A Lot of Dead Guys

Two accounts of the event of David defeating the Ammonites are included in today's One Year Chronological Bible reading.  2 Samuel details the event as does 1 Chronicles.

 

There is a discrepancy on how many charioteers are killed between the two accounts: one says 700 and the other says 7,000.  However, both agree that 40,000 foot soldiers were killed by David and his army that day.

 

Any way one does the math, there were still a LOT of dead guys that day.  At least 40,700 bodies began to fertilize the earth (somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,000,000 to 7,000,000 pounds of flesh).  If each man lost only a pint of blood (highly likely in a war with swords, knives, spears, and arrows), there were over 5,000 gallons of blood shed that day.  It is also quite possible that all the adult males of entire clans were killed (grandfathers, fathers, and sons).  Loss of life was extreme that day.

 

One can only ponder these numbers.  They are staggering to consider.

 

Father, I don't know what to make of the sheer volume of people who died in this and other battles recorded in the Bible.  Somehow it seems to me that life has become more highly estimated in modern times.  Has the value of life actually increased?  Or, has society simply placed a higher value on it?  It seems to me that You placed a lower value on physical life than spiritual life...