Sermon transcript generated by AI. Please comment if you notice any errors.
Introduction to 2 Samuel
If you want to take your Bibles in turn, we are starting into a new book of the Bible. And while I have enjoyed talking about the marks of a healthy church, I am really excited to be back in a routine of just going straight through a book of the Bible. So 2 Samuel is where we're going to be for the next few months probably. 2 Samuel chapter 1.
The Importance of Leadership
How should Christians think about leadership? Is it really necessary? How should we respond when a leader falls? Leadership, as we've touched on multiple times in the last year, is a gift from God. And leadership in the home, in the church, in the nation, they are absolutely crucial to the flourishing of a people. In fact, I think what the scriptures assume is that a bad leader is, in fact, preferable to no leader at all. Leadership is necessary and it is crucial.
Modern Views vs. Biblical Views
This is very different from the way our world views leadership. A little over a decade ago, you might remember the events known as the Arab Spring. Violent protests and uprisings toppled governments throughout the Arab world. And the US media largely covered that as a win for democracy. However, over a decade later, most of those countries are in the same position. Or worse, as strongmen have strengthened their grips, or they were substituted by military-backed leaders, strongmen, or the nation descended into chaotic disorder. I think of all the nations that have those uprisings, only one is what we would recognizably call some form of democracy now.
were creeping up on the 4th of July here in our country. And I don't know how many Americans realize that the United States as we think of it was not really born in 1776. After the years of the Revolutionary War, the colonies had signed the Articles of Confederation and they created a very weak federal government. By the time you fast forward to 1789, the infant country was on the verge of collapse. Congress had no credibility. They hadn't paid the soldiers for the revolution still 15 years later. There was no central leader to speak of. The colonies had cast off their king, but they had nearly descended into chaos themselves. And as Americans, we can say praise the Lord for the constitutional convention that kind of pulled out of that mass, but there was no guarantee that that was going to work.
David's Respect for Authority
And stories like these would not surprise a man like David's. David had twice had the opportunity to save himself from a wicked king by taking that king's life with his own hand. Saul had given David every human reason to seek revenge, to assassinate him, to take by force the throne that God had promised to him. And yet, in both cases, 1 Samuel 24 and 1 Samuel 26, David refused. In fact, the time he actually reached out to take a part of Saul's robe, he later regretted having reached out his hand in any way against the Lord's anointed king.
David seems to have deeply internalized the truth his son Solomon later wrote in Ecclesiastes 10.20, that we should not even speak against the leader of the people. Though David had been running from Saul for years, he maintained a respect and even a love For the king of his people. And gratitude to God for the good that was brought forth through this imperfect man.
David's Flight to the Philistines
Having said that, the game of cat and mouse had become pretty precarious for David. And so we see in 1 Samuel 27 that David decides it's better to risk sheltering with the Philistine enemy. than to keep waiting for Saul to show up and execute him. We might not realize this as we're reading through, it's one of those things we can not stop to think about, that if David had those opportunities in close quarters to kill Saul, means that Saul had tracked David to those close quarters and was ready to kill him. Leaving made sense.
And so David flees to the Philistines and it works out well for him. In 1 Samuel 28, we read of Achish, the king of Gath, making David his bodyguard. However, as the Philistines prepare to engage in battle with Saul, 1 Samuel 29, we find out that the other lords of the Philistines are perhaps more discerning than Achish was. and they refuse to let the hebrews come into battle with them lest they swap sides join forces with saul and demolish the philistines the the philistine leaders were like no achish leave these guys at home send them away we don't want david who has killed tens of thousands of philistines to be fighting with the philistines so david and his company go back to ziklag and upon returning they find that their homes have been raided by the amalekites
And David and his men respond to this by doing what they do best. They execute total war against the Amalekites, leaving none alive except the 400 young men who fled by camel. And so as we come into our narrative here in 2 Samuel, we find them freshly returned from that journey and that fight.
