2 Samuel

The rise and the reckoning of one king, told with a candour that has few parallels in ancient literature. The first half is success: seven years at Hebron, a captured city that becomes a capital, the ark brought up with dancing, victories on every border, and a promise that David's house and kingdom will be established forever — the covenant the rest of the Old Testament keeps returning to. The second half is the price of one spring afternoon. David sees a woman bathing, sends for her, and has her husband killed to cover it; a prophet tells him a story about a lamb and then says four words that turn the book: you are the man. Nothing is hidden afterwards. A daughter is raped by her half-brother and the king does nothing; a son kills that brother and rebels; the king flees his own capital barefoot and weeping, and is told by his general to stop grieving over the son who died trying to kill him. The book ends with two chapters of appendix — a famine, a psalm, a list of soldiers, a census and a plague — and with an altar bought at full price on a threshing floor that will become the temple mount.

Themes

• An everlasting house — The covenant of chapter 7: not a house David builds for God but a house God builds for David, with a throne established forever — the promise the prophets and the Gospels both read forward from.
• You are the man — The book's turn. A prophet's parable gets a king to pass sentence on himself, and the sentence is carried out on his own family for ten chapters.
• The sword will never depart — Nathan's word, and the structure of the second half: Amnon, Absalom, Adonijah — the violence stays inside the house.
• Loyal love — Hesed: David asking whether anyone of Saul's house is left so he can show kindness for Jonathan's sake, and Rizpah keeping the birds off her sons' bodies for months.
• The king who weeps — David laments Saul and Jonathan, Abner, the child, Amnon and Absalom. The book's most repeated image of him is a man crying.
• Advice as a weapon — Ahithophel's counsel is described as an oracle from God, and the rebellion is decided when Hushai's worse advice is preferred — the narrative says why.
• Bought at full price — The last scene: a king who refuses to offer what costs him nothing, on a threshing floor that becomes the temple's site.

Outline

• 1. How the mighty have fallen — An Amalekite brings news and a crown and a story that does not match 1 Samuel 31 — and then the finest lament in the Old Testament.
• 2. The pool of Gibeon — Judah anoints David at Hebron; Abner crowns Saul's surviving son; and twenty-four young men kill each other in a contest that starts a long war.
• 3. Abner turned to David — A defection negotiated over a woman and a insult, and a general murdered in a gateway by another general — with a king who makes sure everyone knows he did not order it.
• 4. The heads of the murderers — Two captains kill their own king in his bed and bring the head to Hebron, expecting a reward.
• 5. The stronghold of Zion — All Israel anoints him, a city nobody had taken becomes a capital, and two Philistine attacks are answered by asking first.
• 6. David danced before Yahweh — An ox stumbles, a man dies touching the ark, and three months later the ark comes up with sacrifices, shouting and a wife watching from a window.
• 7. Your house and your kingdom — A king wants to build God a house and is told the opposite: God will build him one, and establish a throne forever.
• 8. Wherever he went — Campaign summaries in every direction, and a cabinet list — the administrative shape of a kingdom.
• 9. For Jonathan's sake — A search for anyone left of Saul's house, and a lame grandson brought to eat at the king's table for the rest of his life.
• 10. The beards half shaved — An embassy of condolence humiliated, and the war that follows — the campaign chapter 11 opens inside.
• 11. In the spring, when kings go out — A king who stayed home, a woman sent for, a husband who will not go to his house, and a letter carried by the man it condemns.
• 12. You are the man — A parable about a ewe lamb, a sentence passed by the guilty party, and a child who dies while his father lies on the ground for seven days.
• 13. Tamar — A half-brother's rape and a king who is angry and does nothing — and two years later a sheep-shearing feast that is a trap.
• 14. The wise woman of Tekoa — A general engineers a parable to get a banished son recalled, and then the king refuses to see him for two more years.
• 15. Absalom stole the hearts — Four years at the city gate, a conspiracy launched under cover of a vow, and a king walking out of Jerusalem barefoot with his head covered.
• 16. Let him curse — A servant with supplies and a story, a man throwing stones and shouting from a ridge, and a counsellor advising a public claim to the throne.
• 17. Yahweh had ordained to defeat the good counsel — Two plans put to a council: one that would have worked and one designed to fail — and the reason the worse one is chosen.
• 18. Absalom, my son — An order everyone hears and one man ignores, an oak, three darts, and a father who wants only one piece of news.
• 19. Should any man be put to death today? — A general who tells the king to stop weeping or lose his army, and a return journey full of people renegotiating which side they were on.
• 20. A wise woman of Abel — A revolt collapses at a besieged city when a woman negotiates over a wall — and another general is murdered mid-conversation.
• 21. Rizpah — A famine traced to Saul's broken oath, seven descendants executed, and a mother who guards the bodies from spring until the rains.
• 22. He brought me out into a large place — David's psalm, preserved here and as Psalm 18: an earthquake theophany and a rescue described as being drawn out of deep waters.
• 23. The last words of David — A short oracle about ruling in the fear of God, and then the roster — three men who broke through a garrison for a drink of water, and thirty-seven names ending with Uriah.
• 24. I will not offer what costs me nothing — A census that troubles the king's own conscience, three options offered, a plague stopped at a threshing floor, and land bought at full price.

