Bible Commentaries
2 Samuel

XV

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO 2 SAMUEL AND 1 CHRONICLES

The biblical sources of material for a history of the reign of David is found in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles. Apart from these two books, the biblical material for an interpretation of this history is: (1) the Psalter; (2) the utterances of the prophets; (3) New Testament comment.

The two biblical histories of David’s reign are independent histories, composed by different authors, far separated in time from each other, and with quite distinct purposes. 2 Samuel was written by contemporaneous prophets, very often witnesses and participators in the events related. Their purpose is to give a simple, connected history of so many of the events in David’s life as will reveal the man, and so much of the monarchy as bears upon the idea of a theocratic monarchy in its relation to the kingdom of God. All material irrelevant to that purpose is omitted. Inspiration guides them in the selection of the matter recorded and in the rejection of the matter omitted, but 1 Chronicles was written by Ezra after the downfall of the monarchy and with a view to establish, on a right foundation, the hierarchy which succeeds the monarchy, and to comfort the Jews of the Restoration who have no earthly king or earthly kingdom by turning their minds toward the coming of a visible but spiritual kingdom to be set up by David’s great Descendant, the Lord from heaven. While it is as real a history as 2 Samuel, its purpose is more distinctly didactic and philosophical.

The author of Chronicles, with the book of Samuel before him, copies many passages word for word, or, where it suits his purpose better, follows the substance with a slight variation in detail. In many other instances, and at a great length, he uses material from original prophetic sources perceived nowhere else in the Bible, citing the names of the prophetic author. This great bulk of additional matter in Chronicles while old in its origin, is new in its use, and is essential to the purpose of the author in preparing the people for the change from monarchy to hierarchy. On this account also he omits matters quite important to the purpose of the historian of the book of Samuel, but irrelevant to his own; for example, the history of David’s reign over Judah alone; the war with the house of Saul; David’s kindness to Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son; David’s adultery and its punishment; the history of Absalom’s rebellion; the execution of Saul’s sons; David’s thanksgiving and last words. None of these is in Chronicles.

These omissions, when considered with the omissions of so many thrilling events in David’s early life and his outlaw life, already noticed, show plainly that the Samuel book is more the life of the man, while Chronicles is more the history of the monarchy. So, later, Chronicles will omit the entire history of the defection under Jeroboam and the history of the several dynasties of the seceding ten tribes, and confine itself to the line of David and the unity of the nation and monarchy in Judah, carefully reciting the return to Judah of representatives of all the seceding ten tribes, showing clearly that while the bulk of revolting tribes were lost in the fall of the Northern Kingdom and so go out of history, yet these tribes were preserved and perpetuated in the return of their remnants to Judah. Therefore Chronicles gives not a thought to the useless modern question, "What became of the lost ten tribes?" Neither it nor any subsequent Bible book knows anything of lost tribes. The tribes were not lost any more than they were lost in the thirty-eight years of the wilderness wanderings where a generation perished, but the tribes survived. They count all the tribes preserved in the remnants that came back to Judah.

Chronicles pays no attention to their history while apart, but is very careful to report their return. Precisely for the same reasons Chronicles barely touches Saul’s history, or the history of his children after him, seeing that the monarchy is not perpetuated in Saul’s line, but is very careful to catalogue the warriors coming from Saul’s kingdom to David at Adullam and Ziklag, and the mighty hosts from all the tribes who came to Hebron to make him king over all Israel, and gives such details of the plague threatening the national life, and hence as bearing on the hierarchy after the downfall of the monarchy.

Chronicles records the elaborate details not elsewhere found of the arrangements on the occasion of the translation of the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. It gives two whole chapters to that and part of another. It gives an entire chapter to David’s preparation of the Temple material. It gives several entire chapters to the elaborate organization of the priests and the Levites, the army and the civil service, and to the national assembly at Solomon’s accession. A restatement of all of these things of the past was intensely helpful toward the establishment and perpetuity of the hierarchy after the monarchy is gone.