The Messenger Arrives
Verses 1 and 2. Say after the death of Saul, when David had returned from striking down the Amalekites, David remained two days in Ziklag. And on the third day, behold, a man came from Saul's camp, his clothes torn and dirt on his head. When he came to David, he fell on the ground and paid homage.
Now the journey this Amalekite, remember David's been killing Amalekites, and the journey this Amalekite goes on is remarkable. He's traveled from Mount Gilboa in southern Israel. judah where saul and his army had been to ziklag and there's a little bit of dispute as to where ziklag exactly was but in any of the options this guy's traveled at least 80 miles probably in the course of just three days he comes with his clothes torn and dirt on his head which would have been symbols of mourning and he falls on the ground paying homage to david and this had to have been just the weirdest sight for David's men like what is going on here and so David questions the man beginning in verse 3
David said to him where do you come from and he said to him I have escaped from the camp of Israel David said to him how did it go tell me and he answered the people fled from the battle and also many of the people have fallen and are dead and Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead
David's Questions
Perhaps the first thing for us to notice in this interchange are David's questions. I know the first is obvious enough. Where did you come from? Someone who's traveled 80 miles in three days and is attired like a mourner, Would be a peculiar sight. Looks like someone's cat drug in.
But David hears that this man, when he hears that this man has come from the camp of Israel, he asks a question that occurs only one other time in the Bible. He says, how did it go? Tell me. The anxiety in David's question is palpable. The only other time this phrase occurs is in 1 Samuel chapter 4, when Eli asks, how did it go? Tell me.
In that case, 1 Samuel chapter 4, it was a Benjamite bearing news that Israel had been defeated by the Philistines and two prominent Levites were dead, Hophni and Phinehas. Now in 2 Samuel chapter 1, an Amalekite comes to David bearing news that Israel has again been defeated by the Philistines and two prominent Benjamites have been slain. As one commentator puts it, the author of Samuel established a deliberate connection between these two stories with this question, in order to set up an analogy between the fates of Saul's house and Eli's. Saul's house had been decimated, just like Eli's, because of Saul's rejection of the Lord, just like Eli's.
The Amalekite's Story
Then David said to the young man who told him, How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead? And the young man who told him said, By chance I happen to be on Mount Galboa. And there was Saul leaning on his spear, and behold, the chariots and the horsemen were close to him. When he looked behind him, he saw me, and he called to me, and I answered, Here I am. And he said to me, Who are you? I answered him, I am an Amalekite. And he said to me, Stand beside me and kill me, for anguish has seized me, and yet my life still lingers. So I stood beside him and killed him, because I was sure that he could not live after he had fallen. And I took the crown that was on his head and the armlet that was on his arm, and I brought them here to my Lord.
Analyzing the Amalekite's Account
But the next thing to notice is how different this rendition of Saul's death is from what we read in 1 Samuel 31. Some commentators try to harmonize the two accounts or argue that we should believe the words of the Amalekite over against what the narrator said. However, we must remember that the first and second Samuel weren't originally two books, right? This is just one scroll all the way through. And so these two stories are coming right on top of each other. It would have been really strange for the author to narrate one version of the events. and then to give us another version in the mouth of a minor character, this Amalekite, and expect us to believe the Amalekite, not himself, not the one who's speaking to us.
Remember, in 1 Samuel 31, Saul commits suicide by falling on his own sword. Here, the Amalekite claims Saul was leaning on a spear and asked to be killed. The details don't line up. As I'm reading through this, I'm like, well, maybe... Maybe spear and sword are the same word, and we're just translating different in English. No, they're totally different words. The details of the stories are just totally different.
And I'm inclined to agree with Doug Payne, who writes, the Amalekite was probably telling some lies. In general, it seems more likely that he was robbing corpses on the battlefield than that he just happened to show up in the middle of a heated battle. Dale Ralph Davis is even more blunt. He says, the Amalekite lied. If you ever have a choice between a narrator and an Amalekite, always believe the narrator.
