Village Church Annandale (Sydney) sermons

In the battles of life Jesus is not absent from the fray.  The victories in 2 Samuel 21 were won in David’s name. But David was weary and probably old. And it wasn’t safe for him to go lest the lamp be quenched. And yet as Dr Woodhouse reminded us, Jesus is the light of the world,  and there is no possibility of this light ever being quenched. 

2 Samuel 21:15 Once again there was a battle between the Philistines and Israel. David went down with his men to fight against the Philistines, and he became exhausted. 16 And Ishbi-Benob, one of the descendants of Rapha, whose bronze spearhead weighed three hundred shekels[b] and who was armed with a new sword, said he would kill David. 17 But Abishai son of Zeruiah came to David’s rescue; he struck the Philistine down and killed him. Then David’s men swore to him, saying, “Never again will you go out with us to battle, so that the lamp of Israel will not be extinguished.”

18 In the course of time, there was another battle with the Philistines, at Gob. At that time Sibbekai the Hushathite killed Saph, one of the descendants of Rapha.

19 In another battle with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jair[c] the Bethlehemite killed the brother of[d] Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.

20 In still another battle, which took place at Gath, there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot—twenty-four in all. He also was descended from Rapha. 21 When he taunted Israel, Jonathan son of Shimeah, David’s brother, killed him.

22 These four were descendants of Rapha in Gath, and they fell at the hands of David and his men.

After the execution of the seven sons of Saul, the scene becomes (if possible) even more heartbreaking, as we see the mother of two of the sons, protect the dead son’s decaying bodies from predators. 

We see the impact of sin, is not just felt by the individual, but by those around. 

Then as David hears of Rizpah’s actions he attempts to give a proper burial to not just Saul and Jonathan but also the executed descendants… we are reminded of the inadequacy of our human attempts to deal with sin. 

And we are prompted to wonder again at the phenomenal reconciliation of Justice and Love at the cross of Jesus Christ. 

2 Samuel 21:10 Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest till the rain poured down from the heavens on the bodies, she did not let the birds touch them by day or the wild animals by night. 11 When David was told what Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, Saul’s concubine, had done, 12 he went and took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh Gilead. (They had stolen their bodies from the public square at Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hung them after they struck Saul down on Gilboa.) 13 David brought the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from there, and the bones of those who had been killed and exposed were gathered up.

14 They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the tomb of Saul’s father Kish, at Zela in Benjamin, and did everything the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer in behalf of the land.

David authorises the slaughter of seven sons of Saul. He does this without the endorsement of the Lord. His actions are not denounced nor recorded as required by the Lord. But still we are left struggling. Dr John Woodhouse suggests we resist the urge to resolve the problems of this account neatly.

2 Samuel 21:3-9 How shall I make atonement so that you will bless the Lord’s inheritance?”

4 The Gibeonites answered him, “We have no right to demand silver or gold from Saul or his family, nor do we have the right to put anyone in Israel to death.”

“What do you want me to do for you?” David asked.

5 They answered the king, “As for the man who destroyed us and plotted against us so that we have been decimated and have no place anywhere in Israel,

 6 let seven of his male descendants be given to us to be killed and their bodies exposed before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul—the Lord’s chosen one.”

So the king said, “I will give them to you.”

7 The king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath before the Lord between David and Jonathan son of Saul. 8 But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, whom she had borne to Saul, together with the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab,[a] whom she had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite. 9 He handed them over to the Gibeonites, who killed them and exposed their bodies on a hill before the Lord. All seven of them fell together; they were put to death during the first days of the harvest, just as the barley harvest was beginning.

Dr John Woodhouse notes in his opening paragraph this section that it is one of the bible’s most difficult stories. 

It is not so much difficult to understand as difficult to hear and accept. The action involves a small number of people.

But - in Dr Woodhouse’s words - it is an account of immense personal suffering, unimaginable grief and what feels like intolerable unfairness. It is a story that will cause most sensitive readers to wonder what is going on.  And our greatest difficult is in God’s role in what happened.

There are four sections to the story.

The famine.

The conversation.

The execution

And the surprise. 

It is so emotionally gut wrenching and complex we are going to deal with it over several days.  Just the first section today.  The first two verses.  The famine. 

2Samuel 21:1-2 During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so David sought the face of the Lord. The Lord said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.”

