© David Staume 2007

Second Samuel is the story of Israel under David's rule. The authors are unknown.

1-3. David mourns the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. Abner takes over from Saul. War erupts between the forces of David and the forces of Abner. David's forces become stronger. Abner reconciles with David. Joab, who fought on the side of David, kills Abner, and David curses him and his family for the murder.

4-5. Two brothers who led raiding parties for one of Saul's sons, Ish-Bosheth, stab Ish-Bosheth, cut off his head, and present it to David saying 'Here is the head of your enemy'. David orders the brothers' hands and feet cut off for the murder. David is anointed as King of Israel. His men capture Jerusalem and call it the City of David. David asks God if he will defeat the Philistines. God says 'yes' and tells David to circle them rather then engage them front on. David's men defeat the Philistines.

6-8. David brings the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. God promises he will give the people of Israel a home of their own, and they will have rest from their enemies. David defeats the Philistines and the Moabites. He makes the Moabites lie on the ground in rows and kills two-thirds of them by measuring the rows with a length of cord. David's army kills twenty-two thousand Arameans, then eighteen thousand Edomites. God gives David victory wherever he goes. Success is measured by the number of battles won, and the body count of your enemies. The more successful you are at killing, the more God is with you.

9-11. David shows kindness to Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth, who is lame in both feet. David's army kills forty thousand Arameans and Ammonites. David has sex with Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite. Bathsheba becomes pregnant. David orders Uriah put on the front line of the fiercest battle so that he will be killed. God is displeased at this. Kill one of your own and you're in trouble. Kill hundreds of thousands of 'others', however, and you're a star.

12-14. God puts a curse on David for killing Uriah. This takes the form of giving David and Bathsheba's infant son a fatal illness. David and his general, Joab, attack the Ammonites, plunder their city and enslave them. Another of David's sons, Amnon, rapes his sister, and is later killed for this deed by his brother Absalom. Wasn't there a fifth commandment somewhere? 'Thou shalt not kill'?

15-17. Absalom increases his influence, then leaves for Hebron. Fearing Absalom's ascendancy, David leaves Jerusalem. Absalom returns to Jerusalem and sleeps with all his father's concubines. Absalom decides to mass an army and fight his father but an insider warns David of his son's plan. A battle ensues and twenty thousand men die. Absalom is speared by Joab. David weeps for his son. Joab says to David that he seems more upset by Absalom's death than if all his own soldiers had died.

19-22. David returns to Jerusalem. Three years of famine are attributed to God's anger at Saul's sins. To rectify this David sends seven of Saul's descendants to their death. More bloody battles with the Philistines. David sings a song to God. David's song is sycophantic and sickening.

22-24. This section is confusing, but it seems as if God asks David to take a census of the tribes of Israel so he 'may know how many there are'. David seems to request a census of all fighting men instead. This angers God who sends a plague on the Israelites and seventy thousand die before David sacrifices some animals to appease him. It seems that God needs a census to know how many people there are. Oops.

This chapter is another bloody, superstitious, military drama. God's presence in the Old Testament always appears contrived, inserted to explain failed crops, ill children, plagues, or success or failure in battle. But it's not the behaviour of these people that's surprising, it's the hypocrisy. They don't follow the commandments of their fictitious God. They emulate him, and they emulate him because they created him in their image. They created a paranoid, jealous, fawning, passive-aggressive, and murderous God as a reflection of their own psychological profile. God changes according to the psychological profile of his believers.

Back to 1 Samuel. Forward to 1 Kings.