2 Samuel Lesson 50
Trusting His Promises – 2 Samuel 2
We continue our study in Samuel and we’re about to start a new section
of the book. The first 7 chapters of 1
Samuel deal with God’s preparation to deliver the nation Israel by grace, they
don’t earn it, they didn’t deserve it, it was all the period of the Judges
which would be analogous in history to the Dark Ages, and about 1000 BC God
began to work to deliver that nation.
Chapters 8-16 deal with the office of the king. This is the first time in the Bible, the
first time in history, that you begin to see in the progress of God’s
revelation an outline of the office of Messiah, the king. In 1 Samuel 16 through 2 Samuel 1 you have a
decrease of Saul’s influence and an increase of David’s. We found Saul received his final discipline
in the last chapter of 1 Samuel; the first chapter of 2 Samuel David assumes
office, or at least he received the news.
He killed the man who proclaimed euthanasia to him, and now he is going
to sit on his throne, he is going to be crowned king. For the next few chapters, 2 Samuel 2-12,
but in the original Hebrew there is no 1 and 2 Samuel, your English Bible has
that because of various traditions but there are actually only one book of
Samuel. And from the second chapter on
through to chapter 12 you have God blessing David. Beginning in chapter 13 you’ll have God
cursing David. So you have the blessings
and the cursings, but at least chapters 3-12 you have God blessing David in
innumerable ways.
To break this down more; chapters 2-7 deals with God’s establishing the
base for David’s kingdom, chapter 2 all the way up to the Davidic Covenant,
this is the basis for David’s kingdom; everything that’s going to happen later
is grounded on what’s happening right at this point. We have a finer division, chapters 2-4 deal
with how David gains political control over all the tribes of
Turn to 2 Samuel 2, we’ll begin with the first part of this
section. It’s a very interesting
story. Chapter 2 is a lesson for believers
in why you should trust the Lord to handle those things which He has
promised. And why it’s very, very
foolish to take matters into your own hands and try human gimmicks and human
solutions to bring about God’s plans and God’s promises, because in chapter 2
we have David facing one of the greatest threats to his entire reign. It’s faced right from the start. No sooner does David have the crown placed
upon his head than he has a concerted satanic attempt to undo and to destroy
him from inside
You can go back in the 20th century and think of the
assassination that led to World War I, we can think of various incidents in the
late 1930s that led to the Nazi’s going into
Chapter 2, verse 1, “And it came to pass after this, that David inquired
of the LORD, saying, Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah? And the LORD said unto him, Go up. And David said, Where shall I go up? And he said, Unto Hebron.” Now notice David is inquiring of the Lord; that’s
the first sign that David has moved back into fellowship. Every time David’s
out of fellowship he refuses to seek divine guidance, he is not inquiring of
the Lord. And so therefore because he is
not inquiring of the Lord he usually winds up in a mess. Here he is inquiring of the Lord, and
apparently he goes to the Urim and Thummim of the high priest. Remember David has the high priest, Saul did
not. And the question is divided into
two parts: shall I go up into any of the cities? The Urim and Thummim, we don’t know exactly
how it worked, but it gave a yes/no answer.
It didn’t give anything else, it wasn’t like going to a prophet and
saying hey, do you have anything from the Lord on this particular issue. It didn’t work that way; when you went to the
priest it was a yes/no answer, so you had to ask questions. And so he asked a
question, shall I go up or not; He said yes, go up. Now how the Urim and Thummim go the last part
of verse 1 we don’t know unless it was just by process of elimination. David said shall I go to this city? No. Shall I go to this city? No. Shall I go to this city. No. Shall I go to Hebron? Yes.
And so we have reported in verse 1 the Lord’s guidance. Now this is very, very interesting if you pay
attention to your history that the Word of God gives you. Let’s look at how important it was that God
guide him to Hebron. First let’s look
where Hebron is. Here’s the Dead Sea,
here’s the Mediterranean; Hebron is about here, and Hebron controls the whole
southern area. You have many tribes, you
have the tribe of Judah here and many sub units of that tribe, and they’re all
circulating in this part of the country.
Hebron is high, militarily it’s a good city, and it’s also good by way
of communication and rule. So there are
a lot of reasons for this.
But there’s more reasons and if you turn to 1 Samuel 30 you’ll see
another one. Not only was Hebron the
center of this part of the land of Israel, but in 30:26 David gave presents; he
came to Ziklag, and he had wiped out the Amalekite band, and the spoil that he
took he distributed. And he distributed
it to the elders of Judah, and notice the list of cities to which these
presents list; verse 31, “And to them who were in Hebron….” Now this is smart politics. Let’s not be afraid of saying it, that’s what
it is; nothing wrong with it. David is a
man of chokmah, he is a man who is
wise in the military, in the martial arts; he is wise in strategy, leading men
into battle; he is wise in diplomacy and he is wise in music, he is wise in art
forms, he is a man with deep chokmah.
And obviously if he’s going to be a politician he’s going to be a good
one. Now what has happened is that many
of you have been turned off by the hypocrisy in politics and so to you the
Bible is totally disconnected to politics.
That’s not true; you have to have politics and always will have
politics, you’ll have politics in the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. Politics itself is not necessarily bad; it’s
the way and direction in which it heads.
And David is a good politician and he has laid ground work
carefully. But still, whether it’s
David’s political intrigue that does it or not, notice now in 2 Samuel 2 that
it is God that selects the city. David
is not saying look, I just bought off all the elders of Judah, God, now I want
to go up there. No, David is completely
dependent on the Lord’s leading. But
being dependent on the Lord’s leading does not say that you’re not to exercise
wisdom. So when we’re on positive volition it doesn’t mean we turn into a
zombie and go from place to place doing absolutely nothing. There’s an active side to faith and there’s a
passive side to faith and you’ve got to keep these in balance. Too much
activity leads to sanctification by works and to heresy. Too much passivity leads to absolute
defeat. So you have to keep the activity
and the passivity in balance. David is
a master at this.
Verse 2, “So David went up there, and his two wives also, Ahinoam, the
Jezreelitess, and Abigail, Nabal’s wife, the Carmelite. Now the note in verse 2 is placed in there
because when the wives are moved, along with verse 3, notice his men do the
same thing, that is a sign by the Holy Spirit in the text that this is a
permanent move; they are not permanently coming back and they are going to be
in the land. Now in this book, we
haven’t got time to show this, but you can prove it with a concordance, the
phrase “in the land” is equal to the phrase “in the inheritance,” which is
equal to the phrase “in the blessing.”
All those are equal in this book. David out of the land is not under
God’s blessing; David in the land is in the blessing. And so David comes back
to the land and therefore he is going to be blessed. And so the men move all their families, [3,
“And his men who were with him did David bring up, every man with his
household; and they dwelt in the cities of Hebron.”
And in verse 4 we have the results; “And the men of Judah came,” these
are the same ones that are the elders in 1 Samuel 30, “the men of Judah came,
and there they anointed David king,” there’s your word for messiah, mashach, they poured oil on him, “they
anointed David king over the house of Judah.”
Now he’s not king over all Israel, he’s king over Judah, one tribe at a
time. And so here we have David at the middle part of verse 4 become king. Now there are actually three parts of
introduction in the Hebrew text to this chapter. One introduction goes from verse 1-4a, very
clear in the original language. The
other one goes from 4b to verse 7; and the other one goes from verses
8-11.
If you look in your Bibles at verse 4a, verse 7, and verse 11 you’ll
notice something about every one of those three verses. Verse 4a it’s talking about David anointed
king; verse 7, they have anointed me king; verse 11, David was king, so the
obvious point of the Holy Spirit in this introduction is to get across the
point that David has been anointed king and he is now officially reigning on
the throne. It’s repeated three times;
three is a number that occurs a lot in this book. So in verse 4 he attains the throne over only
Judah.
Then we have a new thing start in the middle of verse 4, this is to be
separated in the Hebrew, they should have a #5 right here, “And they told
David, saying, The men of Jabesh-gilead were they that buried Saul.” Now there’s something strange about the way
that this particular verse is rendered in the original language. The emphasis is not on the delivering of Saul
but on the men of Jabesh-gilead. Now the
old King James translation is probably the best, because this is the one that
emphasizes it’s the men of Jabesh-gilead.
Why do we make a point of this?
Because the way the sentence is constructed it is an answer to a question
that is not there. There’s no question
in verse 4, there’s only an answer. So
we have to fill in the question. And the
question that is not there in verse 4 but apparently was there historically is:
who buried Saul? David, in other words,
conducted a complete investigation into the death of Saul, and this was the
report back, “the men of Jabesh-gilead were they that buried Saul.”
Now this is interesting because it’s going to show you how David is a
type of Christ and how David is going to, in his diplomacy, act just like the
Lord Jesus Christ. David comes and he is
going to invite the people of Jabesh-gilead, it’s a matter of their own
personal volition, he is going to allow them the choice of coming into his
kingdom. He doesn’t conquer them, he
asks them to become part of his kingdom.
