2 Samuel | Understanding King David's Journey and God's Plan

What is the main message of 2 Samuel?
How does 2 Samuel illustrate the consequences of sin in David’s life?

2 Samuel is a captivating book in the Bible that showcases the complex journey of King David, from his rise to power following the death of Saul to the deep moral challenges and family conflicts that define his reign. 

The episode delves into the political intrigue and warfare that dominate the early chapters of 2 Samuel, highlighting the tension between David and Saul's remaining family, particularly with Abner and Ish-bosheth. These chapters are rich with drama, resembling a modern-day political thriller, as power struggles ensue and alliances shift.

As the discussion progresses, the hosts focus on David's flaws, particularly his many marriages and his failure as a parent. Despite being described as a man after God’s own heart, David’s weaknesses, such as his sin with Bathsheba and his inability to properly discipline his sons, are laid bare. This is where the conversation turns toward the necessity of a savior, as even David, with all his strengths, is far from perfect. 

The episode also addresses the consequences of David's sins, particularly the downfall of his family and the national turmoil that ensues. David’s failure to act as a strong father leads to devastating outcomes, such as Absalom's rebellion, which nearly costs David his throne. The hosts draw parallels between David’s experiences and the life of Jesus, noting how both were rejected kings who faced immense trials. These connections are used to emphasize the overarching theme of God’s sovereignty and the inevitability of divine justice and grace.

In conclusion, the podcast underscores the importance of recognizing both the strengths and flaws of biblical figures like David. Through his story, listeners are reminded of the complexity of human nature and the necessity of divine intervention. The episode ends with an affirmation of David's legacy as a beloved, yet flawed, leader whose life points to the need for a savior, reinforcing the continuity of God’s plan throughout scripture. This analysis of 2 Samuel invites listeners to see the Bible as a deeply human and profoundly divine narrative, rich with lessons on leadership, morality, and faith.

#BibleStudy #2Samuel #KingDavid #OldTestament #BiblicalHistory #FaithJourney #ScriptureReflection #GodsPlan #BibleStories #DavidAndSaul

Transcript

 2 Samuel

2 Samuel

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, you're listening to God's Whole Story. This year we're taking a book by book journey throughout scripture to see how God uses the story of scripture to accomplish his purposes. If you enjoy the content, we would love to partner with you. Look at the show notes to see how you can do that and we hope you enjoy this episode.

Well, today we are jumping into 2 Samuel, picking up from Saul's death. Uh, and we're going to see what happens, how David handles it. And I think what we talked about Um, last week was the remark remarkable difference between David and Saul, and we see that right away. I think, um, we see a glimpse into David's character right away, because this arch enemy that he's had now for years, uh, he doesn't Rejoice at the death.

He doesn't throw a party. He actually mourns and laments for both Saul and his friend Jonathan, which I think, again, is kind of a mark of the character of the king that God wants, [00:01:00] um, the mark of the character of the king that God anointed. Um, but quite a few things happen in these first few chapters, but there's, there's war between houses.

I mean, there's so many good stories in this book. Um, we have Abner, who I think was Saul's commander, um, wanting to take over, um, and then, Um, Ish bo shef, uh, son of Saul, is also trying to take over. Um, I actually heard something kind of cool about the, um, about the, uh, suffix, suffix? Yeah, suffix shef in Hebrew.

Have you heard this before? No, but, like, his other son is Mephibosheth, so, like, it's obviously a thing. He, like, favors it. Or maybe it's ish, maybe it's ish that I'm thinking of. I think it's ish bo shef. Ish part. One of those ifs, it's like, it means like kind of like a fake thing. So it's like, it's probably wasn't actually his name.

It was probably just like [00:02:00] the writers kind of like insert in there. Like, don't be fooled by this guy. It's not the real thing. Um, so I thought that was kind of cool. There's definitely a lot of intrigue and back and forth and political things happening. I mean, this would make a great mini series. Like on TV.

There's so much in here. You know, now that I think about it, we still use ish to mean not really a real thing.

Like when we say we're going to record at 7 30 and I arrive at 7 30 ish.

Um, yes, but there are lots of, lots of great stories in here, but one of the main things I just want to focus on in this is just actually when I was. researching for this particular episode. I was like, I'm going to use this episode to convince Ryan that David's a great guy, but I actually think that I don't have to do that.

I don't think, I don't think you hate him as much as you let on. He has great moments. It's funny. He's a general good guy as far as Kings go. Yeah. One of the things I wanted to point out in this episode is that Deuteronomy [00:03:00] 17, which is the weird passage about rules for Kings. Talks about how kings should not take on many wives and David is like, there's like, if you just read the headings, it's like, Oh, there's another wife there.

