All of us, at some point of time in our lives, would likely have wrongly jumped to a conclusion. Some of us may have wrongly guessed who the murderer was in a movie, or some of us may have prematurely turned off the television at the 90th minute of a football match only to discover the next day that your team actually won in the end. Now the aforementioned examples have fairly trivial consequences, but we know that jumping to conclusions can also result in severe consequences. For Hanun and the princes of Ammon, this was the serious lesson that they learned.
It is quite natural to form conclusions before we have solid evidence of what actually happened, and that is due to the fact that God has given humans the ability to recognise patterns and make predictions based on those patterns. This prediction making ability is important in helping us survive and even thrive. One might say that the entire scientific enterprise is based on the ability to observe patterns and make conclusions . So it was legitimate for the princes of the sons of Ammon to warn Hanun that David could have been spying out the land under the pretext of sending comforters to honor Hanun’s father. Perhaps they had seen such things happen before to other nations. Perhaps they themselves had suffered something similar in the past.
Where it all went wrong for Hanun is what he did about his suspicion. In 1 Chronicles 19, although we see the sons of Ammon planting the thought in Hanun that David could have ulterior motives, Hanun seems to have decided on his own what to do with this possibility. He made the choice to make a pre-emptive strike - he humiliated David’s servants, as if to signal to David saying: I see through your ploy, don’t try anything funny with me.
This we now know was terribly unwise, for Hanun made himself thus odious to David. But this foolishness was quickly eclipsed by the second monumental failure: the decision to escalate the situation by hiring chariots from the King of Maacah and coming together to battle. On David’s end, we see that although Hanun had become odious to David, we do not see him intending to act on it by attacking Hanun. From what we know of David, he might even have held back striking Hanun for the sake of Hanun’s father. It was only when the sons of Ammon gathered together from their cities and came to battle, that David sent Joab and all the army to respond to the threat. Again, Hanun jumped to conclusions and this time, to the conclusion (read: end) of his own army.
All this is to say, while we may jump to conclusions about the intentions of people around us, the crucial bit is what we do after we have made that conclusion. Some of us might be compelled to act on the conclusion, spurred by the instinct of self-preservation. “I must protect myself first, for it is better for me to strike than be struck”. But this is not the way of Christ. Our faith teaches us that we should never be the first to harm others, even in the name of self-defense. For we look to our Lord, as our vindicator. As Paul wrote in the epistle to the Romans:
“Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men, If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.
Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
May God help us, so that whilst we may still jump to conclusions from time to time, we do not jump to our conclusion (end).
