2 Samuel: Jesus the Righteous King
Chp. 1-10 David’s triumphs
Chp. 11-24 David’s troubles
Remember the books of 1 Samuel and 2nd Samuel were originally one book in the Hebrew Bible known simply as Samuel. Second Samuel was most likely compiled sometime after the death of Solomon but before the Assyrian captivity though its topic is David’s 40-year reign over Israel.
The material for this compilation is based upon 1 Chron. 29:29 comes from two sources both who were eyewitnesses of the events as we are told that, “The acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer” Samuel records some of the material about David in 1st Samuel up to chapter 25 where he dies then Nathan and Gad recorded the last 7 chapters of 1 Samuel and the 24 chapters of 2nd Samuel.
The focus of 2nd Samuel is David’s reign as king (seven years in Hebron as king over Judah and 33 years as King over both Judah and the rest of the nation). In first Samuel the focus on David was that though he was called and anointed King it was not handed to him instantly as it was Saul. No, David’s ascent to the throne would take over 15 years but the preparation was that of 30 years. Looking at David’s life before he became king we can see a threefold preparation:
- Watching: As a young boy, he was out in his father’s fields, watching and caring for his father’s flock. Oh, how we tend to think that the days spent in our Father’s field watching sheep day after day are worthless to our calling. Ah but hear David in his own words to Saul before facing Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:34-36, “Your servant used to keep his father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it. Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.” Those years in the field were vital to slaying the giants in his life.
- Worshiping: The second preparation was in the palace of Saul where David led worship to soothe Saul. The time spent at the feet of David’s king worshipping would serve Him well as David learned that when we are at the feet of the King of King singing of His greatness and goodness all is well. We would all do well to remember that praising the Lord calms our troubled hearts and causes us to realize that as long as we are near Him all is well with our soul.
- Waiting: The 3rd and final preparation would have been impossible were it not for the first two. David found himself in exile, a shepherd as it were “on the lamb”. He was a fugitive for 15 long years with no comfort save that which His Lord gave him. Friend it is in waiting on the Lord in the caves of isolation, in the spiritual desert of adversity that we learn that there is no place where we can find ourselves that the Lord is not with us. We learn in waiting, “That God does not create peace and joy from new surroundings. No, He creates new surroundings from peace and joy!
Chp. 1-10 David’s triumphs
Second Samuel opens up with these words, “Now it came to pass after the death of Saul, when David had returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and David had stayed two days in Ziklag”. I could see myself very easily slipping into the attitude of self-justification and seeing these two circumstances (Saul’s death and David’s victory) as vindication and that I was finally getting what I deserved. Amazingly David realizes at 30 years of age having been hounded by Saul for half his life that he is no better man than Saul. How is that possible? I suggest that the smoldering of Ziklag (where David had left his family) was just the location he needed to ensure a right heart.
David was standing next to his own failure and had he gotten what he deserved he would have ended up as Saul. Instead, David writes a song of lament over the loss of Saul and Jonathan. David has well learned in “watching, worshiping and waiting”, as we are told in chapter two that he does not assume but inquires of the Lord “Shall I go to any cities of Judah”? And hears back “Go up” to which he responds “Where shall I go up?” No assumptions were made, just a desire to hear the will of the Lord and it is in this that the Lord directs David to go “to Hebron” and once in Hebron, they anoint him as their king. And for seven years David would reign in Hebron as king over Judah.
The other tribes at the direction of Abner place Ishbosheth Saul’s son as their king but it is Abner who is pulling the strings. Ray Stedman observes that “Every Christian is offered a kingdom just as David was and enemies will threaten from without and enemies will threaten it from within”. In the third chapter, Abner sees the handwriting on the wall and seeks to defect to David but just before he can, Joab David’s commander kills him for the death of his brother.
Then upon hearing that Abner is dead, Ishbosheth loses heart then loses his head at the hands of his own men. This brings to an end of the divided kingdom and chapter 5 opens with “all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and spoke, saying, “Indeed we are your bone and your flesh.” Under David’s rule, the nation would prosper, politically, spiritually, and militarily. He would make Jerusalem the capital, put down the Philistines, and bring the Ark of the Covenant (the presence of God) back into the temple. Yet with all this success, it wouldn’t come about apart from failure as well as we are told in the 6th chapter.
