Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Wednesday, November 7, 2012 Read – 2 Samuel 1 & 2 Perhaps you may have wondered why we have books in the Bible called 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. Why not just one Samuel? Actually the reason is a practical one. The scrolls on which the Bible was first written would get too large. In reality, the books 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 2 Kings are all one long book and should be read as one. The reason there are four is simply that the one book has been divided into four scrolls to make reading and handling it easier. As one long scroll, these four books would have been impossible to handle – the scroll would have become too large. That’s just a piece of trivial information that really does not matter – except that we understand these four books to be of one piece. Returning to the story, we are now told of David’s reaction to what happened in the demise of Saul and his sons. Saul had sought to kill David. We might expect his reaction to be one of joy or at least relief. Apparently that is what the messenger thought too. Again the messenger is an Amalekite – they seem to pop up in this story as reminders of what happens when you don’t do what God wants. David’s reaction is one of grief and violence. First of all he is deeply grieved over the death of Saul and Jonathan. More troubling, he orders the killing of the Amalekite messenger who brought what the Amalekite thought was “good news.” We are not troubled with David’s reaction of deep grief. I don’t know about you, but David’s second reaction of killing the messenger is troubling to me. There are two things that make this story challenging. First of all it must be noted that there are two versions of the death of Saul. In the version at the end of 1 Samuel we are told that Saul falls on his own sword thus killing himself because his body guard, who he begs to kill him, is afraid to do so. In that version, Saul dies at his own hand. But in the telling of the story in the beginning of 2 Samuel, the Amalekite messenger says that he killed Saul when he found him desperately wounded, because he perceived that Saul was not able to live. Which story is telling the truth? Of course we don’t know and can’t know. Both stories are left standing together. The Biblical writers were not nearly as worried about conflicting accounts as we are. So that’s the first challenge – dealing with differing stories in the Bible. Actually I don’t think this challenge is very difficult – especially if we are able to come to the Bible with a far more complex understanding of the “inspiration of scripture”. Unless we hold to the idea that God is the only one responsible for the words in the Bible we need not be troubled by the human nature of the story. I don’t think the first writers were much troubled, nor is God. But the second challenge is far more difficult. David’s reaction is to order the killing of the Amalekite messenger. His reasoning is that since Saul was God’s anointed one, killing that anointed one should end in death. That was David’s stand all along in the story, and telling the story in this way certainly does highlight David’s loyalty. But is killing the messenger justified? What might God have been thinking? Or course we can’t know God’s thoughts but I think we ought to be troubled by the story none the less. Typical of other turning points in the story – David turns to poetry to tell the story of his grief upon the death of Saul and Jonathan. As we have noted before, these poetic tellings of the story may be very old – some of the first telling. As we listen to David’s song, we are struck by the fact that in the song alone we would have no idea whatsoever of the conflict between David and Saul. David sings Saul’s and Jonathan’s praises. Perhaps there is more to the story than meets the eye. With Saul’s death David emerges as the king among the southern tribes. He moves his stronghold to Hebron and begins to reign from there. But David is not the only one to emerge as king. Not all of Saul’s sons were killed in the battle at Gilboa. A son named Ishbaal, whom we haven’t heard of before, is crowned king over the northern tribes. The seeds of a struggle that will unfold in the books of kings are sown. A rather unusual story is told of the followers of David and the followers of Ishbaal fighting to essentially a draw. But the battle lines are set. We are left wondering how this story is going to turn out. That story is followed by another unusual story which focuses on the men who are the respective leaders of each of the armies – Joab representing David’s army and Abner, Ishbaal’s. An attempt at Abner’s life is averted but in the process, Asahel, Joab’s brother is killed by Abner who will soon meet his death at the hands of Joab. The intrigue and violence continues making this an unpleasant story to read.