BibleProject - Old Testament - Lesson 13

BP100-13 2 Samuel

The book of 2nd Samuel. Check out the video on First Samuel where we were introduced to the book's three main characters: Samuel, Saul and David and then also to the book's literary design which first introduced Samuel and then traced the rise and fall of king Saul in contrast to the rise of king David. 2nd Samuel tells the story of David as Israel's King and in two movements; there's a season of success and a blessing, followed by a huge moral failure and then sad consequences. And then the book ends with this well-crafted conclusion that reflects back on the good and the bad in David's life, generating hope for a future king to come from his line. So 2nd Samuel picks up after Saul's death and David surprises everyone by composing this long poem where he laments the death of the very man who tried to murder him. And so once again the author is presenting David's humility and compassion; he's a man who grieves the death even of his own enemies. After this, David experiences a season of success and God's blessing. All of the Israelite tribes they come to David then they ask him to unify all the tribes as their king so the first thing David does as king, is to go to the city of Jerusalem, he conquers it, and he establishes it as Israel's capital city which he renames as Zion. And from there David goes on and he wins many battles and expands Israel's territory. Now after making Jerusalem the political capital of Israel he wants to make it their religious capital as well and so he has the Ark of the Covenant moved into the city and then in 2nd Samuel 7, he tells God now that Israel has a permanent home he thinks that God's presence should also get a permanent house so he asks if he can build a temple for the God of Israel but God says to David: "Thank you for that thought but actually I'm going to build you a house, a dynasty." Now 2nd Samuel 7, this is a key chapter for understanding the storyline of the whole Bible because God here makes a promise to David that from his royal line will come a future king who's going to build God's temple here on earth and set up an eternal kingdom and it's this messianic promise to David that gets picked up and developed more in the Book of Psalms and also in the books of the prophets and it's this king that gets connected to God's promise to Abraham. The future messianic kingdom will be how God brings His blessing to all of the nations and it's right here in the midst of all this divine blessing that things go horribly wrong. David makes a fatal mistake. Not fatal for him, but for a man named Uriah. One of David´s prized soldiers. So from his rooftop David sees Uriah´s wife Batsheba, bathing. David finds her, he sleeps with her, gets her pregnant and then he tries to cover the whole thing up by having Uriah assassinated and then marrying her. It is just horrible. So when David´s confronted by the prophet Nathan about all of this, he immediately owns up to what he's done. He is broken, he repents. He asks God to forgive him and God does forgive him but, God doesn't erase the consequences of David's decisions. And so as a result of this horrible choice David's family, his kingdom, and all falls apart and makes this section a tragic story, much like Saul´s downfall. So David´s sons end up repeating his own mistakes but in even more tragic ways so Amnon sexually abuses his sister Tamar and then their brother Absalom finds out about all of this and has Amnon assassinated and then Absalom goes and he hatches the secret plan to oust his father David from power and he launches this full-scale rebellion and so for a second time David is forced to flee from his own home and go hide in the wilderness, except this time he is not an innocent man. The rebellion ends when David's son is murdered. And it breaks David's heart and so once again he laments over the very man who tried to kill him. David´s last days find him back on his throne but as a broken man man, he's wounded by the sad consequences of his sin. The book concludes with a well-crafted epilogue. With stories that are out of chronological order, but they have this really cool symmetrical literary design. So the outer pair of stories come from earlier in David's reign and they compared the failures of Saul and then of David, and how each of them hurt other people through their bad decisions. The next inner pair of stories are about David and his band of mighty men, who went about fighting the Philistines and what's interesting is that both sections have a story of David's weakness in battle, so in contrast to the victorious David of chapters 1 through 9, here we see a vulnerable David, who is dependent on others for help. The center of the epilogue has two poems that act like memoirs, and David reflects back on his life and he remembers times when God graciously rescued him from danger, and he sees these as moments where God was faithful to His covenant promise to him and to his family. Both poems conclude by looking back onto the hope of God's promise of a future king who will build that eternal kingdom. Now these poems and then God´s promise also connect back to Hannah´s poem that opened the book. And so these key passages from the beginning now the middle and the end of the book bring the book's themes all together. Despite Saul and David´s evil, God remained at work moving forward His redemptive purposes. And God opposed David and Saul´s arrogance, but He exalted David when he humbled himself. And so the future hope of this book reaches far beyond David himself. It looks to the future to the messianic king who will one day bring God's kingdom and blessing to all of the nations. And that´s what the book of Samuel is all about.