He demonstrates God’s grace in his life and he expects them to respond
to that grace.
So we see in verse 5, “And David sent messengers,” and that’s the same
word used angels, and it’s verses like these that will give you the picture of
angels in the Bible. The messengers are
always sent out by kings or generals; angels are always sent out by The King,
or The General, The Lord of Hosts. And
angels perform an envoy function. “And
David sent messengers unto the men of Jabesh-gilead, and said unto them,” now
from verse 5-7 we have a very wise piece of diplomacy. This outdoes Abigail’s little operation;
David has apparently learned from his wife; she may have been his ‘ezer in that area, to show him and help
him in his diplomacy. But this is just a
masterful piece that he’s done here.
First, he says, “Blessed be ye of the LORD, that ye have showed this
kindness unto your lord, even unto Saul, and have buried him.” So with the first point of his diplomacy he
goes back to the word chesed, chesed
is the word which means loyal love. It
means love after you are locked into a contract or an agreement. Premarital love is ahav, you choose to love someone; after you make an oath at the
altar you have a covenant or a contract that you enter into and your love from
that point is chesed love, or contractual
love.
So David uses this technical word, chesed,
for contractual love, and it’s a very, very smooth piece of diplomacy because
what he is doing is relating Jabesh-gilead’s faith to the Mosaic Covenant and
saying I, as the new king, recognize that you people are faithful to the Mosaic
Covenant. You are faithful to what
Samuel has taught, you are faithful to the revealed Word of God, and this is a
compliment, basically, verse 5 is a compliment to their positive volition
toward the Word of God. David recognizes
that here we have a remnant in an area that is very critical to his own
kingdom, and he compliments them on his positive volition. So that’s his first point in his diplomatic
message. Now behind the message David
has again a political purpose in mind.
Again, political purposes are not bad; God called David to be the
politician. God called David to rule
over the nation Israel, that means being a political genius.
Here’s the situation he faces; he controls Judah, that’s all. The Philistines have come down the valley of
Jezreel and severed the nation. The
northern tribes are now severed from the south; the Philistines apparently hold
this area in here. To the north he’s got
questionable alliances because the tribe here is Benjamin and that’s Saul’s
home tribe. So separating David from the
northern territory is the most hostile tribe from his point of view that there
is in all the tribes, that’s the tribe of Benjamin. To the north you have Ephraim, and then
across you have Transjordania, Gilead and so on. So you’ve got a lot of tribes out here, but
you’ve got one city called Jabesh-gilead that is in the heartland of the
trouble spot. And it’s these people that
are showing positive volition. Does that
ring a bell why David is interested in this city particularly. Of course, he wants to establish a stronghold
of influence in the northern area. And
then he can work from there and bring the area into dominion.
Remember, the tribes are not united; don’t read into the Bible more than
is there; these tribes are not united, now they haven’t been united for 500
years, since Joshua went in and conquered, these tribes have been in the state
of almost pure anarchy all the time, constantly. During the period of the
Judges you had no order, no discipline.
Under Saul they got together only when there was a fight. And apart from then no central authority. So he’s got to wield a central authority.
David faces the most bleak situation that any politician could ever face. Talk about a nation being divided, the United
States hasn’t come close to the mess that David’s got here. But the difference is that David is a politician
that is totally dedicated to the Lord Jesus Christ and he is one who has been
called by God for the office, and that makes all the difference in the
world. You can have many men who honor
the Lord Jesus Christ and simply are not called to the office and they wind up
making a mess out of it. David is not,
and David is going to show us some very fine pieces of political wisdom.
Verse 6 is the second part of this diplomatic mission to
Jabesh-gilead. “And now,” the Hebrew
word means now go to this, in other words here we take action. So far he’s been passive, so now we shift to
the active and he says, “And now the LORD [will] show kindness,” now why they
translated this differently I don’t know but sometimes it’s loving-kindness,
other times it’s love, but the word kindness here is again the same term, chesed; the word “truth” is amen.
You should know God’s attributes; God is sovereign, God is righteous,
God is just, God is love, God is omniscient, omnipotent, omniscient, immutable
and eternal. Now what attribute of all
these is most prominent by the word “chesed”
and the word “amen,” or steadfastness? Obviously immutability. God is immutable, His character never
changes, God is always faithful, yesterday, today and forever. And so therefore what David is saying, the
God who in 1400 established this nation and we here now are at 1000, four
centuries later, that God is the same God; His covenants are the same, His Word
is the same, His promises are the same, and He will bless you.