Why would the Amalekite tell such a lie? Most likely because he believes that to do so would bring him some reward. Surely David would honor the man who had killed his enemy, right? If I can make it look like I've delivered the throne into David's hand, I killed Saul, I brought him the crown, I brought him the armlet that has the band, probably would have had like the seal on it. In fact, the guy's thinking, surely David will make me a man of prestige and honor when he comes to reign. But this Amalekite does not know David very well.
David's Reaction: Mourning
Instead of rejoicing at the news of Saul's death, David rends his garments. The structural center of 2 Samuel 1-16 is David's mourning in verses 11-12. David then took hold, verse 11, of his clothes and tore them. And so did all the men who were with him. And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel because they had fallen by the sword.
To again quote David's, the narrator thinks the most important item in this story is the grief and wailing of David and his men over Israel, her fallen leaders and troops. And the Amalekite must surely be in shock. He's coming here. He thinks David's going to be excited. He thinks David's going to reward him. He brings this news to these exiled soldiers, right? These people who've been chased out of Israel. And he hears that, hey, Israel's leaders are dead. Their enemies are defeated. Now David has a clear shot, clear path to the throne. Why? Why this response?
Understanding the Narrative
I'm often anxious when we read these narratives, in the Old Testament especially, but even in the New Testament, to remember that there are no heroes in the Bible, no true heroes apart from Jesus himself. Jesus alone is sinless, admirable in every way, worthy of our total emulation, our imitation, and our worship. His humanity was a true humanity, but it was untainted by sin so that he could be the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Every other character in the biblical story is a complex mix of motivations and intentions.
So we shouldn't just assume that everything that David does is right, and we're going to see that as we get into 2 Samuel further. David makes some big mistakes. So when we read narrative portions of the Bible, we have to pay careful attention to how the author is framing the story for us and ask, am I supposed to see the character as a positive example or as a negative example? Or is it less more ambivalent than I'm supposed to puzzle over it? We have to do that with each individual story. Just because a character is portrayed in a positive way in one place doesn't mean he always will be.
But in the case of David in this part of 2 Samuel, I think what we see here is clearly positive. His view of authority, his view of leadership, of belonging to a people and identifying with them is clearly something we should emulate. And so when he and his men are driven from their homes, forced into Philistine territory as exiles, they don't stop being or seeing themselves as Israelites. Therefore, when the people of Israel are defeated on the battlefield and their leaders are slain, it's not a case for rejoicing. It's a time to weep.
Saul had made himself David's personal enemy. Saul had been genuinely wicked. And he nonetheless remained God's chosen ruler for the people so long as he lived. And for him to perish in battle was a devastating tragedy for the nation.
David's Judgment
So David turns back to the messenger in verse 13. David said to the young man who told him, where do you come from? And he answered, I am the son of a sojourner and a malachite. David said to him, How is it that you are not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord's anointed? Then David called one of the young men and said, Go, execute him. And he struck him down so that he died. And David said to him, Your blood be on your own head, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, I have killed the Lord's anointed.
David asks this man his origin, and it's no coincidence, no coincidence at all that he is an Amalekite. Now as the son of a sojourner, someone who lives in the country of the territory of Israel, he's brought himself under the protection and the rules, the laws of Israel, of being part of the people of Israel. While we might expect a foreigner to kill Saul in battle, as indeed the Philistines had tried to do, when this man brings himself under Hebrew law and custom, to strike the king is thus to make an attack on the very people who had offered him safety.
This is not an act of war. It's a capital offense. It's a crime that he has claimed to have committed. And it seems fairly clear, again, that this man has some hope of being paid back for his service to David. But instead, David says that the payment for such an evil act is death. The Amalekites lie, which he told to advance himself, cost him his life.
Proverbs 21 and verse 6 says, beginning of treasures by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a snare of death. This guy tried to tell a lie to get ahead and didn't even work to get him there for a little while. It was faster than a fleeting vapor. It just didn't work at all. It just was a snare of death.