There was a wonderful thing happening in David’s heart based upon Psalm 132 as David says, “I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the LORD, A dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.” For over 70 years the Ark of the Covenant (the presence of God) lay outside the center place of worship and David took it upon himself to secure a place for the presence of God to dwell among His people. He wanted to bring the Ark into Jerusalem to honor the Lord as the true King making Jerusalem the city where the sanctuary would be, causing them to be truly “one nation under God”.
According to 1 Chron 13:5, David gathered the nation from its furthest borders to unite around the presence of God (the gathering of his best 30,000 soldiers was a part of this). What was that all about? Well, it was a desire for the people to put down their petty differences and come together to glorify the Lord. Yet with this right heart David and the nation will learn a great lesson. You see based upon Exodus 25:12-15 and Numbers 4:15 the ark was to be carried only by the family of Koath from the tribe of Levi and not transported on a cart.
It seems as though the Lord wanted nothing about the worship of Him to be mechanical nor based upon His children approaching Him on their own terms. The Lord wanted the Levites, His servants, to carry the burden of moving the presence of the Lord and they were to do so prayerfully, thoughtfully with great care, effort, and labor. All of this has to do with the right heart does it not? What we have here is a clear example of doing the right thing the wrong way.
Where did David get the idea of placing the ark on a new cart? Well when the Philistines took the ark of the Lord they hadn’t counted on everywhere the ark went their people would break out in boils, so they placed it upon a new cart. So many people think that “If it blesses me then it will bless God”, but God’s work must be done God’s way to have God’s blessing. We needn’t seek God with “new things” in order to have more of Him in our lives the key to approaching Him is to do so with a “new heart” not a “new cart”.
Chapter 7 brings David to yet another lesson this one deals with a desire of his heart as we are told in verse 2 “that the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells inside tent curtains.” But God is letting David know that He was close to him throughout his entire life and that intimacy with the Lord has nothing to do with a building and everything again with where our heart is at.
What’s cool here is that God honored David based upon his intention and at the same time honored his intention by sending the Son of David who would die for the sins of all mankind and then dwell in human hearts that received Him. How interesting is this that David sought a glorious temple in which the nation would gather to praise and worship God but God didn’t want people to come to a place to worship Him. No, His plan was to always be amongst the people to travel to wherever they are to meet you and me in every situation, every circumstance so He would build a temple within every heart that wants Him.
Chapters 8-10 speaks of more victories by David those won on the battlefield and those won in his heart as he takes in as his own Mephibosheth the only son of Jonathan who was crippled when his nurse dropped him while fleeing upon hearing of the death of his father. I have found that the greatest victory to achieve is the battle within my own heart and we are told 9:13 that “Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he ate continually at the king’s table. And he was lame in both his feet.” You can tell more about the work Christ has done in the heart of a person on how they treat their enemies than how they treat their friends.
Chp. 11-24 David’s troubles
We come now to the 11th chapter which records the beginning of David’s troubles which will affect him personally as well as his family and the nation which will be recorded in chapters 12-24. As we examine David’s fall we can go back to chapter three where we can count 7 wives including Michael Saul’s daughter. Then in chapter 5:13, we are told that he took “more concubines and wives from Jerusalem”.
So this was a problem for some time, it was nothing new. In Deut 17 were the rules for a king that said they were “not to multiply wives, horses, gold and silver” but David kept only two of those commands. He did what many do concerning their lives and compromise he compartmentalized God’s word by disregarding the clear teaching perhaps he thought, “Hey I’m off duty” so he indulged himself with, “A thought and a thought led to a look and a look developed into a desire and a desire formed into an action!” We can see the same blueprint of sin here with David:
Vs. 1 Idleness: “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war… David remained in Jerusalem.” Hey saints, God has not designed you and me to be spectators, when we become spectators instead of participants we get into trouble. Idleness is not just inactivity it is activity without purpose and such Idleness will lead to a troubled heart. Someone once wrote, “If you are idle do not be alone and if you are alone don’t be idle”!