Now, very cleverly, no sooner does he say this in verse 6, but then he
quickly adds, “and I also will do [requite] you this kindness, because you have
done this thing.” Do you realize what
he’s done? He’s saying God is going is
going to bless you and it’s going to be through me. Now that sounds audacious but it just happens
to be the truth. God has called David to
be king and here he is asserting his authority over the people at
Jabesh-gilead. He is saying God will
bless and I’m the one that he’s going to do it by. Now again that sounds very audacious if you don’t see the purpose behind it. This is an attempt, in verse 6, to bring the
people in Jabesh-gilead underneath his crown.
I am the messiah, you come under my authority.
Then the third point, verse 7, “Therefore, not, let your hands be
strengthened,” this is an idiom used over and over again when people are
defeated, when people are downcast, when people are disheartened and
discouraged and in despair, “ let your hands be strengthened.” Again this goes back to what I said in the
Proverbs series, you’ve got to read the Old Testament, where it’s picturesque
and going back to physical things. When
would your hands need strengthening? Well, if you’re very, very worried, if
you’ve ever been in a situation where you’ve been terrified or shocked, you’ll
find if you try to grip your hands you can’t do it, because the shock works to
keep you from doing this. It’s one of
the physical symptoms of shock, you just can’t get your hands tight. And so the Jewish people recognized this,
when you were in deep shock you’d have a hard time making a fist. And so what did they say? “Let your hands be strengthened,” in other
words, recover from your shock. So, “recover from your shock, and be ye
valiant,” in other words, fight the war.
What is he talking about? He’s
talking about this city that’s way up here and look where they are, relative to
the Philistine penetration. The
Philistine armies are only across the river.
The people of Jabesh-gilead have done a magnificent thing but they face
all sorts of problems; they are too close to the enemy. So he’s saying look,
“recover from your shock, be valiant.”
And then he adds a peculiar reason.
You start off reading the last part of verse 7 you say what kind of
reason is this to recover from thy shock, Saul’s death; that doesn’t’ sound
like it’s a very good reason to recover from your shock. But read on, watch how verse 7 ends; in the
Hebrew it ends a little bit more dogmatically than in the English. “…for your master, Saul, is dead,” Saul is
dead, but I, and the “but I” is in the position of emphasis in the syntax of
the sentence. So David is saying Saul is dead and now I have been
anointed. See the audaciousness of this,
do you see the boldness of David. Now
again David is either a mad man or he’s right on the beam of the Word of God,
one or the other, but no person has the right to make these kinds of statements
unless he has good authority for doing so.
He’s saying okay, you can recover from your shock, Saul’s dead, now I’m
king. Now that is the audacious power
that David made in his diplomatic overtures to these people. “…and also the house of Judah has anointed me
king over them.” He adds that to show
them, you haven’t, the house of Judah has, I’m king, now how about joining the
house of Judah. So this is a pitch to
join in.
Now verses 1-7 of this chapter are basically an introduction to the disaster to
follow. But they’re all valuable verses
because they set you up for the mentality in the north. Here’s the Sea of Galilee, and in the north
you have a very shattered population.
You have the people shocked by this Philistines penetration; you have
chaos up here, you have political disorder, you have the people seeking a
ruler, seeking peace, seeking safety from all of this, and this is the kind of
population that this next thing is going to happen to. So you’ve got to imagine that’s the background
for it all, and the critical part is, David is sending diplomatic envoys into
the area of the north to bring them down.
He probably sent them into more than Jabesh-gilead, but he was making diplomatic
probes to bring these people under his kingship.
And now we have Satan’s counterattack that begins at verse 8, “But
Abner, the son of Ner, captain of Saul’s host, took Ish-bosheth, the son of
Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim.” Now there’s a lot in this verse;
first, who is Abner? We didn’t cover
this before and I forgot to show you this, but this explains what Abner is
doing here. We’ve got to go back and
look at the relationship between Abner and Saul. Saul’s father was Kish, the son of Kish; but
Kish had a brother called Ner, Ner is the Hebrew word for “lamp,” and Kish and
Ner were brothers. So Abner is Saul’s
cousin. That should show you also a little bit more about Abner’s intrigue;
we’re getting into a little political intrigue, you’ve got to think in your
head as you read this about royal houses and royal families and the intrigue
that follows royal families. That’ll set
you up mentally to watch for details in the text. Just think of the intrigue of the House of
Windsor or something in British history, think of something that’s familiar to
you from history of the royal families.
Saul has a son, we’ll call him “Ish.”
Now Abner is older than Ish, Abner has been through many battles, he’s a
battle-hardened veteran. Somehow Abner
escaped from the battle at Gilboa and survived to fight another day. And now he becomes the coach of Ish. Why does this man, Ish, accept the coaching?
