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The verses use the word "פרד" which means mule. There's some evidence that mules were used in ancient times both as mounts for important people and as war steeds and even chariot-animals. See here for …

This is a reference to the Siege of Pressburg, also known as the Siege of Bratislava, in 1809, which was a little over a month-long Napoleonic campaign that ultimately failed (on Napoleon's part). I h …

Rabbi Yosef Qafich in his essay בענין דיכה, חיתוך ירקות ושחיקה בשבת, Sinai 77, p. 241 explained that the פלח רכב was not a large grinding stone from a mill but a small, handheld one that was found in …

Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook wrote a work on the War called "Orot Hamilchamah" (Lights of War) or just "Hamilchamah" (the War). In the work, he explains what brings nations to war and what are …

Note: The Babylonian Chronicles entries brought in this answer were translated by me from the book "Historical Texts From Assyria and Babylonia: 9th-6th Centuries BCE" by Mordechai Cogan, which is a H …

Yehudah the Maccabee died in the Battle of Elasa, a mere four years after the victory at Beit Tzur and the subsequent purification and rededication of the Temple. Are there any rabbinic sources that o …

Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli wrote a lengthy essay on the subject shortly after Qibiya, published in his book עמוד הימיני, pp. 113-139. He first noted: "מאז נסתיימה המלחמה ה"רשמית" של מדינות ערב בישראל ע"י ש …

Last Shabbat, I was reading a book called היהודים בערב (The Jews in Arabia) by Dr. Yisrael Ben Ze'ev. In the book, a section was dedicated to a pre-Islamic Arabian Jewish poet named Shmuel ben Adiyah. …

Malbim on Shmuel 1:15:2 writes about the irrationality, or perhaps the illegitimacy of Amalek's war with Bnei Yisrael: "כה אמר ה' צבאות, הנה התורה בארה בטעם מצות מיחוי זכר עמלק כמה טעמים כמ"ש זכור א …

This saying is quoted in the name of the Chafetz Chaim on multiple websites: Here's a video in which Rabbi Ovadyah Yosef zt"l says it in his name (from 19:14). And the story is likewise told in this b …

Last year someone sent me this video. It shows an IDF "misdar", a kind of military formation/inspection/ceremony (not really sure how to translate it) on the Temple Mount after it was freed from the J …

In Israeli Dati social media circles there's been a little bit of a buzz recently1 over a segula apparently first introduced by Rabbi Grossman during the Second Lebanon War (see here from 0:52). The s …

Was there a war after the miracle of the oil? Yes, there was. The Book of Maccabees describes several battles between the Maccabees and the Seleucids. One of these was the Battle of Beit Tzur, which e …

This story is brought in the biography of R' Baruch Ber (pg. 130-131) by Rabbi Yitzchak Edelstein whose father was a student of R' Baruch Ber. He himself knew R' Baruch Ber when he was young and also …

I wrote an essay a couple of years ago that dealt, in part, with these questions. The answer to your first question is: Yes and no. David's military uniform depended on which weapon he was using in ba …