2 Samuel Lesson 73
David Reigns by Grace/Amasa and Sheba are
killed – 2 Samuel 20
Turn to 2 Samuel 20, and before we go further in the text I want to take
this time to answer two questions that people have, one is a comment and the
other is a question from the feedback cards.
You said after 2 Samuel 19:39 that Barzillia went back to his own place
without having ever received the Word of God.
Did he not know of
Another comment, since I mentioned how in the ancient world military was
run in groups of three, how David organized his army in groups of three, how
Homer in The Iliad and The Odyssey speaks frequently of the
Greeks organizing in terms of three, we have this comment: This use of three’s is common in the United
States Marine Corps. The battalion has
three companies, each company has three platoons, each platoon has three
squads, each squad has three fire teams, each of which has three men. So it’s interesting that the Marines have
perpetuated the triumvirate leadership, even in their own time.
In 2 Samuel 20 we have come to the last chapter of the argument of the
book. It was nearly a year and a half
ago that we began the Samuel series; 1 and 2 Samuel. We have a lot to go yet, but 2 Samuel 20
marks the end of the argument of the book.
The next chapters after chapter 20 are simply appendices to bring us up
to date on more aspects of the person and work of David, and then we will be
studying as an addendum to 1 and 2 Samuel some early chapters in 1 Kings to
show you David before he dies, and to show you the condition in which he does
die. The man who was God’s chosen man to
represent for all history the Lord Jesus Christ, but the Old Testament and New
Testament alike are careful to point out, no typology is perfect. David was a sinner as all men are and it
shows through in the text.
In 2 Samuel 20 we come to the last event of David’s reign as it’s
recorded in the books of Samuel. All the
other acts are acts that are peripheral to the argument. What is the argument? The argument is simply that there is a
politics by grace going on. Now if
David’s throne is to indeed survive, it survives not because of anything David
does. David was a poor administrator.
David’s throne is not being established by his work; the argument of 1 and 2
Samuel is simply the old statement of Romans 8:28 that “all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according
to His purpose,” that in the sphere of election God’s sovereign promises come
true in spite of ourselves. And in 2
Samuel… [small blank spot] …tragic figure to arise, to challenge David. This is the one in a long line of figures
that have attempted to usurp the throne; his own son, and the house of Saul.
In verse 1, “And there happened to be there a man of Belial,” the word
for foolishness, “whose name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite,” now
this story of 2 Samuel 20 has a peculiar feature, and as you read the rest of
this chapter you’ll notice this peculiar feature. And as I have said over and over again when
you see a peculiar feature in the text of the Word of God, note it well, for
the Holy Spirit doesn’t put peculiar features into the text except to draw your
attention to something. Now notice how
this man,
Now what’s the Holy Spirit’s point.
Usually He just simply, when He introduces a character He’ll have person
X, and in the Hebrew it’ll be ben,
b-e-n, that’s the son, like David ben
Jesse. And that’s to fix his point in
lineage and then to move on. But in this
story that lineage is constantly thrown into our face, verse after verse after
verse. Why? Why does the Holy Spirit do this in this
particular story and why does the Holy Spirit not do it in the other
stories. The answer is because the Holy
Spirit’s argument of the book of Samuel is that David’s throne must be
protected against all usurpers and “
And so observe what has happened so far in the book; so far we’ve had an
elimination of all the competitors to the throne, Amnon, David’s firstborn son,
the man who by all rights is the crown prince; Amnon, who was assassinated and
eliminated. Then arise Absalom, surely
the people in his day would have known that Absalom, the crown prince, was going
to be king. He had all the great attributes
that would have the public charisma, people would be attracted to Absalom, and
people in that day surely thought Absalom would be king. But Absalom is killed; number two competitor
to the throne is eliminated. And in
chapter 20 the argument continues as the Holy Spirit hammers away that what God
has promised in 2 Samuel 7, regardless of the chaos, regardless of the
circumstances, regardless of the adversity, regardless of all the confusion,
God’s Word will not be violated. And so
the man, Sheba, the last viable candidate from the most powerful family then
existing besides David’s own, is eliminated.
And so the book of Samuel, and we are going to see this tonight, leaves
us with a big question mark; that’s why we don’t stop with chapter 20 of Samuel,
we continue to solve the mystery. The
mystery is yes, we have seen Lord, all the competitors to the throne
eliminated. We have seen all the
non-elect are simply dismissed by what we will call accidents of history. All of them have met their fate, but that
doesn’t answer the primary question. The
primary question is: who is it then Lord, who will take David’s place. And the book of Samuel closes without ever
answering the question. A hint is given
because all of the bickering and all of the theological controversy and all of
the assassinations begin after a boy called Solomon has been born. But nobody knows Solomon at this hour of
history; Solomon is a little child, stuck away in the royal palace, and nobody
hears of Solomon. The priest knows that
he’s there, David certainly is aware the Solomon is there, but nobody ever
thinks Solomon is David’s successor.
