Lawrence Boadt provides this summary of 2
Samuel….
The Book of 2 Samuel centers on the reign of David. It
can be divided into two parts. Chapters 1-8 show how he managed to consolidate
power in his own hands and to win a large empire for the newly united Israel.
Chapters 9-20 record the downfall of many of his hopes as struggles in his own
family weaken his reign. It is the story of how his sons fight to become his
successor on the throne. Much of the tragic outcome develops from David’s own
sin.
The rise of David to power showed that he was both a
military and a political genius. He defeated his Philistine masters and extended
the borders of Israel across all the small states of Syria and Transjordan. He
could really be said to rule from the “river of Egypt to the Euphrates” (Gen
15:18; Jos 1:4). Thus the dreams of Israel were fulfilled in David. But even
greater than his military conquests was his gift of winning over others to his
cause. He had won the loyalty of the south by showering them with benefits
while nominally a servant of the Philistines, and was crowned king of Judah at
Hebron shortly after Saul’s death. He then patiently maneuvered and waited for
the collapse of the badly run remnant of a state set up by Saul’s surviving
son, Ishbaal. 2 Samuel 3:1 expresses this period succinctly, “There followed a
long war between the house of Saul and the house of David, in which David grew
stronger and the house of Saul weaker.” Finally, Ishbaal’s general, Abner,
turned traitor and joined David, Ishbaal was killed, and the northern tribes
came to Hebron and offered to make David their king also. The fact that he
became king by mutual agreement was
very important in the centuries ahead since he took the throne not by right nor
by conquest, but by the free consent of these tribes. Later they would withdraw
from his kingdom and form an independent state.[1]
2 Samuel 1 provides an alternative account of the
death of Saul from that which we read yesterday in 1 Samuel 31. In this second account, Saul dies at his own
request but by the hand of an Amalekite, rather than directly by his own hand.
These two accounts obviously come from different sources.
2 Samuel 2:1 highlights the character quality of
David that sets him apart from Saul. Once again, “David inquired of the Lord…”
2 Samuel 3 tells us of six sons born to David by
six different wives. As Richard Elliott Friedman says, David was a lusty man.
When we get to the story of David and Bathsheba it will be no surprise that
David desires her. David’s sexual relationship with Bathsheba is not the
problem, from the perspective of the author(s) of this book. The problem is
that David literally steals Bathsheba from another man and then kills that man.
We must remember that women at this time were viewed as property and that part
of what David was doing by taking so many wives was that he was forming
alliances. The fact that he married the daughter of King Talmai of Geshur (2
Samuel 3:3) is an example of this.
2 Samuel 4 recounts the end of the house of Saul,
something that fills David with no pleasure whatsoever. In fact, out of loyalty
to Saul’s house, David has the murderers of Saul’s son, Ishbaal, executed and
publicly hung, while Ishbaal is buried more appropriately in the tomb of Abner
at Hebron, near David’s headquarters.
In the midst of all the ups and downs, ins and outs, good and evil, of David's rise to power and reign, the key thing is that he "inquired of the Lord". He sought the Lord's input on the direction of his life. David did not always follow God perfectly, but at least he kept God in view most of the time. The question is: do we?
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