He picked up another one. So it's like, there's, there's some cracks in this guy. Um, and we know the more famous ones, but like, He makes mistakes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, that's true. He's not the shining city on a hill of a guy that we sometimes presented to be. No. And but what's great about the whole Old Testament, including first and second Samuel, is we're gonna probably beat this into the ground, but it's preparing us for why we need a savior.

Mm-Hmm. . Like, why do we care about these stories? Because this whole history of from adding him eve into the birth of Jesus is preparing us of like, why we actually need a savior. Mm-Hmm. . If we didn't have these stories, we wouldn't. We wouldn't be convinced that we need a savior, but God's plan over and over again is obviously there's a better thing coming.

Obviously, David's not perfect because there was a better King coming. Um, and [00:04:00] so to look for just glimpses of Jesus throughout is actually, is a pretty cool thing to do in second Samuel. Um, I do like the, in your planning, you're trying to figure out how to fight me on stuff. I, yeah, I actually would recommend that.

Oh, that's half of what our planning involves. Actually me and Chris get together. On the side and talk about that. I recommend it. I think let's tag team Ryan on this one.

Um, no, I didn't, I didn't actively say that. I was just like, you know what, David isn't as bad as Ryan thinks he is. I'm not a huge fan. I don't, I don't know if I'm officially on the record, uh, on, on, uh, this side of the podcast yet, but I'm not. A huge fan. I mean, he does, you know, take advantage of a woman and kill her husband.

Yeah, there's that. There's that. Don't love that. I think generally like when people or like most of the preachings go one direction hard and that's all you hear and you read scripture and you see there's another side to the story. I do think there's a natural swing that occurs. Like we're going to be Talking about Solomon next week.

And it's like, who's also [00:05:00] supposed to be a great thing, but well, I actually have heard a lot more bad stuff about Solomon and some of the passages that jump out from here, like biblically, he's supposed to be the one that does everything. And then it turns out to be not so great. So actually one of the cases, I think, and I don't know if the scholars say this, but Ryan says this, um, his, his own sons are not good at following the law.

And just like Eli, that's like, I mean, that's just like a real world, tangible thing. Like if you're a godly man, your son should at least kind of be, and if you have a ton of sons, your odds should be higher. It's actually, I think, as we look at the life of David, one of his biggest weaknesses, he was a terrible parent.

Yes. A terrible parent. And I do like, I have a real. Like, I know the Bible actually calls out David as a man over God, uh, after God's own heart. So I'm not going to fight that. That's, that's, that's obviously there. That was my key part. That was the ace. That was the ace Chelsea was about to play. Yeah. But, but it is like, man, like this dude [00:06:00] pretty much appears to have completely failed as a father.

And that's a, that's a big minus mark. Yeah. Um, obviously God can work through all of those situations and obviously God continues to work through all those situations in our real actual lives. Um, But once again, even with like Some of the heroes in this book, some of the people that are spoken of in the past, and do have some of the greatest moments, they're human, they're broken, they're fallen, uh, and as Chelsea was saying, like, it, you just, that's one of the things I love the most about scripture, it just is not edited, like, if you read the history of any other king in some kind of empire, it's going to be all the glory days, we've, we've got a lot of not so glorious days.

There, there is a, yeah. Uh, historical pushback and a scholarly pushback on David in general, that he's not even a real person. Uh, and the, the, the way the case is made is that he's like this idea that was created to unite the people of Israel [00:07:00] around one goal. personality so that they could be comfortable taking over all the cities around them.

Like it was just trying to unite the people around this mystical figure so that they could be comfortable killing off people and I had never heard that before. Yeah, and, and, and there's also not like, there's not a ton of archaeology that supports David as a real person, but there is some. And I think the fact that there's so many problems in scripture called out about David Like actually pushes explicitly against that idea because even in the Bible, David's not presented as some wonderful mythical figure.

It's, it's very matter of fact story telling the truth. Yeah. Well, okay. Before we get to David's failings in chapters eight through 10, there's a lot of character qualities. Again, if we're comparing Saul and David, we're seeing the difference between a King who follows his own desires and a King who follows God's desires.

So we see [00:08:00] David, um, having victories. We see David, um, and Mephibosheth, I was trying so hard to say it without messing up the first time. There's a reason it's not a common name anymore. Mephibosheth. Um, being super, so, so kind to Mephibosheth, who, I mean, you know, culturally, he did not have to be kind to him.

He should have, he would have killed him. Um, and not even that, but, um, he was, he was lame and it's just, I think that's adds another twist to the story where David was kind to someone who not necessarily culture would have agreed deserved his kindness. And then we get into chapter 11, which is where it all breaks down.

Um, I, I think that when we talk about David and, um, and even Saul, we can, we can relate a little bit to Saul. We talked about that last week, but we [00:09:00] see this buildup, this buildup, this buildup of David as a really good King, his kindness, his victories, all those different things. And then if you think about like David and all the, all the power that he had, he had everything in the world.

