2 Samuel 4

BI: You must not use unrighteous means to get ahead, since the Lord will judge all such wickedness.

Intro

Have you ever had this experience? You're driving in traffic and someone behind you is riding your butt. Finally he has decided that you're leaving too big of a gap between you and the car in front, and seizes an opportunity to get around you. Now, what was an annoying person driving too close behind you has got the better of you and your blood begins to boil. Now you're gripping the wheel tighter, and you're looking for ways to retaliate. Sure enough, you see a moment of weakness, and a way to get ahead of this schmuck once and for all. But it will require you to do something illegal and go around him on the shoulder.

It is at these moments, when blind anger, and the opportunity to get ahead, that reason goes out the door, and you abandon restraint, seizing for yourself the advantage. But it is precisely those moments when you need the restraint of self-control to stop and wait and allow the Lord to help you get ahead, rather than taking it for yourself. Which is precisely what we have watched David do, but not what we see two captains in Ish-bosheth's raiding bands do. Sadly, to their peril. The Lord will accomplish his purposes, but woe to the man who tries to accomplish them using wicked means, for the Lord will hold you responsible.

2 Samuel 4

Summary of the Text

This text has a great many parallels with 2 Sam. 1 and the Amalekite who brought David news that he had killed Saul in battle. Joab has put David in a precarious spot by murdering Abner, who had just made a covenant with David to bring all of Israel to him. Ish-bosheth's courage fails because Abner was the actual source of His power, and the only reason he was king at all. Two men, captains of his raiding parties, return, and seeing an opportunity to advance themselves, murder Ish-bosheth in his own house while he slept during the heat of the day. After beheading him, they hightail it out of there, bringing his head (headship) to David at Hebron. Thinking they have done a service that will please David, they must be surprised when David reminds them of a fool who had tried this with another Saulide king and it cost him his life. So David dispatches his young men to execute these two captains, making a big show of their bodies so that all Israel would know he had nothing to do with this wicked treatment of Ish-bosheth.

As we look closer at this text, what two things become evident. Providentially, God uses wicked men to accomplish His goals, but holds them responsible for their actions. And David (Still) doesn't seize the Kingdom through violence. From these we learn that although nothing can thwart God's plan, we need to make sure we don't adopt wicked means to try an accomplish it. So let's look first at this wicked murder, and then at David's response.

Regicide (but not Christicide)

It might seem somewhat out of the blue for these two men to murder their master, but a clue to their motive is not just a desire to ingratiate themselves in the eyes of David (v.8) but to avenge themselves for past hurt. The clue is found in their family name and where they hail from. The Beerothites were Gibeonites, who had deceived Joshua into making a covenant with them in Joshua 9. And later in 2 Samuel 21 David is told to avenge the Gibeonites for the bloodguilt of Saul, who "had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah" (2 Sam. 21:2). Saul had driven them out of Gibeon to Gittaim. So in all likelihood, Baanah and Rechab see that with Abner gone, the opportunity is ripe for them to both take vengeance on the house of Saul and earn favor with David.

There is a textual link here in v. 6 with these men stabbing Is-bosheth in the stomach with the death of His father, Saul, when he ran himself through with his spear, also in the stomach. It also connects with Ch. 3 and Joab's murder of Abner. The house of Saul seemed doomed to stomach wounds. But these links help bring Ch. 1-4 to a close as they have shown David's successful ascension to the throne, that although it was violent, it wasn't David doing the killing.

Here we learn an important principle that we see throughout scripture. It is the somewhat mysterious nature of God's sovereignty and human responsibility. No where in these texts are the men such as the Amalekite in ch. 1, or Joab in 2-3, or these Beerothites in our text today commended for their actions, even if they bring about good ends. That is God has ordained that David would be given the kingdom, he promised him that much when he anointed him king. And it can be said that God used the wicked schemes of these men to bring about his purpose of transferring the kingdom to David. But he holds them responsible for their actions. God is not the author of sin, and although he determines the end from the beginning, he uses means to accomplish those ends. So he causes his plan to fall out using second causes, or the free actions of people who are completely responsible for their actions. As Jesus said in Lk. 22:22:

Luke 22:22 (ESV) — 22 For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!”

