II Samuel 7-10 - David Consolidates His Kingdom

We begin with peace. David is safely ensconced in his house of cedar and has been given rest from his enemies. He asks the prophet Nathan about building a house (or temple) for the ark. At first, Nathan agrees: “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is with you” (7:3). Apparently, he is not speaking for the LORD. That night, the LORD tells Nathan “No.” The LORD never asked for a house. Tents and tabernacles are portable; temples are not.  Whether it’s the ark or the LORD’s name that is housed, there is a danger that the people will forget that they are dealing with an undomesticated God who is always free to move.

Instead, the LORD turns it around and tells Nathan to proclaim to David: “The LORD will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you…he shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever…When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. But I will not take my steadfast love from him…your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever” (7:11-16).

Do we need a Messiah to make this promise true? How conditional is it? It will be another 400 years or so before it is severely challenged – when the last Davidic king is deposed from Judah and the people are taken into exile in Babylon. That is a long way off, however. For now, David responds by sitting in the tent in front of the ark and praying before the LORD: “Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?...Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have wrought all this greatness…you established your people Israel for yourself to be your people forever; and you, O LORD, became their God” (7:18-24). He realizes that this is part of God’s loyalty to Israel and not just to him personally. Still, he asks God to confirm the promise about his house in particular: “…with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever” (7:26, 29).

Then from peace, we turn quickly to war. (Interestingly, in I Chronicles 28:3 we’re told that this is the reason David will not build the temple: “You shall not build a house for my name, for you are a warrior and have shed blood.”) While administering “justice and equity to all his people” (8:15) at home, David successfully goes on the offensive against the Philistines, Moabites, Arameans, and Edomites and expands his kingdom to the north, south and east. We’re told that “the LORD gave victory to David wherever he went” (8:6). Does that mean that the LORD always approves of David’s methods? No. His treatment of the Moabites - his ancestors by way of great-grandmother Ruth and the guardians of his own parents at one point (I Sam. 22:4) - seems particularly harsh. He tries to go a different route with the Ammonites, but his reputation precedes him; his gesture of consolation is interpreted as aggression – and he’s off to war again.

At last David returns to the promise he made his late best friend Jonathan. He asks: “Is there anyone left of the house of Saul to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” (9:1) You mean, now that Ishbaal is dead and Michal has fallen out of favor? A servant of the house of Saul, Ziba (of whom we will hear more later), points out Jonathan’s crippled son Mephibosheth. David commands Ziba and his household to serve Mephibosheth. He gives Mephibosheth Saul’s personal property and has him eat at the king’s table – where he can keep an eye on him (as Saul’s heir, he is a potential rival to the throne) and give him a position of honor. As usual, David’s kindness is also politically astute.

What happens when doing the right thing is not to his political advantage? Read on to find out – and, in the meantime, click on “comments” to add your thoughts! 

II Samuel 2-6 - David Becomes King

Almost immediately after Saul’s death, the people of Judah (the southern part of the kingdom) anoint David as their king. He’s 30 years old. Meanwhile, Abner, commander of Saul’s army, makes Saul’s remaining son Ishbaal king over Israel (the northern part of the kingdom). Abner reluctantly – and perhaps unintentionally - kills a pursuing Asahel. Then when Asahel’s brother (and David’s nephew) Joab comes after him, Abner calls for peace. He asks, “Is the sword to keep devouring forever?” (2:26) Joab stops the attack and relents from revenge over the death of his brother, for now anyway. The sword will only continue to devour, however.

When the rival king Ishbaal foolishly alienates Abner, Abner turns to David. David agrees to make a covenant with Abner in exchange for the return of his first wife (and Saul’s daughter) Michal. Ishbaal takes her from her new husband, who walks behind them weeping until Abner makes him go away.

Abner then makes the case for Israel accepting David as king – namely, he will save Israel from the Philistines and all their enemies. Abner even brings the Benjaminites, Saul’s tribe, along. After Abner performs this huge service for David, David dismisses him in peace – only for Joab to bring him back without David’s knowledge and kill him to avenge the death of his brother. David publicly mourns Abner and distances himself from Joab’s actions. Regardless of the legitimacy of his grief, this public display has the desired effect: “All the people took notice of it, and it pleased them; just as everything the king did pleased all the people” (3:36).

