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!
In ch. 2, we see more of the relationship between David and God. Some of the complexities of David’s character, and some of the mysteries of God’s character, are unfolding.
ReplyDeleteGod tells David to go to Hebron, and he does so, and he anointed as king there. David honors the people of a nearby town because they have given royal burial to Saul, showing loyalty to God’s anointed, (though he had fallen from favor).
Abner, who commanded Saul’s army (tribes of Israel), backed one of Saul’s sons as king of Israel, and were defeated by David’s armies of Judah). But soon Abner, tired of strife between kinsmen, calls out to Joab on the other side, who agrees to discontinue the fight—for the moment. (2:26 “Is the sword to keep devouring forever?)
(Back story to the “sword” question: Abishai, Joab’s brother, had pursued Abner on the battlefield. Abner implored Joab to turn aside, to attack a less experienced fighter and take his loot, so that Abner would not eventually have to face Joab. But Abishai pressed on, and was gruesomely killed. Joab was David’s nephew, and about as talented a general as Abner. Abner has reason to fear Joab!)
A “long war” continues and Judah gains strength while Israel weakens (2 Samuel 3:1)—so eventually Abner defects to David. How did this happen? It seems that God shows his will for a union of the kingdoms through a quarrel with Ishbaal, son of Saul, over Abner’s use of one of Saul’s former concubines. Doesn’t this confrontation show the irrationality and disproportionality of many family quarrels? Abner at that point decides that God’s will is for the kingdoms of Judah and of Israel to be united under David. (3:7-11) [But what a way to discern God’s will!] Abner abandons the house of Saul and offers to place his armies under David’s control. David accepts—on condition that Abner bring Michal, his wife, whom Saul had for a time repossessed. [David has his involvements!]
But Joab bears blood hatred against Abner, because Abner killed Joab’s brother. Joab lures Abner to a secluded corner and kills him. (3:28) [Would David have been imprudent enough to go off for a quiet chat in a corner with the brother of a man he had killed??] David distances himself from this killing, and blames and curses the “house of Joab.” David does not punish Joab, since he killed Abner in revenge for his brother’s death. David grieves, has Abner buried with full honors, and proclaims that Joab and his brother Abishai (who assisted in the murder) are “too violent for me.” David calls on the Lord to punish the wicked—but he continues to employ Joab as his leading general in the wars he continues to fight.
[Regarding Joab, was it hypocritical of David to pray for “The Lord [to] pay back the one who does wickedly in accordance with his wickedness.” (3:39) Nevertheless, David is making a nice distinction, between the deed and the inner disposition, which may help later in the story. In contrast, Saul offended the Lord quite soon into his reign, but David has been de facto king for a while—and we have not yet seen David parting from the Lord’s explicit commands, in deed or intent.]
Ch. 4 tells of another assassination. Two captains who served under one of Saul’s sons underhandedly killed Ishbaal, their leader, by attacking him in his sleep. They thought to bring this deed as a gift to David, so that they could defect to his army. Instead, David held that these were “wicked men [who] have killed a righteous man on his bed in his own house.” The assassins were killed, dismembered, and exhibited. (4:12) [This bloody punishment, it would seem, did not offend God, perhaps because Saul had designated Ishbaal as his heir, but he was not anointed through the will of God.]
ReplyDeleteThen the people assemble and say to David that he is their God-appointed “shepherd of my people.” (5:2) [This to my reading is the first biblical mention of “shepherd” in relation to a David’s kingship and indeed his mission for posterity. That is, “shepherd” is significant in relation to the Lord’s vision of the good ruler, and later in relation to Jesus’ definition of himself and his mission. In fact, in the early Christian centuries, the dominant defining image of Christ was not the cross, but the good shepherd.]
David as newly anointed king acquired the trappings of royalty in his time—a luxurious house, and “more concubines and wives, and more sons and daughters….” (5:13) He also acquired another war to fight—now against his old enemy the Philistines. God is said to have “burst forth” against David’s enemies. (5:20)
[Now are we to see David’s attitude toward God changing?]
Thirty thousand men accompanied the ark of God, as David and the people danced before it. “The oxen shook it,” and Uzzah steadied it, and God “burst forth” and killed him on the spot. (6:6-7) David resented God’s act. [This appears to be the first instance of David’s being out of tune with God’s intentions. Is David now growing away from God? Is this a turning point? But did not God create a clearly apparent moral imbalance?]
David felt unequal to caring for the ark, so the ark was lodged in another household on the way to Jerusalem. But David learned that God had blessed its caretakers, and decided to bring the ark to Jerusalem with much ceremony. “David danced before the Lord with all his might. (6:14) [Both in bringing the ark into his city, apparently to reap blessing, and in exaggerated ceremony on the way, is David now trying to manipulate God? Has he done so before? I think that some of his statements, for example that he kills murderers in the name of God, may have been laid on too heavily to accept as one-dimensional sincerity. This is a less romantic view of David’s antics, and perhaps a more secular view, than that of Buechner. I see David at this point as becoming more secular and self-sufficient, indeed prideful.]
But are the sacred and secular so clearly distinguishable? David wore an ephod, when he danced, but his wife Michal (Saul’s daughter) accused him of “uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servant maids” (6:20). For this, and I cannot see the text saying that he exposed himself (though “girded” can be ambiguous), she “despised him in her heart.” She was then rendered sterile. (6:23)
From Ron Spych:
ReplyDelete“Do we fall in love with our leaders?”
I think the “young” are more likely to develop an infatuation with a charismatic leader. Infatuation is often mistaken for love.
Others, knowing people have “feet of clay”, may cast a wary eye on the flash.
Some might call that cynical, and in a sense it is, when we remember that the basis of Cynicism advocates virtue as the only good, and the essence of virtue is self-control and individual freedom.
Perhaps God was not in favor of the Israelites submitting to an earthly king because He wanted to promote individual freedom, and by doing so nurture a personal relationship with each of His Chosen.
But, in this time and place, it was not to be, and Israel would have their desired kings, whose folly would lead to their eventual destruction.
"Perhaps God was not in favor of the Israelites submitting to an earthly king"
ReplyDeleteOr did Samual not want to lose power as the prophet and judge?
How much was the prophet's certainty about the will of God hindsight by the historian? Why cannot we be so certain about discerning God's will?