Christ was always going to die on a cross at Calvary. God had made that definite plan beforehand, but the people responsible for accomplishing that plan are responsible for sinfully betraying, condemning, and then killing an innocent man.

In that sense, the Lord used the sinful actions of Rechab and Baanah to accomplish the transfer of the kingdom to David without David having to resort to violence. But as we’ll see, their blood is on their own head, David (and God) are innocent in the matter. Let us consider David’s response to these men.

David’s Response

2 Samuel 4:9–11 ESV

9 But David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life out of every adversity, 10 when one told me, ‘Behold, Saul is dead,’ and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and killed him at Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news. 11 How much more, when wicked men have killed a righteous man in his own house on his bed, shall I not now require his blood at your hand and destroy you from the earth?”

Notice David's response begins with Yahweh, begins with a confession of faith. Implicit in this is David's recognition that he is not to seize the throne, but wait for the Lord to bring it to him. And so he has, since for the past eight years, he has been king of Judah in Hebron, waiting for all Israel to come and make him king. And now when he receives news that the man standing in the way of that is dead, he does not rejoice; he doesn't gloat, he instead condemns the men for their sinful deed.

It was bad enough when an Amalekite claimed to kill Saul at his behest, so that he wouldn't fall into the hands of the enemies. But this was cold-blooded murder. These men are wicked because they killed a righteous man who was innocent. And as the Lord's anointed, David is the civil magistrate tasked with executing justice by taking vengeance on the wicked. So David has these men executed by their own confession of guilt (and evidence of Ish-bosheth's head).

David acted rightly to execute the Lord's justice on these murderers for violating the law of God and killing an innocent man. Notice David mentions nothing about Ish-bosheth being the Lord's anointed (Christ). He may have been a king, but he was not the Lord's anointed. For the anointed rule of Christ would be through the line of Judah and the house of David. Which will be a repeated theme when the kingdom is divided, for the northern kings (except Jehu) are not anointed as the kings of Judah are.

But although David acted rightly in this situation, bearing the sword of God's wrath to punish (and restrain) evil, purging it from the land, there is a glaring discrepancy between how he handled this case versus how he handled Joab. Recall from last week that Joab had murdered Abner, a righteous (and innocent) man. But instead of executing him, he allows him to live only cursing him and His family line. Thus begins a troubling character flaw in David that will become devastating to his reign, which is his failure to deal with sin in his own house.

Joab is his nephew. So with a touch of nepotism, David does not respond in the same way as those other men who had taken it in to their own hands to cut off Saul's house. Instead, justice is miscarried, the law of God is perverted, and wickedness especially in David's own house is not restrained. It would seem that David is playing favorites with his family.

So, although David did not extend his hand in violence to seize the kingdom, he did not always respond to those who did in a measured way. And as we will see as the saga of David continues to unfold, it won't be long before David is resorting to violence to take what he wants when he has Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, brutally murdered so that he could take his wife. Sin gives birth to more sin, and when it grows, it will consume you. David teaches us that even a man after God's own heart is not immune from the temptation to sin, and proves that he must take as diligent a care as you or I to put sin to death. Both his own, and also those within his charge.

Fathers, and elders, and civil magistrates, and all those in authority, you must be on guard against allowing sin to develop in those you are accountable for. Discipline lest it grow and consume your family, even as we watch it consume our society and, in some measure, also in the church, here especially in the west, as church discipline has fallen by the wayside. So let us not grow weary in our fight against sin. God is faithful, and although he works through the sinful actions of men in mysterious ways to accomplish His purposes, everyone will one day stand before God and give an account for every word, and every action, and every thought. The only hope for anyone on that day is that they are clothed in the righteousness of another; that precious blood of Jesus Christ covers your sin and makes you righteous in the sight of God. The same Lord at work in David is His greater Son, who has sent His Spirit to convict you of sin and lead you into the truth. So that you would always remember that you must not use unrighteous ways to get ahead, as Rechab and Baanah did, since the Lord will judge all such wickedness. Amen.