Saul’s allies and descendants keep dropping like flies, but somehow David is not involved. Two of Saul’s captains assassinate Ishbaal and bring his head to David, hoping to earn David’s favor – but David has them killed instead for killing “a righteous man on his bed in his own house” (4:11). (Note that he never refers to Ishbaal as “the LORD’s anointed”, as he did Saul.)

The people of Israel end up asking David to be their king, and he defeats the Jebusites to make Jerusalem the capital of his united kingdom. It becomes the “city of David.” King Hiram of Tyre sends cedar trees, along with carpenters and masons, to build David a house. “David then perceived that the LORD had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel” (5:12). In other words, while David is at the center of all this action, it’s not really about him. The LORD is doing something for the people through him. David tries to give credit where credit is due by bringing the ark of God to Jerusalem. (Of course, this move is politically wise as well. Bringing what was considered the throne of God to his city makes a strategically located Jerusalem both the religious and the political capital of his united kingdom.)

After achieving a couple of victories over the Philistines, he starts to bring the ark back – when a man named Uzzah is struck dead by God for touching the ark without being ritually prepared to do so. We’re told that David becomes “angry because the LORD had burst forth with an outburst upon Uzzah” (6:8). He fears bringing the ark under his direct care, so he waits a few months before bringing it into Jerusalem. But when it finally happens, he holds nothing back. “David danced before the LORD with all his might” (6:14) with nothing on but a linen ephod. He and the people bring it into the city with shouting and the sound of the trumpet.  They place it in a special tent; David offers burnt offerings, blesses the people, and feeds them.

Not everyone is pleased by this no-holds-barred display, however. Michal despises him for it and tells him so. (Of course, after being torn away from a husband who clearly loved her and watching as David takes on multiple wives and concubines, she might despise David for other reasons.) David responds by effectively banishing her. If Saul’s line is to continue, it will not be through her.

What do you make of David’s relationship with the LORD? David can be angry with the LORD for striking down Uzzah and later dance with all his might before God. The connection goes beyond political expedience, and the people somehow know it. Perhaps writer Frederick Buechner puts it best as he describes David’s dance before the ark. For once David

“didn’t have to talk up the bright future and the high hopes, because he was himself the future at its brightest and there were no hopes higher than the ones his people had in him. And for once he didn’t have to drag God in for politics’ sake either, because it was obvious to everybody that this time God was there on his own. How they cut loose together, David and Yahweh, whirling around before the ark in such a passion that they caught fire from each other…on the basis of that dance alone, you can see why it was David more than anybody else that Israel lost its heart to and why, when Jesus of Nazareth came riding into Jerusalem on his flea-bitten mule a thousand years later, it was as the Son of David that they hailed him” (Beyond Words; San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2004, p. 75).

What do you think? What makes us fall in love with our leaders, and what does God have to do with it? Click on “comments” and add your voice to the conversation!

I Samuel 29-II Samuel 1 - The Death of Saul

No matter how Saul dies (by suicide, murder or mercy killing – we get different accounts, after all), chapters 29-30 establish that David was nowhere near the death scene. Under understandable pressure from his commanders, Achish, the Philistine king, sends David and his men back to Philistine territory in Ziklag.

It turns out that the Amalekites are back – the people Saul was ordered to destroy back in chapter 15. After David raids their territory in chapter 27, the Amalekites return the favor. David and his men return to find their wives and children gone. In their grief, David’s men briefly turn on him; “but David strengthened himself in the LORD his God” (30:6). He inquires of the LORD and gets the message to pursue. A stray Egyptian leads them to the Amalekite camp, where they recover everything and everyone they lost.  David then wisely shares the spoil with all his soldiers as well as his allies in Judah.

