STUDIES IN SAMUEL No. 45

2 Samuel 5:6-25

November 4, 2001

Text Comment

We begin now the next major act in this narrative and there are some striking features that distinguishes it from the first act (i.e. 2:1-5:5). In that first act with its various scenes, the account of the civil war, the murder of Abner and the assassination of Ish-Bostheth, and, by these means, David's coming to power as king of Israel, the narrator used the name of the Lord but once and that in the opening verse of the first scene (2:1). Now, in this second act, that extends to the end of chapter 8, the Lord's name appears constantly. Or, in other words, we have God acting behind the scenes in Act I, the God of Providence; but in Act II, he comes, as it were, out from behind the curtain. In fact, as one scholar points out [Fokkelmann in Waltke, notes pp. 10-11], "There is…no other Act in the books of Samuel which so clearly puts God forward as agent as this one does." Another difference between the two acts is that in Act I, the generals were the prominent players; in Act II David will be.

But the two Acts, are closely related to one another by our narrator. I say narrator, remember, because we are never told who wrote the books of Samuel or who was responsible for its final form. Let me just mention some of the connections the narrator draws for us.

1. Both acts center around David's capital, first Hebron, then Jerusalem. (For example, we are told in each case how long David reigned from each capital - 2:11 and 5:4-5 - we are given the list of sons born to David at each capital - 3:2-5 and 5:13-16 -);

2. Michal, David's wife figures in each Act, as a pawn of David's march to power in Act I and as the bitter and barren co-wife in Act II (clearly this is no accident since, otherwise, Michal does not figure in any important way in the history of David's reign);

3. Both Acts include statements of God's favor upon David (2:1; 5:10)

Indeed, in the second act, Jerusalem, the City of the Lord, is the central character. It is conquered in chapter 5, it is made God's holy dwelling by the placing of the ark there in chapter 6, and God makes a promise to make Zion his dwelling forever in chapter 7.

v.7 The choice of Jerusalem was a master-stroke and, of course, that decision still reverberates in the politics of our world 3,000 years later.

Zion seems to have been the name of the hill on which the fortress stood (remember, Jerusalem would have been much smaller in those days), a name that subsequently was extended to cover the entire city, and then, by metonymy, to the entire nation of which it was the capital. We do the same today when we speak of Washington consulting with London about the situation in Kabul. Ponder for a moment those two names - Jerusalem and Zion - and their place in the culture of the world and the heart of the church: all because of David's decision to make his capital this particular Jebusite city. Jerusalem in Christian thought and song is the church of Christ, it is also the image of heaven itself.

v.8 The problem in an ANE city was to have a reliable supply of water within the city in time of war. You built cities on hills for defense purposes, but the water, of course, was ordinarily found at lower elevations, in the nearby valleys, which placed it outside the city wall. So it was with Jerusalem. The Gihon Spring, the city's primary source of water, was outside the city walls. So what was typically done was to sink a shaft inside the city walls down to the water table. Such a shaft is thought to be referred to here, though, you should know there is considerable debate about just where this shaft was and even if "water shaft" is the proper translation.

In Chronicles we learn that David laid this down as a challenge to his men. Whoever was able to lead his army to victory by this stratagem of sneaking up the water shaft would be made a commander in his army.

v.9 As any king would do to the city he had made his capital, its defenses were strengthened and the city enlarged and improved.

v.12 The narrator is here summarizing David's reign. This building by Hiram did not happen until some years later. We should not think that Hiram did this out of the goodness of his heart. He needed David's favor to ensure access to his trading partners, some of the routes to whom ran through Israel and some of whom eventually became vassals of David.

v.16 With the exception of Solomon, none of the sons born in Jerusalem grew up to be of any historical importance.

v.17 The Philistines were bound to react with disapproval to the news that Israel had united under David. Their nearest neighbor, and a troublesome one at that, now was led by a formidable military man whose prowess at the head of an army they had had occasion to witness on a number of occasions. What is more, if the capture of Jerusalem had already occurred - it is hard to tell whether the narrator intends us to see the order of events chronologically - that would have itself served notice to the Philistines that David did not intend to accept the status quo.

"The stronghold" in this instance is either not Jerusalem at all, as it is in vv. 7 and 9 (NIV's "fortress"), or the fortress within the city. One does not go down to Jerusalem, but he might have gone down from his house to the fortress to make ready for war [Alter, Com, 223]. In that case "down to the stronghold" would be akin to "at the news of the threat the President moved to the situation room."

v.21 The Valley of Rephaim is just a few miles from Jerusalem. In the account of this same battle in Chronicles we are told that David burned the Philistine idols. (1 Chron. 14:12). Their gods were unable to help them and the glory of Israel is being restored by faith in the living God.

v.24 In other words, the Lord will be fighting directly on Israel's behalf.

v.25 Unlike the first victory, which was a separate and smaller engagement, David now inflicts a general military defeat on the Philistines, driving them from the territory in Israel that they had occupied. Breaking the back of the Philistine menace was the greatest military achievement of David's reign and created the opportunity for Israel's military and economic expansion during David and Solomon's reign.

