The story ends with a narrative conclusion, ‘Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem’, with no reference to some basic details which may have been of interest to the historian: the status of Ammon after the conquest, the fate of Hanun the king, etc. Even the standard formulas which recurred in ch. 18, regarding Moab, Aram and Edom, are absent in this context. It is significant, however, that Solomon’s first queen, Rehoboam’s mother, was to be an Ammonite – a matter which no doubt should be interpreted politically.
