is wicked treatment of his ambassadors
on their king. So that king's intimate friends and commanders,
understanding that they had violated their league, and were liable to
be punished for the same, made preparations for war; they also sent a
thousand talents to the Syrian king of Mesopotamia, and endeavored to
prevail with him to assist them for that pay, and Shobach. Now these
kings had twenty thousand footmen. They also hired the king of the
country called Maacah, and a fourth king, by name Ishtob; which last had
twelve thousand armed men.

2. But David was under no consternation at this confederacy, nor at the
forces of the Ammonites; and putting his trust in God, because he was
going to war in a just cause, on account of the injurious treatment he
had met with, he immediately sent Joab, the captain of his host, against
them, and gave him the flower of his army, who pitched his camp by
Rabbah, the metropolis of the Ammonites; whereupon the enemy came
out, and set themselves in array, not all of them together, but in
two bodies; for the auxiliaries were set in array in the plain by
themselves, but the army of the Ammonites at the gates over against the
Hebrews. When Joab saw this, he opposed one stratagem against another,
and chose out the most hardy part of his men, and set them in opposition
to the king of Syria, and the kings that were with him, and gave the
other part to his brother Abishai, and bid him set them in opposition
to the Ammonites; and said to him, that in case he should see that the
Syrians distressed him, and were too hard for him, he should order his
troops to turn about and assist him; and he said that he himself
would do the same to him, if he saw him in the like distress from the
Ammonites. So he sent his brother before, and encouraged him to do
every thing courageously and with alacrity, which would teach them to
be afraid of disgrace, and to fight manfully; and so he dismissed him
to fight with the Ammonites, while he fell upon the Syrians. And though
they made a strong opposition for a while, Joab slew many of them,
but compelled the rest to betake themselves to flight; which, when the
Ammonites saw, and were withal afraid of Abishai and his army, they
staid no longer, but imitated their auxiliaries, and fled to the city.
So Joab, when he had thus overcome the enemy, returned with great joy to
Jerusalem to the king.

3. This defeat did not still induce the Ammonites to be quiet, nor to
own t