1 Chronicles 18:1-2 meaning
1 Chronicles 18:1-2 opens David's wars on the two borders closest to home, beginning with one of Israel's oldest enemies: Now after this it came about that David defeated the Philistines and subdued them and took Gath and its towns from the hand of the Philistines (v 1). By saying, "after this," this verse links the wars to the covenant of the previous chapter. God had already promised, "I will subdue all your enemies" (1 Chronicles 17:10), and subdued in this verse translates the same Hebrew verb, "kana'," that God used in the promise. God spoke the word, and the next chapter records its fulfillment. The Philistines had killed Saul and his sons on Mount Gilboa (1 Chronicles 10:1-6) and had twice marched against David after his anointing (1 Chronicles 14:8-16). Here the war moves onto their ground.
Gath was one of the five Philistine cities and the hometown of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:4) and is located in what is now Gaza. David had once fled there as a fugitive and feigned madness before its king (1 Samuel 21:10-15), and later served its king Achish as a vassal at Ziklag (1 Samuel 27:2-6). The man who had hidden in Gath now takes it, with its towns, the villages that depended on it. 2 Samuel 8:1 simply describes the same conquest as taking "control of the chief city"; the chronicler includes the city's name. The reversal from sojourner to conqueror is God's doing, as the chapter will say twice (1 Chronicles 18:6, 13).
The second victory lies across the Dead Sea: He defeated Moab, and the Moabites became servants to David, bringing tribute (v 2). Moab was descended from Lot (Genesis 19:37) and had a long history with Israel, from Balak's hiring of Balaam (Numbers 22-24) to Eglon's oppression in the days of the judges (Judges 3:12-30). David himself had Moabite blood through Ruth (Ruth 4:13-22) and had once sent his parents to the king of Moab for safety (1 Samuel 22:3-4). Whatever friendship there had been, was no longer. 2 Samuel 8:2 adds that David measured the defeated Moabites with a line and put two out of every three to death. The chronicler, however, reports the outcome and leaves out the execution. His interest is in the result, the Moabites became servants to David, bringing tribute (v 2).
The word rendered tribute, "minchah" in Hebrew, is the same word used for a gift or a grain offering elsewhere in the Old Testament. Subject nations expressed their submission by regular payments, and those payments acknowledged whose rule they lived under. Balaam had foreseen this day when he said of Israel's future ruler, "A star shall come forth from Jacob, a scepter shall rise from Israel, and shall crush through the forehead of Moab" (Numbers 24:17). David's victory is one fulfillment of that oracle. The prophets looked for a later and larger one, when the nations would bring their wealth to the Son of David and "all kings" would "bow down before him" (Psalm 72:10-11). What the fulfillments share is the same scepter, held first by David and finally by the King who descends from him.