What are you like at your worst relationship? You see I have a friend who broke off his engagement with his fiancée & he was so jealous when he found out she was engaged later on, he went and slashed the tires of the car of her new fiancé. It was later on my friend admitted he was such a bonehead or blockhead, as he identified how he had become filled with so much anger. My friend found that he surprised himself by the way he reacted to the news, of the person who he thought he would share the rest of his life with, he found instead made his life so difficult. Just as we see today the question is where are you most tempted to want to take revenge on someone? You might never act on it, but you thought it didn’t you!
In 2 Samuel 2-4 we follow on from the death of Jonathon & Saul and David’s lament over that; and how in that we can see how angry, ill wished revenge and retaliation, can come washing over us as we see what occurs in the time following Saul’s death. As what we read happens after a decade of being on the run, and how David was hunted down in the wilderness and had to learn how to live on the defensive whilst David remains God’s anointed king. Where we find David now is now he is no longer on the run. David now is in a position of strength. At 30 years of age he is finally in charge.
Looking at today’s passage what we soon see is how people with the best of intensions cam cause the greatest harm all over the pages of 2 Samuel 2-4.
In this long story of David’s life, we now see in 2 Samuel God’s protective providence, which doesn’t mean we are sparred from meeting head on, the heat of life lived in a fallen world. This story of David is now turned towards kingship, just as our gaze is now shifted forwards to see that there is no ordinary crown for God’s one and only Son, that in Jesus we see the one who will come to deal with death, and show us how to live. And as there’s so much to take in today so I want to zero in on the story of Abner & Joab in 2 Samuel 3
David does not immediately or instantly succeed Saul. As we are often so quick to tidy up the royal time lines to just see David as the triumphal king. I want you to notice how the Bible slows us down, to see what is going on; just like we want to tidy up the messy business of life so often. Just as here we step onto a much bigger canvass, where God never minimizes the trouble or trial of life we face. We are reminded of God’s providential care that God’s intentions for David may be delayed but they are not defeated.
Just like we sometimes can’t see the way through that struggle or pain, the
question is are we confident that God is still working to grow us more like him? What we often find is we are more impatient than we realize, as we read in 2 Samuel 3:1
1 The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker.
David is at this stage only recognized as king over Judah, as Saul still has living sons who claim the throne over Israel. It is where we find Abner’s place in today’s passage. Please look back with me at 2 Samuel 2:8-9:
8 Meanwhile, Abner son of Ner, the commander of Saul’s army, had taken Ish-Bosheth son of Saul and brought him over to Mahanaim. 9 He made him king over Gilead, Ashuri and Jezreel, and also over Ephraim, Benjamin and all Israel.
Abner is the generalissimo who installs his king to rule. The new king is another one of Saul’s sons, Ish-Bosheth; and with Ish-Bosheth as King over the other 10 tribes the question is how will David win the north to become the king over all Israel as we know him as? The link was Abner as we read in 2 Samuel 3:6-10:
6 Abner took advantage of the continuing war between the house of Saul and the house of David to gain power for himself. 7 Saul had had a concubine, Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah. One day Ish-Bosheth confronted Abner: “What business do you have sleeping with my father’s concubine?” 8 Abner lost his temper with Ish-Bosheth, “Treat me like a dog, will you! Is this the thanks I get for sticking by the house of your father, Saul, and all his family and friends? I personally saved you from certain capture by David, and you make an issue out of my going to bed with a woman! 9 What God promised David, I’ll help accomplish—transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and make David ruler over the whole country, both Israel and Judah, from Dan to Beersheba. If not, may God do his worst to me.” (The Message)
Abner’s an opportunist, and a king-maker, who put Saul’s son Ish-bosheth in power and soon realizes that Ish-Bosheth is such a weak ruler that the future is with David. Joab on the other hand is your typical strong man. Joab is one of Davi’d nephew’s, as David’s sister Zeruiah has three sons: Joab, Abishi & Asahel. If you read back in 2 Samuel 2 you’ll see Abner (Saul’s general) kills Asahel, which he does it reluctantly. Reading forward sometime later on Joab on the pretense of wanting to talk about state diplomacy kills Abner brutally and treacherously, verses 26-27
26 Joab then left David and sent messengers after Abner, and they brought him back from the cistern at Sirah. But David did not know it. 27 Now when Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside into an inner chamber, as if to speak with him privately. And there, to avenge the blood of his brother Asahel, Joab stabbed him in the stomach, and he died.
