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2 Samuel 2—24
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2 Samuel 21—24
Scripture Reading: 2 Sam. 21; 2 Sam. 22; 2 Sam. 23; 2 Sam. 24
In this message we will consider the last stage of David's kingship.
In 21:1-14 David took care of the famine for the people.
This famine lasted three years, and David inquired of Jehovah concerning it (v. 1a).
David found out that the reason for the famine was Saul's breaking of the oath made by Israel with the Gibeonites. The famine was "because of Saul and because of his house of bloodshed, for he put those Gibeonites to death" (v. 1b). David called for the Gibeonites and spoke to them (v. 2a).
For the settlement of the breaking of the oath, the Gibeonites required seven descendants of Saul to be executed (vv. 2b-14a). David commanded the people to fulfill the requirement of the Gibeonites, and God responded to the people's entreaty for the land (v. 14b).
Verses 15 through 22 speak of David's conquest over the Philistines.
In fighting against the Philistines, David became faint, and was in danger of being killed by a giant of the Philistines (vv. 15-16).
Abishai and the people of Israel defeated the Philistines and killed four of their giants (vv. 17-22).
In chapter twenty-two David thanked and praised God in a song.
David spoke the words of this song to Jehovah on the day when Jehovah delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul (v. 1; Psa. 18, title).
This song of his, as his intimate talk to God, became Psalm 18 in the Psalms. The following points are the contents of this psalm.
David praised God as his crag, fortress, Deliverer, rock, shield, horn of his salvation, high tower, refuge, and Savior (2 Sam. 22:2-6).
David went on to thank God for hearing his calling and rescuing him from his calamity by His marvelous doings (vv. 7-20).
Verses 21 through 28 show us that David considered his righteousness, perfection, faithfulness, cleanness, and purity as the cause of God's salvation to him and that he considered God's salvation as a recompense to him.
David also thanked God as his lamp lighting up his darkness (v. 29).
In the remainder of his song, David thanked God whose way is perfect; whose word is tried; who is the unique God, setting him on high places; whose condescending gentleness had made him great and had broadened the places of his steps, strengthening him to subdue his enemies, keeping him as the head of the nations, and making foreigners cringe to him and serve him; and who manifested salvation to His king and executed lovingkindness to His anointed, to David and to his seed (Christ) forever (vv. 30-51).
In 23:1-7 we have the last words of David.
These words are the declaration of David the son of Jesse (v. 1b).
Verse 1c says that these are the words of the man who had been raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the one lovely (pleasant) in the psalms of Israel.
In verse 2 David said that the Spirit of Jehovah spoke through him and that His word was on his tongue.
David went on to declare that the God and the Rock of Israel spoke to him (v. 3a).
Verse 3b says that David, typifying Christ, ruled among men righteously with the fear of God.
Typifying Christ, David was like the light of the morning when the sun rises without clouds, as when the tender grass sprouts up from the earth at the sun's shining after a rain (v. 4). When Christ rules among men righteously with the fear of God, He is like the light of the morning when the sun rises, as when the tender grass sprouts up from the earth at the sun's shining after a rain.
In verse 5a David continued by indicating that his house was so with God, for God had made an eternal covenant with him, ordered in all things and secure. Then David asked, "For all my salvation and all my desire,/Will He not indeed make them grow?" (v. 5b).
David concluded by saying that the wicked will be like thorns to be thrust away and will be burned with fire in their place (vv. 6-7).
Verses 8 through 39 speak of the mighty men of David.
The first three mighty men were Josheb-basshebeth, the chief of the captains, Eleazar, and Shammah (vv. 8-12).
The second three mighty men were those who drew water from the well of Bethlehem for David (vv. 13-23). Abishai, the chief of the three and the most honored among the thirty, became their leader, but he did not attain to the first three (vv. 18-19). Benaiah, more honored than the thirty but not attaining to the first three, was set by David over his guard (vv. 20-23).
Verses 24 through 39 give the names of the thirty mighty men. One of the thirty was Uriah, who was killed by David's conspiracy.
In chapter twenty-four and in 1 Chronicles 21 we have an account of the last sin of David.
Again the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel (2 Sam. 24:1a).
Satan moved David against Israel to number Israel and Judah (vv. 1b-2; 1 Chron. 21:1). Satan's moving David to do this was permitted by God.
Joab disagreed with numbering the people and said to David, "Now may Jehovah your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of my lord the king may see it. But why does my lord the king desire this thing?" (2 Sam. 24:3).
Joab and the captains of the army were forced by David to carry out his commission to number the people (vv. 4-9). The people were numbered throughout the country for nine months and twenty days. The total number of valiant men who drew the sword was 800,000 in Israel and 500,000 in Judah.
David repented and confessed his sin in numbering the people. His heart smote him, and he said to Jehovah, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done; but now, O Jehovah, put away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have acted very foolishly" (v. 10).
In verses 11 through 14 God's punishment came through Gad the prophet, David's seer. God offered David three choices: seven years of famine coming upon the land, fleeing before his adversaries for three months under their pursuing, and three days of pestilence in the land (v. 13). David, in a great strait, chose to fall into the hand of Jehovah, for His compassions are great, and was not willing to fall into the hand of man (v. 14).
Jehovah sent a pestilence in Israel, and 70,000 people died from Dan to Beer-sheba (v. 15).
In verses 16 and 17 we see God's repenting of the harm and David's confession. When the angel stretched forth his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, Jehovah repented of the harm and said to the angel, "It is enough; now hold your hand" (v. 16b). When David saw the angel striking the people, he said, "Behold, it is I who have sinned, and it is I who have acted wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let Your hand, I pray, be against me and against the house of my father" (v. 17).
David built an altar to Jehovah to stay the plague among the people (vv. 18-25). David did this according to God's command through Gad the prophet (vv. 18-19). The altar was built on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite (vv. 20-24), and David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings (v. 25a). Jehovah responded to the entreaty for the land (v. 25b), and the plague was stayed in Israel (v. 25c).
First and 2 Samuel unveil to us, from the beginning, that God's accomplishment of His economy needs man's coordination and cooperation. The first illustration is Hannah, the mother of Samuel. She was seeking God and spontaneously coordinated and cooperated with God. This afforded God the way to replace the waning priesthood under Eli with a new priesthood raised up by God through her son Samuel.
Samuel, the issue of his mother Hannah's coordination and cooperation with God, became a faithful Nazarite according to his mother's desire for God and rendered to God the way to end the corrupted age of the judges and to bring in (1) the age of kingship to replace the governing ministry of the old priesthood and (2) the prophethood to replace the God-speaking ministry of the old priesthood.
David, being a man according to God's heart, afforded God the way to begin the age of kingship for the establishment of His kingdom on the earth for His coming Christ. But how regrettable it was that David, at a crucial time of the evil one's temptation, did not exercise strong control over his lust but indulged in it and committed a gross sin which offended God to the uttermost. This became the factor of the loss of eleven-twelfths of his God-given kingdom, which sowed the seed of Solomon's corruption, issuing in the loss of the God-given kingdom, and the seed of the corruption of his descendants in the kingship, issuing in the loss of the holy land and the captivity of the holy people in their dispersion to the whole world up to the present age.
