Notes: 2 Samuel 1

What kind of God puts a man like David on the throne?

From the world’s perspective, David is weak. He’s spineless. He shows no initiative and can’t make decisions for himself. He couldn’t even kill the man hunting him down. When his wives and the families of his men were taken captive, he couldn’t decide whether to go or not. He had to pray first. And when Saul his enemy is killed, he doesn’t even celebrate. Instead, he weeps and mourns and fasts and writes a eulogy for him. And then he kills the one who killed Saul.

What kind of God puts a man like David on the throne?

What’s the purpose of the book of Samuel?

It recounts, corrects, and clarifies the events of David’s rise to power for the purpose of clarifying and defending the actions of God Himself.

The book is ultimately about God, not David.

David here shows us a man who truly loves his enemy.

Arrangement of the Book of Samuel

A. Introduction to the story of David; Samuel’s rule; fall of Eli’s priestly line predicted; plagues and the Ark (1 Sam. 1–7)

B. Saul’s failure and lack of repentance (1 Sam. 8–15)

C. David’s initial rise to popularity in Saul’s kingdom; kindness shown David by members of Saul’s family (1 Sam. 16–20).

D. Turning point: God reverses fortunes of Saul and David: Saul seeks to kill David but is himself killed (1 Sam. 21–31).

C’: David’s initial rise to power over all Israel; kindness shown by David to members of Saul’s family and court (2 Sam. 1–8).

B’: David’s failure and repentance (2 Sam. 9–20).

A’: Conclusion of the story of David; summary of David’s rule; the fall of Eli’s priestly line; plagues and the Ark (2 Sam 21–1 Kings 2).

The dead Saul is contrasted with the victorious David: David has defeated the Amalekites, whom Saul has refused to destroy.

David somehow ends up with Saul’s royal insignia in his possession (2 Sam. 1:10). In the end, everything happens according to God’s timing. At the proper time, God delivered the royal insignia to David.

The crown

The armlet = a royal bracelet worn on the upper arm

David and his men mourned and wept and fasted for Saul (2 Sam. 1:12). This is the first and only time in the OT that all these mourning verbs are used together. David truly mourned the death of Saul.

This verb paga in 2 Sam. 1:15 is the same verb used when Saul commanded Doeg to ‘strike down’ the priests at Nob (1 Sam. 22:17-18). Saul orders the death of the priests because he thought they were loyal to David. David orders the death of the Amalekite out of his own loyalty to Saul.

David’s first act as king in Hebron is to reward the men of Jabesh Gilead for their loyalty to Saul (2 Sam. 2:1-7; 1 Sam. 31:11-13).

By falling to the ground, the Amalekite indicates his expectation that David will be the new king after Saul.

Contradicting accounts:

Narrator: Saul fell on his sword and died (1 Sam. 31:3-4).

Amalekite: Saul was alive but dying, so I killed him (2 Sam. 1:6-10).

The narrator’s perspective is to be trusted. The Amalekite is making up a story in an effort to please David and gain his favor. However, his own mouth condemns him.

The Amalekite: ‘I am the son of an alien.’ This term means that he’s a resident alien who had allied himself with Israel (cf. Exod. 12:48; 22:21; 23:9).

The Second Book of Samuel c. Death of the Amalekite (1:13–16)

When David asked the young man’s background, he introduced himself as a sojourner, the Amalekite. The legal status of a “sojourner” (or “a resident alien”) gēr was distinguished from that of a foreigner (nēkār). He had a special status both with privileges and with responsibilities. He was protected by the community law, but at the same time bound by legal obligations and penalties as described in

Death is the reward for killing the Lord’s anointed.

Contrast with Jesus, whose death meant life for His killers.

The demise of God’s rebellious servants is to be lamented, not celebrated.

Even though Saul’s death is the result of divine discipline and clears the way for David to take the throne, David does not celebrate. David does not gloat. David doesn’t express any kind of satisfaction. Instead, he eulogizes Saul and mourns his death.

Don’t celebrate the downfall of your enemies too much.

When God disciplines one of your fellow church members, or brothers or sisters in Christ, even from another church, do not celebrate too much. Divine discipline humiliates the entire community (2 Sam. 1:19).

