Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

The last time we were in David's story he had just won a lot of battles and brought

Mephebachev Jonathan's one surviving son to live in his home. Today the King of the

Ammonites dies and he had been amicable toward

David so David decides to treat his son Hanun kindly in return. Hanun is the

likely heir to the throne and it's a wise diplomatic move on David's part to keep peace with

his neighbors. But Hanun's advisors are suspicious. They mistrust David's motives because they don't know

him. They haven't seen now he's taken in Mephibicheth, or how he's mourned the death of his enemies, or even how he refused to kill Saul twice when he had the chance. They feel unnecessarily threatened by him.

So they take David's servants who were sent to comfort Henun and degrade them by shaving off half their beards and cutting their clothes in half.

Both of these moves are emasculating for David's servants. The

beard is considered a mark of manhood and to cut their garments in half is symbolic

of castration. It's something they do to prisoners of war to shame them.

These men who came to Henun to serve him are left half naked and humiliated.

David doesn't retaliate but he's not happy with the Ammonites.

They get wind of it and decide to go on the offense by hiring more than 30,000 mercenaries,

including a bunch of Syrians who already hated Israel, to fight Israel on their behalf.

David since his army, led by Joab to the battle, and Joab demonstrates good leadership and trust in God during all of this.

In 1012, he's talking to his brother Abichai,

who's commanding another part of the Army,

and he says, be of good courage

and let us be courageous for our people and for the cities of our God and may the Lord do what seems good to him.

This is what confidence and faith in God looks like. He's reminding his brother and himself that the cities belong

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