It's worthy to know also that Saul had been rejected by the Lord for his failure to completely destroy the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15. And here in 2 Samuel 1, the narrative section, the first 16 verses where we see David after Saul's death, is bracketed by Saul striking down the Amalekites in verse 1 and striking down an Amalekite in verses 15 and 16. And there's a contrast being drawn between the rejected anointed of the Lord, Saul, and the chosen of the Lord, David, who is being faithful in all God's house.
While David is acting here as a judge and a ruler, faithfully executing the justice of the Lord, his most important role in the story is still as a mourner, which takes us to the second half of the chapter, beginning in verse 17.
David's Lament
David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, his son, And he said it should be taught to the people of Judah. Behold, it is written in the book of Jasher. He said, your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places. How the mighty have fallen. Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult. You mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain upon you, nor fields of offerings. For there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul not anointed with oil. From the blood of the slain and the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely, in life and in death, they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. You daughters of Israel, weep over Saul who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel. How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle. Jonathan lies slain on your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan. How very pleasant you have been to me. Your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women. How the mighty have fallen and the weapons of war perish.
Why David Lamented
Why would David lament? Like this. I mean, this is a beautiful written lament. Why would he do so for the death of Saul and Jonathan? Some liberal scholars can't even imagine him doing this. And so they tried to say that this is just a reconstruction. The narrator inserted this to make David look better. How could he mourn for such a man who had chased him hither and yon for years, wanted to kill him, threw a spear at him twice?
But if we take the text straightforwardly, we understand that David consistently placed the sacredness of the anointed king's life as one of his top priorities. This was true of wicked Saul. And then he implies the same principle in many of the Psalms that he writes, which call on the Lord to vindicate his anointed king. At that point, referencing David himself in Psalm 2, Psalm 18, Psalm 20, but also pointing forward to the Messiah. the anointed one who would come. David's confidence in those psalms is that the Lord works on earth through his anointed leader.
Further, we remember the bond between David and Jonathan, seen in 1 Samuel 18-20. David sees tragedy for the nation in the death of Saul, and he himself feels a personal tragedy with the death of Jonathan.
Literary Structure
The lament is structured in verses 19 through 25 with an inclusio. And so in your bulletin, I have... This might look like Greek to you. It's not Greek, it's actually Hebrew. It's a pair of chiasms to just show you how the first part of the chapter and the second part, the lament, are structured. And chiasm is a very typical way that Hebrew... writings are structured, both poetry, as we see in the second half of the chapter, and even narratives in the first half.
In verses 19 and 25, there we have the inclusio of how the mighty have fallen, this repeated phrase. And the poetic lament, though, runs past the end of verse 25, right? It runs into verses 26 and 27. And it turns from the stylized lament over the leaders of Israel to a more personal lament of David for his friend Jonathan. But in between verses 19 and 25, like I said, we have this chiastic structure. And like I said, I put it in the bulletin for you.
And chiasm is a very common structure for Hebrew literature. And part of how it works is by giving verbal cues then repeating themes so that things don't just move in a linear fashion so we have to remember most people weren't like sitting down to read the Bible right it was in scrolls the average person wasn't sitting down at home with copies of the scrolls they were going and publicly hearing these things read and so there are these structures in the text they give you clues to hear and repeated phrases or repeated ideas to help you internalize it, to store it in your heart, right? In Psalm 119, he says, I've hidden your word in my heart. Well, part of how the biblical writers help us do that is by structuring things in a way that help us remember.
And so a chiastic structure is something that moves I think Andy used the right word earlier, mirrors. So there's the first part of the story, you go from the beginning to the center of the story, and then the second half mirrors it back as you move from the center back out to the beginning. And you see that in both the beginning and second half of 2 Samuel 1.
So in the narrative section, we saw David slaying Amalekites while mourning for Saul who had failed in that same task. And in this poetic lament, we find David mourning for the slain glory of Israel. And then in the middle, we see that her protectors have fallen. That's who he's mourning for.
And if all this just sounds like a nerdy aside to you, which it may, please forgive the digression. But I think it's a really helpful concept for helping us see just how, especially if you're reading the Psalms, to see how a lot of the Psalms move to the middle and then they work back to the end. And it'll just kind of help you see what's going on there. If you have that in your mind, how the poetry is structured or how the stories often are structured.
