October 17, 2019: Day 33 – II Samuel 2

We have a bit of a divided kingdom here as David is anointed king by the people of Judah.  He gives thanks to the people of Jabesh-Gilead since they took a risk and buried the body of Saul.  Even though at the point of Saul’s death he was a sworn enemy of David, still he was king of Israel.  It is only when the current reigning king was dead could David be anointed.  

But, Saul had children and the commander of Saul’s army placed one of his children in control of Israel instead of David.  His name was Ishbaal which means man of shame.  That is appropriate since he was placed in power not by the Lord God, but by a commander in the military.  So now you had those who followed David from Judah and those who followed the man of shame from Israel.  This can be confusing if you are not careful.  Judah is the southern part of what we consider Israel today, and what is called Israel in this Scripture is the northern part of current day Israel.

The two sides meet at Gideon and decide to have a UFC fight and no one really wins it.  So instead they just get into a basic old fashioned war.  David loses 19 soldiers and Saul’s son loses over 300.  It does seem that David won this battle.  Here is a map of the kingdom which is now divided.  This will mark the conflict that will be cover David’s reign.