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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Samuel 4-7.

    Ishbosheth’s reaction to Abner’s death suggests that perhaps he had been accepting of Abner’s plan to turn the kingship of Israel over to David. In yesterday’s passage, Ishbosheth had returned Saul’s daughter, Michal, to David as his wife, which would have given David a claim to the throne as Saul’s successor. However, Abner’s death both deprived Ishbosheth of his best army commander and removed the assurance that he would survive handing his throne over to David. Unfortunately for Ishbosheth two of his men decided that they could curry favor with David by killing Ishbosheth. Those two men discovered that David did not approve of their action. David had them killed for doing so. I feel bad for Ishbosheth. He was never trained to be king and he never sought to be king. Abner made him king because he needed a son of Saul to be figurehead. Then when Abner got himself killed, two of Ishbosheth’s captains killed him in a deluded effort to curry favor with David.

    We see in today’s passage two aspects of David’s leadership that allowed him to be successful. First, we see that he had a good eye for strategy. When he sought to conquer Jerusalem, he saw that it was vulnerable to attack through the tunnel carrying water into the city. Later, when the Philistines attacked him, as they had Saul, he sought advice. The passage tells us that David sought God’s guidance, but I am sure that he also sought the advice of his commanders. As a result of this advice, David did not fall prey to the most common problem for military commanders, fighting the current war according to the strategies which worked in the last war.