Matthew Henry on 2 Samuel 5:11-16
Here is, I. David's house built, a royal palace, fit for the reception of the court he kept and the homage that was paid to him, Sa2 5:11. The Jews were husbandmen and shepherds, and did not much addict themselves either to merchandise or manufactures; and therefore Hiram, king of Tyre, a wealthy prince, when he sent to congratulate David on his accession to the throne, offered him workmen to build him a house. David thankfully accepted the offer, and Hiram's workmen built David a house to his mind. Many have excelled in arts and sciences who were strangers to the covenants of promise. Yet David's house was never the worse, nor the less fit to be dedicated to God, for being built by the sons…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Samuel 5:13
ELEVEN SONS BORN TO HIM. (Sa2 5:13-16)
David took him more concubines and wives--In this conduct David transgressed an express law, which forbade the king of Israel to multiply wives unto himself (Deu 17:17).
Adam Clarke on 2 Samuel 5:13
David took him more concubines - He had, in all conscience, enough before; he had, in the whole, eight wives and ten concubines. That dispensation permitted polygamy, but from the beginning it was not so; and as upon an average there are about fourteen males born to thirteen females, polygamy is unnatural, and could never have entered into the original design of God.
John Gill on 2 Samuel 5:13
And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron,.... He had six when he was at Hebron, 2 Samuel 3:2, and now he took more, which was not to his honour, and contrary to the law of God, Deuteronomy 17:17; the concubines were a sort of half wives, as the word may signify, or secondary ones, and under the others:
and there were yet sons and daughters born to David; besides those in Hebron mentioned in 2 Samuel 3:2.
Keil & Delitzsch