Solomon is the classic dark horse in world politics. He emerged out of a complete chaos. And so this chapter dooms another would-be
competitor of David’s throne and of the Word of God.
In verse 1 it goes on to say, that this man, “son of Bichri, a
Benjamite, and he blew a trumpet,” this means he made a public proclamation,
“and said, We have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of
Jesse: every man to his tents, O Israel.”
This was the cry that was uttered under the then public media, that’s
the blowing of the trumpet. We would say
the radio, the papers, and he put big ads all over Israel, come follow me, we
do not have any inheritance in David.
Now at this point notice something that happens; when he says “we have
no part in David” he is expressing something that is true and something that is
false. Something is true in the sense
that certainly David doesn’t deserve the allegiance of his countrymen. Not after the mess that we have seen, the
mismanagement that we have seen go on in his administration. Certainly David deserves no such popular
widespread loyalty. And so in this Sheba
expresses a truism, yes, it is true, yes, we don’t have any part in Jesse, this
man has done nothing to generate a grass roots loyalty to himself. By all the rights of politics we can conclude
that this man is not a worthy candidate for the throne any longer; by all the
rights of politics I am the best qualified man; we don’t know his
qualifications, he may have been the next qualified under Absalom. So he is expressing what we will say is a
genuine frustration.
Now there’s a lesson here that is being violated again and again in Christian
circles. We start with a truism, and
wind up with something very drastically false.
It is true that David’s administration had not been perfect. It is true that by all the laws of politics
he shouldn’t remain in office. All that
is true. It’s also true, as we’re going
to see tonight that his government has seriously deteriorated since he’s been
reinstated as king. He’s introduced the
phenomena of centralized power that certainly the original David would never
have done. And he’s done it against the
clear Word of God of 1 Samuel 8. So yes,
it is true, that we have no part with David, but the problem is that the laws
of politics are suspended in this one instance, because in this case David does
not belong to the statistical sample of all politicians. He is an elect politician, ordained directly
by God, and therefore, being of the elect, he is Yahweh’s man. And so when we say “we have no part with
David,” it is tantamount to saying we have no part with the Word of God. The Word of God has said David is the man;
whether you like it Israel or whether you don’t. Why did God not have to satisfy every whim of
Israel? Because in 1 Samuel 8, Samuel
had warned Israel what was to come if they selected a king. So God was not bound to give them the best
king imaginable. God had warned them
clearly and they violated His Word over and over again.
So at this stage of history God says David is my man. The populists say David is not our man, and
now we witness once again the age-old collision between autonomous will and
negative volition of man and God’s sovereign declaration. And we need not speculate as to how it’s
going to turn out. Once again, man’s
autonomous will is frustrated.
Now this same problem, starting with a genuine frustration, and leading
to a very false conclusion, can be demonstrated in many, many cases. Two modern illustrations of the very same
thing that people do all the time. The
first is: but we are frustrated with the way the local church works today, we
could hang out numerous shortcomings of the local church, therefore we have no
part of the local church. Wrong! The last written command that we received
from Jehovah of hosts, the Lord Jesus Christ, was that His instrument was to be
the local church, whether men like it or whether they don’t like it, the
instrument is the local church. And we
have Christians all over the land who have gimmicks and extra local church
organizations who are in serious competition with the local church. They have drifted away from their calling,
which was to serve the various local churches, and have tried in practice if
not in theory, to act as competitors to and superior to the local church. That’s when we have one of these people who
comes to town, he tells the pastors what he is and what he is not going to
do. I will never cooperate on such a
basis unless I have a say in what he is and is not to do; it’s a violation of
my rank as pastor; it’s a violation of the rank of every man who stands in the
pulpit, who invites someone into town saying that he is going to tell the
pastors, that he is going to advise. If
there’s any advice it flows in the other direction by the mandate of the New
Testament. The pastors call the people
and the pastors describe the authority.
That is the New Testament way of solving the problem, but we have a lot
of Sheba’s today who are doing the same thing, with a dissatisfaction to the
ordained means that therefore gives us an attempt to completely rebel and
overthrow God’s divinely appointed means, always the local church, first and
last, and then you can enjoy the other things.
A second illustration in the modern world where we have the Sheba era is
in the situation of over-population. One
of the original mandates for man was to reproduce and to conquer, and to subdue
his environment, and to populate the earth until it’s filled. And today we have the hand-wringing
anthropologists and sociologists who say we are over-populated. There is no command in Scripture that has
ever been amended; the last text was to populate the world, and there’s no
amendment to Genesis that says the world will ever be over-populated. There is no such thing as
over-population. Over-population is a
modern myth; the only over-population that exists exists solely because man has
not carried out other commands of God to subdue properly his resources. Take India; India is a classic example of
over-population; but is it really over-populated? There’s plenty of beef in India, but because
of an anti-Scriptural religion that prohibits the killing of cattle we have
people starving in India. Don’t blame it
on the number of people, blame it on the rebellion against the Word of
God. God’s command would never have been
given had it not been intended to be carried out.
