(5) So David gathered all Israel.-- Assembled; a different word in 1Chronicles 13:2.

Shihor of Egypt.--The boundary between Egypt and Canaan is elsewhere called Nahal Micrayim (Author?sed Version, River of Egypt; Isaiah 27:12; 2Chronicles 7:8). It is the modern Wady el Arish. Joshua 13:3 also calls this winter torrent the Shihor (Blackwater); but, in Isaiah 23:3, Shihor means the Nile.

The entering of Hemath.--Hamath.--This was the usual designation of the north boundary of Palestine, as the "torrent of Egypt" was that of the south (1Kings 8:65). Hamath was the seat of an ancient kingdom, independent of, but friendly to David. The prophet Amos (eighth century B.C. ) calls it Hamath Rabbah, Great Hamath (Amos 6:2). A revived interest attaches to Hamath in our day, owing to the discovery of five curious inscriptions at Hamah, written in a peculiar hieroglyphic character, which has been pronounced to be Hittite, but still awaits decipherment.

Verse 5. - All Israel. The parallel gives the number as thirty thousand men (2 Samuel 6:1, 2). Shihor of Egypt. According to Gesenius, this Shihor is from root שָׁחֲר meaning "to be turbid" or "black" (so Latin melo, from the Greek; Virgil, 'Georg.,' 4:278, 291; Catullus, 67:33). There can surely be little doubt that it is the river Nile which is here spoken of, after comparison of the following passages: - Joshua 13:3; Isaiah 23:3; Jeremiah 2:18. Though others, quoting Joshua 13:3 and Joshua 19:26, and interpreting Shihor generically as applicable to any dark, turbid stream, make it the modern Wady el-Arish, However, the parallel, 1 Kings 8:65, does not necessarily dissever the נַחַל from נָהַר of Egypt (Genesis 15:18), but rather tends to identify them. The entering of Hemath; i.e. the way to Hamath (Hebrew, חְמָת; Numbers 34:7, 8). Hamath was one of the great cities of the Orontes valley, in Upper Syria, which formed the boundary in especial of the empire of Solomon. This valley is watered by the Orontes, the river of Antioch, a river remarkable for its abundant spring (situate immediately north of the source of the Leontes), which won for it the name, among all the other springs of Syria, of "The Spring," and remarkable for "the length of its course, the volume of its waters, and the rich vegetation of its banks." It is the one of the four rivers which take their rise beneath the heights of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon which becomes really worthy of the name of river, the other three, viz. the Jordan, the Leontes or modern Litany of Phoeicia, and the Abana or modern Barada of Damascus, more resembling the nature of the mountain stream. This river was to the ancient Romans "the representative of Syria, as the Timings might be said to be of England, and in later times the region formed the chief point of contact between this part of Asia and the West" (Stanley's 'Sinai and Palestine,' pp. 414, e,f, edit. 1866). The kingdom of Hamath comprised the tract of this valley of the Orontes, skirted by the hills separating the Leontes from the Orontes, and extending to the Pass of Daphne below Antioch. Riblah (Numbers 34:11; 2 Kings 23:33) lies on the east bank of the Orontes, thirty-five miles north-east of Baal-bek, or Baal-gad. The people of Hamath were of the race of Ham, of the descendants of Canaan (Genesis 10:18), and are not to be reckoned as of Phoenician origin.

13:1-5 David said not, What magnificent thing shall I do now? or, What pleasant thing? but, What pious thing? that he might have the comfort and benefit of that sacred oracle. Let us bring the ark to us, that it may be a blessing to us. Those who honour God, profit themselves. It is the wisdom of those setting out in the world, to take God's ark with them. Those are likely to go on in the favour of God, who begin in the fear of God.So David gathered all Israel together,.... The principal of them, even 30,000 select men, 2 Samuel 6:1.

from Shihor of Egypt; or the Nile of Egypt, as the Targum and other Jewish writers, called Shihor from the blackness of its water, see Jeremiah 2:18 though some think the river Rhinocurura is meant, which both lay to the south of the land of Israel:

even unto the entering of Hamath; which the Targum interprets of Antiochia, which lay to the north of the land; so that this collection of the people was made from south to north, the extreme borders of the land:

to bring the ark of God from Kirjathjearim; where it then was, and had been a long time, see 1 Samuel 7:1, from hence to the end of the chapter the account is the same with 2 Samuel 6:1, see the notes there; what little variations there are, are there observed. See Gill on 2 Samuel 6:1, 2 Samuel 6:2, 2 Samuel 6:3, 2 Samuel 6:4, 2 Samuel 6:5, 2 Samuel 6:6, 2 Samuel 6:7, 2 Samuel 6:8, 2 Samuel 6:9, 2 Samuel 6:10, 2 Samuel 6:11