Scripture Daily

Context No. 944 of 4322 · 2 Samuel

Context · Reflection

2 Samuel 5:13-19: in context

13David took more concubines and wives for himself out of Jerusalem, after he had come from Hebron; and more sons and daughters were born to David. 14These are the names of those who were born to him in Jerusalem: Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon, 15Ibhar, Elishua, Nepheg, Japhia, 16Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphelet. 17When the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king over Israel, all the Philistines went up to seek David, but David heard about it and went down to the stronghold. 18Now the Philistines had come and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim. 19David inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you deliver them into my hand?” The LORD said to David, “Go up; for I will certainly deliver the Philistines into your hand.”

David is now king over a united Israel and settled in Jerusalem, and two very different notes sound in these verses. First, the narrator mentions almost in passing that David took more concubines and wives in Jerusalem, and more sons and daughters were born to him. Then the Philistines, alarmed that David is king, come up in force and spread out in the valley of Rephaim. David's response is to inquire of the LORD, shall I go up, will you give them into my hand, and the LORD says go, I will certainly deliver them.

The two notes are worth holding together, because the writer sets them side by side without comment. On one hand, David keeps multiplying wives, exactly the thing the law had warned a king against, and this quiet accumulation will grow into the Bathsheba disaster and the family violence that nearly destroys his house. The seeds of David's later ruin are being sown in this offhand verse, in a habit he never questioned because everyone assumed kings did this. On the other hand, when the real external threat comes, David does the thing that made him David: he asks God first. He does not presume on his own record as a warrior or on the momentum of his coronation; he inquires, shall I go up, and waits for the word before he moves. The same man is both drifting in his private appetites and dependent on God in his public battles, and scripture shows us both without flattening him. Great faith in one area does not automatically guard the blind spots in another.

Where am I, like David, carefully seeking God in the obvious battles while a quiet, unquestioned appetite grows unchecked in the background?

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