Meanwhile, the Philistines kill three of Saul’s sons on Mount Gilboa – including David’s best friend, Jonathan. According to I Samuel 31, a wounded Saul begs his armor bearer to kill him so the Philistines won’t get the satisfaction. When the armor bearer refuses, Saul commits suicide by falling on his own sword. The distraught armor bearer then kills himself. The Philistines temporarily make trophies of the bodies of Saul and his sons, until the men of Jabesh-Gilead (whom Saul bravely rescued from the Ammonites back in chapter 11) bravely recover them and try to bury them properly.

We get a different version of the story in II Samuel 1. This time, a stray Amalekite claims that he, in fact, killed Saul in order to put him out of his misery. He then hands Saul’s crown and armlet to David, perhaps expecting some kind of reward. David apparently takes him at his word and promptly executes him for killing Saul. Despite his failings, Saul was still the king – the LORD’s anointed, in David’s eyes.

David then mourns publicly for both Saul and Jonathan, glossing over their own complicated father-son relationship – as we are wont to do in eulogies. “In life and in death they were not divided” (1:23). Since when? An alternate translation sounds even more sugar-coated: “Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided” (King James Version). In reality, Saul and Jonathan were most certainly divided in life, if not in death, and mostly over David himself. Jonathan was continually torn between loyalty to his father and love for his best friend. He was frequently forced to choose between following Saul’s orders and sparing David’s life. It was in the face of all this that Jonathan swore his loyalty and love to David.

So is David’s poetic portrayal just wishful thinking, a tidy version of a much messier story cleaned up for public consumption? In reality, it’s far too simple to paint Saul as merely the “bad guy” in this story. For all his faults, Saul was the one anointed by God to be the first king of Israel. In battling David, he was trying to preserve the kingdom for Jonathan. Saul wasn’t a cardboard villain, anymore than are the difficult people in our lives. He was tormented by fear, jealousy, paranoia, what we’d now identify as fierce mental illness, not to mention the deafening silence of God. Repeatedly, Saul had called out for God and heard nothing more than the sound of his own voice. God’s favor had left him and gone to David. His life was tragic, not evil, and here David seemingly has the grace to recognize that. 

What do you make of the LORD’s loyalty to David and the seeming abandonment of Saul? What do we learn of loyalty from David and Jonathan, or from the men of Jabesh-Gilead who risk their own lives to recover Saul’s body and bury him properly? Click on “comments” and add your thoughts!

I Samuel 25-28 - The "Return" of Samuel

Samuel dies at the beginning of chapter 25, but that’s not the last we hear from him. (For more on that, keep reading.) In the meantime, we meet Nabal (“fool” in Hebrew) and his resourceful wife Abigail. David asks Nabal for food for his men in exchange for their “protection,” but Nabal refuses. He speaks of David as a servant breaking away from his master (25:10) – presumably here, Saul. David says that Nabal has returned him evil for good (not unlike Saul) and vow to destroy him, perhaps because destroying Saul is not an option. 

Abigail then intervenes to make peace. She flatters David and tells him exactly what he wants to hear: “For the LORD will certainly make my lord (David) a sure house, because my Lord is fighting the battles of the LORD; and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live” (25:28). She goes on: “If anyone should rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living under the care of the LORD your God; but the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. When the LORD…has appointed you prince over Israel, my lord shall have no cause of grief, or pangs of conscience, for having shed blood without cause or for having saved himself” (25:29-30). She then asks David to remember her, and he does. After Nabal dies (something David sees as the LORD’s doing), he marries her. He praises her for keeping him from bloodguilt and from avenging himself on Nabal by his own hand.  

In a brief note, we also learn that Saul has taken Michal, his daughter, away from David and given her to a man named Palti to be his wife instead. Can he do that? It seems so. It seems not to matter to Saul that Michal loves David. By revoking David’s son-in-law status, Saul tries to remove any claim David could make to the throne – on this basis at least.

Next is another wilderness encounter between David and Saul. Joab’s brother Abishai (more on Joab to come) offers to kill Saul in his sleep, but David refuses: “For who can raised his hand against the LORD’s anointed and be guiltless?” (26:9) They take Saul’s spear and water jar as proof that they could have killed him and didn’t. When confronted, Saul admits: “I have been a fool, and have made a great mistake” (26:21). He then blesses David: “Blessed be you, my son David! You will do many things and will succeed in them.” (26:25) These are Saul’s last words to David.

