II Samuel 23

We get to meet David’s warriors now.  The 30 leading warriors to be exact; the “mighty men” as I Kings called them.  A lot of times it seems like all of these battles that the Israelites win are pretty wimpy battles, which is why they don’t get highlighted many times.  That couldn’t be further from the truth.  This chapter shows how incredible these warriors are.  Specific guys are introduced solely by certain feats they have done.  I have not really been able to tell why they do some of these things to begin with other than just to simply show off.

Tahchemonite, chief of the officers, one time killed 800 men with his spear.  Eleazar was one of the three warriors with David against the Philistines (check out ch.21, the giants).  All the troops had left those four against the Philistines and came back only to plunder the dead.  Shammah did the same against the Philistines.  Three warriors went behind enemy lines to get water for David because he was thirsty (David refused the water and gave it to the Lord because it was “the blood of men who risked their lives”).  Abishai (remember him from way back, Joab’s brother) killed 300 men with his spear.  He had a reputation and became commander of the warriors.  Benaiah killed two warriors of Moab, and then “went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion” (Again, not sure why.  Maybe it was an adrenaline rush).  He was the most honored.

II Samuel 22

After being delivered from the hand of “all his enemies,” David sings a huge song of praise.  I think he knows that he was done with his wars.  All but one verse of the 51 verse chapter are this song.

The beginning really gives the foundation for what the whole song is about: the salvation that the Lord has given him.  He describes how the Lord saved him when he faced death.  David gives neat pictures of God when comes down to save him.  The earth shook, smoke came from His nostrils and fire from His mouth.  He rode on a cherub and the wings of the wind.  Both His power and majesty are portrayed.

David then describes, beyond his deliverance, how the Lord delighted in Him.  He rewarded David according to his righteousness.  Now let me make note, David is not declaring himself to be perfect.  Through his faith, David was considered righteous.  He goes on about his cleanliness, as he was cleansed by the Lord after the many times he repented and was forgiven.  His desire was always to please the Lord and obey him and was blessed for it.

David then shows the way the Lord works.  With the blameless, the Lord shows Himself blameless.  With the pure, He is shown pure.  With the perverted, He is seen as twisted.  He saves the afflicted and humbles the proud.

David then goes on to praise the Lord for how He had given David absolute victory over his enemies, and given him a massive kingdom.  To conclude, David again recognized God as the rock and salvation, and will praise Him for it.

II Samuel 21

There’s been a famine in Israel, so after three years, David decides that this is punishment for “Saul and his bloody house because he put the Gibeonites to death.”  So David goes and talks to the Gibeonites to do something for them so that Israel may be blessed again.  All they want, though, are seven of Saul’s sons so that they can hang them.  So David did just that (he did not allow Mephibosheth to be among these seven of course).  After these boys were hung and simply left there, Rizpah stayed near the bodies until it rained, keeping animals off of them.  David saw this and got the bones of Saul and Jonathan from the Philistines, and buried them in the country of Benjamin, where Saul was from.

David seemed to hand these guys over pretty quickly, but he did have to keep his word that he would do anything.  I was wondering if this was the right move to begin with, but the bodies were left hanging (the Gideonites doing) until the rain came.  The rain soon came, and “God was moved by entreaty for the land.”  It turns out that there was a covenant made between Israel and the Gideonites that goes back hundreds of years, and Saul broke it.  This was punishment for that.

Now it’s time for another war with the Philistines.  This time, though, David isn’t the ultimate warrior.  He’s starting to get old.  Someone else who noticed this: Ishbi-benob, a descendant of the giant.  Yup, I’m pretty sure they’re talking about Goliath.  Apparently this guy was a big guy too, and he intended to kill David.  Thankfully, Abishai was nearby to save David in a cool cliché movie style way by killing the giant right before he reaches David.  After this great feat, everyone decided that it’s better if David stays home.  Don’t think the big guys are gone now.  Goliath had a few kids.  There was Saph, another descendant, who also was killed.  Then there was a war with Goliath (also called Lahmi, the brother of the more popular Goliath), who had an absolutely massive spear.  There was another who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.  Just think, Goliath could have been in a circus with his freak family.  Instead, just as Goliath was killed by David, his kids were killed by David’s servants. 