The chronology in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles is simply the chronology of the reign of David. The period of time covered by these two books touching David is forty years. After profound study, the harmonist, as shown in the textbook, gives his conception of the time order of the events. It is a big problem, but I think you may more safely rely at least substantially, on the order in the Cambridge Bible, which I cite, using my own words:

1. The reign of David at Hebron, seven and a half years, i.e., from 1055 B.C. to 1048 B.C.

2. The date of Absalom’s birth somewhere between 1052 B.C. and 1050 B.C.

3. The reign of Ishbosheth, and the civil war with the house of Saul, 1050-1048 B.C.

4. The reign of David at Jerusalem after that period extends from 1048-1015 B.C.

5. The period of the foreign wars comes next, about ten years, i.e., from 1045-1035 B.C.

6. The date of David’s sin with Bathsheba, 1035 B.C.

7. The outrage of Amnon the very next year, 1034 B.C.

8. Absalom’s rebellion, which grows out of it, 1023 B.C.

9. The period of tranquility and national growth from 1023-1015 B.C.

10. The date of the great plague in 1018 B.C.

11. David’s death, 1015 B.C.

I have changed the Cambridge order somewhat, but my study on it has been profound, both in original investigation and in the examination of a great many books. That is about the time-order of the events contained in these two books. I could give my argument for it, but that would take up a great deal of space.

This Old Testament history, as well as all other Old Testament history, differs from secular history in three particulars: (1) In the subject matter, in that it is a history of the special training and discipline of God’s chosen people. (2) In its giving events as God sees them and not as man sees them. (3) In the selection of the material it uses, putting in nothing that does not bear upon the whole plan of the Old Testament as the preparation for the New.

A writer of United States history would not think of leaving out the details of seven or eight great wars, but this sacred historian leaves out any number of them, since these details have no relation to the great purpose of the historian. I am quite sure that one should not study this history as be studies secular history.

It must be studied as the record of the divine preparation for the incarnation of the Son of God. The whole of the Old Testament is a preparation for the New Testament. The Old Testament not only contains prophecies, but the whole history itself is a prophecy.

The elements of this preparation are: (1) The discipline and training of the chosen nation that it might be the home of the Son of God when he came. (2) The development of the ideas involving the offices of the Messiah – what the Messiah was to be when he came – Sacrifice, Prophet, Priest, King, and Judge. The main contribution of 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles is toward the king idea. In Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus the sacrifices point to the mission of the Son of God to be a sacrifice for sin, and also to his being the priest through whom atonement is effected. 1 Samuel contributes the additional idea of the prophet. These books will put before us the king, and when the Messiah comes he is to come as king – the King of kings and Lord of lords, and when we study them we study them in view of their messianic forecast. These two books contribute to the messianic idea also. In David we certainly find a prophet. He is one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament. In David we certainly find a king) exercising priestly functions, though not belonging to the tribe of Levi. In other words, he is a king and priest. In David we find the high ideal of the king – prophet, priest, and king, and these books bring that out clearly.

So far in the history of David we have learned simply his preparation to be king. We have seen that preparation: (1) In his shepherd life. (2) In his long novitiate of suffering in his outlaw-life. The man has been trained physically, mentally, normally. How often have I said to young preachers, "Only prepared men accomplish great things, and a preacher can make no more hurtful mistakes than to suppose that it is a waste of time and money to prepare to be efficient when he does work." Having learned in 1 Samuel David’s preparation to be king, we are to learn in these two books what he did as king. This is the reign now for which all other was a preparation.

The difficulties to be surmounted, if he reigns after God’s heart and not Saul’s, are many and grave:

1. He must secure the unity of the nation. In Judges we see twelve tribes, each one going off at a tangent, as that expression so often repeated in the book says, "In those days there was no king in Israel, and each man did what seemed to him to be right." Sometimes Judah is before us, sometimes Naphtali, sometimes Gad, sometimes Manasseh; it is not a nation, but twelve loosely-jointed tribes. The first thing that David has to do is to secure the unity of the nation. It takes him seven and a half years to do it after he is crowned at Hebron. So that is his first achievement, and that will be my next discussion – the seven and a half years that David reigned at Hebron while the house of Saul held the greater part of the territory.