Because it’s his relative. Some people
read this as though Ish is some sort of weakling; not at all, this is just a
younger man taking advice from an older relative is what’s happening here.
“But Abner, the son of Ner, caption of Saul’s host, took Ish-bosheth,”
now we’ve got to some work on this name, Ish-bosheth, now bosheth means shame, ish
is the word for man, it means “man of shame” but the word “shame” though used
here is not used in other places. Turn
to 1 Chronicles 8:33, here’s a listing in another book of the Bible of Saul’s
sons, but here Ish-bosheth isn’t called Ish-bosheth, in fact, he’s called by a
very dangerous name, Ish-baal, now here again we have ish means man, but instead of bosheth
we have baal, the lord, and one
particular lord in the Ancient Near East, this is a deity, ish, “the man of Baal.” Now,
we know from other writings that originally this was used very often in the
Hebrew text in proper names, and as the people who wrote the text refined it
and so on, they changed it to bosheth,
and you just have to make a few little changes in the Hebrew to shift from one
to the other. So the shifting occurred
because of a moral problem. How could
you tolerate Hebrew people loyal to Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, with
names like baal, so therefore they
changed it. The book of Chronicles,
which was written later, changed this name back to Ish-bosheth.
But that’s not all, we’ve got another name for this son, and it starts
out Ish again and it’s found in 1 Samuel 14:49, and you’ll see his third name;
let’s log what we’ve got Ish-bosheth, we’ve got Ish-baal, and now we’ve got
another Ish, 1 Samuel 14:49, these are the sons, Ishvi, that [can’t understand
word] is the word ya, Ish-ya, and
that is simply an abbreviation for Yahweh, or Jehovah, and here originally he’s
called Ish-ya, or Ishah, the man of Jehovah.
Now Saul apparently originally
called his son’s name, Ish-ya, meaning the man of Jehovah. Now when you read Ish-baal, which was his
name eventually, this is the Holy Spirit inspiring the writer of the text to
name-call. You didn’t think the Bible
name-called; here’s an example of it.
The Holy Spirit is actually calling this guy, just like Nabal, Abigail’s
husband, whether his real name was Nabal, we don’t know, or whether that’s
another case of the Holy Spirit name calling, where he’s just simply saying
this man was a clod. Abigail got caught
married to a dumbbell and so she called dumbbell, stupid, Nabal, that’s what it
means, I married Nabal, I married a stupid person, I married Stupid with a
capital “S.” So he’s called everywhere
you read it in the text, “stupid.”
Stupid and Abigail such and such and such…. And this is the way people would read
it. This was just the sanctified humor
that was used in the Hebrew text.
Well here’s another case of it.
Ish-ya, yeah, he’s a man of Jehovah all right, he’s a man of Baal. Now why does the Holy Spirit name call
him. Why is he now called a man of
Baal. It goes back to the revolt. Let’s look at the issue. When Abner called Ish-baal to be the king of
the north, which he is going to do, that is rebellion against God’s Word. Why? Because Saul already knew who the next
king of Israel was. Do you remember the
last few times David met Saul before Saul died?
What did Saul say to David. He
said you’re going to be the king, David, I know you’re going to be king, David
when you get to be king save my family, David when you get to be king do this,
do that. All right, go back to the
relationship. Here’s Saul, here’s
Abner. Do you think Saul knew something
Abner didn’t. Abner knew very well, Saul
told him many, many times that when he died David would be king. Abner has had the Word of God presented to
him. Abner is another believer in
compound carnality on negative volition and now he is going to stage his defiance
against God’s Word against God’s plan against God’s will. Abner is going into tremendous revolt at this
point. Now you’re going to watch how God
deals with a believer who is disobedient.
Watch this, it’s very interesting how this all starts.
And again God does it with His famous technique that we’ve seen used so
often; give a carnal believer enough rope and he’ll hang himself every
time. So this is basically what
methodology the Lord is going to use with this disobedient believer; you want
some rope Abner, here, have a coil. And
that’s what’s going to happen; you’ll see, it’s very interesting how it works
out.
Verse 9, Abner makes Ish-baal, or Ish-bosheth, king over… and you’ll
notice a list of names concluding with Israel.
Now that again is a sarcasm.
