This is part of a series of articles, describing each of the 66 books of the Bible and how it relates to the one overall story of God’s relationship with man. The story is examined in terms of the five recurring themes below. The series cover page can be reached here.
| God’s Sovereign Plan | God’s Majesty, Holiness & Justice | God’s Love & Pursuit of Relationship | Man’s Rebellion & Sin | God’s Solution: A Redeeming Sacrifice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
This book tells of the prophet Samuel and his dealings with the first of Israel’s kings. It includes all five of the major themes presented in this article series. Both 1st and 2nd Samuel (originally written as one book but divided by later translators) are about the prophet Samuel but were not written by him. Scholars accept them as a compilation of the work of multiple historians.
As for date written, the books refer at times to the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah, so they must have been written after that division occurred (which happened under David’s grandson Rehoboam in about 930 B.C.) They do not show awareness, however, of the fall of Israel to the Assyrians in 722 B.C. so the compilation must have been complete before that point.
They tell the history of Israel’s transition from being governed by a series of judges 1 to being ruled by kings. Samuel was instrumental in identifying and guiding the first two of those kings, Saul and David. The historical date range covered by both books is from Samuel’s birth in about 1100 B.C. until near the end of David’s reign in about 970 B.C. First Samuel covers the reign of Saul, the anointing of David, and Saul’s efforts to eliminate David. Second Samuel starts with David becoming king, and covers until near the end of his reign.
The literary style of the book is literal, historical narrative. The tone is matter-of-fact, even when describing obvious miracles. People and places are named in real-world context, with nothing “once upon a time” or “in a galaxy far, far away”.
Note: Even with “Samuel” split into “1st Samuel” and “2nd Samuel”, these two books have too much good content to cover in a single article. Use these links to see everything.
- 1st Samuel: Saul
- 1st Samuel: Saul to David
- 2nd Samuel: David’s Kingdom, The Early Years (this article)
- 2nd Samuel: David’s Kingdom, Continued
David’s Reaction to Saul’s Death
Chapter 1 tells how David learned of Saul’s death. David had been off in a battle of his own, dealing with the Amalekites who had attacked the town of Ziklag, while Saul fighting the Philistines. Saul and three of his sons, including David’s good friend Jonathan, were all killed. Three days after the Ziglag battle, a battered runner came to David with the news about Saul. That messenger was himself an Amalekite, not an Israelite. He said he “happened” to be at Saul’s battlefield when Saul was mortally wounded but not yet dead. At Saul’s request, he killed him. Then he took Saul’s crown and bracelet as proof and brought them to David.
The Amalekite’s account contradicts that of 1st Samuel 31, where Saul killed himself after the mortal wound, and after his armor-bearer refused to perform that service. The Amalekite probably expected a reward for ridding David of the man who had pursued him for years. Wrong! David killed the man for daring to harm God’s anointed king.
Then David and all his men mourned for Saul and Jonathan. The chapter ends with David’s song of lament for their deaths. (That dirge is the origin of the saying “How have the mighty fallen!“)
A Rocky Prelude to David’s Kingship
Chapters 2 through 4 describe some nasty back-and-forth between David’s followers and those still loyal to Saul’s family. Note that David did not take part in the nastiness, however.
In chapter 2, the people of Judah (one of the twelve tribes of Israel) welcomed David as their king. His first act was to praise the people of Jabesh-gilead for giving Saul’s body an honorable burial, going to some risk to rescue it from the crude display of the Philistines.
However, Saul’s general, named Abner, threw his support behind Saul’s son Ish-bosheth. Most of Israel followed that lead. A time of conflict between the two rival kingship’s ensued.
In an attempt to end the conflict, Abner and David’s general, Joab, agreed to a representative combat between twelve hand-picked champions from each side. “That day the battle was very severe, and Abner and the men of Israel were beaten before the servants of David.“
Joab and his two brothers, Abishai and Asahel, pursued Abner away from the battlefield. Asahel caught up first. When he refused Abner’s bribe to just go away and leave him alone, Abner killed Asahel. When Joab caught up, Abner proposed a truce in order to avoid more bloodshed (his own!). Joab agreed…but the conflict continued.
