SERIES J --- THE WARRIOR KING --- LESSON 14
ABNER JOINS DAVID
THE MURDER OF ABNER
From 2 Samuel 3:2-39
While David ruled as king at Hebron, he had several sons. They were born in this order: Amnon, whose mother was Ahinoam of Jezreel; Chileab, whose mother was Abigail of Carmel; Absalom, whose mother was Maacah, daughter of King Talmai of Geshur; Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith; Shephatiah, whose mother was Abital; and Ithream, whose mother was Eglah. The war continued between the followers of Saul and the followers of David. Although Saul’s son Ish-bosheth was king, his commander Abner became stronger as time passed, making himself a powerful force among the people. The situation between Abner and Ish-bosheth came to a head one day when Abner made love to Saul’s concubine Rizpah and Ish-bosheth scolded him for it. Abner became furious with Ish-bosheth. ‘What do you think I am a dog?’ he shouted. ‘I have worked hard for you and your father and all your household, keeping you from David’s power. Now you want to pick on me because of that woman. May YHVH punish me if I don’t work just as hard now to see that David becomes king instead of you, so that he can rule the entire kingdom from Dan to Beersheba.’ Ish-bosheth was so afraid of Abner that he didn’t dare to answer him. Abner immediately sent messengers to David to bargain with him. ‘If you will make an agreement with me, I will help you become king over all Israel,’ said Abner. ‘That sounds good to me,’ David replied. ‘But first you must bring me my wife Michal, Saul’s daughter.’ David sent messengers to Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, demanding that Michal be sent to him. ‘I earned my wife Michal by killing a hundred Philistines for King Saul,’ he said. ‘Send her back to me.’ While David was in hiding, Michal’s father, King Saul, had given her in marriage to another man, named Palti. When Ish-bosheth received the message from David, he took Michal away from Palti to give her back to David. Palti followed behind her until they reached Bahurim, weeping as he went. Then Abner ordered him to go back home, so he did. Since Abner had decided to change his loyalty to David, he had been talking with the leaders of Israel about changing their loyalty from Ish-bosheth to David also. ‘You have often talked of making David king of all Israel,’ he reminded them. ‘Let’s do it now! Adonai has said that He will save His people from the Philistines and our other enemies through David.’ Abner had also talked with the leaders of the tribe of Benjamin before he went to see David at Hebron. Twenty men went with Abner and David made a big feast for them. ‘I will go back home and lead the people in a great assembly to make you king of all Israel,’ said Abner. ‘You will become king of all the nation, as you have desired so much.’ David was pleased and sent Abner home in peace. But shortly after Abner and his men left, Joab and his troops returned from a raid, with a large amount of plunder they had captured. When Joab heard that Abner had come to see the king and that the king had sent him away peaceably, he was furious. Rushing in to see David, he demanded, ‘what have you done? Don’t you realize that Abner came here to spy on you and find out all he could so he could attack you?’ Joab left David and sent messengers after Abner, they caught up to him at the well at Sirah and asked him to return. David knew nothing about this. Abner returned and Joab took him aside at the gate of Hebron, as though he had a secret to tell him. Suddenly Joab drew a dagger and stabbed Abner under the fifth rib and killed him. Joab and his brother Abishai avenged the death of their brother Asahel. David was angry when he heard what had happened. ‘Joab and his family are guilty of Abner’s death,’ he proclaimed. ‘I and my kingdom are innocent. Let this deed be punished on Joab’s descendants. May not one of them fail to suffer from open sores, leprosy, a crippling disease, injury by sword or hunger.’ Then David ordered Joab and his people to mourn for Abner. ‘Tear your clothes, put on sackcloth and show that you are mourning for him,’ said David. King David followed Abner’s bier when they buried him at Hebron. At the grave, David and his people wept aloud for Abner. Then David made this lament:
‘Should Abner die as a fool?
Your hands were not bound,
Your feet were not shackled,
And you have fallen before the wicked.’
The people wept again for Abner. When David’s friends urged him to eat, he would not, for he had taken an oath. ‘I will not eat all day long until sunset,’ he said. The people were pleased to see how David mourned for Abner. They realized that he had had no part in his death. ‘Don’t you realize that a great man has fallen today?’ David said to his people. ‘But even though I am YHVH’s chosen king, I cannot punish Joab and his brother, the sons of Zeruiah, for they are too powerful for me. May Adonai Himself punish them for their wickedness.