Now, again, there are levels of meaning here. The Lord has set his king over his people and the first thing this king does is to conquer the enemies of his people. Certainly we Christians are to see the conquests of the Lord Jesus Christ prefigured here: he conquered our enemies for us, sin, the flesh, and the Devil.

But we also see a man serving the Lord. David is not only a prefigurement of the Lord Jesus, he is also an exemplar of the believer, the follower of Christ. And we see him here exercising his faith in the Lord, acting on the strength of the Word of God, and enjoying the blessing of the Lord that came to him as a result.

But there is in both of these layers of meaning another lesson, woven through this text, as it is woven through countless texts in the Bible. Here is taught the part of the Bible's doctrine of providence that theologians call concursus.

You know what "providence" is in Christian theology. Our Catechism defines providence as "God's most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions." That is, providence is God's rule over all things and bringing all events, both great and small, to pass so as to fulfill his purpose in the world. It extends from the movement of kings and nations down to the little sparrow who falls, unknown to any man, dead from a tree branch in the forest. This divine providence determines how long any of us lives and the quality of our lives, when we die and how, when and if we become Christians. But it determines also great events such as September 11th and its aftermath, wars and plagues and famines, times of plenty and prosperity, and the individual circumstances of the daily life of every human being, of every gnat for that matter. [In his Summa Theologiae Thomas Aquinas argued that while God controls all things, that doesn't mean he actually determines precisely how many gnats there would be in the world at any moment. His providence only determines that there would be enough gnats to do the job, whatever the job might be - e.g. irritating people at a picnic perhaps. But, surely, that is not the Bible's view. A providence that extends its control over matters as trivial as the precise number of hairs on our head, is exhaustive in its reach: the exact number of gnats and their position in the air at any time.] That is how great God is. That is the extent of his sovereignty!

In classical Christian theology, providence is usually said to consist in three things, or to have three dimensions.

1. Conservation or Preservation: the Lord sustaining all that he has made; for example, sustaining his creatures in the life he has given them. The created order continues. The planets continue to revolve around the sun, the stars and galaxies wheel in their proper places in the great universe, and, on a far smaller, but more important scale, we continue to breath, our hearts continue to beat, and so on. All of this the Bible teaches us is the direct consequence of the Lord sustaining his creation.

2. Concurrence or concursus, by which is meant God's supporting of and working his will in and through second causes. This is why events in the world can be ascribed to and are often ascribed to either God or man or both. There is an ultimate cause and a secondary cause and God, as the ultimate cause of everything, cooperates with the secondary causes to bring his will to pass. "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good," Joseph told his brothers. In other words, God used their jealousy, their cunning, their betrayal even to bring about his good and perfect ends. Or, our trials, in Psalm 42. The psalmist is troubled by evil men, but he looks right by them to God as the ultimate cause of his circumstances: "All your waves and breakers have gone over me."

3. Government: by which is meant all that happens in the world is being directed by God to accomplish his purposes. Everything is under his control and is being controlled so that it contributes its part or piece to the fulfillment of God's plan.

Conservation, concurrence, and government are thus the parts or dimension of God's providence, his direction of all things in the universe. What we have here before us tonight is concurrence. God directs all things, to be sure, but he does so by making use of, by cooperating with second causes, and, in particular, the free choices and the actions of human beings.

In his book The Theology of the Sacraments, the Scottish theologian of a generation ago, D.M. Baillie, tells this story.

"Some years ago a very able student of our College suddenly fell ill and died. He was the only son of parents who had lost their only other child while very young. They were poor and simple folk. The father was a half-blind ex-service man, and they were making a living by keeping a small poultry farm. Their son was the joy and crown of their lives, and they did all they could for him. He was dux of his school, then distinguished himself in his Arts course at the University, came to St. Mary's College, was suddenly taken ill and died. A few days after the funeral I mounted a bus to go out to the country and visit his parents. There happened to come into the bus an old acquaintance, a layman, whom I hadn't seen for years - and quite untheological, even unintellectual man. He sat beside me, and presently asked me where I was going. I told him, and gave him an outline of the sad story. Suddenly he said to me: 'Now, was it God who did that, or was it the Devil?' What is the answer? There is no short and easy answer." [152]

Well, that is surely right: there is no short and easy answer. And we need to state this doctrine carefully, reminding people of the perfect sympathy, goodness, and tenderness of God. But there is an answer and it is that both God and the Devil did that. We will, in fact, come upon an event later in 2 Samuel which is ascribed both to God and the Devil! And many times events in the Bible are ascribed both to God and to sinful men. Here is a case, as my old pastor used to say, of God using sin sinlessly. But great deeps as are opened before us by this doctrine, the Bible's doctrine is that nothing happens in this world apart from the will and counsel of God and that he uses the freely willed choices and actions of man to accomplish that will without in any way nullifying man's freedom to think and act as he pleases, or the Devil's for that matter and without in any way being tainted by the evil that men and the Devil do. A great mystery to be sure!

