2 Samuel

Richard D. Phillips

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781629954592
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

With pastoral care, Richard Phillips charts the trajectory of David's rise, fall, and restoration, noting vital lessons for today's believer and showing that David's hope, and ours, is Jesus Christ.

PART 1

The Davidic Covenant

1

UNDER GOD’S JUDGMENT

2 Samuel 1:1–16

David took hold of his clothes and tore them, and so did all the men who were with him. And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword. (2 Sam. 1:11–12)

Death will often exert a profound influence on those who come near it. Consider the experience of young Adoniram Judson, on a fateful night in 1808. Lodging at an inn, he learned that a man next door was struggling in the throes of death. Listening to the dreadful sounds coming through the wall, Judson wrestled with his thoughts. A brilliant student at Providence College, Judson had become enthralled with the company of students who had embraced the Enlightenment ideas coming from Europe, particularly a witty upperclassman, Jacob Eames, who had persuaded him to adopt deism and its idea of an absent God. On his twentieth birthday, Judson broke his parents’ hearts with the news that he had abandoned the Christian faith of his youth and was moving to New York City to pursue a life of pleasure working in the theater.

It was during this time that Judson sojourned in the inn, with his dying neighbor. Hearing the terrible distress, he wondered whether the man was prepared to die. Moans passed through the walls, and he could hear the man’s restless struggling. What would his “freethinking” friend Eames say to dismiss his anxiety and remove his concerns about eternity? Was the man next door a Christian? Or was he, like Judson, one who had despised the prayers of his godly mother and rejected the gospel for a sophisticated worldly creed? Before long, he began to wonder about his own fate in death, desperately trying to counter these “superstitious illusions” with the clever replies of the deist Eames.

Finally, the light of dawn entered Judson’s chamber, and the distressing sounds from next door came to an end. Gathering his things, he was prepared to put the stressful ordeal behind him. On the way out, however, he passed the innkeeper and asked about the man next door. “He is gone, poor fellow!” was the reply. “The doctor said he would probably not survive the night.” “Do you know who he was?” Judson asked. “Oh yes. Young man from the college in Providence,” came the reply. “Name was Eames, Jacob Eames.”¹ John Piper provides the postscript to this remarkable providence:

Judson could hardly move. He stayed there for hours pondering the death of his unbelieving friend. If Eames were right, then this was a meaningless event. But Judson could not believe it. “That hell should open in that country inn and snatch Jacob Eames, his dearest friend and guide, from the next bed—this could not, simply could not, be pure coincidence.”²

Adoniram Judson, who later became one of the greatest of all Baptist missionaries, was not immediately converted. Months of spiritual struggle were to follow as he wrestled with that remarkable night and his own sinful heart. But one thing is sure: the presence of death had crossed the path of his life and changed him forever.

A REPORT FROM THE BATTLE

As we begin to study 2 Samuel, we encounter in David another man whose life was dramatically changed by news of a death. Second Samuel picks up the story directly where 1 Samuel left it off. This is to be expected, since originally, until the time of its translation into Greek, Samuel was a single book in the Bible. First Samuel 29 tells of David’s armed band of fugitives marching in the Philistine host as it advanced toward its invasion of Israel and of how David was providentially delivered from the battle that would take place in the north. Chapter 30 tells of his return to his southern base at Ziklag, only to find that Amalekite raiders had made off with their wives, children, and property. David and his men pursued and defeated these raiders and returned to Ziklag. The final chapter of 1 Samuel then relates the result of the battle between King Saul and the Israelites against the massed Philistine host. When 2 Samuel begins, the reader knows what David does not yet know: Saul was defeated and killed, and the Israelites were scattered in defeat.

Second Samuel 1:2 picks up the story on the third day since David’s victory over the Amalekites who had raided his base. Back in Zicklag, David was met by an unexpected messenger: “On the third day, behold, a man came from Saul’s camp, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head.” David must have been eagerly awaiting news from the great battle to the north. The approach of a travel-worn man in the traditional garb of lament and grieving—torn clothes and dirt on his head—would have braced David for bad news. After the man had fallen before him and paid homage, David asked the question to which he must already have guessed the answer: “Where do you come from?” The man answered, “I have escaped from the camp of Israel.” David eagerly demanded, “How did it go? Tell me” (vv. 3–4).