Chapter 3 begins with the statement “Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David; and David grew steadily stronger, but the house of Saul grew weaker continually.“
Some time passed by while David was living in Hebron. During that time, he had six sons (each with different mother!): Amnon, Chileab, Absalom, Adonijah, Shephatiah, and Ithream.
Back in Saul’s court, trouble was brewing. Ish-bosheth accused Abner of wrong-doing with one of Saul’s concubines. Abner angrily denied the charge and transferred his allegiance to David, swearing to “transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and to establish the throne of David over Israel and over Judah.”
When Abner offered his services to David, David placed one condition: He wanted his wife Michal, Saul’s daughter, back. (Saul had given Michal to another husband during the years that David was running from him.) And he wanted her returned openly by Ish-Bosheth, not secretly by Abner. Ish-Bosheth gave in and sent Michal to David, much to the dismay of her replacement husband, Paltiel. (Apparently, no one asked Michal’s opinion, although she had originally loved David.)
With the condition met, David and Abner had a cordial meeting, and Abner went away in peace to gather support for David as king. But…
Joab was not present for that meeting. When he got back to town and learned of it, he was not happy. He didn’t trust Abner not to be plotting against David. Joab sent messengers after Abner for him to return to Hebron. When he did so, Joab killed him. (Remember: Abner had already killed Joab’s brother Asahel.) In response, David declared his own innocence of that treachery; he mourned Abner and cursed Joab.
Chapter 4 has more treachery and intrigue. Abner’s death upset Ish-Bosheth, leaving him weak and vulnerable. Two of his captains, Rechab and Baanah, sought to curry favor with David by assassinating his rival. They killed Ish-Bosheth and triumphantly took his head to David. They should have known better. David’s answer was to have Rechab and Baanah killed, and to bury Ish-Bosheth’s head alongside Abner.
…when one told me, saying, ‘Behold, Saul is dead,’ and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and killed him in Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news. How much more, when wicked men have killed a righteous man in his own house on his bed, shall I not now require his blood from your hand and destroy you from the earth?
2nd Samuel 4:10-11
There is a one-verse parenthesis in this story that will be important later:
Now Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the report of Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and his nurse took him up and fled. And it happened that in her hurry to flee, he fell and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.
2nd Samuel 4:4
Kingdom Consolidated
Chapter 5 begins the more “official” reign of David over all Israel. For the previous seven years, he had ruled over Judah from the town of Hebron. Now the leaders of all the tribes came to him in a covenant that he would be their king. He remained so for another 33 years, a total of forty years as king of a united Israel.
David’s original capital of Hebron in Judah was in the southern portion of the nation as a whole. One of his first acts as king was to conquer the city of Jerusalem as his new capital. Jerusalem was located in the tribal area of Benjamin, but was held by a people group called Jebusites. In the centuries since the Israelites returned from Egypt to Canaan, they had never been able to completely conquer this city. David did so. Its central location was valuable to his position as king not of the south or the north, but of the entire nation.
David built his palace in Jerusalem, and his family grew there: more wives, more concubines, and at least eleven more children, including Solomon who would succeed him as king. The Philistines tried a couple of times to attack the newly consolidated kingdom. Both times, David responded as led by God and the Philistines were defeated.
Chapter 6 has a happy milestone: Bringing the Ark of the Covenant to its new home in the capital. For twenty years, ever since being recovered from the Philistines in 1 Samuel chapters 4-6, the Ark had been in the town of Kiriath-jearim (here called Baale-judah). David gathered a large escort to go there to retrieve it. They placed it on a brand-new specially-built cart and headed back to Jerusalem, celebrating on the way.
But, there was a problem. At one point, the oxen pulling the cart nearly upset it. A man named Uzzah reached to steady it, and put his hand on the Ark…a major offense commanded against since way back in Numbers 4:1-20. God struck him dead for the irreverence. David was at first angry at God for that, and then ashamed and guilty for that anger. He did not dare continue the journey. The Ark was left at the home of a man named Obed-edom for three months. When that household was blessed by its presence, it was deemed safe to take the Ark to the capital. The procession and celebration started up again, this time with even more care to honor the Ark.