Chapters

• 2 Samuel 1 — A messenger arrives with a crown and a story designed to earn a reward — he claims he killed Saul himself, which contradicts what the reader has just watched — and is executed for it. Then David sings a lament for the man who hunted him, and it has no politics in it at all.
• 2 Samuel 2 — David asks whether to go up and where, and is made king over Judah at Hebron — while Abner installs Saul's surviving son over the rest. The war between the two houses starts with a proposal that twelve young men from each side should 'play before us', and ends with all twenty-four dead.
• 2 Samuel 3 — The house of Saul collapses over an accusation about a concubine, and Abner switches sides in a rage — negotiating a national handover in a few days. Then Joab kills him in the gate for his brother's blood, and David spends the rest of the chapter making sure everyone knows it was not his doing.
• 2 Samuel 4 — Two of Ish-bosheth's own captains murder him in his bed during his afternoon rest and carry the head to Hebron, expecting to be thanked. David has them executed and buries the head in Abner's tomb — the second time in four chapters he refuses to profit from a killing.
• 2 Samuel 5 — All the tribes come to Hebron with an argument that has three parts — we are your bone and flesh, you led Israel's armies under Saul, and Yahweh said you would shepherd them — and David becomes king over everyone at thirty. Then he takes a city nobody had taken and makes it a capital that belongs to no tribe.
• 2 Samuel 6 — The ark comes to Jerusalem in two attempts. The first is a national celebration on a new cart that ends with a man dead for steadying it, and three months of the king being afraid. The second is done the way the law prescribed, with sacrifices every six paces and a king dancing in a linen ephod.
• 2 Samuel 7 — The theological centre of the Old Testament's historical books. David proposes to build God a house; the answer reverses the sentence — Yahweh will make YOU a house — and promises a throne established forever, with a clause about a son who will be disciplined but never abandoned.
• 2 Samuel 8 — A chapter of results: Philistines, Moab, Zobah, Syria, Edom and Ammon subdued, and the borders of the kingdom described in a single sweep. It closes with a cabinet list, which is what a state looks like once the fighting produces something to administer.
• 2 Samuel 9 — A king with no rivals left asks whether anyone of Saul's house survives, so that he can show kindness for Jonathan's sake — and gives a crippled grandson his grandfather's estate and a permanent place at the royal table.
• 2 Samuel 10 — A message of condolence is treated as espionage, the ambassadors are humiliated in a way calculated to make war unavoidable, and the campaign that follows is the one chapter 11 takes place inside — while the king stays in Jerusalem.
• 2 Samuel 11 — The hinge of the book, and it opens with a note about the season: at the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and David stayed at Jerusalem. Everything else follows from being in the wrong place, and the chapter's last sentence is the only judgement it makes.
• 2 Samuel 12 — A prophet tells a story about a rich man who took a poor man's only lamb, and the king passes sentence on the criminal in a rage — four times over, and death. Then four words: you are the man.
• 2 Samuel 13 — The sword arrives in the house exactly as promised, and the first casualty is a daughter. Tamar is raped by her half-brother on the advice of a cousin, thrown out afterwards, and left desolate — and her father is very angry and does nothing at all.
• 2 Samuel 14 — Joab hires a woman from Tekoa to tell the king a story about her own two sons, gets a ruling out of him, and then turns it on him — exactly as Nathan did. The son is recalled, and then not received for two more years.
• 2 Samuel 15 — Four years of standing at the city gate telling every litigant that his case is good but there is nobody to hear it, and that if he were judge he would give everyone justice — and then a vow in Hebron, a trumpet, and the king walking out of Jerusalem barefoot and weeping.
• 2 Samuel 16 — Two meetings on the road out, and a third scene in the palace behind. A servant arrives with supplies and an accusation; a Benjamite walks along a ridge throwing stones and cursing; and in Jerusalem, Ahithophel advises a public act designed to make reconciliation impossible.
• 2 Samuel 17 — Two plans are put to a council, and the good one loses. Ahithophel proposes speed — twelve thousand men tonight, strike the king while he is weary, kill only him and bring everyone else back — and Hushai proposes a delay dressed up as caution, which is designed to fail and does.
• 2 Samuel 18 — The order everyone hears is 'deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom' — and the general who has spent the book cleaning up after this family kills him anyway, in an oak, with three darts. The king asks the two runners the same question and does not care about the battle.
• 2 Samuel 19 — Joab tells the king that his grief is an insult to the men who saved his life and that if he does not go out and speak kindly to them, not a man will stay with him by nightfall — and he is right. Then the return journey, in which everyone renegotiates which side they were on.
• 2 Samuel 20 — A Benjamite blows a trumpet and says the words the northern tribes will use again when the kingdom splits — we have no portion in David — and the revolt collapses at a besieged town when a woman calls over the wall and asks why the general is destroying a city that is a mother in Israel.
• 2 Samuel 21 — The appendix opens with a famine traced to a broken oath, seven of Saul's descendants executed, and a mother who spreads sackcloth on a rock and keeps birds and animals off the bodies from the barley harvest until the rains fall.
• 2 Samuel 22 — A long psalm placed near the end of the book, preserved almost identically as Psalm 18: a rescue described as an earthquake and a thunderstorm, and a God who reached down from on high and drew a drowning man out of many waters.
• 2 Samuel 23 — A short oracle about what a good ruler is like — one who rules in the fear of God, like morning light and rain on new grass — and then a roster of the men who made the reign possible, ending with a name the reader has met before: Uriah the Hittite.
• 2 Samuel 24 — A census that troubles the king's own conscience before anyone tells him it was wrong, three punishments offered and none of them chosen, and a plague stopped at a threshing floor the king then buys at full price — because he will not offer God something that costs him nothing.

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