We surely have that in a most dramatic way in this passage. And in several different respects.

1. Do you remember how many times in Deuteronomy, at the time of the death of Moses, as Israel is poised to enter the Promised Land and take possession of it, there is mention of the city that God would choose to place his name and his sanctuary there? Elaborate plans are laid, for example, for Israel's worship when the sanctuary is established in that city, whatever city it will be. It is never identified by name apparently because no one, at that time, except the Lord, knew what city it would be; which, by the way, is a powerful argument that Deuteronomy was written well before Jerusalem was chosen as the capital and the site of the temple. In any case, there was always a divine plan for a capital with the temple located there. It was always to be the center of Israel's worship and the place where God's name would particularly dwell.

But, so far as this text and others indicate, David chose Jerusalem as his capital. He asked God twice about going to battle against the Philistines and got specific instructions. But, so far as we know, he made the choice of Jerusalem by himself. It is not hard to see why he made that choice; in some ways it was, as I said, a masterstroke. Hebron was no longer useful because it was too far south and, being in Judah, could not be the capital of the united kingdom. David could no longer show favoritism toward a single tribe. Jerusalem was more central, in fact it was located on the center north/south axis of the country, and was actually in the territory of Benjamin the tribe of Saul, not Judah. Furthermore, the city-state had, to this point, resisted assimilation by the Israelites, so it was a Canaanite outpost and presence in the nation. In that respect, it was not really identified with any tribe and so made a natural choice for a national capital, not unlike our District of Columbia. The fact that Jerusalem resisted gave David the opportunity to prove his leadership to the nation and wipe out a pagan center in the land.

All of those reasons make perfect sense of David's choice, but, what is striking is that it seems to have been David's choice. Important as this decision would prove to be, we might well have expected God to instruct David as to the choice of a capital, but apparently he did not. David made this choice that was to be so consequential for the church and the world. God, as it were, co-operated with David's mental processes and with this act of his will. He accomplished his will through David's choice. Remember, in Deuteronomy the city will be chosen by God, not by a man.

"But you are to seek the place the Lord you God will choose from among all your tribes to put his name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices…" (Deut. 12:5-6)

"Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings anywhere you please. Offer them only at the place the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, and there observe everything I command you." (12:13-14)

"Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose…" (16:16)

But how does that divine choosing take place? Through David's own decision that Jerusalem is the best choice for his capital.

2. But, there is more. How is the city secured? Not by direct divine intervention. Not by the wind blowing in the tops of the trees that indicates that God has gone out in front of the army. That is the case in one battle, but not here. No, David, a savvy commander, realizes that there must be a way into the well defended city because every city had to provide for a source of water when under siege. It would be a daring exploit for someone to enter the city by this means. Obviously not very many men could enter the city at one time climbing up a water shaft. The tunnel or shaft would be narrow and the climb itself would be difficult. Perhaps all that was needed was for a few men to enter secretly and then open the gates for the rest. We don't know for sure, but we do know that the method of attack represented the kind of daring, bravery, strength and skill that would be wisely rewarded by giving the man who managed it the command of the army. Any soldier who could do this, deserved to be in command! And so the city was taken. Perhaps not entirely unlike the way that Troy was taken by the subterfuge of the great wooden horse!

We know that God secured the victory. We know it was his doing. The narrator tells us that explicitly in v. 10. Things went well for David because "the Lord was with him." But that did not mean that daring exploits were unnecessary. No doubt some casualties were suffered in the attack on Jerusalem and later in the battles against the Philistines. War still had to be fought, soldiers still had to die, even though "the Lord was with David." Even in the battle in which the Lord fought for Israel directly and supernaturally, the army still had to take the field, still had to wield the sword, generals had to direct their troops, and still, no doubt, the army suffered casualties in the battle.

That is concursus. And so is life around us every day, at every moment of every day. It was so on September 11th. Nothing the terrorists did on that terrible day was outside of divine control. Hard as it may be to understand that, much as they intended it for evil, and much evil as was done, God was working out his plan for human history, a plan we cannot fathom but which moves inexorably, through events wonderful and terrible, to its eventual consummation at the end of the age. The Bible teaches us to believe both things completely: that God is in absolute control of everything that happens in this world - everything! - and that the free choices and actions of human beings, the natural laws and forces of the universe, all maintain their integrity and genuineness. God works in and through them, he does not nullify them. Men are not puppets whose strings God holds and controls. But, their free and responsible actions do not escape the divine control. There is the great mystery, a mystery that the Bible sets before us times without number, so that we would be sure to remember that we face it every day that we live.

You brought yourself here to hear this sermon tonight, but God brought you here to hear this sermon. Your life, therefore, is supercharged with significance. At no point do you escape the hand of God. At no point is your life, your thought, your action, not a matter of his divine rule. Some worry that their freedom is curtailed in this way. It is wiser by far to realize that you live and move and have your being in Almighty God and that, therefore, you ought always, in every moment of your life, seek in thought, word, and deed, to love and serve him!