Joab & Abishai, David’s sister Zeruiah’s sons comprehend nothing of what David is seeking to work out. These 2 hate peace and the things that have to do with peace, as David responds in verse 38-39:
38 The king spoke to his servants: “You realize, don’t you, that today a prince and hero fell victim of foul play in Israel? 39 And I, though anointed king, was helpless to do anything about it. These sons of Zeruiah are too much for me. God, requite the criminal for his crime!” (The Message)
These sons of Zeruiah make life difficult for David, as they become a daily threat to pull the whole empire down as they jockey for position[1] Just like we’re not to miss how like today it’s like standing in front of the mirror how, as someone put it this way“we find God’s purposes being worked out in the precise moral and political, social and cultural conditions that we wake up to each morning, a world of shabby morality and opportunist companions, religious violence, religious propaganda – the many, many sons of Zeruiah that are too hard for us”[2]
There is also here one of those hard to read parts of the Bible. This is really a sad part for us as modern readers of the Bible to wrap our heads around something ancient and different. David knows in order to unify Israel he needs to gain the support of the other tribes of Israel. What we know is that one way, in ancient times, tribes were joined together, was through marriage. Abner, Saul’s old general, who we know is killed was Israel’s kingmaker and power broker. When Abner was alive he knew the true kingship of Israel rests in David’s hands. It was David who set him a test to see how serious Abner really was about coming over to David’s side. The test David sets was for Abner is to bring to David Michal, Saul’s eldest daughter over to him for marriage. Earlier on Saul had promised he would give Michal to David in marriage if he killed 100 Philistines, as David delivered Saul married her instead to someone else. What we know is that Abner was going to need all the gall and boldness to deliver Michal to David. This is what Abner does, and sadly we’re told she comes verse 15 with her crying husband alongside her, verse 15,16:
15 Ish-Bosheth ordered that she be taken from her husband Paltiel son of Laish. 16 But Paltiel followed her, weeping all the way, to Bahurim. There Abner told him, “Go home.” And he went home. (The Message)
Saul made his daughter a pawn of power, and we can’t but feel the sadness, and heart break of Paltiel! All of this pain started back with Saul’s broken promises, and with Michal now given over to David Abner also now delivers the north. What the Bible does is lift up our gaze to see how Abner is part of God’s plans for David to be established the king over all of Israel.Abner will soon be killed by one of his nephews. So we again see how David’s journey to kingship doesn’t happen instantaneously; just as the delay is palpable, today we get the insiders look to the rise and rise of David, we are at the same time given a lesson in humility and hope, as someone put it this way…“Redemption rewires both creation and fall, remaking us as agents of redemptive justice and mercy. Christ brings His good up against our evils. His atoning mercy embodies the reunion of love and just anger, bringing us forgiveness for real wrongs. He works to redeem fallen creatures, convicting of sin, bringing forgiveness, and working the willingness to forgive others, remaking us into peacemakers. He progressively teaches us to deal more constructively with what is wrong. God will finish that which He has begun in us, on the Day of Christ.”[3] This is where we are pointed to how we are going as disciples of Christ and the thing is where are we seeing God’s grace on the move in us, as we are pointed to who our true king is in Revelation 11:15:
15 The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.”
We are invited to keep in view God keeping his promises, and marvel again at how in the long story of our lives God works out his purposes for his glory – we are directed to see Jesus that life on God’s terms is all about the glory of Jesus; and that for all the opposition, scheming and folly God’s promises come to pass.
David Hassan
@Tamworth Community Presbyterian Church 28/8/16