We can go to the North American continent in the days of the white man
coming to the North American continent.
In those days many people, and many scholars have pointed out, that the
Indians had over-populated the North American continent. Had they?
No, not if you compare their population with ours, but they had
over-populated it because they were not subduing the earth properly, they were
not using the natural resources they had, and so for their culture they had
over-populated. And if we today have over-populated
it isn’t because God’s Word has become suddenly obsolete, it’s simply because
we too have failed to subdue our natural resources and use them wisely. There’s no such thing as over-population;
God’s Word remains true forever. Genesis
1:28 is just as true today as it was true in the day it was written. So there are two modern illustrations of the
Sheba era; because we are frustrated with something, therefore we overthrow it;
it’s the baby out with the bathwater concept.
Let’s look at verse 2; after declaring that he had no part, nor did
Israel, in David’s dynasty and David’s reign, then he said, “So every man of
Israel went up from after David, and followed Sheba,” now the seed for this
defection was sown in the last three verses of chapter 19. You recall the incident of David crossing the
Jordan. Here, instead of wisely bringing
all the tribes and having a twelve-tribe coalition, escort them across the
Jordan, he chose to favor his home tribe of Judah. Judah came down and after there’s this tribal
escort, and you recall in verse 41, “And behold, all the men of Israel came to
the king, and said unto the king, Why have our brethren, the men of Judah,
stolen thee away,” and so all the other tribes, other than Judah, were mad,
they were angry. And you recall how this
diplomatic exchange terminated; at the end of verse 43, “And the words of the
men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel,” in other words,
there was no solution. It was a shouting
match, there was no discussion, no negotiations, no issues were resolved. David had a chance to unify the nation and
right here he fails. As a result of this
failure, the history of 1 and 2 Kings is largely already written. We don’t have to read the Bible any further
to know that this nation, from this point forward, has a basic
instability. The instability can be
drawn geographically by a line that extends east-west, dividing the country
into the north and into the south, and shortly that division will become actual
and a great civil war, in 930 BC the north will be forever called Israel, the
south will be called Judah. After 1
Kings 12 in the Bible these two names take on the north and south connotation,
because of the civil war under Rehoboam’s reign. But the seed for that civil war was sown
right at this point.
Notice again verse 2, “So every man of Israel withdrew from following
David,” in other words, they had no allegiance whatever, it was very easy for
them to break fellowship with David.
There is no permanent enduring loyalty.
And David apparently had done nothing, and so they left him, “and
followed Sheba, the son of Bichri: but the men of Judah clave unto their king,
from Jordan even to Jerusalem.” Now it
could be argued and I’m sure it was in that day, how unfair God, how unfair,
speaking from the viewpoint of the north, how unfair to choose David of the
tribe of Judah; how God, can You expect us to be loyal to the tribe of Judah,
we have our own tribal loyalties. What
right do you have to expect us to be loyal to a man of Judah, when you didn’t
pick anybody from Benjamin, from Ephraim, from Manasseh, from Dan, from Gad,
from any of these tribes; do you expect us to be loyal to Judah? And God would answer if he spoke through a prophet
that day, no Israel, I don’t expect you to be loyal to Judah, I expect you to
be loyal to me. In respecting the office
of king you are respecting the Word of God; you are not respecting the tribe of
Judah. But they didn’t see it that way
and you can obviously see the great split of verse 3.
Verse 3, “And David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took
the ten women, his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them
in ward, and fed them, but went not in unto them. So they were shut up unto the
day of their death, living in widowhood.”
We would say “living widows.”
Why? Again, this is a historic
notice to just point out one man and how his sin led to suffering upon
suffering upon suffering. We have the whole path that David walked strewn with
human debris; we think of Tamar, his own daughter, she a living widow, a living
princess who could never marry because of what had happened in royal
circles. We never hear of Tamar again,
she’s simply dismissed as an accident of the shenanigan of the royalty, and so
Tamar becomes forever the single princess that is doomed to that destiny. And the “living widows” described here are the women who are simply
discarded.
And there’s evidence to believe as we come toward the end of David’s
life that one area of his sin nature, which was his libido, and David and
Solomon and his son all had a very, very strong libido, but the illustration
and we’ll see it very interestingly in 1 Kings, that where David had a
tremendous libido, this libido was misused on negative volition and he destroyed
it. And the irony of this is that David,
the great lover, died an impotent senile old man. It’s no accident that the Holy Spirit
describes this process of decay. What
happened to David, the great lover, the man who had numerous concubines. We can infer, but we can’t prove dogmatically
that one reason at this point he put away the concubines was simply that he was
sexually impotent, even at this hour of his life; he had no desire for them any
more. His libido had been expended, and
he had not used it Scripturally and so God allowed it to be destroyed.
