📖 2 Samuel 1: Key Summary 💎 The same war situation, different outcomes?!

📖 2 Samuel 1: Key Summary 💎 The same war situation, different outcomes?!

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(1 Samuel) first and last chapters, first and last verses

• Chapter 1 tells of the appearance of Samuel and how he was dedicated as a Nazirite.
• Chapter 31 tells of the death of Saul, and the kindness and mourning of the men of Jabesh-gilead.

1. Who brought the news of Saul and Jonathan’s deaths? When was it, and what is the truth?

👉 The order of the records in verses 1–2 of 2 Samuel 1 is a little ambiguous, so I looked at it for quite a while.

• Did Saul die first?
• Or did David return after striking down the Amalekites, stay two days, and Saul died on the third day?

📌 As I examined what came first and what came later, I remembered that behind ambiguous records like this there has always been a hidden treasure... and sure enough, I can see the treasure 💎

✔️ Interesting point 1 · When Saul died

When King Achish and David were about to go to war, the Philistine commanders objected, and David went back to Ziklag.

🔎 1 Sam 29:11

• David set out early in the morning
• The Philistines went up to Jezreel (Jezreel is where the Israelites were encamped · v. 1)

🔎 1 Sam 30:1 — an important hint

• David reached Ziklag on the third day after leaving. (In other words, it tells us the distance was a three-day journey.) 💎
• The man who brought the news of Saul and Jonathan ➔ must have made a three-day journey. 💎

🕒 Saul’s death probably happened “while David was striking the Amalekites, before he returned to Ziklag.” (Perhaps both Saul and David were at war at the same time.) 💎

✔️ Interesting point 2 · The messenger was an Amalekite

The one who raided Ziklag, where David was staying, and took the families captive was an Amalekite..

➔ The man who brought the news of Saul and Jonathan’s deaths is also an Amalekite (2 Sam 1:8)

🔎 1 Sam 15:7-8
When Saul struck Amalek, all the Amalekite people were destroyed.

🔎 1 Sam 30:17
David killed all the Amalekites who had raided. (Although 400 young men escaped on camels, in the wars against Amalek they were always all killed.)

📍 This is also the Lord’s command : Exodus 17 / Deuteronomy 25 ➔ the name of Amalek shall not be remembered; it shall be blotted out (after the Exodus, the Amalekites were all put to death)

📌 Even so, it is remarkable that there was an Amalekite among Saul’s men. So this Amalekite appears to be a descendant of Esau who had long lived among the people of Israel. (He should be seen as a sojourner who lived with the Israelites.)

• Looking into Amalek’s ancestry: a descendant of Esau (Gen 36:12 · Amalek was the son of Esau’s son Eliphaz by a concubine)

💡My thought : When the Bible introduces a person, it usually states which tribe he belonged to, whose son he was, and so on. When David asked the young man who brought the news, “Where are you from?”, I think the Bible records his origin following this way of introducing people. So he said “I am an Amalekite, the son of a foreigner,” stating where he came from.

✔️ Interesting point 3 · Is it true that the Amalekite killed Saul?

Saul, afraid of being abused, asked his armor-bearer to run him through; when he would not, Saul ended his own life, and the armor-bearer, seeing Saul dead, died the same way on his own sword. (1 Sam 31:4-5)

➔ But this Amalekite says that Saul asked him to kill him, and that, knowing Saul could not live after he had fallen, he stood beside him and killed him, then took the crown from his head and the band from his arm and brought them.

📌 That Saul fell on his own sword fits the account. (Then is this young man describing 1 Sam 31 in more detail?)
📌 Even an Amalekite, if he had lived among the Israelites for a long time, may have been circumcised.
➔ What Saul feared was being abused by the uncircumcised. (Saul could have asked him. No problem. He can be inferred to have been a sojourner.)

David’s grief and the death of the Amalekite young man

David had two chances to kill Saul, yet he ordered his men not to touch the Lord’s anointed.

• Of course, being one of Saul’s men, the young man could not have known this..

Since this Amalekite young man said he had killed Saul and brought the crown and armband to David, it seems he came not so much for a reward as to win David’s favor and secure a position.

David killed the Amalekite young man not because he was an Amalekite!
➔ The reason for his death is stated plainly.

✔️ v. 14
How is it you were not afraid to stretch out your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?

✔️ v. 16
Your blood be on your head, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, “I have killed the Lord’s anointed.”

The friendship and love for Jonathan in David’s lament

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David loved music and played the lyre even before Saul. With a sad song he mourned Saul and Jonathan and commanded that it be taught to the people of Judah. And within it he expresses what he felt for Jonathan.

✔️ v. 26
Your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women

➔ This shows how much Jonathan cherished David.

Conclusion

💎 The three days were not the treasure, but the key to finding it. 🔐

Chapter 1 seems to point to the time when Saul and David each fought their own war, and at the same time describes Saul’s death in detail. (There are doubtful points in the Amalekite young man’s words, but that is not important.)

🔎 Given the timing ➔ it makes us wonder what situation the “three days” represent.

• Saul and David may have been in different wars.
• And both of them were in worry and fear.
• ➔ Yet the outcomes of the wars ended in completely opposite scenes.
• Saul fought in fear ➔ and his end was a tragedy foretold!
• David, with his wives taken, also fought in worry and fear ➔ but his end was completely different.

👉 What does the Bible want to tell us here? The answer is below. (Select the text below with your mouse or finger to see the conclusion) 😀

✔️ This chapter seems to show whether the Lord was with them or not. 💎

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