All the mighty men of valour (2Samuel 23)

2Samuel chapter 23 only opens with a contradiction if you assume all of this is chronological, which, as I said in the last chapter, I don't believe to be true. What were the last words of David? This chapter claims these verses were, 1Kings 2 does not make such a claim.

How many men did the chief of David's captains kill? This seems possible to be a contradiction, but notice that the names are different in 1Chronicles 11. It seems more likely to me that David had two different chiefs at different times. Admittedly, "Hachmonite" and "Tachmonite" look very similar in Hebrew, although 800 and 300 do not. I should also note that with these numbers being so round, probably both 800 and 300 are rounded up.

How many mighty men did David have? I always find it interesting when a supposed contradiction comes up in a single narrative; I usually assume that there's a misunderstanding rather than an actual contradiction. So what is going on here? Was the author of this chapter bad at counting? If, indeed, there are 36 here, I have a suggestion: David was #37. It's a real possibility, but now I'm going to immediately pivot and give what I think is an even better idea: Joab. Joab is only tangentially touched on in the list here, but it seems rather likely given Joab's track record throughout the story of David, that Joab would be considered one of the "mighty men". The person who wrote this may have felt they included Joab since his name appears in there twice.

And the king left ten women, which were concubines (2Samuel 20)

While 2Samuel chapter 20 is more action-packed than the previous chapter, there's not a lot here to cover. The fallout of the argument from the end of the last chapter is that a man named Sheba blows a horn and yells to the Israelites that David is clearly king of just the tribe of Judah, and the other tribes should abandon David, so they all leave. As almost a side note, David takes the ten concubines that Absalom had sex with and puts them away somewhere separate where he never has sex with them again.

David tells Amasa to assemble the troops and go after Sheba for being a troublemaker. They go after him, but on the way, Joab kills Amasa. (Joab really has this tendency to kill people who have offended him and/or David against David's will.) When they come to the city where Sheba is, they lay siege to it, and try to break down the wall. A woman comes to the wall and asks Joab what the meaning of the attack is, and Joab says that they really just want Sheba. So the people of the city chop off Sheba's head and throw it down to Joab. Joab blows a horn, and the army goes back to Jerusalem.

They brought him to Jerusalem (2Samuel 19)

The SAB marks 2Samuel chapter 19 as "boring", and yeah, it probably is; but what do you want, more mass killing and rape?

David is still mourning Absalom, and Joab goes to find him and says essentially that it's looking bad that he's mourning someone who wanted him and his family and friends dead, and if he wants to stay king, he needs to buck up and go talk with the people. So David goes and sits by the gate of the city, a traditional place for leaders to be, and the people notice and come to him. David sends word to the tribe of Judah (his own tribe) and asks why they haven't sent for him to come back, and tells Amasa that he will be the head of the army in Joab's place. They send for David, and he goes back to cross the Jordan.

A bunch of people show up at the crossing. Shimei shows up with a thousand Benjamiites and apologizes for the way he treated David on the way out. Mephibosheth shows up and says that he has been slandered by his servant. David is not in a mood for revenge at this moment, so he forgives them. An 80-year-old man named Barzillai, who helped David when he was in exile, shows up to see David back to Jerusalem, at least part of the way. David returns to Jerusalem, and there's a bit of an argument between the men of Judah and the men of the rest of Israel over who is more loyal, which apparently leads to problems in the next chapter.

King David mourned many days for his son (2Samuel 18)

2Samuel chapter 18 opens with David finally organizing his retaliation against Absalom. He apparently still has thousands of men on his side, and he divides them into three armies. The men tell him to not fight because his life is more important than theirs, and so he stays behind. 20,000 men are killed, probably mostly by David's soldiers. I think that verse eight is really saying that the slaughter was worse just because they were fighting in the forest, not that the forest literally killed people.