Verse 4, “Then said the king to Amasa, Assemble me the men of Judah
within three days, and be thou here present.”
The next thing he does is he summons his new commander in chief, Amasa. This was foolish, Amasa being appointed his
commander in chief, you remember his former commander in chief was Joab; Joab
was a man with experience, Joab was a man with patriotism, Joab was a man with
experience, Joab was a man with proven loyalty, loyalty not just to David but
whenever we saw David drifting it would be Joab that would be there cutting him
off to make sure that the kingdom of God would go on. Joab was a super-patriot of his day, and he
replaced him, threw him out, and replaced him with Amasa. Here we have him discarding a patriot and
replacing him with Amasa. Now who’s
Amasa? Nobody really knows, not much
historical background is given in the text of God’s Word. We know he has very little experience, he
isn’t going to be well-liked in Judah, because he was a leader of the
rebels. And who is it, according to
verse 2 that are cleaving to David?
Judah. But where is it that David
sends them in verse 4? Judah. So the man who led the rebel army is asked to
go into loyalist territory and secure allegiance to himself to form an army, to
fight against those that were once in his army, obviously a very difficult
assignment, and so needless to say, in verse 5 we read the results of such a
foolish order.
Verse 5, “So Amasa went to assemble the men of Judah: but he tarried
longer than the set time which he had appointed him.” Obviously he couldn’t complete the
assignment; there’s no indication here that Amasa is a man that is turning
traitor, there’s no indication that he is going behind David’s back; none of
that, it’s simply that he couldn’t do the assignment; the order simply could
not be carried out in the short space of 72 hours. It was too short a time; Amasa had too many
personal problems that stood in the way.
But in verse 6 we have the remark that David makes. Seventy-two hours go by, seventy-two hours
David is sitting in the palace, waiting to have the tribes of Judah come down,
have the men of Judah begin to assemble in Jerusalem. And for 73 hours the watchman at the gates
report nobody, nobody’s coming, nobody’s coming. At this time David begins to reveal something
else of the same kind of character we saw in him in chapter 19. Recall how he undermined Zimri; remember how
he was going to double-cross Shimei, how he went through all the motions of
being reconciled to these people and he really didn’t mean a word of it; how he
made a plan to assassinate Shimei, how he later changed the property on a real
estate ruling on Ziba; he had no real sympathy and in this verse we find he had
no real sympathy with this man either.
He appointed him sheerly for the political show, but not for any real
personal convictions.
Verse 6, “And David said to Abishai, Now shall Sheba the son of Bichri
do us more harm than did Absalom: take thou thy lord’s servants, and pursue
after him, lest he get him fenced cities, and escape us.” The word “fenced
cities” means walled cities, the defense cities. Jerusalem, for many centuries had a series of
fortifications which armies of all nations had to deal with. When we get into the prophets we’ll see
this. There are cities called walled
cities, and these cities guard the access roots to Jerusalem; any invader who
wants to conquer Jerusalem had to destroy Lachish and some of these “fenced
cities.” They were defense outposts,
that had to be overridden first before an army could subdue Jerusalem. And that’s what David is worried about, that
this man is going to get these cities of defense, these fortresses. In them are tremendous arms; you see, they
had a voluntary army. The men didn’t
keep all their weapons in their homes, though many of them did. Many of their weapons were stored in these
fortress cities. And once a man got into
the fortress city he had the great walls around him and it would be very, very
difficult to extract him from that situation.
So David given an order, that by the way, is the same advice Ahithophel
gave Absalom, that when you have an enemy, strike him quickly, before he can
prepare himself. So he gives the order
in verse 6, but the fact that he gives the order after only 72 hours proves to
us that basically he was a man who never trusted Amasa from the beginning. The entire 19th chapter, in other
words, was one big show.
Now in verse 7 we have an interesting notice, “And there went out after
him Joab’s men,” who was Joab? The
commander in chief that had been fired and replaced by Amasa; now it’s going to
lead to a very interesting scene, “and the Cherethites, and the Pelethites,”
these were kind of the secret service of the day, “and all the mighty men: and
they went out of Jerusalem, to pursue after Sheba the son of Bichri.” Now that was their main purpose. But the sub goal in this overall goal was to
eliminate Amasa.
