2 Samuel 1-10

Issues discussed on the reading of chapters 1-10.

1. In the aftermath of the death of  Saul and David's lament over his (and Jonathan's) death (2:17-25) the battle of Gibeon (2:12-32) proves decisive as Abner (Saul's army commander) defects to David from his opponents. In 3:2-5 we read of the proliferation of David's wives/concubines and the sons born to him while in Hebron, which confirms the strengthening of his 'house' contrasted with the weakening of Saul's line of potential kings of Israel.

What for us is the difficult question of polygamy (neither endorsed nor condemned in the OT) can appear very differently when we read such things in their proper historical context, and the context of the whole Bible. These articles from an excellent Christian Q&A website are helpful here.

https://www.gotquestions.org/polygamy.html

https://www.gotquestions.org/concubine-concubines.html

 2. Joab (David's army commander) is cursed by David (3:29) for killing Abner (3:27) in revenge for the killing of Joab's brother Asahel in the battle of Gibeon (2:23). The narrative implies that Abner has been murdered in unjustifiable revenge, while Asahel was killed, legitimately (as far as the author of 2 Samuel is concerned) in war. 

The violence of these events and many others in the OT are shocking in our 21st century context, which leads to questions about God's purposes as set out in scripture and the means that were used to achieve those purposes. 

This is a real problem for Bible readers today that is difficult and unwise to try and address in the space of a few sentences, but it’s worth bearing in mind that the Bible records events in very violent times and places in history. This makes the scripture more immediately relevant to most other times and places in history than it does for us in our post-WWII western context, where we have experienced extraordinary levels of peace and stability over an extended period of time. But God’s purposes, as revealed across the whole of scripture (written over a period of more than 2000 years) need to be discovered by reading the whole book. The OT story of Israel is leading to God’s ultimate purpose in Christ, as set out in the NT and demonstrated by the first church in the book of Acts and then by its successors, as a prophetic foretelling and a model of what the eventual Kingdom of God at the end of time will be like.

The biblical record of the implementation of God’s plan starts around 2000 BC, and reading the OT we very quickly see that the morality and ethics of the people that God chooses to work with, in their ancient and frequently violent context, are much like those of the other nations and people groups of their own time and place. If you hadn’t read the NT, you could hardly guess from reading Genesis up to the time of Moses what God ultimately planned for his people. But God’s law given to Moses for Israel from Exodus 20 onwards, immediately sets Israel apart from other nations in terms of morality and ethics, but it doesn't immediately update them to match all our 21st century values and standards. The Mosaic law does, however, signal the start of a process that leads eventually to Jesus’ sermon on the mount in the NT (Matt 5-7) with its radically new set of Christian ethics.

Jesus went on to say that his Kingdom is not like other kingdoms, and the warfare waged to establish it is not physical warfare against other nations and peoples (John 18:36). Accordingly, non-violent self-giving was characteristic of the means used by the early church to extend the Kingdom of Christ.

So the OT accounts of David’s warfare, among all the other accounts of Israel’s history, must be viewed in their historical context, while recognising that the text doesn’t endorse all the conduct (in warfare and otherwise) of the people God chose to begin to carry out his plans in OT times. There is no shortage of good resources available on this subject, and many of them address the problem of violence in the Bible in terms of Israel's conquest of the land of Canaan in the book of Joshua. The links below are to articles you might find a useful starting point for further reading.

https://bibleproject.com/blog/why-did-god-command-the-invasion-of-canaan-in-the-book-of-joshua/

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/how-could-god-command-genocide-in-the-old-testament/

3. It seems natural to feel some sympathy with Michal in 6:16-23. She certainly has a natural reaction in the circumstances, since she appears to have no empathy for David and what is motivating him in the event described. Scholars seems to differ on the 'ephod' David was wearing - the Hebrew word translated ephod can mean a simple loin cloth or the official priestly garment as described in Exodus 28:6-14).

So for whatever reason, Michal is not part of the worship festival that accompanied the bringing of the ark of the Lord to Jerusalem, and it seems significant that three times in 6:16-23 the text refers to her not as David’s wife, but as the daughter of Saul. Her sarcastic reproach of David (6:20) indicates that she thinks that his energetic worship and praise doesn’t befit a king, and was perhaps contrary to what she regarded as the more kingly behaviour of her father. It should be noted that verse 23 doesn’t say that God prevented her from having children (which you might expect in the OT if that was the case) and some scholars take the view that her childlessness was due to David not having sex with Michal again following her reproach and David's angry rebuke in 6:21-22.

4. The prophecy of Nathan in 7:8-17 is often referred to as the Davidic Covenant and proves to be of great significance as the big messianic narrative of the Bible develops. It is enough here, however, to note that it requires careful reading as the promises it contains have both short term fulfilment in Solomon and his successors, and long term (and eternal) fulfilment in Jesus. The covenant promises in Nathan’s prophecy are restated and celebrated in Psalm 89:20-37, and Hebrews 1:5 quotes the first part of 2 Sam 7:14 as referring to Jesus as Messiah, but note also that the second part of the verse refers to Solomon and his successors but not to Jesus.