Samuel II: Chapters 1 to 6

Last time, Samuel I ended with the death of Saul and his sons.  Now for the next book.

CHAPTER 1

The second book of Samuel picks up right where the last one left off.  Saul dies at the end of Samuel I, and at the beginning of Samuel II, David finds out about it.  A survivor comes to tell David of Saul’s demise, and upon pressing we learn the messenger played a role in it.  Apparently, Saul’s decision to fall on his sword wasn’t successful.  This guy found him leaning on it, but still very much alive.  Saul begged for a mercy killing and the messenger obliged.  After recounting this story, he gives David the crown of Saul.

Well, David is horrified.  Not only is there the typical mourning, but on top of that, he’s horrified this man played a role in Saul’s death.  In fact, David immediately orders the messenger to be killed.  From one perspective, this is very harsh.  It was a mercy killing, after all.  But it is in keeping with David’s overall philosophy.  Twice he had a chance to kill Saul and twice he refused.  He said then that one mustn’t kill God’s anointed.  So its fair of him to stand by that approach here.  It’s all good politics, for David is now God’s anointed and he wants to make it clear that no one should kill the anointed.

David then gives a song of mourning, and is often the case with songs, this likely does go back centuries.  The song mentions Jonathan by name as a good friend of David, so I wonder if this isn’t the inspiration for some of the David-Jonathan stories that appeared earlier.

CHAPTER 2

Mourning is nice, but David needs a plan.  He asks God if he should go to Judah, and God says sure. Savvy confidant, that God.  Judah is David’s tribe and by far the biggest one in Israel.  Now that the king and the king’s sons are dead, David needs to rally to his base first in order to become the king.  Sure enough, the people of Judah anoint David as their king.

But isn’t not all smooth sailing.  While the end of Samuel I said Saul’s sons died with him, it apparently just meant the ones who went into battle with him.  He has a son called Ishbaal (well, here he’s Ishbaal, apparently elsewhere he’s called Ishoosheth.  Confusing.) still around.  Saul’s old general, Abner (AKA, Saul’s cousin and thus the uncle of Ish-whoever) has him anointed by the people of Benjamin (their native tribe).

Well, it looks like Israel is about to come undone so soon.  They meet in combat and then a rather pathetic incident occurs. David’s main general is named Joab, and his brother Asahel is fighting on his side.  Asahel pursues Abner in battle and though Abner tells him to turn in another direction, he keeps coming at Abner.  Thus they meet and Abner slays Asahel, brother of the opposing general.  This will matter a lot more next chapter.

Despite that, David’s side is winning big.  Judah is a far bigger tribe than Benjamin, after all.  Then Abner, with his forces on the verge of complete destruction, does something brilliant.  He calls out to Joab to ask for a truce, saying that if Joab wins it’ll only lead to bitterness.  He’s got a good point.  David’s side can’t just win the war, but also win the peace to really reign over all.  Abner even says, “How long before you tell the people to stop pursuing their brothers?”  Wow – that’s a very dangerous way of putting it.  He just might inflame Joab that much more to fight.  But instead, it does allow for a truce.

So a truce is had.  Judah had lost 20 men in battle and Benjamin 360.  So Abner’s plea really was a Hail Mary play.  Either he gets a truce or his side will be wiped out.  As it happens, the truce is just that – just a truce.  The war will drag on.

CHAPTER 3

The first verse here tells us it’s a long war.  But a possible break in the fighting occurs when Abner has a falling out with Ishbaal.  Apparently, Ishbaal accuses Abner of being this generation’s Reuben – he slept with the concubine of the late Saul.  Abner is infuriated by the accusation and leaves Ishbaal.  Yeah, this is bad for Ishbaal.  Ultimately, all Ishbaal really has going for him is his claim as Saul’s son.  Beyond that, he isn’t much of a leader or a fighting.  Abner is the fighter.  (And as such, I wonder if he did sleep with the concubine, just to prove his position).

Well, Abner begins a backdoor channel with David, and David is happy to have Abner on board.  He’s no dummy.  Davis has just one request – his wife Michal, daughter of Saul, must be delivered to him.  They haven’t seen each other since she helped David escape. Abner agrees and sends for her.  Paltiel, the husband Saul gave her after David left, goes with, but Abner isn’t having it.  He tells Paltiel to go home and that’s that.  He’s odd man out in this love triangle. 

Abner and David meet and it goes well.  They hit it off, but things immediately go badly once they part.  Joab shows up from a raid and learns that Abner has been there.  He makes a big show of how that’s a terrible idea and Abner is just here to trick David.  But of course Abner is the man who killed Joab’s brother last chapter.  After yelling at David, Joab has messengers sent, telling Abner to return.  (You can see where this is going, right?) Abner returns, and Joab first plays nice.  But he pulls Abner off to the side as if he’s going to tell him something in private.  Instead, he shanks him.  Really, though, Abner should’ve seen this coming.

Speaking of should’ve-seen-it-coming, there’s David.  He knew Joab was enraged, but didn’t do any follow up after Joab screamed at him about Abner.  I guess David figured that since Abner was away it was all over.  Let Joab scream himself out and move on.