Let’s look at a map, compare the names to a map and you’ll see the
point. First name, “And made him king
over Gilead,” keep in mind the Philistines have a large territory here that
they’ve captured; the Philistines own the whole coast line. So they’ve lost a lot of territory; so what’s
he king of? He’s king of a bunch of
rocks over here called Gilead, and he’s also king “over the Ashurites,” that’s
a problem in the text, apparently it’s the Syrians and this involves a
chronological problem which I don’t want to get into tonight, “and over
Jezreel,” which is a valley here, “and over Ephraim,” which is a tribe to the
south, “and over Benjamin,” and then it says, “and over all Israel.” In other words, the idea is that this man
hasn’t been called to the office by God the Holy Spirit. He has been made by man to fulfill an office
that only David is to fulfill. And now
Abner has the gall to proclaim this guy who is the king of a couple of rocks
over in Gilead, who’s king of the Ephraimites, king of the Benjamites and
that’s because he’s a relative, that’s his own tribe, no big deal there. So he’s king over all these tribes, and we’ll
make him king “over all Israel.”
And the reason the Holy Spirit has this so worked up in this verse is to
show you how foolish it is to try to assert your will against God’s will;
you’ll never win, might as well stop trying because you’re never going to win;
absolutely no way are you ever going to win.
They are going to Abner who is on negative volition, he’s trying to set
up a kingdom that’s seeking control, that’s going to dominate all Israel; all
he’s got is a few little holdings and he’s trying to make a big deal out of it.
Then in verse 10-11 is a commentary on the time element. This is the first time in the king’s reigns
that we have time mentioned; it’s not the last time, it’s the first time. And dozens and dozens of times from this
point forward you will have the time factor mentioned. Every time a time factor is mentioned in 2
Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles, the Holy Spirit is
pointing either to stability of David’s house or the instability of its
competitors. The Holy Spirit will always
bring these things up in the text.
David’s house is sovereignly decreed to survive and David’s house is
always the stable one; the competitors in the northern kingdom, Jeroboam and
others, are always unstable.
Now, how long will Ish-bosheth reign?
Verses 10-11 are summary statements, “Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, was forty
years old when he began to reign over Israel, and reigned two years. But the house of Judah followed David. [11]
And the time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven
years and six months.” How long did
David reign? Seven and a half years. Now
we can deduce something here and learn a little bit about history. If David reigned seven and a half years, and
Ish-bosheth was killed just before David took over all the tribes, you work
backwards two years and that leaves five and a half years for verses 1-11 of
this chapter. For five and a half years
David was making political overtures to these tribes to bring them to
himself. Five and a half years and not
one tribe went with him, that we know of in the text, the Word of God. Five and
a half years over and over David invited them to come in, stop trying to fight
the Philistines on your own, come under my authority and I will fight them for
you. No, we’ll do it ourselves. So in
all this negative volition and rebellion against the Word God is going to, in
grace, work another miracle. Now here is
a gracious God. Did these tribes deserve this?
No, they’ve been in rebellion, they don’t deserve it. But God in His grace is going to dip down
into history, he’s going to cause an accident to happen, and as a result of
this accident, there’s going to be a
war, and as a result of the way, the tribes will be consolidated under
David. See how hard it is for sinful man
to come to God; see what God has to do to bring men to Himself; has to cause
accidents, wars, suffering and everything else to hit us over the head to make
us turn to Him. And here’s an
illustration.
Verse 12, this is the incident.
“And Abner, the son of Ner, and the servants of Ish-bosheth, the son of
Saul, went out from Mahanaim, to Gibeon;” now they went out from their capital,
which was the other side of Jordan, and they come down to a place that’s
mentioned here, this fountain in Gibeon.
The reason they have to do this is because that is the boundary line
between Judah and Benjamin, and what’s on Abner’s mind, do you suppose? If Ish-bosheth is proclaimed king over all
Israel, what do you suppose is the real purpose of verses 12-13? The real purpose is that he’s going to start
conquering Judah. For five and a half
years David has tried and he hasn’t done a thing, he just couldn’t get these
tribes to come in by themselves. So
Abner says okay, I can see David isn’t going to do it, I’m going to do it. So he sets up an autonomous kingdom and now
tries to clobber David. Now watch, here
comes the rope.
Verse 13, “And Joab, the son of Zeruiah, and the servants of David, went
out, and met together by the pool of Gibeon; and they sat down, the one on the
one side of the pool, and the other on the other side of the pool.” Now a little background note here to find out
who Joab is. Another little interesting
historical feature. David had a sister
called Zeruiah, she had a son, Joab; now Joab is obviously a relative, a very
close relative of David. So now look
what you’ve got; you’ve got Abner, the military commander of the north, who is
very closely related, by blood, to Saul, and Joab who is very closely related
by blood to David. So actually these two
men now are starting off in opposition.
