II Samuel 10:3 And the princes of the children of Ammon said unto Hanun their lord, Thinkest thou that David doth honour thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee?
Have you ever been angry with someone because you thought they did something they did not do? If that has ever happened to you, you probably don’t even know it because, by the nature of the case, if you knew that they were innocent, you wouldn’t be upset. Maybe a better question would be, “Have you ever been accused of something you did not do?” Sometimes there is an imagined offense but very real anger that comes from it.
That is what happened in David’s case. In II Samuel 10, David had been showing kindness to those who had done well to him in years past. He showed kindness to the family of Jonathan, his beloved friend, and then he wanted to do a kindness to a man named Hanun, a king whose father had shewed him a kindness.
David sent servants to Hanun, and when they arrived, the princes of the children of Ammon said to Hanun, “Thinkest thou that David doth honour thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee? hath not David rather sent his servants unto thee to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it?” So, Hanun took David’s servants and shamed them. He cut off half of their beards, he cut off their garments in the middle, and he sent them back ashamed.
When David saw them come back, he gathered an army. Then, the Ammonites hired the Syrians. This got larger and larger and larger. It went from a kindness shown, to a kindness misunderstood, to a battle, to a great bloodshed. Things get quickly out of hand when we respond to someone with a hunch we have of their motives instead of talking to them about their actions.
Why did David send these servants? It was to show kindness and to comfort Hanun when his father passed away. Hanun wasn’t even offended by what David had done. He was offended by the motive he attributed to what David had done. That is the danger in trying to judge hearts. Sometimes we judge motives before we even judge actions.
There have been times when I have been upset with people not because of what they had done, but because of the motives I attributed to what I thought they had done. That is fruitless and wicked. The truth is that we need to talk to people about their actions instead of responding with a hunch about their motives. That requires me to be direct, to be gracious, and to go to the person whom I think has committed the offense. In short, we need clear communication.
What began as a kindness ended as a great tragedy. It could all have been avoided if Hanun had responded by talking to David instead of guessing his motives.