Verse 8, “When they were at the great stone which is in Gibeon, Amasa
went” or came “before them.” And now
there is an interesting scene and to describe this scene, the only way you can
do it is actually read the original text and since you can’t I’ll try to convey
to you some of the imagery of this. This
is one of these scenes that’s kind of the blood and guts scenes that we have
seen in 1 & 2 Samuel. These are the
scenes that have slowly gotten rid of a lot of people that have been coming to
evening service, they can’t stand the scenes in the Word of God. The hemorrhoids of the Philistines wiped out
a few; then when we got David chopping off foreskins and counting them out one
by one, that eliminated a few more. And
when we comes to scenes like this I expect a few more to be leaving, and that’s
because we have fundamentalist traditions that interfere with the teaching of
the Word of God. People are more like to
follow their tradition than they are the text of Scripture. This book was intended to be interesting; it
was intended to be a heroic story told to the children, many of the boys of
Israel would grow up with these stories being told. They were hero epics, just in the same way as
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, that kind of story, it was an
adventure story, and they had humor in them, and you have to laugh when God
laughs. God does have a sense of
humor.
In verse 8 we have a very typical development of one of these
scenes. Now the only way we can explain
going into all these details, which to us would seem incidental, after all, why
not just say Joab killed the guy. No,
the Holy Spirit doesn’t describe just “Joab killed the guy,” He goes into all
the details, and this is a typical scene of 1 & 2 Samuel where these
details are deliberately steamed up for all to see. Why?
The Holy Spirit knows how we think; isn’t it more interesting to find
out how his guts spilled out on the road that just hearing that he was
killed. The Holy Spirit, when He writes
an adventure story writes a good adventure story. And so we come to this scene.
[8] “And Joab’s garment that he had put on was girded unto him, and upon
it a girdle with a sword fastened upon his loins in the sheath thereof; and as
he went forth it fell out.” Now this is
a very, very difficult series of words in here and there’s a lot of manuscript
problems. But the gist of it is that
Joab is wearing a warrior garment, that’s his external garment. Underneath was what they called the girdle,
we’d call it our underwear, but he had this girdle type thing that he put on,
not a ladies girdle, this was a wrapping that they used in the ancient world,
it had many, many folds in it, it was a large piece of cloth and the text is
trying to say that he placed this short sword in one of the folds of his
underwear. And it was an unusual place,
obviously, he was, in other words, approaching with a concealed weapon. And it was concealed in a most interesting
place. And so we have Joab coming, and
it says it was placed so that as he went it fell out. Now the way it sounds it sounds like he’s
walking up to the guy and oops, I just dropped something, sorry. It’s not that at all, because obviously if
that had really happened then Amasa would have been warned.
So that can’t be the interpretation of what this is saying, because in
the very next verse it says Amasa was totally incognizant of this sword. Well then, what does it mean. The verb tense allows another approach to
this way of understanding it. What it was,
was that he had folded it inside his undergarment, so that as he walked he
could pull it out quickly, in other words it would just fall into his hand, and
it was placed there in such a way that he’s just kind of bend his hip or
something and it would fall out; in other words, quick draw.
Verse 9, “And Joab said to Amasa,” when anybody says this to you, watch
out, “Art thou in health, my brother?”
You can imagine, if Amasa had any brains he would never have allowed
Joab to come that close; you don’t allow someone who is your… a fired person
who’s been fired and you’ve replaced him in this kind of a job, to get that
close, and he certainly wouldn’t be coming up and saying, “Are you in health,
my brother?” But he does, “And Joab took Amasa by the beard with the right hand
to kiss him.” Now that sounds a little
unusual but that was customary, it’s still done in Turkey and this is normally
the way...this was a custom in the ancient world. Now as he did so, he did something very
clever; he did not reach with his left hand, he reached with his right hand. Why is that important?
Why is it important to the text?
Because the Holy Spirit wants us to notice something: Amasa was caught
completely off guard. We, reading it
from our perspective would say Amasa, you fool, you idiot, why did you allow
him to come so close, stop him when he reaches for beard, why don’t you wake
up. Because he reached for it with his
right hand. Warriors in the ancient
world fought with the right hand, the swords were made to fit in the right
hand, not the left. This is why so often
in the Psalms, you have a shield on my left, and there’s no man on my right,
because the warriors when they fought would fight with the left… looking down
on a line of warriors they’d have their shield on the left side, they’d hold
their shield like this, and in the Psalms you read oh Lord, there’s no one on my
right, it means that here I am, my sword is held in this right hand but I have
no shield on my right. And in battle
your shield would be the next man in the line on the right. So when you see this complaint in the Psalms
it simply means I am in an unshielded vulnerable position. Now he reaches for Amasa’s beard with the
right hand, so Amasa, knowing that the custom of the east, that the draw is
always done with the right, the sword is always held with the right, in fact
the swords are often weighted in the handle so it’d be held with the right
hand. He is totally unaware.
