … kên, “and he did so” — and then the pursuit, from Geba (or Gibeon: Ellicott, Barnes, Cambridge and K&D emend, Pulpit defends the Hebrew) down to Gezer on the edge of the Philistine plain. Cambridge's summary is exact: “The Philistines were thus driven right back into their own lowland plain.”
⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested. The passage is usually preached as a lesson in seeking guidance, and that is true but thin. What the Hebrew actually stages is a test of whether a man will let God be new. David has a working method: ask, hear “go up,” attack frontally, win, name the place for God. It worked so completely that it left a name on the map. The enemy then returns to the same valley with the same verb, and every instinct — and every honest reading of precedent — says repeat the victory. Instead David asks again, and the God who commanded ʻălêh says lō ṯaʻăleh. ⚙ We take it that the second oracle is not a correction of the first but a refusal to be reduced to a first. The temptation at Rephaim is not disobedience; it is the far subtler sin of obeying a word God has stopped speaking. Notice what protects David from it: not discernment, but the habit of asking that has no obvious use the second time. And notice where God hides the signal — in the tops of trees named for weeping, in a noise that on any other morning is only wind. The sign is deniable. It can be walked past. ⚙ A man edged by waiting (chârats, “be sharp”) hears a march in it; a man in a hurry hears weather. The perfect tense then settles what the whole unit means: YHWH has gone out before thee. Israel's part is never to start the battle. It is to recognise, in an ambiguous sound, that the battle has already started without them — and to be sharp enough to catch up.
The danger at Rephaim was never disobedience; it was obeying a word God had stopped speaking. (This line is the tool's own fallible commentary — it is not a verse of Scripture.)
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
1 Chronicles 14:8-16 narrates these two campaigns in near-identical terms, and the Verifier's computed basis is not merely the common noun “Philistines” but the rare cognate פֶּרֶץ (perets, H6556) standing in both accounts of David's boast, together with ʼôyêb (enemies) and mâqôwm (place). The differences are where the value lies: K&D records that where our verse has וַיִּנָּטְשׁוּ the Chronicler has יפשׁטוּ, “they had invaded”; Cambridge notes that where this text says David “took away” the idols, 1 Chronicles 14:12 says they were burned; and Cambridge reports the Chronicler's own closing line, “And the fame of David went out into all lands.” ⚙ The two accounts are best read as complementary witnesses, and Pulpit says as much: “really the two narratives complete one another.”
1 Chronicles 14:11 · 1 Chronicles 14:14 · 1 Chronicles 14:15 · 1 Chronicles 14:16
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes across the parallel account — H6556 perets (in 18 vv, rare), H341 ʼôyêb (275 vv), H4725 mâqôwm (379 vv) at 1 Chr 14:11; H7592 shâʼal (157 vv) and H4136 mûwl (34 vv) at 1 Chr 14:14; H6430 Pᵉlishtîy (244 vv) at 1 Chr 14:15-16. The rare cognate perets, shared in the identical boast, carries the verbal tier
צְעָדָה (tsᵉʻâdâh, H6807) is among the rarest nouns in the index: the Verifier finds it in three verses only — here, in the Chronicles parallel, and in Isaiah 3:20, where it names an ornament worn by the daughters of Zion, a step-chain or anklet. ⚙ The link is lexically certain and semantically oblique, and we say so plainly: Isaiah is not alluding to this battle. What the shared word preserves is a root sense of measured, audible stepping — the chain that makes a woman's walk heard, and the tread that makes an invisible army heard in a grove. Cambridge points instead to the cognate verb, used of Jehovah “marching” before his people in Judges 5:4, Psalm 68:7 and Habakkuk 3:12; those are the theological parallels, though they rest on the verb and not on this noun.
