Village Schools of the Bible

A Devotional Study of 2 Samuel 4
by Max Frazier, Jr.

Let's see what 2 Samuel 4 shares with us. It is an
account of the death of Ish-Bosheth, Saul's son.

I. Ish-Bosheth is murdered (vs. 1-6)

II. News of his death is made known to David (vs. 7-8)

III. David executes Ish-Bosheth's killers (vs. 9-12)

It would appear that David did not lack for those who thought it their task to help David get revenge upon Saul's family. Ish-Bosheth was in a state of panic now that Abner, the captain of his army, was dead. Perhaps even he had now begun to think that it was time to appeal to David and trust that he would be gracious and merciful to him as he had been to his father. But we will never know if those were his thoughts because two rouges believed that God had called them to bring revenge upon Ish-Bosheth on behalf of David. Now some might want to say that David is being harsh here. But look at David's reasoning. While running from Saul, on two separate occasions he could have killed Saul himself, in fact he was encouraged to do so. Yet, consistently his response was that he could not lay his hand against the Lord's elect. So, if David, Israel's future king, could not take his own revenge, how could he condone the actions of these two men? David walked as a man of high integrity and he expected his followers to do the same. His cry was for them to be followers of himself even as he followed God. That is real leadership.

2Samuel 3 Return to the Table of Contents 2Samuel 5