Vs. 2 Imagination: “From the roof, he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful”. The fault lie not that he saw her bathing but rather that he began to fantasize about her in his heart. How do we know? Well, it says that he saw that she was “very beautiful”. The moment he saw her he needed to come down off the roof, instead he decided to linger and gaze which gave birth to sin. Hey brothers the Bible says in Job 31:1 “I have made a covenant with my eyes; why then should I look upon a young woman?” we need to keep our eyes on the Lord and not on any other woman other than our wife. It says that Bathsheba “was very beautiful to behold” But the problem was not in her beauty but in the heart of David.
Vs. 3 Inquiry: “and David sent someone to find out about her”. He had already stepped over the line when he remained on the roof but when he sought to know more about that which in his heart he had already committed adultery seeking to make his fantasy a reality. The bottom line is you know you have a problem if you “send after your sin”.
It would take David nine months before he would come clean about his sin and only after the Lord revealed it to his buddy Nathan. And though he would be forgiven he would pay for the consequences of this action for the rest of his life. “The good things God has for us have been paid for in advance, but the things of the flesh that we pursue are paid for on the installment plan.”
David and Bathsheba did not plan on this as the pregnancy would prove their adultery as Uriah was away. In Leviticus 20:10 we are told, “The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer, and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death.” Bathsheba’s words to David concerning her pregnancy were an attempt to thwart the consequences of their sin which were:
- An unwanted pregnancy
- The murder of a trusted friend
- A dead baby
- His daughter was raped by his son
- One son was murdered by another son
- A civil war led by one of his sons
- A son who imitates David’s lack of self-control and it leads him and much of Israel away from God
All of those will be played out and recorded for us over the next 12 chapters. Starting with the death of their child, then in chapter 13 Ammon commits incest and rape upon his sister Tamar to which Absalom murders Ammon for what he did to his full sister Tamar.
In the 14th and 15th chapters, Absalom who lives in exile comes back to Jerusalem and commits treason by stealing the hearts of the people in 15:6 and forces David to leave his capital. To further bolster his causes Absalom was able to get David’s top counselor to join him, Ahithophel the Gilonite. In chapter 16:23 we are told that “the advice of Ahithophel, which he gave in those days, was as if one had inquired at the oracle of God.
So was all the advice of Ahithophel both with David and with Absalom.” Ahithophel according to chapter 23:34 had a son Eliam who was one of the 37 mighty men along with a man Uriah. Eliam thought enough of Uriah and his character that he allowed Uriah to marry his daughter Bathsheba. So when David took and seduced Bathsheba and killed Eliam’s close friend and son-in-law, Uriah this destroyed the relationship that David had with Ahithophel as he couldn’t stand the thought of his granddaughter lying in bed with the murder of his son’s best friend. The chickens have indeed come home to roost for David.
It takes until the 18th chapter before David again regains his kingdom but at the price of his son Absalom who is murdered by David’s general Joab even after David had ordered him spared. The next chapters speak of rebellion and division between the ten northern tribes and the two southern tribes over who David belongs to. David’s life shows us that God measures a man and deals with a man based upon what is the deepest aspiration of his heart. God looks at a man based on what He wills him to be and not just upon what he is for the moment. David would write of this very truth concerning himself in Psalm 138:8 where he declares “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever; do not forsake the works of Your hands.”
No wonder why David would say to Gad the prophet in 2 Samuel 24:14 “Please let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man.” In 2 Samuel 23:1 David recorded his final words where he describes himself as “The sweet psalmist of Israel”. When we mention David’s sins we must be fair and speak also of his repentance as David’s Psalm of repentance (51:4) reveals his heart as he says, “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight”.
- Campbell Morgan writes, “I would be overwhelmed by my sin, and by my sin made careless of sin, and continue to sin, were it not that I know the infinite goodness of God.” “The conformity of my life to the will of God does not depend upon my ability, but upon my abandonment; not upon my persuading God to do something, but upon my allowing myself to be persuaded by God to be something!”
We are prone to measure a man by the last sin he has committed but God measures him by the attitude of his heart. Half the purity that some boast of is not of personal fortitude but rather of lack of opportunity! The triumph of any man is simply the triumph of God over him despite him and only when we allow God to rule over us do we win by losing ourselves.