Now Absalom comes riding on a mule, and he gets his head caught in some tree branches. This is supposed to be ironic, because one of the things people admired Absalom for was his huge head of hair, and it proves to be his undoing. So somehow, he's left there by himself just hanging by his hair, and a man reports this to Joab, who gets angry with the man for not taking advantage of the situationa5 and killing Absalom. The man replies that David told everyone that no matter what happens, not to hurt Absalom. Joab clearly doesn't care, and stabs Absalom in the heart with three arrows; ten men with him also attack Absalom. Joab blows a trumpet and the fight ends. They throw Absalom's body in a pit and cover him with stones. I addressed whether Absalom had children in 2Samuel chapter 14.

A man wants to run to David and tell him the news, but Joab stops him, because he knows David won't be happy (and perhaps he wants to make sure the king doesn't know who struck the killing blow), but then he tells a different man to run and tell David. In the end, both men go, David finds out, and he appears to be heartbroken.

And they made reconciliation (2Samuel 14)

2Samuel chapter 14 opens with an interesting story that's in many ways similar to the opening of chapter 12. Joab gets a woman to come to David and tell a made-up story of one of her sons murdering the other. She expresses that if the remaining son is put to death for his crime, her deceased husband will have no heirs. David assures the woman that he will protect her son. Then the woman asks why David hasn't given similar protection to Absolom. David realizes this is a setup. He calls Joab and has him retrieve Absolom to Jerusalem, but requests not to see Absalom in person.

Now there's some stuff about Absalom and how popular he is, partially because he's so handsome. There's a note about how Absolom has an immense amount of hair on his head, which ends up being significant later in the story. How many sons did Absalom have? It seems clear that Absalom had (at least) three sons, as stated here. What appears to be a contradiction with the chapter 18 passage has at least a couple of possibilities. One is that Absalom's children died at some point, maybe during the battle. Another one, and one I think more likely, is to note that the chapter 18 passage is clearly not in chronological order, as it comes after Absslom's death. Perhaps Absalom created the monument before he had any children.

The chapter ends with a strange story where Absalom has been living in Jerusalem for two years and still hasn't seen his father. He sends word to Joab twice to fix this, and when Joab doesn't answer, Absalom sends his servants to burn up Joab's barley. Joab finally comes, and Absalom insists that he wants to see David even if it means dying. Joab brings Absolom to David, Absalom bows before him, and David kisses him. Is everything okay now? We'll see.

Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite (2Samuel 11)

2Samuel chapter 11 is a story that a lot of people know, and the objections to the content are pretty standard. King David is not at war while all his soldiers are, and hanging out in Jerusalem, he sees Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite, bathing. So he sends for her and has sex with her. However, as the timing was that she had just been purified from her period, she gets pregnant. David wants to cover up that he's responsible, so he sends for Uriah and tells him to go sleep with his wife. Uriah doesn't. So David has Uriah sent back to war with a letter to Joab essentially arranging for Uriah's death. Uriah dies, Bathsheba mourns, and David marries her. So, sex, violence, deception, and it's all a big mess, and David is pretty awful.

However...

This is not my view on this chapter, but is a view shared with me by an Orthodox Rabbi. I put it out here to highlight the subjectivity of Biblical interpretation.

Uriah, living among Jews with a Jewish wife, would have adopted Jewish customs. You won't find it in the Bible, but a custom among Jews is, if you go to fight in a war, you divorce your wife, because she can't remarry without a bill of divorce or a dead body. In the unfortunate event that your body is lost, she'd be stuck married to you forever. So, Bathsheba being divorced means David is not technically committing adultery.

Why does David kill Uriah? Well, Uriah tips his hand by referring to Joab as, "...my lord Joab..." David knows Joab is fomenting a rebellion, and Uriah is part of it. So David has Uriah killed to get rid of a traitor, and send a message to Joab. So it's not technically murder.

Again, I don't agree with this view; I think it has problems, such as why is David trying to cover up what he did if he didn't do anything wrong? And why does God punish David in the next chapter, and why does he punish him in that particular manner? Still, I think it's food for thought, and I don't personally have any good responses to the SAB for this chapter.

