2 Sam. 4
This chapter is the last one that records the preludes to David's reign. Satan, the seducer, is not discouraged in his evil work against the Lord's anointed and, driven back the first time, does not fear to attack again. In 2 Sam. 1 he had offered the crown to David through an Amalekite. According to man's thoughts it would have been quite natural to accept it, but David cannot accept any gift whatsoever from the hand of an enemy. His faith triumphs. He punishes him who "was in his own sight a messenger of good." "I took hold of him," David says, "and slew him in Ziklag, who thought that I would have given him a reward for his tidings" (2 Sam. 4:1010When one told me, saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking to have brought good tidings, I took hold of him, and slew him in Ziklag, who thought that I would have given him a reward for his tidings: (2 Samuel 4:10) KJV). Thwarted thus, the enemy is not afraid to take the offensive again. Meanwhile David had received the rule over Judah from the hand of God (2 Sam. 2). But with regard to the rule over Israel (2 Sam. 3) he had been tempted by Abner's propositions, proffered insidiously so that the king was less prepared to resist them. We have seen God intervening and delivering him, using Joab's iniquity to this end. Thus the covenant with the eleven tribes, the fruit of man's planning, is brought to nothing. Not from this quarter is David to obtain the crown.
Baanah and Rechab bring Ishbosheth's head to the king and by their crime open the way for him to reign over all Israel: "Behold the head of Ishbosheth the son of Saul, thine enemy who sought thy life; and Jehovah has given to my lord the king to be avenged this day of Saul and of his seed" (2 Sam. 4:88And they brought the head of Ish-bosheth unto David to Hebron, and said to the king, Behold the head of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul thine enemy, which sought thy life; and the Lord hath avenged my lord the king this day of Saul, and of his seed. (2 Samuel 4:8)). Instead of accepting their offer David, holy in his ways, judges the evil, hates it, and separates himself from it.
The arm of flesh was indispensable to Ishbosheth. When Abner was murdered "his hands were enfeebled, and all Israel was troubled" (2 Sam. 4:11And when Saul's son heard that Abner was dead in Hebron, his hands were feeble, and all the Israelites were troubled. (2 Samuel 4:1)), for the son of Saul had "a great man" to support his throne, and everything collapsed when this support failed him. Such was not the case with David. Experience had led him to know the value of man and the value of God. This experience, it is true, is often repeated in a believer's life. When every natural support fails, even that given by God Himself, we are found in most absolute weakness. This is a lesson we must learn, for as Christians we often place our confidence in foundations that can be shaken. Then our faith is put to the test, and it becomes a matter of knowing whether God is a sufficient resource for us.
Thus we experience what is mentioned in Psa. 30:66And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. (Psalm 30:6): "As for me, I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved." David was a man of faith who had learned many things during the trials of the First Book of Samuel. But when he wrote the thirtieth Psalm as the "dedication-song of the house," all the experiences of this First Book were already past. "Jehovah, by Thy favor Thou hadst made my mountain to stand strong" (v. 7). This is not Mount Zion, the mountain of God, which cannot be shaken, but here he is speaking of himself and the human resources that are his from God. If these resources fail us, what will our state of soul be? Will our hands be feeble like those of Ishbosheth, or will we enjoy settled peace and firm assurance? Alas! how often we must reply: "Thou didst hide Thy face; I was troubled" (Psa. 30:77Lord, by thy favor thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. (Psalm 30:7)).
Whatever our difficulties may be, we must watch that they do not influence our state of soul. If faith is active, we will refuse to seek help in external circumstances. Thus David says in Psa. 11:11<<To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.>> In the Lord put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain? (Psalm 11:1): "In Jehovah have I put my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?" When we go through trials the world tells us: Seek your help in the mountain; use the resources which you have laid up for yourself in this world. Faith answers with David: No, for there is no foundation here on earth which will not be destroyed, but "Jehovah is in the temple of His holiness; Jehovah-His throne is in the heavens" (Psa. 11:44The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. (Psalm 11:4)); that is where I take refuge.