The authors built these things in intentionally to help the readers and hearers of scripture understand what God said.
The Value of Saul's Leadership
to tell and the digression saul's leadership imperfect though it was provided protection for the nation of israel especially in so far as his kick his his leadership was characterized by jonathan's bravery in verse 22 for the blood of the slain for the fat of the mighty the bow of jonathan turned not back that the sword of saul returned not empty i mean there's just this striking imagery of how powerful and mighty they were in battle and you know until i mean saul's reign for probably 40 some years at this point and he has won battle after battle after battle he's provided protection and safety he's been a shield for the people of israel jonathan his his life is characterized by a deep valor and chapter 18 and verse 1 of 1 Samuel, where it says Jonathan's heart was knit to David. That happened right after David had gone out and slain Goliath. Well, you remember a few chapters earlier, Jonathan had gone with his one servant to attack a whole camp of the Philistines. His heart was knit to David because he saw the same kind of valor, the same kind of courage in the Lord. These were men who had bravely defended Israel.
In fact, even the tune of this lament is probably named after Jonathan's bow. I don't know why in the ESV, in verse 18, it says, he said it, which follows how the Septuagint has it translated. But the Hebrew says the bow. And most of your translations, if you read in, I think, an NIV or a New King James or a NASV, I think they all say either, The tune of the bow or the bow, the very tune of this song is named after Jonathan's weapon of war.
The loss of the people's protective shield, their king, would rightly lead to weeping among those who had benefited from his reign. Verse 24. David speaks to the daughters of Israel who were clothed in luxurious scarlet, who had benefited with ornaments of gold on their apparel. This prosperity would have been due to the relative peace that they enjoyed during Saul's reign, the stability that came. Though Saul is a tragic figure in scripture, the people would not be wrong to see him as a major upgrade over the judges that they had had before.
During the time of the judges, that refrain over and over is, There was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. At least with the king, there was some stability and some safety. And at the same time, one can be sure that though David says in verse 20, tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon. Such telling and publishing is exactly what would happen is what did happen. The warriors went home boasting of their victories. Saul was beheaded, stripped of his armor. His armor was hung in the, I think it was the temple of Ashdod, one of their gods. And he and his sons' bodies were hung on the wall of Bethshon. In all of this, the daughters of the Philistines would rejoice in their triumph. The defeat of Saul and his sons was an ugly day for Israel. And this song of lament is a formal recognition of that fact.
Personal Lament for Jonathan
As I noted earlier, The formal structure of lament runs from verses 19 to 25, but the end spills over. It keeps on going, verses 26 and 27, into a personal lament for Jonathan. And this has led to one of the modern preoccupations with this text. Probably something that should be addressed here.
The question is namely this, what, to what, if any degree, is David implying a homosexual relationship with Jonathan when he says, your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women. And clearly reading this text in its biblical context must lead us to agree, again, this is Dale Ralph Davis, he says, it is utterly wrong-headed to read the idea of homosexuality into this text.
David and Jonathan's affection for one another is deep, very deep. But it's our modern obsession with sexualized identities which leads us to push those kind of relationships into this text where they don't belong. Now, if God has clearly prohibited some kind of relationship, and then it occurs in a narrative like this, the author of 1 and 2 Samuel has no problem criticizing David when he makes mistakes. When we get to chapters 11 and 12 and his sin with Bathsheba, the narrator is going to paint David in a very negative light. And so if there was something here in this relationship that was not admirable, the narrator would tell us. He would show it to us. He would paint David negatively. But instead, this is just shown as a deep, loving friendship.
Maybe it's a sad reflection on our world at this point that we can't even imagine men having that kind of friendship. Instead of making wild assumptions that don't fit the context, we should recognize that Jonathan's deep and abiding faithfulness to David, despite the fact that it was Jonathan's future throne that God had promised to David, displayed a brotherly love, which was unlike David could receive from any of his wives. This was a different kind of love than they could have given to him. David recognizes what should be obvious to the careful reader. He has lost the best friend and ally he could ever have asked for. And so he rightly gives air to his grief. He rightly weeps over him.