Isaiah 3:20 · 1 Chronicles 14:15
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H6807 tsᵉʻâdâh (in 3 vv) — one of the rarest nouns in the index, which establishes the verbal link; no quotation or allusion is claimed in either direction, and the two contexts differ in sense
תֶּחֱרָץ (chârats, H2782, “properly, to point sharply”) is a rare verb the Verifier finds in eleven verses. Two of its other appearances belong to a single striking idiom: at Exodus 11:7 not a dog shall sharpen its tongue against Israel on the night of the Passover, and at Joshua 10:21 none sharpened his tongue against the children of Israel when they returned to the camp (מַחֲנֶה, machăneh, H4264, which is also the Verifier's second shared lexeme with Joshua 10:21 and the word for the Philistine camp in v. 24). Isaiah 10:22 uses it of a destruction determined, overflowing with righteousness. ⚙ The common thread is not speed but edge: a thing brought to a point and settled. God does not tell David to hurry; he tells him to become decisive at a precise instant. K&D glosses it “lit. be sharp, i.e., active, quick,” and notes the Chronicler softened it to “go out to battle.”
Exodus 11:7 · Joshua 10:21 · Isaiah 10:22
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2782 chârats (in 11 vv, rare) with Exodus 11:7, Joshua 10:21 and Isaiah 10:22; Joshua 10:21 additionally shares H4264 machăneh (in 189 vv). Shared vocabulary only — no citation or literary dependence is claimed
The battlefield is named in the Verifier's candidates at Joshua 15:8 and Joshua 18:16, where it marks the tribal boundary running down from Jerusalem, and at Isaiah 17:5, where it is remembered as corn-country a reaper strips. The shared bases are רְפָאִים (râphâʼ, H7497, in 24 vv) and עֵמֶק (ʻêmeq, H6010). Cambridge cites Isaiah 17:5 for its fertility and traces the name to “the ancient gigantic race of the Rephaim, to which Og the king of Bashan belonged.” Pulpit refuses the gloss outright, noting that the same consonants in Isaiah 26:14, 19 mean the shades of the dead. ⚙ We do not adjudicate. Either way the name marks pre-Israelite ground on the doorstep of the city David has just taken, which is why the Philistines choose it.
Joshua 15:8 · Joshua 18:16 · Isaiah 17:5
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H7497 râphâʼ (in 24 vv) and H6010 ʻêmeq (in 64 vv) — a real verbal link naming one location, but a shared toponym is not a quotation, so the tier stays structural
2 Samuel 23:13 (with its Chronicles parallel at 1 Chronicles 11:15) describes the Philistines encamped in the Valley of Rephaim while David is “in the hold,” and the Verifier confirms the shared lexemes Pᵉlishtîy, yârad and râphâʼ. Barnes takes the two passages to describe one occasion: “the invasion most probably took place before David had completed his buildings in the city of David; and is probably referred to in 2 Samuel 23:8-17.” Cambridge agrees the incident “may have happened in this war,” and Pulpit calls the parallel “too precise to be lightly set aside,” noting that there too the word “hold” carries the definite article. K&D dissents, preferring the mountain stronghold in the wilderness of Judah. ⚙ We record it as a strong structural correspondence between two narratives, not a settled identification of one event.
2 Samuel 23:13 · 1 Chronicles 11:15
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6430 Pᵉlishtîy (244 vv), H3381 yârad (345 vv), H7497 râphâʼ (24 vv). All three are common or toponymic; the weight of the link is narrative situation, not rare vocabulary, so no verbal claim is made
Ellicott, Gill, Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D all state that Isaiah 28:21 (“as in mount Perazim”) looks back to this battle; K&D calls it “the only other passage in which the place is mentioned,” and Cambridge treats it as strong enough to help settle the Geba/Gibeon reading in v. 25. ⚙ We checked. Run directly, the Verifier returns for 2 Samuel 5:20 against Isaiah 28:21: “no shared original-language lexeme found in the index — connection, if any, is thematic/structural and must be argued, not asserted.” The unanimity of the commentators is real evidence and the proper-name argument is strong, but it is attestation, not a computed verbal basis, and we will not upgrade the badge to match a consensus we cannot verify here.