At Ziklag David in anguish "strengthened himself in Jehovah his God" (1 Sam. 30:66And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. (1 Samuel 30:6)). Ishbosheth did not know this resource. In those happy days when God's favor gives stability and strength to our mountain we must carefully and daily seek the true source of our strength. Then if difficulties arise we will not be like fearful little birds carried about, one knows not where, by the stormy wind; but we will know how to seek our refuge in an evil day in the One who gathers His chicks under His wings, in whose shadow we will rejoice! (Psa. 63:77Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. (Psalm 63:7)).
By murdering Ishbosheth Rechab and Baanah blaze a path for David to the throne. We are faced with the question whether he had the right to take advantage of the situation. A more exercised spiritual sensibility would have caused him to refuse the covenant that Abner had proposed to him in the preceding chapter. Here he understands that not only can he not make use of the human assistance which is being offered to him, but that he must also refuse it as being offered by Satan. This is what we must do too when the world offers to help us.
This history shows us that God uses everything to accomplish His designs of grace toward David: Abner, Joab, Rechab and Baanah. He disapproves of them, certainly, but His providence causes even evil itself to contribute to the furtherance of His ways. Evil will be judged, but it will have served to advance God's counsels. Is not the cross the supreme proof of the way He works?
And now, if God uses these means do I have the right to use them? In no way, for God is sovereign and I am not. He may make use of evil, even of Satan himself, as He will; I am a creature, dependent upon Him, and I must obey. Obedience causes me to walk in the path that God's Word reveals to me, a path of holiness separating me from evil and from the world. When the world offers me its services I refuse them, for I have to do with God. "As Jehovah liveth, who has redeemed my soul out of all distress..." (2 Sam. 4:99And David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said unto them, As the Lord liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity, (2 Samuel 4:9)). Such is the One in whom I trust. I will receive nothing from the world because I depend on the Lord.
At a time of revival not long ago (a revival spoiled from its very beginning by unscriptural doctrines which are still bearing their sad fruit today, but a revival in which God nevertheless worked in converting souls) someone asked a certain servant of God, Why do you not associate yourself in this activity? Isn't it evident that God is at work here through His Spirit? The servant answered in these words which, no doubt, were not understood: "The Spirit blows where He will, but I must obey." This answer illustrates what we have just said. God is sovereign; He alone may use evil, but I have no option but to withdraw from evil.
This mixing of good and evil is like a stream flowing with polluted water. Shall I drink of this water that may poison me? I cannot, but this stream is absorbed by the river into which it flows. The river is a great waterway receiving water from the muddiest of streams and bearing them to the sea. So it is with the ways of God; His ways make use of the most unlikely elements to feed the vast sea of His counsels. The sea engulfs and deposits in its depths—in other words, judges—every impure element so that nothing but pure water rises from the sea to the sky to which the sun draws it. This is the work of the sea and the sun and not our work.
But David might have reasoned like this: By allowing this murder, God providentially is giving the throne to me; I am therefore free to accept the throne at the hands of these murderers. He would have been deceived, for even God's providence may place us in circumstances where our faith is put to the test in order that we may refuse to accept the things set before us. We have an example of this in Moses at Pharaoh's court. Providence had not led him here so that he might accept this position and enjoy "the pleasures of sin for a season," but that when the moment was come he might separate himself from it by faith. Thus his faith was exercised and, confronted with the alternative of adoption by Pharaoh's daughter on the one hand or suffering affliction with the people of God on the other, he did not hesitate to choose the latter.
Likewise here to David the circumstances seem to open the way to the throne that God wanted to give him. With indignation David refuses any complicity with evil and orders the execution of the guilty men. These lessons are very important for us, for we are continually faced with the same principles. If God puts us in an easy position here on earth it is not His purpose to establish us in it. Rather He wants our faith to learn to break these bonds and, freed from hindrances, joyfully leave them to walk before the Lord. May we then know when evil is presented to us in any form whatsoever, to judge it like David did, and openly refuse it and have no fellowship with it.
