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.
I find it noteworthy that King David did not attempt to establish himself as king over all of Israel by military conquest. It would have been fairly straightforward for him to do so. Ishbosheth was not military commander and both David and Joab were excellent commanders. In fact, even after the death of Ishbosheth David waited for the tribes to come to him asking him to be their king. I bring this up because it puts King David’s reaction to the two brothers who killed Ishbosheth in context. If we go back and think about what had been going on before Abner’s death it becomes clear that Ishbosheth had been resigned to turning the kingdom over to David. Ishobosheth’s falling out with Abner was over Abner sleeping with one of King Saul’s concubines. Abner was not angry because the accusation itself was false. Rather, Abner got angry because the implication of Ishbosheth’s accusation was false. Abner did not sleep with Saul’s concubine as a step towards claiming the throne. However, since Ishbosheth thought that Abner slept with the concubine as a step towards claiming the throne, he clearly understood that returning his sister to David to be David’s wife was accepting David’s claim to the throne. The two brothers who killed Ishbosheth further miscalculated in that David did not seek vengeance on Saul and his family. Instead, he mourned their deaths.
Usually when I write about David moving the Ark to Jerusalem I write about what went wrong and what David did to get it right the second time. However, today I want to focus on David’s willingness to make a fool of himself to worship the Lord. I would say “willingness to embarrass himself”, except that he was not embarrassed. Michal, David’s wife and one of King Saul’s daughters, was embarrassed by what David did, but David was not. David was enthusiastic about his worship of the Lord and felt no need to maintain his dignity. WE can take a lesson from King David’s response to his wife. He was willing, even eager, to be even more foolish in praising and worshiping God, to the point where even he felt that he had humiliated himself. Not only should we not be worried about what others think of us when we worship the Lord, we should be willing to humiliate ourselves in our own eyes in order to bring glory to God. If it takes me being humiliated to bring someone to God, I want to be willing to be humiliated.