II Samuel 20

Meet Sheba.  He is “a worthless fellow” that starts a revolt against David.  He is a result of the fight between the tribes over who gets David.  Since his tribe feels they have no relation with David, they rise against David.  Even though Sheba is described as worthless, he can also do “more harm that Absalom.”  He’s a pretty powerful guy.  So David was rightly cautious about this situation. 

David sent out Amasa (the new general) to gather some guys together to quickly put down Sheba before he gets too strong.  Key word: quickly.  Amasa wasn’t quick.  Either he was a procrastinator or just against David.  Or lazy.   Either way, Amasa worked slowly, and Joab did not like him to begin with.  You see, Amasa replaced Joab as commander after Joab went against David’s orders and killed Absalom.  Joab may have been mad for Amasa’s delay or just hated him for taking his place, but we already know that he’s capable of murder.  But this time it’s against his superior.  Joab “accidentally” drops his sword while greeting Amasa when he finally comes back.  When he gets to Amasa, he stabs him in the gut, right in front of all his men.  This guy is really starting to scare me.  At first he seemed to have a good commander/ person disguise, but now he’s just gotten to be so flat out powerful that the army in turn followed him after witnessing this murder of their general.

II Samuel 19

David wins the war and Absalom is dead.  We should all be happy, right?  Should, yes.  Are they?  No.  I know that David’s son was finally murdered, so it’s got to be tough on him, but he drags this onto the whole country as “the victory that day was turned to mourning for all the people…so the people went by stealth into the city that day, as people who are humiliated steal away when they flee in battle.”  They had a huge victory and David makes everyone feel like they’re a bunch of cowards that fled battle.  Joab has had enough about this (as would I) and confronts him about it.  (I’m going to add in a lot of quotes right here because the text is just that good to read, so I advise to just go read verses 5-7; you can tell how mad Joab is.)  Joab’s saying that David has shamed his family and all his servants by acting this way “by loving those who hate you, and by hating those who love you…If Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.”  That would hurt, but there’s more.  “Go out and speak kindly to your servants, for I swear by the Lord, if you do not go out, surely no a man will pass the night with you, and this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now.”  Those are some heartfelt and motivating words, and apparently it worked because David got up to speak to his people after that.

When David went to see his troops, there was arguing on whether David should be returned as king.  Remember, Israel was split between David and Absalom, and Absalom basically declared himself king while David fled.  Eventually, it was settled that David be brought back as king.

Then, Shimei, the guy who was cursing David earlier, came back begging David to forgive him.  Again, David’s men want to kill this man, but David lets him live.  I would normally say “forgive,” but later, on his deathbed, David orders that Shimei be punished (way to hold a grudge). 

If you ever wanted to see a completely unselfish person, look at Mephibosheth.  Check back to ch. 9 if you want to see a really good character sketch of him.  A few chapters ago, Mephibosheth and David were both tricked by the servant Ziba, who made away with a lot of stuff from Mephibosheth’s house.  Instead of demanding back his property, Mephibosheth says that he has no right to complain, since everything he has was given to him by David.  David even tries to give everything back, but Mephibosheth lets Ziba keep it all, stating that he is just glad to see that David is back alive (must I remind you that Mephibosheth is lame too?).  Why can’t we be like that?

To finish the chapter, the tribes of Israel are arguing with each other.  Now, instead of fighting whether or not to bring back David, it’s who gets David.  Judah crossed over the Jordan with David, making the other 10 tribes feel as if David was kidnapped from them.  They argued that they have “more claim” to David since there are 10 of them as opposed to Judah being only 1 tribe, despite the fact that David was born into the tribe of Judah.  This is a lot of bad tension to end the chapter (hint to a civil war).