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2 Samuel 4 of 24

2 Samuel 4

Two men kill a sleeping king and bring David his head, expecting reward; they receive execution instead.

Summary

When Ish-bosheth hears that Abner is dead in Hebron, his hands become feeble and all Israel is troubled. Two men, captains of raiding bands — Baanah and Rechab, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite of the tribe of Benjamin — come to the house of Ish-bosheth in the heat of the day. He is lying on his bed at noon. They come into the house as if to fetch wheat, strike him under the fifth rib, behead him, and travel through the Arabah all night with the head. They come to Hebron, present the head to David, and address him with the language of divine election: 'Behold the head of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul thine enemy, which sought thy life; and the Lord hath avenged my lord the king this day of Saul, and of his seed.'

David's answer is swift and without ambiguity. He rehearses the precedent from chapter 1: when an Amalekite thought to bring good tidings by reporting Saul dead, David had him killed. How much more shall he exact of wicked men who have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed. He has Baanah and Rechab killed, their hands and feet cut off and hung up over the pool at Hebron. The head of Ish-bosheth is buried in Abner's sepulchre. The chapter's moral logic is consistent: David will not benefit from the murder of anyone, however inconvenient to his ambitions, and will punish those who assume he will. Whether the moral is genuine or strategic, the effect is that David reaches the throne of all Israel without blood demonstrably on his hands.

Appears
David
Themes
The Anointed King Political Optics Justice and Punishment
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.
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2 Samuel 3
Next · Chapter 5 →
2 Samuel 5
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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