But now David is in a pickle.  He invited the opposing general to his place to talk, and he was murdered by David’s general.  But David handles it perfectly.  He does all the right mourning, expresses all the right horror, and all the bystanders come to agree – David wasn’t responsible.  Well, I agree he’s not responsible in the sense that he planned for this or wanted it to happen.  But it was his general and he new how upset Joab was at Abner. 

This reminds me of the Summerdale Scandal in Chicago. In the early 1960s, a group of Chicago police officers were found to be involved in some breaking-and-entering theft.  Chicago can accept some corruption, but this was too much.  Daley got ahead of it, though, and became the biggest backer for police reform.  He had a blue ribbon committee go for the best possible candidate, and he hired their recommendation and let the new chief do whatever he wanted, even if it cost the Democratic Machine some patronage jobs.  Daley became seen as a supporter of reform – a scandal that could have badly wounded him turned into something that made him look good.  That’s what David did with the death of Abner.

CHAPTER 4

This is a short chapter, but it basically ends the Israeli Civil War.  Ishbaal freaks out when he hears about Abner’s death, just proving my earlier point that all he has going for him is his lineage.  He’s not really a leader himself.

Soon, two people come upon him when he’s asleep and kill him, cutting off his head.  The killers bring the head to David, expecting a big reward, I guess.  Clearly, they never read Chapter 1 of Samuel II.  David notes how he had Saul’s killer executed, and then says what happened here is much worse.  So he has them killed – but only after cutting off their hands and feet. 

CHAPTER 5

Time for everyone to make nice. The supporters of Ishbaal tell David that he should be everyone’s leader.  David is more than happy to agree. The Bible says that David was king for 40 years, from age 30 to age 70.  The first seven and a half years were in Hebron during the civil war and rest will be in Jerusalem.

Speaking of Jerusalem, David can reign there because he attacks it and takes it over.  Making it his capital is a savvy move.  He’s the leader of 12 tribes, and where he puts his capital can give some clout to the tribe whose land it is.  Up until not, his capital has been in Hebron, which belongs to his tribe of Judah.  That’s the biggest tribe with nearly half of the people, and putting the capital in their land can create resentment from the other tribes.  After all, there was just a lengthy civil war about who will be king, so David better handle himself well.  So put it in Jerusalem – which isn’t affiliated with any tribe, and so a nice compromise.  By similar logic, the US capital was place on the banks of the Potomac River in Washington DC, a place that hadn’t existed until then – and was made separate from any state.

There’s a weird little bit to this story, though.  Before he attacks Jerusalem, the Jebusite inhabitants mock David and his men, saying: “You shall not enter here: the blind and the lame will drive you away!”  Oh, burn!  You’re no match for our blind and lame.  So David decrees that the blind and the lame are to be his personal enemies, and not allowed to enter his palace.  Hey – wait!  That’s just wrong!  They were just bystanders to the taught. It ain’t like there was a battalion of blind ready to fight you.  That’s mean.  Keep in mind that much of the Bible has edicts about protecting the handicapped and blind.  So here’s David being a dick to them.

One last thing about the conquest of Jerusalem: rather famously, David gets inside by going through the city’s water shaft.  Good move.

After taking Jerusalem, David beats up the Philistines to further solidify his control of the throne.  He keeps asking God for advice in the campaign.  First God tells David to attack and he does successfully.  The second time God tells David to sneak around behind the Philistines and attack them there.  It also works, but I get a kick out of God giving not jus yes/no responses, but formulating military policy.

CHAPTER 6

Now that he’s clearly top dog, time to celebrate!  David has the Ark of the Lord brought to Jerusalem.  David is stoked and dances with abandon in the streets.  It’s a happy occasion – until it stops being happy really suddenly.  The cart carrying the ark starts to tip, and a man puts his hand on it to steady the ark – and dies on the spot.  The Bible says the Lord was angry at him for touching it but – the hell? He was trying to help!  It wasn’t his fault the thing was tipping on the road.  It’s not the intention, though, it’s the principle. This is God’s ark and don’t mess with hit.

David is so taken aback that he assumes that this means he shouldn’t take it to his palace.  Instead, he leaves it outside town with someone named Obed-edom the Gittite.  But then God starts favoring the Gittite, and David yanks the ark back.  That’s a bit comic.  David doesn’t come off too well there.  But Gittite is just a pawn in the story.

David again takes up his manic dancing ways, and that really pisses off Michal, his first wife.  Maybe she loved him when they were young and first married.  Maybe she loved him and helped him escape back in the day.  But she can’t stand what she sees.  She yells at David for exposing himself in the street like any commoner would.  (Unclear: by expose did she mean David’s dancing showed a bit too much of himself, or just that it seemed crass for a king to act so publicly like that?)  Regardless of which she meant, she hates what she sees.  Whatever love they once had is now gone. David tells her to get bent and she dies childless.  In the background, I wonder how she got along with her second husband while David was in exile.  Maybe she loved him, too, and harbors anger at David for breaking them up.  Or maybe she just thinks he acted in far too lowbrow a manner.  

Click here for the next installment: Chapters 7 to 12 of Samuel II.