Listen to God and not to Man

 2 Samuel 20:19

I’m sure that my style of writing is somewhat unique because I never studied how to write in school; in fact, I did not apply myself in school.  We find most scholars believe that at one time first and second Samuel was one book and they considered Samuel as the author up to 1 Samuel 25 and then they think the prophets Nathan and Gad provided substantial input to the rest, and that’s based on First Chronicles 29:29-30.  “Now the acts of King David, from first to last, are written in the Chronicles of Samuel, the seer, and in the Chronicles of Nathan the prophet, and in the Chronicles of Gad the seer, ³⁰ with accounts of all his rule and his might and of the circumstances that came upon him and upon Israel and upon all the kingdoms of the countries.”

And because I only have myself as an example of wanting to later add a part of the story you forgot to tell, I believe that is what is taking place in the following verses.  This war with the Philistines may have taken place at an earlier time, and I’m sure the goal of all of Israel’s enemies was to kill David.  For David was the teenage shepherd boy that slew the giant Goliath and was king of Israel after many battles and victories.

The following verses tell all about many of those victories, and one that explains a lot to this writer is David almost being killed by a giant named Ishbi-benob, but Abishai saw what was happening and came to David’s aid.  It was at this time that his men said; “You shall no longer go out to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel.”  Now the story of Bathsheba makes more sense, David is a warrior and warriors want to be in the battle, so by obeying his men, he was like a caged warrior and where did he carry the action to his neighbor’s wife.  He would have been wise to not have listened to men and listened to God!

The remainder of the verses are about other battles and some confusion over who killed Goliath, were there two giants with that name, was it one of Goliath’s brothers, or did the Scribe make an error, shall we let those scholars sort all that out?

What is our take away from all of this, it is to listen to God and not to men?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice