שמואל ב, פרק כ״ב, פסוק ל״ח

King David experienced absolute military triumphs and constant Divine protection during the final, most dangerous stages of his battles. The primary approach among commentators is that David never settled for partial victories. Instead, he relentlessly chased his fleeing enemies until they were entirely wiped out [מצודת ציון, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Chasing a retreating army is full of risks. Pursuers often fail to catch their targets and return empty-handed, or worse, they become separated from their main forces and stumble into deadly ambushes. Yet, through God's kindness, David's pursuits were never pointless, nor did he ever fall into these traps. He always caught his enemies and defeated them completely [אברבנאל].

David's firm resolve to never leave a battlefield until the opposing forces were entirely eliminated came from a hard-learned historical lesson. His predecessor, King Saul, lost his right to the throne specifically because he failed to finish the job, choosing to keep Agag, the king of Amalek, alive. Determined not to repeat this fatal mistake, David committed to wiping out his enemies completely [אהבת יהונתן]. While taking enemies captive is sometimes viewed as a harsher punishment than death, David chose a different path. He did not simply put his enemies in chains. Instead, he made sure to defeat them in the heat of battle and end their lives [אהבת יהונתן].

A parallel account of these military campaigns appears in the Book of Psalms, but with a slight difference in how the events are presented. The record here mentions that David immediately destroyed the enemy, while the account in Psalms notes that he first overtook them [מנחת שי, אברבנאל]. The version in Psalms presents a more logical timeline of events, simply because a pursuing army must naturally catch up to its target before it can eliminate them [אברבנאל].