Verse 10, “But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab’s hand:” and by
this time we know that as he walked slowly toward Amasa he must have done
something to drop this thing, it came out of the sheath of his garment, and
under he held the sword, in his left hand, and he reached forward with one
smooth blow and stuck the sword in his stomach; “so he smote him therewith in
the fifth rib, and shed out his bowels to the ground,” the word “bowels” means
all of his inner organs, he just did a nice neat, not only heart transplant but
he took out everything, intestines, liver, pancreas, stomach, everything just
plopped right out, “and struck him not again;” this shows you the cruelty of
Joab; this particular kind of wound, as gruesome and gross as it is, you can
read in military history, so many times men would be hit in the stomach and
their intestines would fall out and they will live for some time, it’s a slow
wound, this is not a lethal wound unless the heart itself is ruptured. Often if it’s low enough so the diaphragm
still operates the man can breathe for some time afterwards, and it’s a very,
very horrible kind of wound to suffer from.
And so when Joab speared him like this, quick, he does an about face and
walks up the road, and he doesn’t even kill him, he leaves him to bleed to
death on the road, and that’s pictured very graphically in the next few verses,
and it shows you the cruelty of Joab, he’s an angry man, watch out for
Joab. Now can you understand why David
kept saying, oh what do I do with sons of you, Zeruiah, because Joab and his
brothers all had this cruel trait in them.
“So he shed out his bowels [inward parts] to the ground, and struck him
not again; and he died.” That’s a summary statement, he didn’t die right away,
as we’ll see in a moment. “So Joab and Abishai his brother pursued after Sheba
the son of Bichri.” That’s put in there
to show you that as far as Joab was concerned, the man could bleed to death in
the road and he would have no pity whatever, he just did an about face and went
after his main mission.
But there remained, in verse 11, one of Joab’s lieutenants, “And one of
Joab’s men stood by him, and said, He that favors Joab, and he that is for
David, let him go after Joab.” So the
picture is very graphic, Joab has started to walk back up the road, and he is
creating a crisis of decision as the people of Judah come flocking out and they
watch what has happened, they just witnessed an assassination. Joab turns and walks, and now the people have
to decide, do we follow him or do we stay here.
So Joab’s lieutenant says there’s our commander, he’s walking; those of
you who are for David, start. But
something happens because in verse 12, again very graphically the Hebrew
portrays what Amasa is doing.
Verse 12, “And Amasa wallowed in blood in the midst of the
highway.” The Hebrew word is the word
that means to roll or writhe on the ground; it is in the hithpael so we know he
is alive; the hithpael stem is reflexive, he is rolling himself in the road, in
tremendous pain and in tremendous loss of blood, he is rolling in agony on the
road and the people stand around watching him bleed to death. And this is not quite the scene, the
lieutenant discovers, for making a quick decision. Why aren’t the people
walking, why aren’t they deciding, if they’re for David go after Joab, but
obviously you don’t come across this kind of a scene, it’s like an automobile
accident, look at the people look around to see whose head is hanging out the
windshield, it’s the same kind of thing, people weren’t any different
them. So “Amasa wallowed in blood in the
midst of the highway. And when the man
saw that all the people stood still, he removed Amasa out of the highway into
the field,” except that’s a very polite translation. In the Hebrew it simply says as Amasa was
wallowing this man just pushed him out into the ditch and then it says he threw
a cloth on him, “and cast a cloth upon him, when he saw that every one that came
by him stood still.” This is a very,
very cruel notice because elsewhere in Scripture what is the precious thing
upon physical death? That there be a
burial; all notice of burial has been eliminated, there is not one notice of
burial for him, he’s simply kicked out into a ditch and left to die and the
army goes after David.
Verse 13, “When he was removed
out of the highway, all the people went on after Joab, to pursue after Sheba,
the son of Bichri,” just as though they didn’t ignore him, the blood had been
removed, the man had been removed, the object of immediate concern had been
removed and now we could get on to better things. Verse 14, “And he went through all the tribes
of Israel unto Abel, and to Beth-maachah,” now where is this place? To show you what Joab has just done, to show
you once again that he is a man who is decisive, he’s cruel and he is quick,
[tape turns] … until we read of what he has done in verse 14, he has gathered
together an army of people of Judah and has walked all the way up north of Dan,
the city we are now seeing is one of the northern most cities mentioned in
God’s Word. So he has tracked this man
and tracked this man and tracked this man; this is the classic hunter, and he
is going to get his game, if he has to hunt into the end of the world he will,
and again you see the dedicated cruelty of Joab. So he went through every tribe of Israel
searching, searching, hunting for this Sheba, because Joab is a patriot and he
knows this man is a traitor and he must be killed. “…and all the Berites: and they were gathered
together, and went also after him.”
