Summary #16

Weekly Summary
1 Samuel 25 - Psalm 21

David keeps sparing Saul's life, and other people keep killing Saul and his family, trying to please David. Things in Israel are NOT going well. We pick up the story this week as Samuel dies.

All of Israel mourns for him, gathered at Ramah. David heads for Paran, where he sends some of his men to the spread of a man named Nabal (which means foolish or boorish... somebody's mother wasn't having a very good day when she named him...), asking that his men be included in the shearing celebration. David possibly wanted to establish a relationship with this man, and he had also, according to one of Nabal's servants, been quite helpful in keeping Nabal's flocks safe. Nabal, however, lives up to his name, and is impossibly rude to the men that David sent. When they report back to David, he is ticked, and has everyone strap on a sword, ready to finish Nabal off. Nabal's wife, Abigail, however, hears about what her husband has done, and rushes a huge shipment of festive food out to David and his men, with many apologies for the behavior of her husband. She begs David to accept the gift, and not attack Nabal. David does, and is grateful to the beautiful and graceful Abigail for preventing him from bloodguilt. When Nabal wakes up from his drinking binge the next day, and hears about what Abigail did, he shuts down and dies 10 days later.

Very grateful that God has avenged the man that insulted him, David calls for the lovely Abigail to come with him and be his wife. He has also taken another wife, Ahinoam, which brings his count to 3 (including Saul's daughter Michal), but in David's absence from Israel, Saul has given Michal to someone else in marriage, so David's back down to 2. Or so. Not sure how to count Michal. Anyway, David is traveling with two wives at this point, when the Ziphites tattle to Saul about David's whereabouts, and Saul comes after David again. This time, David waits until the camp is asleep (a very deep, God-induced sleep) and creeps right up to where Saul is sleeping. The man with David is ready to drive a spear right through Saul, but David stops him, and instead takes Saul's spear and water jar, and leaves everyone unharmed. The next day, though, David curses those who have been given the responsibility of protecting Saul, and points out that he had another chance to kill Saul, but didn't do it, and begs Saul to stop pursuing him. Saul relents, and swears that all is well between David and him. They part ways.

Instead of going to Israel, though, David heads to Philistia, where he becomes a fighter for Achish, the son of the king of Gath. David negotiates his own little city for him and his men, and gathers a large amount of booty from his raids on the enemies of the Philistines. Saul, meanwhile, is readying for a fight against the Philistines, and asks for the Lord's blessing. Only the Lord doesn't respond to his request. Impatiently, Saul decides to consult a medium, even though he himself has banned them from the land. Despite her misgivings, the medium agrees to summon the spirit of Samuel for Saul, but is terrified when Samuel actually appears. Samuel gives Saul the same message that God had given him earlier: God has abandoned him and will remove the kingdom from his line. Now Saul was as terrified as the medium had been. He returns to his army.

David, meanwhile, has been joining up with the Philistines to march on Israel, but the lords of Philistia are not convinced that he won't turn on them in the heat of battle. They demand that David and his men be sent away. So David returns to his little town, only to find that Amalekites have raided it while he and his men were gone. The entire group of them immediately take off after them, despite having ridden for three days just to get home. At the river, many of the men have to stop from exhaustion, but the rest ride right out to where the Amalekites are camped, along with all of the families and wealth of David and his men. Even with the smaller group of men, David fights the Amalekites and defeats them, killing all but 400 of them and taking back all of the women, children and flocks, none of which had been harmed. When the men who had fought resisted returning the flocks and other stuff to the men who had been too tired to fight, David established a rule that all would partake in the loot of a battle -- even those who "watched the baggage". David also shared the spoils with the town in northern Judah for their support.

While David was fighting the Amalekites, Philistia and Israel were also fighting. And the Philistines were winning handily. Saul's sons were killed, and Saul was struck by an arrow. When he asked his armor-bearer to kill him so that the uncircumcised Philistines wouldn't be able to capture him, his armor-bearer refused, and Saul had to resort to falling on his own sword. The Philistines found the bodies of Saul and his sons the next day, and they hung Saul up on the city wall as a warning to other kings. The people of Jabesh-gilead rescued his body, burned it and buried the bones. A messenger ran to David to tell him the news, expecting that David would rejoice that the man who had been trying to kill him was dead. In fact, he embellished the story a bit, and claimed that he had been the one to finish Saul off after he had been wounded. Instead of the reward he expected, though, David had him executed for harming the Lord's anointed. David mourns Saul and Jonathan, writing a song about "How the MIghty have Fallen", and had it taught to the people of Judah.

Inquiring of the Lord what he should do next, David is told to go into Judah. When he gets there, the people of Judah anoint him their king, while Ish-bosheth, Saul's youngest son, is anointed king of Israel. They struggled against each other for years, with Abner leading Ish-bosheth's army and Joab leading David's. As the struggle wears on, David grows stronger and stronger, and Ish-bosheth grows weaker. Eventually, Ish-bosheth turned on Abner, accusing him of taking as a wife one of the concubines of Saul. (You begin to wonder whether there was a shortage of women in the land, with all of the "taking" of someone else's wives or concubines...) This made Abner mad, and he threw his lot in with David instead of Ish-bosheth. He went to David, and committed his allegiance to him, which David accepted. He also asked Abner to send Michal to him in Judah, reclaiming his first wife. After Abner left, Joab returned from a raid, and found out about the defection. This did not sit well with Joab, though, because Abner had killed Joab's brother in a battle. So Joab and his men went after Abner, pretending that they had a message from David. When Joab got Abner alone, he stabbed him. David heard about this and was outraged, and made sure that he whole nation knew that he did not condone this murder. He didn't execute Joab, however, as he had done with the man who had claimed to kill Saul.

Now Ish-boshethe wasn't doing well over in Israel, and he is eventually killed in his bed by associates of his. Again, messengers run to David thinking that they will be lauded for bringing the good news of the death of one of David's enemies. Instead, David again mourns, and has the men executed.

So -- no one is left that opposes David's claim on the throne of Israel. Is the nation ready to unite under one king? How will the Philistines feel about the whole enterprise? On the romance side, will David be reunited with Michal? What will wives #2 and #3 think? Tune in next week...