Given the man’s attire, there could have been only one answer. The man replied directly, “The people fled from the battle, and also many of the people have fallen and are dead, and Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead” (2 Sam. 1:4). Knowing the demoralized state of Saul’s army and having seen the might of the Philistines firsthand, David would not have doubted the outcome of the battle. His urgent concern, however, was for Israel’s king and his son. David thus replied, “How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?” (v. 5).

The young man answered with a remarkable tale. He had happened to be on Mount Gilboa where the battle was raging. There was Saul, with the enemy horsemen and chariots bearing down. “He saw me, and called to me. And I answered, ‘Here I am.’ And he said to me, ‘Who are you?’ I answered him, ‘I am an Amalekite’” (2 Sam. 1:7–8). Continuing his story, the visitor said that Saul had called him to “stand beside me and kill me,” so that he would not be captured alive. He concluded his report, saying, “So I stood beside him and killed him, because I was sure that he could not live after he had fallen” (vv. 9–10). Before David could respond, the man drew forth two objects that at least proved his news that Saul was dead. He concluded, “And I took the crown that was on his head and the armlet that was on his arm, and I have brought them here to my lord” (v. 10).

When the translators of Samuel made their division at this chapter, we can understand their logic, since the message of the Amalekite truly began a new phase in David’s life. The fact that David was far from the field when Saul died in battle proved David’s innocence in the matter. His reaction to this news further showed the sincerity of his motives toward the kingship and the nation. Moreover, 2 Samuel 1 shows David’s demeanor in a day that was dark with God’s judgment. His response presents us with valuable lessons about the judgment of God that we also must face.

GOD’S JUDGMENT CALLS FOR GRIEF AND REPENTANCE

This opening chapter of 2 Samuel tells us at least four things about God’s judgment. The first is that God’s judgment is always a call for grief and repentance. Undoubtedly, the Amalekite visitor expected David to respond to news of Saul’s death with a joy that would redound upon the messenger. Instead, David reacted by launching himself into public mourning: “Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them, and so did all the men who were with him. And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son” (2 Sam. 1:11–12).

We can see why the messenger may have expected David to rejoice at Saul’s death. After all, David had spent the last several years as a fugitive from Saul’s unjust persecution. Moreover, everything that David’s heart might have desired, including a return to his home and people, and the fulfillment of God’s great promises to him, depended on the removal of King Saul. So we can imagine a chorus of “Hurray!” breaking forth at the news of Saul’s demise, with a special feast to celebrate the end of the wicked regime. Instead of putting on a festal coat, however, David tore his clothing, with all his men following suit. Instead of ordering a feast, David declared a fast that continued until that evening.

David acted in this strange but godly way for two reasons. The first is that he knew that God is displeased by a heart that is vengeful, even against one’s enemies. David knew the spiritual principle before his son Solomon wrote it as a proverb: “he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished” (Prov. 17:5). One reason why God’s people are not to rejoice at judgment—even the judgment of so flagrant a rebel as King Saul—is that almost inevitably it involves us in offensive self-righteousness. Only God is competent to dispense judgment, because only God is perfectly holy. John Calvin warns that “he does not want us to be so presumptuous in our rejoicing that we fail to consider our own sins, and thus displease him. . . . We ought also to tremble before his majesty, knowing that we, too, are as deserving of punishment and grief as those whom he punishes.”³ This is why Paul wrote: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:19).