Verse 14, “And Abner said to Joab, Let the young men now arise, and play
before us. And Joab said, Let them arise.”
Now they’re not playing, that’s the first thing we have to straighten
out. This word means to hold a
tournament. And there was some sort of
tournament, we don’t know all the details, but there was some sort of
tournament, like martial arts of some sort, in which they would fight
weapon-less, it was a mock battle type of thing; they would conduct a
tournament, and the word means it was non lethal, because this word is always
used when no one is hurt. So what’s
going to happen is an accident, one of those things that happens. But when they come together the initial
challenge the initial challenge by Abner, notice, not Joab, please notice that,
that’s what’s going to contribute to the story, it is Abner who makes the
challenge, come, let us have a tournament.
Verse 15, “Then there arose and went over by number twelve of Benjamin,
for Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, and twelve of the servants of David.” “Over
by number” means that they were counted off, 1, 2, 3, etc. The idea is that you had a referee that
referred this tournament; these men were going to fight, and so they counted
off, 1, and one man would come off from one side, 1, and one man would come off
from the other side; two, two, and the idea is they had twelve men come from
each side, and they paired off by the side.
[tape turns: verse 16, “And they caught every one his fellow by the
head, and thrust his sword in his fellow’s side, so they fell down together:
wherefore, that place was called Helkath-hazzurim, which is in Gibeon.”]
They grabbed the hair and stuck the sword in the side. The hair was always used [can’t understand
words,] the Assyrians learned that you don’t but beards on your soldiers
because it’s [can’t understand word] in battle, someone pull it, lift up the
head, slit the throat. So beards aren’t too
smart in hand to hand combat, nor is long hair.
And the Romans, the Roman soldiers and the Roman legions always had
short hair for this reason. Now at this
point every one of the twelve men in the tournament killed his opponent. It’s simultaneous, they must have been very
fast, very quick, each one grabbed the other and stabbed him. And all twelve of them fell dead.
Now verse 17 is the result. Now
you have to keep in mind, verse 16, based on the verb “play” in verse 14, was
an accident, it was not the intention of the tournament to kill, it was just a
contest. And so it resulted in a blood
bath and verse 17, things really got out of hand and they had the first civil
war, the first battle began. “And there
was a very sever battle that day; and Abner was beaten, and the men of Israel,
before the servants of David. [18] And there were three sons of Zeruiah there:
Joab, and Abishai, and Asahel; and Asahel was as light of foot as a wild
roe.” Asahel was a runner, and here’s
the second accident of the day. These two accidents set you up for the rest of
the book. Asahel chases after Abner [19,
“And Asahel pursued after Abner; and in going he turned not to the right hand
nor to the left from following Abner. [20] Then Abner looked behind him, and
said, Art thou Asahel? And he
answered, I am.”]
And in verse 21, Abner is trying to get him to stop, giving him all
sorts of inducements, “And Abner said to him, Turn thee aside to thy right hand
or to thy left, and lay thee hold on one of the young men, and take thee his
armor. But Asahel would not turn aside
from following him,” because he wanted to get at him, you see it’s all
vengeance here, the tempers are hot from this tournament and they’re just out
to kill. There’s no question, this is
just a gang fight right here.
Verse 22, “And Abner said again to Asahel, Turn thee aside from
following me; why should I smite thee to the ground? How then should I hold up my face to Joab,
thy brother?” Now Abner obviously is the
superior man, all Asahel is, he’s a good runner but he’s not a good
fighter. Abner is a combat veteran so
obviously the kid doesn’t have a chance and Abner knows it, he’s trying to get
this kid to just relax just calm down, but he’s not. This is one of these “accidents” that’s
happening. And then he says, how can I
hold up my face to Joab, they brother.” That, incidentally is another Hebrew
idiom. Like I showed you the
strengthening the hand; that’s used in Genesis 4 for Cain, why is your face
fallen, that means shame, when you’re ashamed you don’t look at somebody you
hold your face down; so you hold your face up means you’re not ashamed, it’s an
idiom for a clear conscience. “How can I
have a clear conscience to Joab, thy brother.”
Verse 23, “Howbeit, he refused to turn aside. Wherefore, Abner, with the
hinder [butt] end of the spear, smote him under the fifth rib, so that the
spear came out behind him; [and he fell down there, and died in the same
lace. And it came to pass that as many
as came to the place where Asahel fell down and died, stood still.]” Now this
was again unintentional. It is indicated
by the Hebrew “hinder” end, except the Hebrew doesn’t say “hinder.” But it’s the end of the spear, he’s running
this way, the kid’s behind him, and Abner is an old man, he apparently is a
pretty good runner himself, and he’s running with the spear but the spear is
pointing forward, not backward. So the
kid comes up behind him and he’s running along and what he intended to do is to
poke him in the stomach and just poke him, and you can imagine if you’re
running along and somebody hits you with a pole in the stomach it does things
to you, and that would solve the problem.