A discordant note came when David’s wife Michal was displeased with his celebration. She thought it unseemly for the king to be dancing in the streets like a commoner. He responded that God had chosen him as king, and he would celebrate before Him without concern for his own dignity. The argument ended with “Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.“
Chapter 7 is a sweet conversation between David and God. With his kingdom at peace for a time, David wanted to build a temple. “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells within tent curtains.” At first, the prophet Nathan told him to go ahead, but then God gave Nathan a different message:
When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
2 Samuel 7:12-13, 16
…
Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.
David’s prayer in response was full of praise and humility that God had first chosen and established Israel as His own people, and then blessed David and his descendants to be its kings.
Chapter 8 describes a series of military successes: over the Philistines, over Moab, over “Hadadezer, the son of Rehob king of Zobah”, over the “Arameans of Damascus” who allied to help Hadadezer. “Toi king of Hamath” didn’t fight; he sent his son Joram with a tribute instead. “So David reigned over all Israel; and David administered justice and righteousness for all his people.“
Chapter 9 expands on the parentheses mentioned in chapter 4 about Jonathan’s son, Mephibosheth. David asked “Is there yet anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” Learning of the crippled child, now grown, David called him to the palace. He restored all of Saul’s estate to him, and invited him to live at the palace and eat at the king’s table for the rest of his life.
Chapter 10 gives the details of a specific battle with the Ammonites and their hired mercenaries, the Arameans. The old Ammonite king died, and David sent emissaries to offer condolences and possibly a renewed treaty with his son Hanun, the new king. But Hanun and his men didn’t trust David. They sent the emissaries away in disgrace. David responded with an army led by Joab and his brother Abishai. They won a decisive victory.
Trouble in Paradise
The next chapters tell of David’s great sin and its consequences. In chapter 11, we are told that David stayed behind while his army was off fighting a war with the Ammonites. Instead of leading his men in battle, David was enjoying the evening from the flat rooftop of his palace…when he saw something else to enjoy: a beautiful woman bathing. He called Bathsheba to him for a romantic rendezvous, disregarding the fact that she was married to one of his loyal men, Uriah the Hittite. When she became pregnant, David starting looking for a way to hide his transgression.
His first attempt was to quickly call Uriah in from the battlefield on the pretext of asking how the war was going. Then he “generously” told Uriah to go to his own home and relax. David assumed that Uriah would relax with his wife, and that the baby could be passed off as his. However, Uriah was too conscientious to enjoy the comforts of home while his brothers were still fighting.
David’s next solution was to send Uriah back to the battlefield, carrying a message for his general, Joab. He instructed Joab to deploy Uriah to the fiercest part of the battle, and then pull back, leaving Uriah vulnerable. When Joab obeyed and the Uriah was killed (very predictably!), David took Bathsheba as his wife. She bore him a son, “But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the LORD.“
In chapter 12, David learned what God thought of his actions. The prophet Nathan came to him with a story about a rich man who had many flocks of sheep, but who chose to steal his neighbor’s pet lamb to provide a meal for his guest. David was infuriated at the callousness. He decreed that the man deserved to die, and must make restitution four times over as punishment for his lack of compassion. Nathan’s response to David: “You are the man!” Oops!
As part of his punishment, the Lord warned David: “Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household.” It seems that the remainder of the book, and the remainder of David’s life, shows this punishment coming to pass. In addition, God said that the child born from this sinful union would die.
Unlike his predecessor, Saul, who weaseled and made excuses and became angry when called out for his sin, David was instantly repentant 2. His first answer to Nathan was “I have sinned against the LORD.“; no excuses, no weasel words. He prayed and fasted, begging God to spare the child. He was so distraught that his servants were afraid to tell him when the child did die, a week later. They were surprised when David then rose, washed, and went in to worship.
While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows, the LORD may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’ But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.
2 Samuel 12:22-23
Bathsheba later bore David another son, Solomon. He was also called Jedidiah, “beloved of the Lord”, and was destined to become David’s successor as king.
The chapter ends with a resolution to the war that was used to kill Uriah. Joab subdued the Ammonites, and called David in for the finale. They captured the final city, took the people captive, and put the Ammonite king’s crown onto David’s head in victory.
One Story
Continue to the second half of 2nd Samuel.
Footnotes and Scripture References
- At least, nominally governed. A frequent theme in Judges is “every man did what was right in his own eyes.“
- Psalm 51 is David’s prayer of repentance, asked forgiveness for this sin.
