Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Samuel 1-3.

As I read today’s passage I thought about the easy familiarity which Abner, who had commanded King Saul’s army, had with Asahel, brother of Joab, commander of David’s army.  Abner was King Saul’s cousin, and the man responsible for putting Saul’s surviving son on the throne of all of Israel aside from the tribe of Judah (and possibly Simeon, since Simeon’s original territory was within the territory of Judah).  While Asahel, and his brothers Joab and Abishai, were David’s nephews.  I want to note that since David was the youngest of Jesse’s eight sons, he may have been only a couple of years older than his nephews (I have a first cousin who is the same age as her niece).  Getting back to my main point.  Abner, as Saul’s cousin would have almost certainly grown up in the same town as Saul did, Gibeah in Benjamin, while David and his nephews grew up in Bethlehem of Judah.  It turns out that Gibeah and Bethlehem were only 12 miles apart, or about four to five hours on foot, and an hour or so by horse drawn wagon.  Which means there would have been social interaction between Bethlehem and Gibeah.  So, Abner and Joab (and David) would have known each other since they were children.  Perhaps not well, but at least aware of each other, such that when they became elite fighting men of Israel (which both were)  they would have interacted socially on many occasions.  All of this puts the relationship between David and Abner into perspective.

This also gives me a new perspective on why King Saul asked who David’s father was after David had defeated Goliath: Saul may have recognized David as someone he had seen around and wanted to know which family he was from.  I mean, we already knew that Saul wanted to know what family David was from, but the new perspective is that Saul knew David’s family.  To explain what I mean: I grew up in a close knit community spread out over a large geographic area.  Many people knew my father’s family, and for that matter, my father was well-known in that community.  In addition, my brothers and I look a lot like each other, but many of our cousins also bear a strong resemblance to us.  As a result, when I would meet people from the community for the first time they would often ask who my father was.  Or, if they knew one of his brothers, or cousins, better than they knew my father, they would ask if I was one of their sons.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.