A second reason for David’s grief at news of Saul’s death is that he had evidently been nurturing sanctified and merciful thoughts toward Saul in the quiet of his heart. Our reaction to sudden news will reliably show what has been cherished in our hearts, and so it seems on this occasion. If David had been thinking that here was an opportunity to be rid of his nemesis, secretly hoping for news of Saul’s demise, it would have been inconceivable for him to have reacted as he did. David Payne comments: “A lesser man than David would have gloated over the death of Saul, so long his bitter enemy; and a more ambitious man than David would have been equally pleased about the death of Jonathan, since he would naturally have succeeded his father had he lived.”⁴ David’s reaction to the news of Saul’s death validates the several occasions when David had been more concerned for the sanctity of Saul’s person as Israel’s king than for David’s own safety. It is true that David had needed to take steps to protect himself and his followers from Saul’s malice, but in his heart he fulfilled the New Testament teaching: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. . . . If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Rom. 12:14–18). If we wish to honor God and live peaceably with those around us, we like David must sanctify our private thoughts and make it our privilege to forgive others as Christ has forgiven us.

David grieved not only over the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, but also for the lamentable plight of his people, Israel: “they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the LORD and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword” (2 Sam. 1:12). In this way, David shows us how our hearts should be grieved by the evil experienced by Christ’s church and people. Dale Ralph Davis writes: “The condition of the people of God disturbed [David]. And the same principle should control our life in the kingdom. Do we not have an obligation to mourn over the unbelief, apostasy and coldness in the visible church?” How dangerous it is for us, he warns, to take up a “conservative haughtiness” against liberalism and an “evangelical arrogance” that contradicts the spirit of the gospel. “Rather such unbelief or error in the church should drive us to mourning and grief and prayer and sorrow. It calls for intercession more than for pronouncements.”⁵ This is the example that David set with his grief and his fasting over Israel’s fall in battle.

This chapter presents the second time in the books of Samuel that news has arrived to Israel’s spiritual leader telling of disaster and divine judgment on God’s people. The first was the calamity of the battle of Ebenezer, at the news of which Eli the high priest fell off his seat, broke his neck, and died (1 Sam. 4:18). The fact that David was unscathed by the news of judgment is a reflection of his humility and his right standing with God. Moreover, his genuine loyalty toward his people overrode personal opportunism, and his compassion for those he desired to lead revealed his fitness to serve as their shepherd.

Like Adoniram Judson, whose spirit was troubled during the night that the sounds of death came into his room, we should all be heavy in heart for every instance of divine judgment, since our entire race is under the curse of death because of sin. Jesus guided our approach to calamity after a tower had fallen in Jerusalem, killing eighteen people. Should his listeners shrug this tragedy off, assuming that those who had died deserved their fate? Jesus told us to think differently: “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:4–5). Thoughts of divine judgment should prompt us to ensure that we are seeking mercy for everyone we know—even our enemies—and that we have repented of our own sins in order that we might cast ourselves on God’s mercy for salvation.

GOD’S JUDGMENT IS CERTAIN AND SEVERE

Not only do we learn from David’s reaction to Saul’s death, but we also gain insight into God’s judgment from the reported circumstances of Saul’s death. Saul’s demise shows that God’s judgment is certain and severe.

Surely it is not coincidental that news of Saul’s death was brought to David by an Amalekite. After all, it was for Saul’s failure to obey the command to eradicate this accursed people that God had sworn to tear the kingdom of Israel from his hands (1 Sam. 15:17–29). If this messenger’s story of giving Saul his killing blow was true, then Saul’s death had been caused by the hand of one whose very existence was the result of Saul’s disobedience. In the end, the man who would not give the order to kill the Amalekites was forced to give an Amalekite the order to kill him. Even if the messenger’s claim to have given Saul his coup de grâce was false, as seems likely, the fact that Saul’s royal insignia were scooped up by a member of one of the most divinely cursed races of the ancient world can be seen only as an expression of God’s ultimate justice against Saul’s disobedience. Calvin writes: “This . . . was a just punishment which God sent Saul in accordance with his sin. . . . After Saul’s death, God sent a man of this very nation, who snatched the crown and royal ornaments from his body, so that he was left in even greater ignominy.”⁶

Saul’s death shows that the consequences of our sins are far-reaching and that, unless we are forgiven, God’s long-threatened judgment is certain to come. However Saul really died—whether he fell o...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Series Introduction
• Preface
• Part 1: The Davidic Covenant
• Part 2: The Wages of Sin
• Part 3: Epilogue to the Life of David