COMMENTARY
DAVID’S FAMILY
No royal blood flowed in David’s veins. He was the youngest of eight sons born to Jesse, a shepherd from Bethlehem. While his older brothers earned glory as warriors in Saul’s army, David inherited the menial tasks of caring for the family sheep. Yet it was this young shepherd boy whom YHVH chose to succeed Saul on the throne of Israel. The prophet Samuel called him out of the fields in order to anoint him for his royal office. Though David’s origins were humble, he was descended from an old and respected Israelite family. His ancestry could be traced back to the patriarch Jacob. He was a member of the tribe of Judah, descended from Jacob by Leah. To him belonged the promise made by Jacob on his deathbed that the sceptre and ruler’s staff would always remain with Judah. David’s family line came through Pharez, the firstborn of Tamar’s and Judah’s twin sons. He was the father of Hezron and the grandfather of Ram. Ram’s son, Amminadab, fathered Nahshon, a man renowned as a leader among the men of Judah. Nahshon, in turn, was the father of Salmon. Salmon’s son Boaz, was a wealthy farmer from Bethlehem. Through his marriage to the widow Ruth, David inherited Moabite blood. After Boaz’s death, the family estate passed to Obed, who in turn bequeathed it to his son, Jesse. Jesse married and fathered eight sons and two daughters. Although he was proud of his older sons, none was to bring him more honour than his youngest. David reigned as king of Israel for forty years and through his son Solomon, became the ancestor of Yeshua Moshiach.
"If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons: for what son is it whom the father chasteneth not?"
Heb 12
Has anyone else got the “Our bank doesn’t engage in risky investments” speech from their bank teller?
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I have published a short article on what the new TTN logo stands for. You can read it on: https://social.ttn.place/read-....blog/170_what-039-s-
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
John 5:1
John's primary audience wasn't Jewish, but he clearly expected them to have a decent understanding of the Scriptures and Jewish tradition. There's no agreement on which feast this is. Most commentators say Passover, but some say Shavuot and some Sukkot.
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We have a new video up on YouTube today. This morning, I was privileged to interview Autumn Groat from Jerusalem Institute for Justice, about an upcoming 4-week internship for young adults in Israel.
SERIES J --- THE WARRIOR KING --- LESSON 13
KING DAVID
DAVID IS ANOINTED KING OF JUDAH
From 2 Samuel 2:1-3:1
After the death of Saul, David talked with Adonai about going back home. ‘Shall I go back to one of the cities of Judah?’ he asked. ‘Go,’ Adonai replied. ‘Where?’ David asked. ‘To Hebron,’ Adonai Commanded. David took his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel and his men and their families and moved to Hebron. There the leaders of Judah came and anointed David king over their tribe. When David learned that the men of Jabesh-Gilead had buried Saul, he sent messengers to them with a special note from him. ‘May Adonai reward you richly for being faithful to your king and giving him a decent burial,’ he said. ‘May Adonai be faithful to you, as I will be also, for doing this. Now that Saul is dead, I ask you to be my loyal followers and make me your king as the house of Judah has done.’ In the meantime, Saul’s commander Abner, had gone to Mahanaim to make Saul’s son Ish-bosheth king over Israel, including Gilead, Ashuri, Jezreel, Ephraim, the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the territory of Israel. Ish-bosheth was forty years old when he became king and he reigned for two years. David reigned in Hebron over the people of Judah for seven and one-half years. Before long the tension increased between the forces of David and the forces of Ish-bosheth. On one occasion Ish-bosheth’s commander Abner, gathered some of his warriors and started toward David’s territory. David’s commander Joab, gathered some of his warriors and went out to meet them, confronting them at the Pool of Gibeon. Joab’s group sat on one side of the pool and Abner’s group on the other side. At last Abner had a suggestion. ‘Choose some of your brave young warriors, and I will choose an equal number of mine,’ he said. ‘Let them fight it out.’ ‘Good,’ said Joab. ‘Let them stand up and fight.’ Each commander chose twelve of his bravest warriors and they met in mortal combat. They were so equally matched that they grabbed one another by the hair and plunged their swords into one another at the same time. The twelve men of each side fell to the side of the pool dead. For a long time after that the place was called Helkath-hazzurim, [Field of Swords.] This sword play started a battle which ended in the defeat of Abner and the men of Israel who were with him. The three sons of Zeruiah, Joab, Abishai and Asahel, were fighting on David’s side. Asahel ran so fast that he was often compared to a deer running in a field. This fast-running Asahel took off after Abner, who was trying to get away. ‘Is that you, Asahel?’ Abner asked, looking around. ‘It certainly is!’ Asahel answered. ‘You had better get out of here,’ said Abner. ‘Go chase one of the young soldiers and take your plunder from him instead of trying to get me.’ But Asahel wouldn’t listen to him. ‘I’m telling you to go away,’ Abner repeated. ‘I don’t want to kill you. How could I face your brother Joab then?’ But Asahel kept right on coming after Abner. Abner swung around and jabbed the butt end of his spear through Asahel, pushing it through his body until it came out his back. Asahel fell to the ground, dying. As the others of David’s forces came along, they stopped at the place where Asahel had been killed. By this time Joab and Abishai were after Abner. When evening came they had come to the Hill of Ammah, which is before Giah on the road which leads to the desert near Gibeon. The men of Benjamin quickly came to Abner’s aid on the top of the hill. Abner called down to Joab, ‘Are we going to keep on fighting like this, killing each other forever? When will you tell your men to stop chasing their Israelite brothers?’ ‘I had planned to stop before you mentioned it,’ Joab answered. ‘If you had said that this morning, we would have gone home then.’ Then Joab sounded the trumpet to end the battle and his men headed home with him. Abner went back to Mahanaim, marching all night with his men, across the Jordan valley, over the Jordan River and on through Bithron. When Joab counted his men, there were only nineteen missing, in addition to Asahel. But Abner’s forces and the men of Benjamin had hosted about three hundred and sixty men. Joab and his men took Asahel back home and buried him in his father’s grave in Bethlehem. After that, Joab and his men marched through the night and reached Hebron at daybreak. There followed a long period of rivalry between David’s forces and Saul’s. As time passed, Saul’s forces became weaker while David’s became stronger.
COMMENTARY
THE POOL OF GIBEON
Six centuries before Moshiach, the powerful Babylonian army broke down the walls of Gibeon. They threw huge limestone blocks into the city’s water system, filling the Pool of Gibeon to the top with stone and rubble. As the centuries passed, a layer of soil built up over the mouth of the pool until every sign of its location was hidden from view. When archaeologists came to explore the site of ancient Gibeon in 1956, they could see nothing but a crop of tomatoes growing in the field. But the archaeologists cleared away the soil and began to dig deeper. They discovered traces of the old city wall and a circle of stones set close inside and around its perimeter. Thinking they had discovered a shallow cistern; the diggers began the hard work of clearing the pool. They filled many carts with loads of rubble, always expecting to reach the bottom with the next spade full. They dug deeper and deeper until the walls of the pit were higher than a man’s head. At that point they uncovered a winding stone staircase that circled around the inside wall of the pool. Almost five feet wide, each step had been carved out of the rock, leaving a low row of stone handrails along the inside edge. As they passed baskets of fill from hand to hand up the spiral staircase, the workmen measured the depth of the pool by the number of steps they had uncovered. Forty-two were unearthed before they struck the bottom of the pool. But though they had dug down almost four stories, the stone stairs did not stop at the floor of the pit. They continued to go down through a tunnel that circled deeper into the earth. Five stories below the floor of the pit the diggers broke into an underground chamber flooded by a pool of water. Tests showed that the spring water was as pure in the twentieth century as it had been thousands of years before.
The nation of Israel is as eternal as the land and sea. God will never utterly reject the people of Israel, including a remnant of the physical descendants of Jacob. Likewise, Jerusalem is God's city, the city of David. It does not and cannot belong to Allah, and all of the places that have been made unclean by false gods will eventually be redeemed by and for the true God, YHVH.
Jeremiah 31:35-40
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