And Again, and there's different situational things in here where he should not have been there, all these different things. But if you have like all the power in the world, you can do whatever you want without consequence. I think David actually displays what the human heart looks like on the inside without, you know, the work of the Holy Spirit.

But, um, and so it's kind of easy to get there where it's just like, he did what he wanted to do. And, you know, followed Saul's path because of that, but then seeing the repentance after that is really what the key difference is, again, between Saul and David. Um, I, like David and Nathan, that whole, that whole conversation, God's grace towards David is actually really strange that the Lord's just like, yeah, I forgive you.

He's taken away your [00:10:00] sin. Um, and David is good with it. Whereas like for Saul, his repentance just wasn't real. The Lord was not like, I forgive you. It was just like, no, I know your heart. And so I think we see here what it looks like to sin terribly and do a course correction in your heart and show real repentance over sin.

Also, God, God gives him consequences. Like the consequence for his sin is pretty severe. And a lot of times that's not highlighted. Like he did not get off scot free. No. In fact, it very much complicates his life. Well, the child died. Yes. Yes. And then the sword doesn't depart from his family. Um, but at the same time, like some of the graces, the, the line that continues on in the messianic line goes through Solomon, whose mother is Bathsheba was, so it's, it's just, it's such a mixture of the grace of God.

And [00:11:00] sin has consequences. They are not opposite truths. They are equal truths and they both simultaneously happen. Someday we're going to do a podcast on, um, how it even makes sense that the line of Jesus goes through Bathsheba and David wasn't even supposed to be with Bathsheba. Yeah, that is so, it's so bizarre, but I think that kind of points to even whether it's like the strangeness of the line of David coming down to, to Jesus or, um, God's grace or the child dying or the sword not departing from David's house, all these different things.

What's clear again throughout scripture and especially in the story is that the only thing we can trust is that God's he has he's good in his character like he is good, even though he took this child's life away. He is good, even though he allowed these different things to happen with Amnon and Tamar and it's like all we can trust is God's character and it goes back to what we've talked about before about his sovereignty.

Like, do we trust that he's good? Like, what do we know about the character of God? Not about the character of people. [00:12:00] We know what the character of people is like clearly, but God's goodness has to be trusted. This definitely is a huge pivot point though, that really for the rest of this book, we just see family drama.

Mm hmm. So much. These downward spiral of David and his sons. It just gets, it's like, it can't get any worse. Oh, it just got worse. It can't get any worse. Oh, it just got worse. Yeah. Um, that's, there's, there are significant consequences and it wasn't just for David, like it affected generations. And there are times like this.

Especially towards the ends of his life. David just seems like, not even present at all. Like he's like, dude, David, are you going to stand up for what God called you to do or what? Like, are you just gonna hang out? Like, what are you doing? Yeah. Well, even yeah. The whole, the chapter with Amnon and Tamar, like, He's.

He's furious, but he doesn't do anything. Yeah, he rarely does. And then, so Absalom takes his anger and that's where it all kind of crumbles again. Um, and we see this rejection of David as the King and Absalom trying to [00:13:00] steal the throne from his father and all these different things. It's like, it's, it's sad, but then again, you see the restoration coming in through it too.

I think again, because of David's heart and where he actually is. But also, As far as him not being present, you think literally of him and what he's gone through and the sin that he's done and the horrors that he's seeing in his family. And it's kind of like, I would check out too. He's allowed to be a tired old man.

He's been through a lot. He has. Um, I did want to touch on this one thing. So Absalom, um, tries to take over the throne. David flees. It's this tragic story of David fleeing his own kingdom, because his son is rising up against him. And there's this parallel as David, the rejected King. He's supposed to be this chosen King of Israel and here he is fleeing Jerusalem rejected.

Um, and it's very similar to Jesus also exiting [00:14:00] Jerusalem as a rejected King. So it says David crossed the Kidron Valley, um, which Jesus also would have done on the way to the Mount of Olives. Uh, David in verse 30 continued up to the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went, it's just like an interesting parallel to Jesus and what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane.

And again, another parallel between David and Jesus and the better King coming. And we do eventually see David's restoration. Um, and, but it comes with the horror of then his son's death. Um, but again, we see David's heart. He mourns, he mourns for his son. I mean, I think what dad wouldn't, but even though it was his, he was his enemy.

Um, we see that David's heart is never towards like celebrating someone's death. It's always towards mourning that there was a life lost. You did it. I'm a, I'm a David fan. Oh, wow. Love the guy. That was actually easier than I thought. Favorite Bible character ever. [00:15:00] Don't patronize me. Get out of here. Oh man.

All right, guys. Well, thank you so much for joining us this week. Gospel story. See