Verse 15, “And they came and besieged him in Abel of Beth-maachah, and
they cast up a bank against the city, and it stood in the trench: and all the
people that were with Joab battered the wall, to throw it down.” And now as we have seen, is one of those
interwoven scenes of a woman, and if you’ve noticed in all the months and
months that we’ve spent going through 1 & 2 Samuel, there’s a role of the
woman that comes up again and again and again, and this is no exception. Once again, a woman arises on the scene and
she decides something. She is able to
influence the men who are the top decision making of the nation.
Let’s think of the sequence in the Bible. We start off with Eve; Eve influences for
evil her husband, she wins her husband to her apostate scheme, and the first
man loves his wife more than the Word of God and the result is disaster for the
human race. That is the negative image of the woman. But we’ve seen some positive images. Remember Abigail, remember how David was
going to kill and to annihilate Nabal and all his ranch hands, and Abigail
comes out and pleads with him, David, I know he’s an idiot, that’s what his name
means, Nabal, I married the idiot, but even if my husband is an idiot that is
no excuse for you to shed unnecessary blood in your kingdom. And so Abigail turns David around and she
does it completely within the bounds of her femininity, she doesn’t nag, she
doesn’t shout, she doesn’t raise her voice, but she says it so skillfully that
David has to say you’re right.
And recall again the wise woman of Tekoa, another woman that comes
bursting on the scene, just in a crisis hour, when the men have decide to do
something and quietly, skillfully and effectively she changes the man. This is not an accident; the fact that we
have seen Hannah, Abigail, the wise woman of Tekoa, over and over again, must
mean that the Holy Spirit is trying to teach us something, is trying to teach
us something about the role of a woman and how mightily she can influence a man
in a crisis period. Certainly this
should be a stimulus for every woman here, to master the Word of God, that in
that crisis period you will have it in order to give; but if you haven’t
mastered the Word of God, forget it, you can only spill out foolishness when
you’re most needed. But if you have
mastered the Word of God then you have in your soul something that you can give
the man you love in the hour of his greatest need, but you can’t without time
spent in the Word.
And so this wise woman comes out of the city, we don’t know her name;
like the wise woman of Tekoa the Holy Spirit leaves her nameless; the name
isn’t important, it’s just that she is a woman and she has wisdom. And there’s a time for the wise woman to
speak, and so she shouts, at this point she is shouting, she’s saying Hear,
Hear, Hear! Why does she have to
shout? Because obviously in the middle
of battle, look what they’re doing in verse 15, they’re battering a wall, so she
has to shout. [16] “Then cried a wise
woman out of the city, Hear, hear; say, I pray you, unto Joab, Come near
hither, that I may speak with thee. [17]
And when he was come near unto her, the woman said, Art thou Joab? And he
answered, I am he. Then she said unto him, Hear the words of thine handmaid.
And he answered, I do hear.” And by that phrase, “hear the words of thine
handmaid,” she put herself in subordination to Joab. This meant that she was not nagging to him,
this meant that she was not going to tell him off, this meant that she was
saying Joab, I have something very important for you, and I want to help
you. And so she put herself an authority
and yet in subordination.
Verse 18, “Then she spoke, saying, They were wont [accustomed] to speak
in old time, saying, They shall surely ask counsel at Abel: and so they ended
the matter.” What does that mean? It means that she was saying this city, Abel,
that you’re destroying, Joab, has a reputation all through our nation as
settling disputes; we have had ages of wisdom.
See, no wonder that the woman in this particular city is a wise woman,
the city is known for its wisdom, for it’s diplomacy. She says when the rest of the tribes around
about are having arguments they come to us for counsel.
And she says in verse 19, “I am one of them that are peaceable and
faithful in Israel:” she declares her allegiance, thereby, to the Word of
God. Notice how she does it; do you
remember how Abigail did the same thing back in 1 Samuel 25; remember the wise
woman of Tekoa, what was characteristic of all these wise women in the crisis
hour? They remained in subordination but
they also had a wise dynamic message from the Word of God. They didn’t waltz up
and say hey, I got a precious experience to share with you. And they didn’t
come up and say, oh Yahweh’s so close to
me, and go into all this kind of stuff.
They gave them some doctrine from the Word of God; that is the norm for
a woman, not to share her emotional experiences; that’s not what’s going to cut
it in the hour of crisis. Joab had an
emotional experience, and he could say yeah lady, I’ve lots of experiences, I
just spilled a guy’s guts down there, he’s probably still wallowing around, I
had a real good experience. So if she’d
wanted to share experiences Joab could outdo her ten to one. There’s only one thing the wise woman had
that Joab didn’t at this point, and that that is a word from God. She says, “I am peaceable and I am faithful
in Israel; you seek to destroy a city
and a mother in Israel: why wilt thou swallow up the inheritance of the LORD?”