David's act at the end of this chapter thus was according to God's mind. "David commanded his young men, and they slew them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up over the pool in Hebron" (2 Sam. 4:1212And David commanded his young men, and they slew them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up over the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth, and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron. (2 Samuel 4:12)). David, having authority, was responsible to exercise it in holiness and righteousness in order that this terrible chastisement would serve as an example.
This chapter offers us still another instruction that is useful and should not be omitted, for despite his personal experiences David remains a type of Christ until 2 Sam. 11. The event I am speaking of here is that before obtaining kingly rights over all the tribes David is misunderstood by all: no one appreciates his motives.
Beeroth was a city of the Gibeonites with whom the people of Israel had once made a covenant (Josh. 9). Beeroth was considered a part of Benjamin (2 Sam. 4:22And Saul's son had two men that were captains of bands: the name of the one was Baanah, and the name of the other Rechab, the sons of Rimmon a Beerothite, of the children of Benjamin: (for Beeroth also was reckoned to Benjamin: (2 Samuel 4:2)), the tribe of Saul, David's ardent enemy. "The Beerothites had fled to Gittaim, and were sojourners there until this day" (2 Sam. 4:33And the Beerothites fled to Gittaim, and were sojourners there until this day.) (2 Samuel 4:3)). The cause of their flight is not definitely stated, but this event is presented in relation to Baanah and Rechab, the sons of a Beerothite. We may conclude the account of their flight to be anticipatory, and that it did not actually take place until after the judgment which David pronounced on these murderers. At that time all the Beerothites seem to have become frightened and fled to Gittaim.
This is because these men did not know David. They supposed that the king entertained a desire for vengeance and would seek to satisfy it by holding them jointly liable for the murder committed by two of Beeroth's citizens. If they had known David they would rather have sought refuge with him by entrusting themselves to his grace. Theirs is the attitude of the world toward the Lord Jesus. Being unable to trust in a heart which they do not know and fearing His judgment, the world prefers to flee rather than to enter into contact with Him. In the parable of the talents the servant who hid his talent in the earth likewise misjudged this master so full of grace. When called into His presence to give account of his stewardship, he said to him, "My lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man" (Matt. 25:2424Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: (Matthew 25:24)).
In 2 Sam. 4:44And Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son that was lame of his feet. He was five years old when the tidings came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel, and his nurse took him up, and fled: and it came to pass, as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth. (2 Samuel 4:4) an event following Saul's death takes us yet further back into the past. Mephibosheth's nurse had fled, carrying this five-year-old child in her arms. This story is the same as that of the Beerothites: the very same misapprehension of the son of Jesse, the very same feelings so natural to man's heart. David, learning of the death of Saul and Jonathan, had mourned and lamented over them, but it does not enter this poor woman's mind that he might not execute vengeance on his friend's son. She flees rather than running to the one who had sworn to Jonathan and even to Saul that he would not wipe out their descendants. She does not trust in David's love and sure word any more than sinners trust in the grace and word of Christ. The result was that Mephibosheth "fell, and became lame." David finds him later, afflicted and lame as a consequence of the lack of faith of this woman who had not taken advantage of the favorable moment to entrust her burden to the hands of Jonathan's friend.
Rechab and Baanah are also ignorant of David's character, of this man whose heart rejects evil. They run headlong to their ruin because they did not properly know the holiness of the Lord's anointed. They think that they can approach him in their sin without David abhorring it, and without him thrusting aside these hands defiled by the blood of a righteous man.
In fact, only His own can know the true David and can approach Him in all confidence, being assured that His mercy endures forever and His promises are sure.
Thy words, always faithful,
Lord, will never pass away,
And our soul which believes them
Henceforth has nothing to fear!