Now these were the sons of David (2Sam 3)

In chapter 3, David gets busy being king and having lots of kids. David has six sons, each by a different wife, and for some reason the retelling of David's family in 1Chronicles 3 gives one name different. It might be a nickname or something like that, but I really have no idea what the story is here.

A really strange story here is the story of Abner and his turning his allegiances to David. Apparently, Abner sleeps with one of Saul's concubines, which worries Ishbosheth (as I think I mentioned elsewhere, it was apparently a custom of the day for a king who conquered another to sleep with the defeated king's concubines to show he is taking the old king's place), and Ishbosheth asks what's going on. Abner flips out and goes over to David's side. (One might wonder if Abner sensed he was on the losing side, and wanted to switch to keep what power he had as a military leader.)

David tells Ishbosheth that he wants his wife Michal back, and Ishbosheth retrieves her. Her new husband Phaltiel is clearly very unhappy about this, but is unable to do anything about it. We're never told whether David did this out of love or out of a sort of display of authority, but we were told earlier that Michal did love David, and perhaps she still does. Something that the SAB does not note here is the fact that a man whose ex-wife has remarried is not allowed to take her back (Deuteronomy 24:4). Since there doesn't seem to have been a formal divorce in this case, it's not clear whether David might be breaking the law in this case.

Now, when David tries to make peace with Abner, Joab hears about it and is very displeased. He goes behind David's back and kills Abner in revenge for the killing of his brother Asahel. David denounces Joab's actions and pronounces a curse on Joab's house. Now whether or not David was right to give this curse (and whether it was really meaningful) is a matter of opinion, but I think I can see David's motivation for being angry with Joab. After all, Abner was offering a chance at peace and a (relatively) bloodless uniting of the kingdom of Israel under David, and Joab messed it up.

And all his house died together (2Sam 2)

So in chapter 2, David finally becomes king officially. However, at apparently around the same time, Abner decides to declare Saul's son Ishbosheth the king. No doubt Abner, being a close relative of Saul, would prefer to keep the monarchy in the family.

This does present a problem for the SAB though, in that according to 1Chronicles 10, "all [Saul's] house died together" during the battle that saw the death of Saul. One of the things that can be said in reply to this is that it may not be clear what comprises Saul's "house". It's well established elsewhere that at least one of Saul's grandchildren is alive, and as I just said above, Abner is a relative of Saul. One might consider the idea that his "house" is his royal line, but even that is problematic, as Ishbosheth not only survives, but briefly sits on the throne. It might also be that Saul's "house" refers to men in his family of the proper age to fight in wars, but since Ishbosheth is somewhere around forty years old when Saul dies, this seems highly unlikely. While one can also sometimes find some ambiguity in the word "together", I don't think that's going to suffice here either, as clearly Isbosheth lives at least two years after Saul's death. The only real room for ambiguity in the language here that I can see is in the word "son", which as has been mentioned several times is a much more fluid word in Hebrew, capable of referring to any descendant. If Ishbosheth was Saul's grandson, perhaps there is no contradiction, but there's really no indicator of such an idea other than the fact that it might solve this issue, and that Ishbosheth doesn't seem to ever be mentioned until this point. In short, I don't know what to make of the claim of 1Chronicles 10:6.

A strange story follows. The armies of David and Ishbosheth meet together in Gibeon, and Abner suggests "Let the young men now arise, and play before us." The play turns out to be lethal, and in short order, twenty-four men are dead. Is this a "cruel game" as the SAB says? Maybe. The way it sounds to me is that the idea was to have a relatively non-violent wrestling match, and it turned sour, as every single one of the men was set on treachery against their opponent. Indeed, this is a violent event, and one that doesn't make much sense, especially since there are no formally declared hostilities between these two armies.

The next notable event in the plot is Abner's killing of Asahel, the brother of Joab. This seems to be clearly a case of self-defense, as well as a killing in the midst of battle, and yet Joab later seeks revenge for this act. Once all the fighting is done on this particular day, Ishbosheth's soldiers lose 360 men, while David loses only 20.