And it wasn’t an attempt to kill him.
But there’s a little feature about a Hebrew spear that apparently Abner
in his haste forgot about. The point
wasn’t involved; so you normally well wasn’t this the blunt end, but the spears
weren’t blunt on the other end, they had a sharpened wood point because they
were used to stick them in the ground.
They’d always stick the spears in the ground with the spear up to keep
the spear part sharp; you’d never take the sharp point of the spear and put it
in the ground to hold it up, that would dull it. So what they used to do is
sharpen the end of the thing so they could stick it in the ground and have it
around in their camps and tents. So what
happened was when he want to hit the guy in the stomach he apparently slowed
down, as you can imagine if you tried to work this out yourself. He’s running along, he’s turning around, he’s
going to tend to slow just a little bit and this kid is going to run up behind
him. Plus the fact he’s moving the thing
toward him and what happened, it jus impaled him on the thing. And it went under his rib cage and right on
through and out the back. And this was
the second accident of the day, Abner did not want to kill this kid. And of all people to kill, who is it but
Joab’s…
Now look what you’ve got set up.
You’ve got blood vengeance between Joab and Abner; you’ve got vengeance
between the northern area and the southern, you’ve got vengeance or irritation
now between the house of David and the house of Saul, because Abner’s part of
Saul’s house; Joab is part of David’s house.
Now you’ve got a full-fledged war on your hands, all because of two accidents. Why?
Because Abner chose, in violation of the Word, to establish his own
kingdom. So it comes down at the end of
the chapter, they pursue after Abner.
[24, “Joab, also, and Abishai pursued after Abner; and the sun went down
when they were come to the hill of Ammah, that lies before Giah by the way of
the wilderness of Gibeon. [25] And the children of Benjamin gathered themselves
together after Abner, and became one troop, and stood on the top of an hill.”]
Verse 26, “Then Abner called to Joab, and said, Shall the sword devour
forever,” you see the reluctance of Abner to engage in this kind of a
battle. He doesn’t want war, this man is
an old man now, he’s lived through years and years and years of war, and he
wants the thing to stop, but the poor man, as many compound carnality
Christians never seem to see, it’s his own carnality that started the war; it
wasn’t an accident, that was God’s doing that started this thing. Those accidents were decreed by God as
punishment to irritate the situation to get David onto the throne. So Abner thinks it’s all just an accident,
and he’s calming him down saying look, let’s not go to war, “Knowest thou not
that it will be bitterness in the latter end?
How long shall it be then, before thou bid the people return from
following their brethren?” Break it off,
he said.
Verse 27, “And Joab said, As God lives, unless you had spoken, surely,
then, in the morning the people had gone up every one from following his
brother.” What does that mean? He’s saying look Abner, who is the one that
called for the tournament? You were,
you’re the cause of this war and we don’t buy that, and we’re not breaking it
off. So finally verse 28, “So Joab blew
a trumpet, and all the people stood still and pursued after Israel no more,
neither fought they any more,” he’s stopping it for now; you’ll find out how
long he stops later on. [“And Abner and
his men walked all that night through the Arabah, and passed over the Jordan,
and went through all Bithron, and they came to Mahanaim. [30] And Joab returned
from following Abner; and when he had gathered all the people together, there
lacked of David’s servants nineteen men, as Asahel. [31] But the servants of
David had smitten of Benjamin, and of Abner’s men, so that three hundred and
three-score men died.”]
Verse 32, they came back and buried Asahel, “And they took up Asahel,
and buried him in the sepulcher of his father, which was in Bethlehem. And Joab and his men went all night, and they
came to Hebron at the break of day.”
Now let’s apply a few things from this chapter. This chapter is a study of grace
orientation. In the big picture David is
going to be king over twelve tribes; right now David is king over one
tribe. How does David get from point A
to point B? Do you know how he’s going
to get there? By God working out every
single detail. Does David have to come
up with gimmicks? No, look at this
one. Did David have to start the
war? No, it was just a (quote)
“accident” that started it. As a result people are going to centralize around
David; as a result David will, by the end of chapter 4, he will have all twelve
tribes under his control. Why? Because
he relaxed and let the Lord handle the problem.
Shall we bow for prayer….