Isaiah 28:21
basis: Verifier pair check on 2 Samuel 5:20 ↔ Isaiah 28:21 returned no shared lexeme in the index. The link rests entirely on the place-name Perazim as read by Ellicott, Gill, Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D — commentator attestation, unconfirmed by the lexical index
The Philistines carry their ʻăṣabbîm into the field exactly as Israel once carried the ark to Aphek (1 Samuel 4:3-11); they lose them exactly as Israel lost the ark. Benson, Gill, Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D all draw the line, and Cambridge states the conclusion: “Thus the old disgrace of the capture of the Ark by the Philistines was avenged.” Benson presses the asymmetry — the captured ark destroyed its captors, and these captured gods could neither hurt Israel nor save themselves. That David disposed of them by fire (1 Chronicles 14:12) is referred by Ellicott, Poole, JFB, Gill, Cambridge and K&D to the law of Deuteronomy 7:5, 25. ⚙ No shared lexeme underwrites any of this; the link is a narrative pattern of reversal, argued from the sources and not asserted from the index.
1 Samuel 4:3 · Deuteronomy 7:5 · 1 Chronicles 14:12
basis: No Verifier-computed shared lexeme; the basis is a narrative reversal pattern (gods carried into battle and lost) attested by name in Benson, Gill, Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D, plus the legal referral to Deuteronomy 7:5 made by six of the brief's commentators. No quotation is claimed
Matthew Henry reads this whole unit through two New Testament lenses at once. The assault provoked by an anointing he hears as Psalm 2: “The heathen raged, and the kings of the earth set themselves to oppose it; but all in vain.” And the order to wait for a sound before moving he hears in Acts: the apostles “must not attempt any thing till they received the promise of the Spirit; who came with a sound from heaven, as of a rushing, mighty wind.” Gill adds that Kimchi assigned the composition of Psalm 2 to this very moment. ⚙ This is a Greek-to-Hebrew link, so no shared Strong's number is possible in principle and none is claimed; the correspondence is a pattern — anointing, coalition, a waiting that ends at an audible sign of God's own going-forth. We record it as Henry's reading, named as his.
Psalm 2:1 · Acts 2:2
basis: Cross-Testament (Hebrew ↔ Greek): shared Strong's numbers are impossible across the testaments and none is claimed. The basis is a figural pattern — anointed king assailed, then a sound preceding divine action — advanced explicitly by Matthew Henry on this passage; widely-held for Psalm 2, and Henry's own for the Acts 2 sound
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The Hebrew says the war began when the nations heard that Israel had מָשְׁחוּ (mâshach, H4886) David king — the verb that makes a mashiach. ⚙ The New Testament's own reading of Psalm 2 places the same words over a greater anointing: the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. Matthew Henry states the typology outright on this passage: “The kingdom of the Messiah, as soon as it was set up in the world, was thus attacked by the powers of darkness. The heathen raged, and the kings of the earth set themselves to oppose it; but all in vain.” Gill records that Kimchi took Psalm 2 to have been written at this hour. ⚙ Two details keep the reading from being merely decorative. The assault is a response to an anointing, not to a conquest — the crown itself is the offence. And Henry's second observation is the harder one: the attack ends by destroying the attacker. “The destruction will turn, as this did, upon Satan's own kingdom.” The Philistines come to take a king and go home without their gods.
Psalm 2:1-2 · 2 Samuel 5:17 · 2 Samuel 5:21
David's confession at Baal-perazim gives God a title made from a verb: פָּרַץ (pārats, H6555) — he who breaks through, whose onset is like a breach of waters, and who does it לְפָנַי, before my face. ⚙ Micah's oracle of the one who goes up at the head of a rescued remnant uses that same root, and the Verifier confirms it: run directly, 2 Samuel 5:20 against Micah 2:13 returns shared lexemes H6555 pârats (48 vv) and H6440 pânîym — the very pair on which David's sentence turns. The breaker goes up before them; they break out and pass the gate; their king passes before them, and YHWH at their head. ⚙ The figural reading is ours and we mark it as such: what David names on a hillside near Jerusalem, Micah names as the shape of Israel's deliverance, and the Church has heard in that shape the Christ who goes first through what no one else could open. The honest limit is that Micah's oracle is not quoted in the New Testament; this is a reading argued from a real lexical link, not an apostolic citation.
