(8) The wood devoured more.—The battle and the pursuit covered a wide range of country; more were slain in the pursuit through the wood, both by accident and by the sword, than in the actual battle itself.

2 Samuel 18:8. The battle was scattered over all the country — In that neighbourhood; both in the field and in the wood. The wood devoured more people than the sword — Some think the wood is said to devour them because they fell into pits, or stumbled upon stumps of trees, or pressed one another to death, as they came into strait places, or were killed by wild beasts. But the most natural meaning of the words is, that there were more slain in the wood, into which Absalom’s men fled, than in the open field; that is, more in their flight, which was stopped by the wood, than in the battle.

18:1-8 How does David render good for evil! Absalom would have only David smitten; David would have only Absalom spared. This seems to be a resemblance of man's wickedness towards God, and God's mercy to man, of which it is hard to say which is most amazing. Now the Israelites see what it is to take counsel against the Lord and his anointed.The battle was scattered - Probably Absalom's forces were far more numerous than David's; but, most likely by Joab's skillful generalship, the field of battle was such that numbers did not tell, and David's veteran troops were able to destroy Absalom's rabble in detail. The wood entangled them, and was perhaps full of pits, precipices, and morasses 2 Samuel 18:17. 8. the wood devoured more people than the sword—The thick forest of oaks and terebinths, by obstructing the flight, greatly aided the victors in the pursuit. The battle was there scattered, i. e. the warriors being beaten in the fight, fled, and were dispersed; the abstract being put for the concrete, as poverty is put for poor men, 2 Kings 24:14, and deceit for the deceiver, and dreams for dreamers, Proverbs 12:24 13:6.

The wood devoured more people, i.e. more people died in the wood, either through hunger, and thirst, and weariness; or by the wild beasts, whereof great numbers were there, which, though they were driven away by noise and clamour from the place of the main battle, yet might easily meet with them when they fled several ways, which also might be directed and sent to them by God’s providence and just judgment to punish them for their rebellion; or by falling into ditches and pits, which were in that place, 2 Samuel 18:17, and probably were covered with grass or wood, so as they could not see them till they fell into them; or by being hanged in trees, as Absalom was, 2 Samuel 18:9; and especially by David’s men, who pursued them, and killed them in the wood: and the wood is rightly said to have devoured them, because it gave the occasion to their destruction, inasmuch as the trees, and ditches, and pits, entangled them, and stopped their flight, and made them an easy prey to David’s men, who followed them, and slew them in the pursuit, being therein directed and assisted by the people of that country, who, after the manner, fell in with the victorious side.

Than the sword devoured, to wit, in the main battle; the sword being put for the battle, by a common metonymy.

For the battle was there scattered over the face of all the country,.... Or the warriors were scattered, as the Targum; Absalom's soldiers, their ranks were broken, and they were thrown into the utmost confusion, and ran about here and there all over the field or plain in which the battle was fought, and into the neighbouring wood:

and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured; there were more slain in it the in the field of battle, what by one thing or another; as by falling into pits and on stumps of trees, and being entangled in the bushes, and could make but little haste, and so were overtaken by David's men, and slain; insomuch that, as Josephus (h) observes, there were more slain fleeing than fighting, and perhaps some might perish by wild beasts; so the Targum,"and the beasts of the wood slew more of the people than were slain by the sword;''and so the Syriac and Arabic versions render the words to the same purpose.

(h) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 7. c. 10. sect. 2.)

For the battle was there scattered over the face of all the country: and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.