2 Samuel

Second Samuel

This book is the history of the reign of king David. We had in the foregoing book an account of his designation to the government, and his struggles with Saul, which ended at length in the death of his persecutor. This book begins with his accession to the throne, and is entirely taken up with the affairs of the government during the forty years he reigned, and therefore is entitled by the LXX. The Third Book of the Kings. It gives us an account of David's triumphs and his troubles. I. His triumphs over the house of Saul (ch. i.-iv.), over the Jebusites and Philistines (ch. v.), at the bringing up of the ark (ch. vi. and vii.), over the neighbouring nations that opposed him (ch. viii.-x.); and so far the history is agreeable to what we might expect from David's character and the choice made of him. But his cloud has a dark side. II. We have his troubles, the causes of them, his sin in the matter of Uriah (ch. xi. and xii.), the troubles themselves from the sin of Amnon (ch. xiii.), the rebellion of Absalom (ch. xiv.-xix.) and of Sheba (ch. xx.), and the plague in Israel for his numbering the people (ch. xxiv.), besides the famine of the Gibeonites, ch. xxi. His son we have (ch. xxii.), and his words and worthies, ch. xxiii. Many things in his history are very instructive; but for the hero who is the subject of it, though in many instances he appears here very great, and very good, and very much the favourite of heaven, yet it must be confessed that his honour shines brighter in his Psalms than in his Annals.

In the close of the foregoing book (with which this is connected as a continuation of the same history) we had Saul's exit; he went down slain to the pit, though he was the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. We are now to look towards the rising sun, and to enquire where David is, and what he is doing. In this chapter we have, I. Tidings brought him to Ziklag of the death of Saul and Jonathan, by an Amalekite, who undertook to give him a particular narrative of it, ver. 1-10. II. David's sorrowful reception of these tidings, ver. 11, 12. III. Justice done upon the messenger, who boasted that he had helped Saul to dispatch himself, ver. 13-16. IV. An elegy which David penned upon this occasion, ver. 17-27. And in all this David's breast appears very happily free from the sparks both of revenge and ambition, and he observes a very suitable demeanour.