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2 Samuel 23 of 24

2 Samuel 23

A dying king's final oracle and a catalogue of warriors who kept him alive — the names the book refuses to forget.

Summary

These are the last words of David: David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel said — the Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me: he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure; for this is all my salvation and all my desire. But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands; and the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place.

The list of the mighty men begins: Josheb-basshebeth the Tachmonite, chief among the captains, who slew eight hundred men at one time. Eleazar the son of Dodo the Ahohite, one of three mighty men who were with David when they defied the Philistines: he arose and smote them until his hand was weary and his hand clave unto the sword; the Lord wrought a great victory that day. Shammah the son of Agee the Hararite: when the Philistines gathered at a plot of ground full of lentils and the people fled from them, he stood in the midst of the ground and defended it and slew the Philistines. Three of the thirty go down to the rock to David at the cave of Adullam when the Philistines encamp in the valley of Rephaim. David is in the hold. He longeth and saith: oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate. The three mighty men break through the Philistine host and draw water from the well and bring it to David. He will not drink of it but pours it out to the Lord: far be it from me, O Lord, that I should do this; is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? The list continues with Asahel, Elhanan, Benaiah who slew a lion in a pit on a snowy day — and ends: Uriah the Hittite — thirty and seven in all.

Appears
David Uriah the Hittite Joab
Themes
The Warrior King Loyalty and Honour Covenant
All 24 chapters — click to jump
  1. 2 Samuel 1Chapter 1 is the hinge between 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel.
  2. 2 Samuel 2Chapter 2 opens the period of civil war that will occupy much of the first half of the book.
  3. 2 Samuel 3Chapter 3 is one of the most politically complex chapters in the book.
  4. 2 Samuel 4Chapter 4 closes the civil war with a brief, ugly episode.
  5. 2 Samuel 5Chapter 5 is the pivotal chapter of the book's first half.
  6. 2 Samuel 6Chapter 6 is one of the most dramatically charged chapters in 2 Samuel, covering two episodes that frame the ark's arrival in Jerusalem.
  7. 2 Samuel 7Chapter 7 is the theological centre of the entire David narrative and one of the most consequential passages in the Hebrew Bible for later Jewish and Christian thought.
  8. 2 Samuel 8Chapter 8 reads differently from everything around it.
  9. 2 Samuel 9Chapter 9 is the chapter the Court History uses to establish one key dimension of David's character before the crisis arrives.
  10. 2 Samuel 10Chapter 10 establishes the military context of the Bathsheba episode.
  11. 2 Samuel 11Chapter 11 is the turning point of 2 Samuel and one of the most consequential chapters in biblical narrative.
  12. 2 Samuel 12Chapter 12 contains the most famous confrontation in the book.
  13. 2 Samuel 13Chapter 13 is the first fulfilment of Nathan's sentence in chapter 12.
  14. 2 Samuel 14Chapter 14 covers the three years in which David longs for Absalom but will not recall him, and Joab's intervention to change that.
  15. 2 Samuel 15Chapter 15 is the emotional nadir of the first movement of the Absalom crisis.
  16. 2 Samuel 16Chapter 16 covers three encounters as David makes his way out of Jerusalem.
  17. 2 Samuel 17Chapter 17 is the intelligence chapter of the Absalom revolt and turns on a moment of competitive counsel.
  18. 2 Samuel 18Chapter 18 is the emotional climax of 2 Samuel.
  19. 2 Samuel 19Chapter 19 covers David's return to Jerusalem and the political settlements it requires.
  20. 2 Samuel 20Chapter 20 is the coda to the Absalom crisis.
  21. 2 Samuel 21Chapter 21 opens the appendix section of 2 Samuel — chapters 21-24 are not chronological narrative but supplementary materials: two episodes of famine and plague bracketing two poems and two hero lists.
  22. 2 Samuel 22Chapter 22 is an extended psalm, found also as Psalm 18 in the Psalter, which the editors of 2 Samuel have placed near the end of the book as David's retrospective meditation on his life.
  23. 2 Samuel 23Chapter 23 contains two distinct sections.
  24. 2 Samuel 24Chapter 24 is the second appendix episode bracketing the poems of chapters 22-23, and it closes the book on an unexpected note.
← Previous · Chapter 22
2 Samuel 22
Next · Chapter 24 →
2 Samuel 24
The book itself
Summary & story
What 2 Samuel is, why it matters.
Analysis
Themes
Power, consequence, grief, the dynastic promise, and the realism of the prose.
Who's who
David's court
The household of a king who has everything and gives most of it away.

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