2 The king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not a part of Israel but were survivors of the Amorites; the Israelites had sworn to spare them, but Saul in his zeal for Israel and Judah had tried to annihilate them.) 

We see at the end of 2 Samuel 20 a table of the king's cabinet. But how different it is to the corresponding table in 2 Samuel 8, when David hadn't sinned, and just after the blessing of God in 2 Samuel 7.

There's no statement at the start that David is ruling all Israel with Justice and Righteousness. And now Joab's presence in the table is a sign of weakness, and there's an official in charge of forced labor, which will prove the undoing of the kingdom in generations to come.

2 Samuel 20: 23 Joab commanded the whole army of Israel;

Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and Pelethites;

24 Adoram[e] was over forced labor;

Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was court historian;

25 Sheva was court secretary;

Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

26 and in addition, Ira the Jairite was David’s priest.

There's another terrible moment in today's bible reading. David's ex army general Joab murders David's new army general Amasa, in front of the troops, while they are out on a mission on behalf of David.

It is hard for the troops to swallow, that this isn't a full blow insurrection, especially when some of them have to walk over/walk past Amasa's writhing dying body on the ground.

David's kingdom will never recover. His sin has caused it all to come unstuck. But remarkably, wonderfully, the promise of God still stands. And we look forward to the kingdom of Jesus that can never be shaken.

2 Samuel 20:3-13  When David came to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to take care of the palace and placed them under guard. He provided for them, but he was not intimate with them. They were confined until the day of their death, living as widows.

4 The king said to Amasa, “Summon the men of Judah to me within three days and be here yourself.” 5 Amasa went to summon Judah, but he took longer than the time allotted him. 6 So David said to Abishai, “Sheba son of Bichri will do more harm to us than Absalom. Take your lord’s soldiers and pursue him, or he will find fortified cities and elude us.”[b]

7 So Joab’s men, the Cherethites, the Pelethites, and all the warriors marched out under Abishai’s command;[c] they left Jerusalem to pursue Sheba son of Bichri. 8 They were at the great stone in Gibeon when Amasa joined them. Joab was wearing his uniform and over it was a belt around his waist with a sword in its sheath. As he approached, the sword fell out. 9 Joab asked Amasa, “Are you well, my brother?” Then with his right hand Joab grabbed Amasa by the beard to kiss him. 10 Amasa was not on guard against the sword in Joab’s hand, and Joab stabbed him in the stomach with it and spilled his intestines out on the ground. Joab did not stab him again, and Amasa died.

Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bichri. 11 One of Joab’s young men had stood over Amasa saying, “Whoever favors Joab and whoever is for David, follow Joab!” 12 Now Amasa had been writhing in his blood in the middle of the highway, and the man had seen that all the troops stopped. So he moved Amasa from the highway to the field and threw a garment over him because he realized that all those who encountered Amasa were stopping. 13 When he was removed from the highway, all the men passed by and followed Joab to pursue Sheba son of Bichri.

In 2 Samuel 20, we see two aspects to David’s Kingdom.  John Woodhouse reminds us that on the one hand God chose David and make him king over his old testament people, Israel.

God’s promise to establish his kingdom forever was clearly and explicitly made to David. The king in God’s promised kingdom would be a son of David (that was 2Samuel 7:12-16). And David’s own kingdom displayed something of the character of God’s kingdom. 

But on the other hand, as Dr Woodhouse notes, David’s kingdom was not like the promised kingdom. David - like me and you - is deeply flawed. His failings made his kingdom unstable.  He was not wise, powerful or good enough to establish a permanent kingdom of goodness, love and justice. His kingdom eventually displayed the weakness of all human communities.

We long for the day when God’s king will rule truely in heaven and we cry with the writer of Revelation, Come Lord Jesus. 

2 Samuel 20:1 Now a wicked man, a Benjaminite named Sheba son of Bichri, happened to be there. He blew the ram’s horn and shouted:

We have no portion in David,
no inheritance in Jesse’s son.
Each man to his tent, Israel!

2 So all the men of Israel deserted David and followed Sheba son of Bichri, but the men of Judah from the Jordan all the way to Jerusalem remained loyal to their king.

3 When David came to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to take care of the palace and placed them under guard. He provided for them, but he was not intimate with them. They were confined until the day of their death, living as widows.