See her appeal? It’s back to the
Word. It is not to her personal
experience, she is not asking for sympathy from this man, oh dear Joab, you’re
going to kill my son. Joab’d say so
what, I kill lots of people, your son isn’t the first one, I’ve killed lots of
ladies sons, so what? She couldn’t’ have
appealed to such a cruel man on the basis of sympathy, and she was a wise woman
and she knew it. So what did she
appeal? On the basis of the Word. Why, she is saying, must you destroy this
city that has done nothing but give an ever present testimony to God’s
Word. Why do you take it and obliterate
it from the map, and kill all these people in the city who have had such a
ministry in settling disputes of our country?
And so Joab answers, verse 20, and just the juxtaposition of this, think
of what we’ve just been through on the road, think of the cruelty of the man
Joab, who would not flinch at ripping a man’s guts out, and how in the middle
of battle, of all things, one woman, with the Word of God, speaks, and look at
the response. “And Joab answered and
said, Far be it, far be it from me, that I should swallow up or destroy.” You see, she’s won him; she’s won him, she’s
toned the heart of this man who can be so cruel and vicious, with the Word from
God she has.
Verse 21, “The matter is not so:” look at him defend himself, look at
him back up, look at him completely change from that hard and cruel murderer,
to a man who says lady, lady, don’t blame me, that’s what he’s saying here,
he’s backing up, she’s taken the initiative away from him. How’d she do that? What was her magic? Wisdom and skill with the Word of God. “The matter is not so: but a man of mount
Ephraim, Sheba the son of Bichri by name, hath lifted up his hand against the
king, even against David: deliver him only, and I will depart from the city.
And the woman said unto Joab, Behold, his head shall be thrown to thee over the
wall.” This woman also knows
reality. This woman realizes there’s a
time to kill and a woman must support killing in legitimate war.
Verse 22, “Then the woman went unto all the people in her wisdom. And
they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri, and cast it out to Joab. And
he blew a trumpet, and they retired from the city, every man to his tent. And
Joab returned to Jerusalem unto the king.”
See how she saved the hour, another testimony, a monument to a great
woman of Scripture. And she disappeared,
the Holy Spirit never records her name, though she will have her reward in
heaven, but in the text of Scripture, in the public canon, that woman’s name
never appears. She disappears, we never
hear of her again; we don’t know who she was.
It’ll be interesting to find out and talk to her some day.
The chapter closes with simply a list of David’s state department and
his administration, we could go into this in detail, I just want to point out
in conclusion two items from the list.
And it would be fruitful you to compare verses 23-26 with 2 Samuel
8:16-18, that was David’s first administration.
The thing I want to point out was the shift in his administration. The first administration and the second; two
changes were made and these two changes are deliberately put here by the Holy
Spirit to tell us something about David. Something has happened to this man,
the man we have seen blundering, we have seen he’s fully lost his grip on the
nation, he can’t maintain unity, he’s been making screwy decisions, one after
another, the whole thing is out of his control and then the final word, look
what he has done to his administration.
[2 Samuel 8:16-18, “And Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was over the hose; and
Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, was recorder; [17] And Zadok, the on of Ahitub,
and Ahimelech, the son of Abiathar, were the priests; and Seraiah was the
scribe; [18] And Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was over both the Cherethites
and the Pelethites; and David’s sons were chief rulers.”
2 Samuel 20:23, “Now Joab was over all the host of Israel: and Benaiah
the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and over the Pelethites: [24]And
Adoram was over the tribute: and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was recorder:
[25] And Sheva was scribe: and Zadok and Abiathar were the priests: [26]And Ira
also the Jairite was a chief ruler about David.”]
First you will note a word in verse 24, a man by the name of Adoram, who
was over the tribute; now you could read right by that and never notice it, but
if you read 2 Samuel 8 you see that man wasn’t listed in the first
administration. In the first
administration there was no such office as the office of tribute. Do you know what that is? That is the office of slave labor and it
means at the end of David’s administration he has begun the institution of
enforced draft and slave labor. He
never had that in the early part of his administration. He introduced it; Solomon exalted it, and
Rehoboam tried to it exalt it into a great super institution which was the
cause of the 930 BC civil war. A
horrible and shocking edition to the administration of the man of freedom. What
happened to David? He just deteriorated
spiritually, the man just went down and down and down.
A second interesting addition which is the mystery of the book is the last
verse, verse 26; if you compare it with chapter 8, “Ira, the Jairite, was a
chief ruler about [assistant to] David,” or David’s private priest; in the
first administration he had his sons there; in this administration he has a
man, an unknown, by the name of Ira. Not
Solomon, and not Adonijah, which indicates that David from this point forward
had little to do with his sons. He would
not trust any more sons of his family, he cut them out completely from his
private life, and now he turns the inner, the very private, private areas of
his administration, over to someone totally outside his home. His sons were completely cut out. That’s the end of the book of 2 Samuel. You’re left, who is going to be king? The rest of the chapters depict some aspect of
David’s soul, and then we’ll find out who’s going to be king in 1 Kings chapter
1.