Nevertheless, David doesn’t believe Saul’s sudden change of heart and flees to the land of the Philistines, out of Saul’s grasp. He and his men stay with King Achish of Gath, for whom David had earlier feigned madness. From there, David starts expanding his territory by fighting Israel’s enemies – leaving neither man nor woman alive – but lies to Achish and says he’s fighting Israel and its allies instead. What happened to his refusal to incur bloodguilt? Apparently, that doesn’t apply to non-Israelites. The Philistines then prepare to battle the Israelites and expect David to fight with them. David’s response is typically cagey: “Very well, then you shall know what your servant can do.” (28:2)

Meanwhile, Saul sees the Philistine army assembling against him and is afraid. He inquires of the LORD, but the LORD does not answer him. So he consults a medium (or witch) in the hopes of communicating with a dead Samuel.  He hopes that Samuel will tell him what to do. What is so shocking in this passage is that the medium’s intervention actually works. Samuel “returns” from Sheol (the pit of the dead) and asks Saul: “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” (28:15) Saul should have known better. Samuel has no good news for him. He tells Saul that “the LORD has turned from you and become your enemy” (28:16). David will receive his kingdom, and Israel will fall to the Philistines. Samuel ends by warning Saul: “Tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me” (28:19). The medium at least has compassion for Saul and insists on feeding him before he leaves.

What do you think of how “enemies” are designated here? When does bloodguilt apply, and when should it? Click on “comments” and add your thoughts!

I Samuel 21-24, Psalms 34,56,57,63 - Saul Chases David

We learn more about David in these chapters. We learn that he is resourceful – and not above lying or faking insanity to get out of a scrape. First, he lies to the priests at Nob, saying that he is on an errand for Saul when he is really fleeing from him. We don’t know why he lies; perhaps it is to spare them from charges of harboring a known fugitive. (If that’s the case, his plan backfires horribly – as Saul orders their execution anyway.) Then he convinces the priest to give him and his men the holy bread, which was set aside as a thank offering to the LORD to be eaten only by the priests. (Jesus will later cite this story as a precedent for breaking ritual law when compassion requires it – Mark 2:25-26). Then before he leaves, David asks for and receives the only weapon of defense in their possession – Goliath’s sword. To his credit, David recognizes his role in the priests’ deaths and promises to protect Abiathar – the only priest who manages to escape. (Abiathar will become one of David’s high priests once he is king.)

David then moves into Philistine territory in Gath, perhaps hoping he’ll go unrecognized. But when the servants of King Achish do recognize him, David fears for his life – so he fakes insanity in order to escape. This wouldn’t seem so noteworthy, except that this episode is somehow connected with Psalms 34 and 56 (“O taste and see that the LORD is good; happy are those who take refuge in him” – 34:8; “In God I trust; I am not afraid. What can a mere mortal do to me?” – 56:11). While we don’t know the exact historical relationship between this event and these psalms, it was easy for the ancient Israelites to believe they were written by David. There is no proof that they weren’t. Does our view of him change at all as a result?

By the end of these chapters, both Jonathan (23:17) and Saul (24:20) recognize that David will one day be king of Israel. Once again, Jonathan proves his friendship – when he has perhaps the most to lose from David’s success (namely, the throne) and, at the moment at least, David has nothing to offer in return.  This is their last recorded meeting. What do we learn of friendship and covenantal loyalty from them?

The chapters end with two wilderness episodes. First, David escapes Saul in the wilderness of Ziph after Saul is called away by a Philistine attack – an event referred to in the superscription of Psalm 63. Then, more dramatically, David spares Saul’s life in the cave of Engedi. (See the superscription for Psalm 57). Saul enters the cave to relieve himself (or “cover his feet” as the ancient Hebrews euphemistically put it), not knowing that David is hiding within. But David refuses to take advantage of Saul’s vulnerability; he will not kill the LORD’s anointed.

