This short chapter contains another sad page in the history of the children of Israel. Ishbosheth, Saul's son, who had by this time been recognized as king over all the tribes of Israel, except that of Judah, for something like two years and a half, was much depressed at the news of the murder of Abner upon whom he depended. It had been Abner's work, and not Ish-bosheth's to put the latter on the throne of Israel (chapter 2:8), and we perhaps rightly judge that Saul's son was not a man of strong character. Those who owned him as king were troubled, when Abner was dead, and rightly so, for the strong man of the kingdom was gone.
It was God's purpose, as we have before noticed, that David, and not a son of Saul, should rule over this people, and that end would have been reached by His means and in His own time. Instead, another shocking murder is committed, and that not by a jealous rival, as when Joab took the life of Abner, but by professed friends and supporters of the house of Saul, captains of Ish-bosheth's soldiers.
Like the Amalekite of the first chapter, these murderers thought to be rewarded for the news they brought to David. But David, again taught of God, though he had failed in regard to Joab, refused to consider his personal gain, and commanded that the two Benjamites should be put to death and their bodies exposed to public view.
The five year old son of Jonathan, Mephibosheth, crippled by a fall at the time that the Philistines defeated and killed Saul and his sons,—Jonathan, Abinadab and Malchi-shua,—is mentioned in the fourth verse. God had him marked out for blessing, showing how divine mercy can work in the midst of evil. The ninth chapter brings Mephibosheth before us again.