Micah 2:13 · 2 Samuel 5:20 · 2 Samuel 5:24
The signal verse does not promise help; it reports a departure that has already happened. יָצָא (yātsāʼ, H3318) is a perfect, and Cambridge insists on it: “The use of the perfect tense in the original gives an emphasis to the assurance. ‘Then hath Jehovah gone forth before thee.'” K&D reads the sound in the treetops as “a significant sign of the approach of an army of God,” set beside the hosts Jacob met and the horses of fire around Elisha; Gill passes on the Targum's angel and the reading of Jarchi and R. Isaiah. ⚙ The redemptive-historical shape is plain and, on Henry's testimony, was seen long before us: the people of God are never told to win a victory, only to move into one already begun. Henry draws it to Pentecost — the apostles “must not attempt any thing till they received the promise of the Spirit; who came with a sound from heaven.” ⚙ We would add only what the grammar adds: the church's marching orders are in the perfect tense. He has gone out. The sound in the weeping trees is not a request for help but the noise of a battle joined ahead of us, and the only sin available at that moment is to be slow.
2 Samuel 5:24 · Acts 2:2 · 2 Kings 6:17
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
Text. The unit follows the BSB with the Berean interlinear and Strong's parsing supplied in the brief. Two places carry genuine textual weight. At v. 25 the Hebrew before us reads מִגֶּבַע, Geba, while 1 Chronicles 14:16 and the Septuagint read Gibeon; BSB prints Gibeon. Ellicott calls one of the two “a slip of the scribe,” Barnes, Cambridge and K&D emend to Gibeon on geographical grounds, and Pulpit alone defends Geba and builds a harder battle from it. We have kept the divergence visible rather than choosing. At v. 21 the AV's “burned them” renders nothing in this Hebrew — וַיִּשָּׂאֵם is “and he lifted them away.” Barnes names it a gloss, Cambridge traces it to the Targum and 1 Chronicles 14:12, and Pulpit calls it “utterly indefensible”; the burning is genuinely reported, but in Chronicles.
What is uncertain. The identity of “the hold” (v. 17): Barnes, Cambridge and Pulpit argue for Adullam from 2 Samuel 23:13-14, K&D for the mountain stronghold in the wilderness of Judah, Ellicott only that it cannot be Zion. The species of the bᵉkāʼîm (vv. 23-24) is unknown: pear in the Septuagint and Vulgate, mulberry in the rabbis, a balsam-like shrub in Barnes and K&D, a poplar in JFB following Royle. The meaning of Rephaim is disputed within the brief itself — the lexicon glosses H7497 as “a giant” and Cambridge, Poole, Gill and JFB follow it, while Pulpit denies the gloss any standing. The chronological placement of these battles relative to the capture of Jerusalem is argued three different ways by K&D, Cambridge and Ellicott, and Ellicott concedes that “It is impossible now to determine the exact details of the chronology.”
Sources and method. All eleven public-domain commentators present in the brief are quoted: Ellicott, Benson, Henry, Barnes, JFB, Poole, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D. Every ✦ excerpt is an exact contiguous substring of the sourced text, selected by anchor and copied by machine; nothing is retyped or stitched. Extra-biblical reports carried by the commentators are flagged where they appear — Josephus on the size of the second Philistine army (Gill), Kimchi on the date of Psalm 2 (Gill), the Targum and Jarchi on the angels in the treetops (Gill), Royle on the poplar (JFB), Clermont-Ganneau's Gezer boundary inscriptions (Cambridge). Thread badges use the Verifier's computed bases; two pairs were checked directly for this unit — 2 Samuel 5:20 ↔ Micah 2:13 (shared H6555 pârats, H6440 pânîym; structural) and 2 Samuel 5:20 ↔ Isaiah 28:21 (no shared lexeme; flagged). The Isaiah 28:21 allusion is asserted by five of our commentators and could not be confirmed against the index, so it is badged “flagged — verify source” despite that consensus. The ⚙ synthesis, the sola reading and the pullquote are machine commentary: fallible, offered to be tested, and to be weighed against Scripture and not confused with it.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)