Saul’s response is unexpected, to say the least. He asks, “Is this your voice, my son David?” and weeps (24:16). He goes on to say, “You are more righteous than I; for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil” (24:17). He then makes David promise “that you will not cut off my descendants after me, and that you will not wipe out my name from my father’s house” (24:21), and David agrees. How long does Saul hold this stance?  Does David keep his promise? Stay tuned!

What do you notice in these chapters and psalms? Click on “comments” and add your thoughts!

I Samuel 16-20 - The Rise of David

Here we are officially introduced to David – or as Saul’s servants describe him, “a man of valor, a warrior, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence; and the LORD is with him” (16:18). Why is the LORD with him? While we’re told that he is handsome like Saul, “the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (16:7)

Those of us who know “the rest of the story” pick up on other clues. As the youngest son, he fits a well-worn biblical pattern of younger sons supplanting their older brothers. He’s a shepherd like Moses. He’s Ruth’s great-grandson and a member of the tribe of Judah. He’s from Bethlehem. (When Jesus is born 1000 years later, Luke takes pains to tell us that he’s born in the “city of David,” i.e. Bethlehem.)

Perhaps the clearest sign of David’s leadership potential is found in his confrontation with Goliath. Even though Saul calls him a boy, David exhibits great bravery and skill. Even his choice of weapon (a slingshot) gives him the advantages of mobility and surprise. He articulates his faith clearly and publicly. He tells Saul that “the LORD, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine” (17:37). Likewise, he tells Goliath: “This very day the LORD will deliver you into my hand…so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the LORD does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD’s and he will give you into our hand” (17:46-47). Repeatedly in this account, the key to victory is not physical strength or military might but the presence and favor of the LORD.

I and II Samuel go to great lengths to demonstrate that David is not a mere usurper of Saul’s throne. Samuel seeks him out and anoints him as the LORD’s anointed. David refuses Saul’s armor in fighting Goliath. He doesn’t ask to be Saul’s son-in-law (and thereby in the line of succession to the throne); the very notion is Saul’s idea. Nor does David take advantage of his closeness with Saul’s son Jonathan. Repeatedly we’re told that Jonathan loves him “as his own soul” (18:1). He willingly gives David his robe and armor, as well as his sword, bow and belt. He is the one who initiates a covenant of loyalty between them (which comes into play in II Samuel) and is even willing to lie to his father in order to protect his friend.

Everyone who meets David seems to love him, at least at first. Upon first meeting him, “Saul loved him greatly” (16:21). The people quickly fall in love with him: “But all Israel and Judah loved David; for it was he who marched out and came in leading them” (18:16). Jonathan obviously loves him, as does his sister (and Saul’s daughter) Michal. In fact, Michal is the only woman in the entire Hebrew Bible explicitly reported to love a man. (To see where that love leads her, keep reading.)

As for Saul, we’re told: “Now the spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him” (16:14). How exactly does that work? In the narrator’s eyes, all things come from God – or at least are subject to God’s control – including evil spirits. Our 21^st century eyes look at Saul and see more what looks like mental illness. Yet his fear of David is not entirely delusional. David poses a very real threat to his power, and certainly to his son’s Jonathan’s chances of succeeding him. He’s absolutely right in telling Jonathan: “For as long as the son of Jesse lives upon the earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established” (20:31).

While Saul might be passive in fighting the Philistines in these chapters, he’s far from passive in pursuing David. When putting him in the line of Philistine fire and requiring a bride price of 100 Philistine foreskins (!) for Michal’s hand doesn’t work, Saul takes matters into his own hands. He hurls spears at David, sends assassins to his house, and then chases after him when David runs off to Samuel in Ramah. Here “the spirit of God came upon (Saul);” but instead of inspiring him to greatness, it leaves him in a naked frenzy – and gives David the time he needs to escape. (This episode appears to contradict the claim in 15:35 that Samuel died not see Saul again until the day of his death; it may be a place where the editorial seams stitching together various David traditions show.)

What do you make of David’s behavior in these chapters? He plays his cards pretty close to the vest. While we’re told exactly what Saul is thinking, many of David’s actions are left open to interpretation. How about the LORD – how does God come across? Click on “comments” and join the conversation!