Lesson 4 – David Becomes King

¹With the death of Saul, David knew the path was open for him to become king. He remembered that Samuel had anointed him as king when he was a youth. God’s hand was on him, so he wanted to know how God wanted him to proceed in becoming king.

At this time, David still lived in Ziklag, a city given to him by the Philistine king of Gath. He needed to return to his own land now that Saul would no longer seek his life. He couldn’t just show up and say “Remember me? Samuel anointed me many years ago. I’m here to be your king now.” David knew his anointing was from God and he wanted to do this God’s way.

God directed him to Hebron, a city in his home tribe of Judah. That was where God wanted him to go and begin the process.

²David emptied the town of Ziklag and brought everyone with him. His wives, his family and the fighting men that he led. They moved to Hebron and settled in the city and the villages around it.

³While he was in Hebron, David heard the story of the end of king Saul. He knew that Saul died fighting the Philistines. He may have suspected that the Philistines took his body and made a show of it. They did, hanging Saul’s body from the walls of Beth-shan along with his sons who died with him.

The men of Jabesh-Gilead, however, were unwilling to let the king of Israel be dishonored like that. The brave and valiant men of the city snuck up during the night and cut down the bodies. They took them back to their city where they buried them with honor.

David, who held God’s anointing in the highest regard, blessed them for this act of kindness. He recognized that in doing this they honored God, and that met with David’s approval.

⁴Abner was Saul’s cousin. Abner’s father was Ner, the brother of Kish who was Saul’s father (1 Samuel 14:50-51). Abner was Saul’s war leader. The man who led his armies. He was of Saul’s family, but not in the line of succession to be the next king. His interest was in putting Ishbosheth, Saul’s son (and his grandnephew), on the throne to extend the dynasty.

Joab was David’s nephew, the son of his sister Zuriah.  He also served as David’s top military commander along with his brothers Abishai and Asahel.

⁵Abner brought Ishbosheth to Mahanaim and there made him King.  Ishbosheth’s rule is specified to cover Gilead, the Ashurites, Jezreel, Ephriam and Benjamin. 2 Samuel summarizes this as “all Israel” – with the exception of the tribe of Judah where David had been made king.

⁷Since David and Ishbosheth were now rival kings who each wanted to be king over the other’s territory, they were at war with one another. Joab and Abner led the respective armies and fought at various places around the region. In one battle at Gibeon, they each selected 12 champions fight for each of the armies. Unfortunately, the 12 young men paired off and almost immediately killed each other until there were no champions left. That led to a general engagement of the larger armies.

⁸Joab and the army of David won this battle. They lost fewer men and ended up chasing Abner and the army of Ishbosheth away. Finally, as night fell, and the men of Israel were prepared to make a last stand, Joab agreed to stop pursuing and let the men of Israel return back to their homes.

This battle was a microcosm of the larger conflict between David and Ishbosheth. The champions were roughly equal, but overall David was prevailing over his opponent.

⁹While Ishbosheth was the king, Abner did as he pleased and was not accountable to the king. He slept with one of Saul’s concubines – usually a sign of aspirations to the throne. When Ishbosheth called him on it, Abner mocked him and threatened to turn him and the throne of Israel over to David. Ishbosheth didn’t respond to Abner’s threats, and the text said that he was afraid of Abner. This points to Abner being the real power around the throne.

¹⁰Abner made good on his threat to Ishbosheth and approached David about consolidating the kingdom under David’s rule. He was confident that he could bring the other leaders of Israel to select David to be their king. David agreed with this plan and told Abner the only thing he wanted was Michal, Saul’s daughter, to come with him so David could be reunited with his first wife. Abner agreed, even to the point of taking Michal away from her second husband to return to David.

¹¹After Abner met with David and they finalized their plan, David sent Abner back north to arrange the fealty of the rest of the great leaders of Israel. Joab came back from a successful raid and heard that Abner had been there talking to David. Joab was furious, certain that Abner planned to betray David. So Joab chased after Abner and found him just as he was leaving the city. Under the guise of wanting to talk to him, Joab got close and killed him by stabbing him in the belly with a knife.

From Joab’s perspective, Abner couldn’t be trusted, and there was bad blood between them over the death of Asahel, Joab’s brother. Even though Abner hadn’t wanted to kill Asahel, and worried about what it would do to Joab, he’d been forced to at the battle of Gibeon.

¹²Without Abner to protect him, Ishbosheth didn’t last long. The passage says he was dismayed – upset or afraid. He retreated to his house to seek safety. But two of his military leaders came into his house under false pretenses, killed him on his bed while he slept and cut off his head. They brought the head by night to David in Hebron to demonstrate that they had killed Ishbosheth his enemy.

¹³When David heard what they had to say, he accused them of being murderers. They killed a righteous man in his bed. It did not matter that David had been fighting Ishbosheth. What they did was wrong and demanded punishment. So David had them executed for the sin of killing a righteous man.

This was similar to the man who claimed to have killed Saul.  But in that case David killed the man for claiming to have raised his hand against the Lord’s anointed. In this case, punishment was meted out because the act was wicked and sinned against a man who did not deserve to have this happen to him. David followed the Law God had given to Moses that murder demanded the punishment of death.

¹⁴When they leaders of Israel finally came to Hebron to see David, they called him “of the same flesh and bone.”  In other words, David was one of them. He was a Hebrew, and the recalled how he had done such great things while he served Saul. They effectively said that they ought to keep the family together, rather than having 2 kingdoms out of one people.

David reigned as king over Judah in Hebron for 7.5 years. For at least 2 of those years, he was at war with Ishbosheth. After reigning in Judah, he became king over all of Israel for 33 years.