Conclusion: Leadership and Its Impact
For leaders to fall is a tragedy for those underneath of them. It's tragedy for God's people. We see this in our own day. When leaders topple, even if they weren't good leaders, the effect of the fall can have horrific side effects, horrific consequences.
When a father in the home, even if he wasn't a good father, when he leaves the home, the abandonment is not solving the issue. It compounds the issues. When an abusive pastor is exposed or fired, often the result is not renewal in the church, but the disintegration of that church. I've been following, there was a really big podcast last year, just exploded, called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. And that was a ministry that I was very familiar with just from a distance because I listened to a lot of the podcasts and followed a lot of the materials and whatever. And I remember watching as there started to come to light all these things about abusive patterns of leadership and ungodliness, things being exposed. When the pastor left, it didn't result in the church all of a sudden becoming healthy. The church imploded. It disintegrated. People left financially. They became insolvent. It destroyed the church. Even though it was good and right for the wrongdoings to be exposed, it still wound up being—the fallout was horrible for many, many people involved.
Such was nearly the case for Israel after this happened with Saul. And we tend to think, oh, Saul's gone and then David was installed. It was seven years between when this happened and when David is installed as king over all of Israel at Jerusalem. Seven years. When Saul fell in battle, though it opened the way for the Davidic glory years, quote unquote, It was not a smooth transition. It was a sad day for the people, and a day worthy of lament.
Application for Today
Maybe this is a somber note to strike on Father's Day. Or anything. But I think a text like this should orient our hearts to view leadership in the same way that God does. It is a powerful gift meant to serve the flourishing of the people and to accomplish God's purposes in the world. And this means that we must, with the Apostle Paul, pray for those in authority. All the way to the top in our nation, in the middle, and all the way down at the bottom at the home level. And we've got to pray for fathers and grandfathers and those who have influence over young people's lives.
We desperately need to be praying for those around us who have influence over others, not even just fathers. Obviously, mothers have huge influence, too. And we've got to look at that and say, Lord, how can I serve those around me so that they can better use the influence that they have to point people to you? and to encourage flourishing. And we need to evaluate our own lives. And when we see that we're failing, not back away and give up from influence, but pray that we would use it in a godly way.
When leaders fall, the home and the church and the nation, it's something we should lament. When we see faltering and failing and falling, we should be brought to tears in some sense. God didn't design the world this way.
Pointing to Christ
But like all of scripture, this text is not meant to simply be an end in itself where it just points us to tears. We shouldn't minimize that aspect of it. But as we read about an imperfect and fallen anointed of the Lord, our minds must also be drawn further down the biblical storyline to the anointed of the Lord, the Messiah, who was perfect. who did not have his life taken from him by Philistine archers and then his own hand, but who laid down his life of his own accord that he might take it up again. If we look to Jesus, if we bow to his lordship, we will have a king whose throne never ends, whose authority to forgive sins, has authority to forgive sins and to bring us to his eternal father, and whose bow is bent to save all of those who trust in him.
Closing Prayer
Would you pray with me? Father God, would you help us? I just look at my own life and I see how insufficient I am for even the limited influence that you've given me. And Lord, I don't want to be like salt. Lord, would you shape us and conform us to the image of your son? Lord, would you help us
It's probably not an exaggeration to say that everyone in this room has been impacted by awful leadership in our lives. By people who had power, who had authority, who had influence over us, and used it in a way that hurt us. Lord, would you help us to grieve that and to lament it and to mourn it rightly? And at the same time, to not become jaded and angry against your good idea of authority. Help us to keep in balance those two things, that we can rightly grieve poor uses of authority, and we should still rejoice in the gift that you have given in giving us leaders. We need to keep both of these things in our mind, and it's hard for us in this fallen world to do so. So we ask for your help. In the precious name of Jesus, amen.
