Piet B. Dirksen, «Chronistic Tendency in 1 Chr 18,10-11», Vol. 80 (1999) 269-271

The omission of wyh wdybw and the addition of lkw in 1 Chr 18,10 are deliberate. The last part of v. 10 now connects with v. 11 and refers to the spoil of Hadadezer instead of to the gift of King Toi. This interpretation is confirmed by three other Chronistic changes in v. 11.

change seems to be deliberate: if the last part of v. 11 refers to Hadadezer of Aram, then the mention of Aram in the list of other nations from which spoil was taken would be strange. This problem was very elegantly solved by the Chronicler with the minimal change from "Aram" to "Edom".

        The same difficulty was faced by the Chronicler at the end of the Samuel text, where the spoil of Hadadezer is explicitly mentioned. There was no problem in adding this spoil to the articles brought as tribute by Hadoram. Things are different in Chronicles: the mention of the spoil of Hadadezer was impossible now that v. 10, as restructured by the Chronicler, was meant to refer to the spoil of Hadadezer. Therefore, these words are omitted altogether.

        In conclusion: after the Chronicler had omitted wyh wdybw he made three other changes to adapt the text to the new implied meaning, one in v. 10 and three in v. 11. To deal with these changes in isolation is overlooking their inner cohesion and missing an interesting piece of Chronistic thinking.