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2 Samuel 4

¹And when Saul's son heard that Abner was dead in Hebron, his hands were feeble, and all the Israelites were troubled.

²And 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:

³And the Beerothites fled to Gittaim, and were sojourners there until this day.)

⁴And 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.

⁵And the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, went, and came about the heat of the day to the house of Ishbosheth, who lay on a bed at noon.

⁶And they came thither into the midst of the house, as though they would have fetched wheat; and they smote him under the fifth rib: and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped.

⁷For when they came into the house, he lay on his bed in his bedchamber , and they smote him, and slew him, and beheaded him, and took his head, and gat them away through the plain all night.

⁸And they brought the head of Ishbosheth unto David to Hebron, and said to the king, Behold the head of Ishbosheth 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.

⁹And 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,

¹⁰When 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:

¹¹How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed? shall I not therefore now require his blood of your hand, and take you away from the earth?

¹²And 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 Ishbosheth, and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron.

on 2 Samuel 4

David Watches And Waits

In order to govern,” said Napoleon on his deathbed, “the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.” If this statement is true, then David was a very effective leader during the seven and a half years he ruled in Hebron. While Joab led the army of Judah, David watched and waited, knowing that the Lord would one day open the way for him to reign as king over all Israel. God called David not only to be the king of His people, but also their shepherd and spiritual leader. David had to wait on God’s timing while patiently enduring the consequences of the selfish ambitions and reckless actions of leaders who were motivated by pride and hatred. David learned to build with the materials at hand and to trust God to use disappointments to the advantage of his people.

Ish-Bosheth the loser

If David thought he was weak because of the behavior of his nephews, he should have considered the situation of Ish-Bosheth following the death of Abner. David was at least a great warrior and a gifted leader, while Ish-Bosheth was a mere puppet in the hands of his general, and now the general was dead. The people of the tribes in his kingdom knew that Abner’s death meant the end of the reign of their king, and they no doubt expected a swift invasion by David and his army. The common people knew nothing of David’s intentions or of his recent meeting with Abner. It was a day of distress for Ish-Bosheth and his people.

The account of Baanah and Rechab reminds us of the Amalekite in 2 Samuel 1, the man who claimed he killed Saul. These two men were minor officers in Abner’s army who thought they could earn rewards and promotion from David if they killed Ish-Bosheth, and like the Amalekite, they were wrong. The only living heir to Saul’s throne was a crippled twelve-yearold boy named Mephibosheth, so if Baanah and Rechab killed the king, the way would be open for David to gain the throne and unite the nation. (We will meet Mephibosheth again in 9:1–13; 16:1–4; 19:24–30; and 21:7–8.)

Their excuse for entering the king’s house was to secure grain for their men, and while the king was asleep and unprotected, they killed him. If the murder of Abner was a heinous crime, this murder was even worse, for the man’s only “crime” was that he was the son of Saul! He had broken no law and injured no person, and he wasn’t given opportunity to defend himself. His murderers didn’t even show respect to his dead body, for they beheaded him so they could take the evidence to David and receive their reward. Even worse, the two murderers told David that the Lord had avenged him!

David’s answer made it clear that at no time in his career had he ever broken God’s commandment by murdering somebody in order to accomplish his purposes. The Lord had watched over him and protected him during ten years of exile and now more than seven years as king in Hebron. As when Saul and Abner died, David made it very clear that he was not involved in any way. It would have been very easy for David’s enemies to start slanderous rumors that the king had engineered both deaths in order to clear the way for ascending the throne of Israel.

At the king’s command, his guards killed the two confessed murderers, cut off their hands and feet, and hung their corpses up as evidence of the king’s justice. To mutilate a corpse in this way and then expose it publicly was the ultimate in humiliation (Deut. 21:22–23). David had the head of Ish-Bosheth buried in Hebron in the sepulchre of Abner, for they were relatives.

The four “kings” that Paul wrote about in Romans 5 were certainly active in these scenes from David’s life. Sin was reigning (5:21) as men lied to each other, hated each other, and sought to destroy each other. Death also reigned (5:14, 17) as Asahel, Abner, and IshBosheth were slain, along with nearly four hundred soldiers who died at the battle of the pool of Gibeon. But God’s grace also reigned (5:21), for He protected David and overruled men’s sins to accomplish His divine purposes. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (5:20). But David “reigned in life” (5:17) and let God control him as he faced one emergency after another. He was a man empowered by God, and God brought him through each crisis and helped him to succeed.

In the midst of today’s troubles and trials, God’s people can “reign in life by Jesus Christ” if we will surrender to Him, wait on Him, and trust His promises.