2. The second difficulty was to provide a central place of worship that would not cause jealousies, and such services at that place of worship as would help perpetuate the unity of the nation. Never before had these been fully attained. I stop here long enough to make a remark that I may repeat later, that when the thirteen original colonies seceded from England and under a loose sort of compact fought the Revolutionary War, and at the close of the war began to take steps for a more permanent union, one of the greatest problems was, "Where are we to put the capital?" and it is a very interesting part of American history to read the debates on the location of the capital. If the discussion had been deferred till our time the capital would never have been put at Washington, but it was the right place then. It had been partly in New York, partly in Philadelphia, and sometimes "on wheels," and the biggest kind of a compromise was effected by its permanent location, and in order that no State might claim the capital, Virginia and Maryland were to donate for it a certain district to be national property.

Here we see David do something much like that. He would not have his capital at Hebron, as that would look too much like a Judah-capital, nor Gibeah, where Saul had reigned. He takes an entirely new place, to be owned by all the nation – half in Judah and half in Benjamin.

3. The third thing that he has to do is to destroy, or at least break the backbone of those enemies who have been fighting the children of Israel ever since their settlement in the country. You will see David do this. You will see him crush under his feet, and under the iron hand of his power, every national enemy. There will be no more a battle of Gilboa. There will be no more "grindstone" periods, and for the first time you will see the boundaries filled out just as God stated them originally in his promises. They will reach from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates.

4. He must organize what is called a "civil service," that is, an administrative body. He counts it important to provide a financial system adequate to supply national needs and representation at foreign courts – all things of that kind. Then, he must organize an army, so as not to depend upon indiscriminate levies such as we have seen Deborah, Barak, Gideon, Jephtha, and Saul doing, blowing a trumpet and calling a big militia crowd out that will fight if you let them fight quick, but they have to go home next week. If they win a fight they must go home to divide the spoils – must take something to the wives and children.

5. He had to organize the kingdom – organize its priests and Levites with a view to such services at the central place of worship as would make that central place of unity the joy of the whole earth; make it the mightiest power in holding the nation together. He is for the first time to organize the choir, so famous in the Temple service.

6. The sixth point, and no less important than the others, he must prepare for a transfer of the succession without trouble. There is where trouble comes to nations, when one ruler goes out and another comes in; when one king dies, who shall be his successor. We will see how wisely David safeguarded the nation at all points so far as he could do it, and he certainly did provide for the succession of his son Solomon.

As we have only one other question to consider I will restate these six points: (1) To secure unity of the nation. (2) Central place of worship. (3) Services of a character to maintain the unity. (4) Destruction of opposing enemies. (5) Organization. (6) Provision for succession. You will have learned great things from these two books when you get these fixed in your mind.

David was a type of Christ:

1. He is called the "Lord’s anointed," and "Anointed" is what the word "Christ" means. "Christ" is English; Christos is Greek; "Messiah" is Hebrew; they all mean the same thing.

2. He was a type of Christ in uniting in one person the offices of prophet, priest, and king.

3. He was a type of Christ in the trials and sufferings of the preparation for his reign. Look at that suffering life; look at the awful persecutions, and then read in the New Testament about the Saviour’s sufferings before he got to the point where it could be said of him: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and let the King of Glory come in." What an awful preparation Christ had to pass through!

4. He was a type of Christ in the expressions in the Psalms of the agony of the messianic sufferings. When we come to the Psalter we will understand better the typical character of David.

5. He was a type of Christ in that he was God’s representative to man, and man’s representative to God.

6. And here is a strange one – He was a type of Christ in being the head or ruler of the heathen, as well as the beloved monarch of his own people. That thought is very clearly brought out in our history.

7. He marked the place of Christ’s birth by being born there himself.

QUESTIONS

1. What are the biblical sources of material for a history of the reign of David?

2. Apart from these two books, what biblical material have we for an interpretation of this history?

3. Restate the relations between the two biblical histories of David’s reign.

4. What is the chronology in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles?

5. What is the probable time-order of the events in these books?

6. How does this Old Testament history, as well as all other Old Testament history, differ from secular history?

7. How then must this history be studied?

8. What are the elements of this preparation?

9. How much do 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles contribute toward this preparation?

10. How much do these two books contribute to the messianic idea?

11. So far in the history of David, what have we learned?

12. What are we to learn in these two books?

13. What are the difficulties to be surmounted, if he reigns after God’s heart and not Saul’s?

14. How was David a type of Christ?