1 & 2 Samuel The Proper Response to the Divine Discipline of Failed Leaders Is Grief

David lamented because he cared. [Here] we have access to an aspect of experience that’s absolutely essential if we’re going to live God-responsively, live God-abundantly.

… [Today] there’s no lament because truth isn’t taken seriously, love isn’t taken seriously. Human life doesn’t matter as life-God-given.

… David not only lamented with this lamentation, he ordered the people to learn it: memorize it and inhabit it as their experience.… A failure to lament is a failure to connect

The Word of God challenges us not to celebrate, but to mourn and lament the fall of those who once led us. Great pastors and leaders of the church have fallen, their sins exposed. That’s rare, but even rarer are those who respond not with spite, but with grief and care and concern.

How many of us crave the satisfaction of justice being given to evil people?

Illustration: the Korean pastor who adopted his son’s killers.

The person who forgave the killer of their family member.

The dirge.

David commanded for this lament over Saul to be taught to the covenant community.

The Second Book of Samuel b. Elegy (1:19–27)

It addresses first Israel, then the mountains of Gilboa, the daughters of Israel, his brother Jonathan, and finally it laments the fallen warriors Saul and Jonathan

David utters a curse on Mt. Gilboa, the site of defeat where Saul and Jonahan were slain.

Shield not anointed with oil. Oiling the shield was for the purpose of keeping it bright, but also to cause missiles to glance off it.

Saul’s shield was not anointed, but ours is.

Swifter than eagles = kings of the bird kingdom

Stronger than lions = kings of the animal kingdom

The Second Book of Samuel b. Elegy (1:19–27)

Blood and fat are often used as a word pair to refer to the whole of a sacrifice

Jonathan chose to stay with his father and not David, and David chooses to honor his choice.

The Hebrew word for ‘love’ is often used in covenantal contexts where it conveys the idea of faithfulness to a relationship (cf. Deut. 7:6-13). David is speaking of Jonathan’s loyalty.

In Australia there is a term for relationships that grew out of the bonds between men during the First World War: mateship. It’s a bond the comes from fighting side by side where life is at risk.

David is innocent of self-promotion.

This is one of the great turning points in Israel’s history and the history of redemption, which moves toward the appointment of Jesus as king. And yet the weight of the chapter is on humans being human.

Jonathan, the humble, faithful, friend of David, the one who took off his princely robes and clothed David in them, now lay slain on the high places, out of loyalty to his father. And now, his death has made the way for David’s kingship.

This reminds us of Christ.

Why was Jonathan’s love better than the love of women? Because Jonathan’s love was a spiritual covenantal love. It was the love of a true brother in the faith.

Leaders of God’s people must be innocent of self-promotion.

Leaders of God’s people should rejoice in God’s deliverance rather than in the downfall of their enemies.

Those who focus on the downfall of their enemies are more concerned with their own position rather than the benefit of the entire group.

John Bunyan: “What a man is before God in prayer, that he is and no more.”

David mourns because Saul was the leader of God’s people, but he ended up rebelling against God and receiving divine punishment. But he also mourned for Jonathan, who was the most humble, faithful, and courageous man he ever knew. Saul represents the worst of us. Jonathan represents the best of us. David wept for both.

So when we hear that someone did something bad, or if we see someone receiving discipline from the church,

The Word of God challenges us not to celebrate, but to mourn and lament the fall of those who once led us. Great pastors and leaders of the church have fallen, their sins exposed. That’s rare, but even rarer are those who respond not with spite, but with grief and care and concern.

David had this deep longing to know the condition of Saul and his men. These are the ones who repaid his service with betrayal. The ones who marched many kilometres with Saul to kill him. The ones who persecuted him for 10 years and wasted the prime of his youth.

They’ve wronged him in so many countless ways, but they are still his people, bound by the covenant of Abraham and the promise of the Messiah.

Are there people in church who rub you the wrong way? There might be people who gossiped about you and damaged your reputation. But I hope and pray that Zion will be a church where we can put all that aside and truly care for one another, to sincerely ask each other, “How are you doing?” “How are things going?”