2 Samuel Chapters 9 and 10

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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00:01

Bert, will you open us up with a word of prayer? We pray that you will bless our teacher today as he is prepared and ready to teach.

00:20

And we also ask that your blessings on our pastor today as we pray in Jesus' name.

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Amen.

00:26

Alright, 2 Samuel chapter 9.

00:41

I know you're going to think I'm crazy, but I am going to do 9 and 10 today.

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So, I'm not going to read the whole chapters because we're going to walk through them.

00:55

But I will read the first verse of chapter 9 and the first verse of chapter 10.

01:03

So then David said, Is there yet anyone left in the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? And then chapter 10 verse 1.

01:14

I'm just actually going to read verse 1 and 2.

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Now it came to pass afterwards that the king of the Ammonites had died.

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And Hanun, his son, became king in his place.

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And David said, I will show kindness to Hanun, the son of Nahash, just as his father had showed kindness to me.

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So if you remember, the reason why I'm doing these together.

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One, is chapter 10 is part of an exposition of what took place earlier in chapter 8.

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If you remember me briefly saying that last week with Hadad Ezer, the king of Syria and all that.

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But, the other reason why is both of them have to do with the disposition of David towards people that he had made, either in a covenant relationship, like in Jonathan's case, or with Nahash, which is going to be kind of odd to talk about when we figure out, before we all can remember who he was, what the relationship was with David to him and his intention to show kindness.

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But so far through the book, we have said a couple of times, if you just go back to chapter 1, we see David, this sets up David in chapter 1 of 1 Samuel, as just being a, I mean, his pedigree is good.

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Remember, Saul was his enemy, and when Saul died, when Mike taught, what did he do for Saul when he died? And Jonathan.

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He lamented over them.

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He said, hey, this guy was my enemy to me, but I'm saddened that the king is dead, and he also wrote a dirge or a funeral eulogy for him and Jonathan, because he cared for both of them and loved them greatly.

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So we see his desire to show honor where honor was due, and that seems odd to us, because was Saul an honorable man? But he held honor to him because of his position, because he was the Lord's anointed to lead at the time.

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And then you get to chapter 2, and it says that David was made king over Judah, and what did he do immediately? So Saul dies in chapter 2.

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He's made king over Judah in Hebron, and what does he immediately do? He extends an olive branch to his enemy to say, hey, look, the king's dead.

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The one whom you supported is dead.

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Follow me, and I will take care of you.

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So you see him actually extending peace to his enemies.

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Then you get to chapter 3, and Abner is treacherously murdered by Joab for him killing his brother in a time of war, and what does David do as the people lament? He laments over the loss of Abner.

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So he mourns with those who mourns, and he actually sees Abner as a man who was not worthy of death for what he had done to Asahel.

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Then you get to chapter 4, and when Ishbosheth is murdered, what did he say about Ishbosheth? Ishbosheth was a righteous man.

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He had no business being murdered, and he said these evildoers should be punished, and we see him dispense justice once again.

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And then you get to chapter 5, and he's made king over both Judah and Israel, so now we have a unified monarchy, and then we see him go to war with the Philistines, unifying his military campaign against God's enemies, and this would be the last time we see the Philistines actually try to come in and take over Jerusalem.

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So we see him protecting God's people.

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Then in chapter 6, we see his desire to bring the covenant object of God's people back into Jerusalem once he had overtaken the city of Jerusalem, and remember, what was the reason for him overtaking the city of Jerusalem? What was the last holdup of the enemies of God? Remember what it was? It was the Jebusites, and he ran them out as an act of mercy towards God's people and an act of obedience to God.

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He then brings in the ark, although he has to deal with the situation where God strikes as a dead for touching the ark.

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He does bring the covenant piece of God into the dwelling place in the city.

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He makes a dwelling place in the city.

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Then he wants to build a place for the ark to be dwelled.

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God says you can't do it because you've been a man of war, although that's what I've called you to do.

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You can't build me a temple.

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So he puts it in a tent.

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Then he makes the Davidic covenant, God promising David because of his choosing David to be the king over Israel that he would always have someone to sit on his throne, and when that man disobeyed, that God was going to chastise him.

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Then that brought us to chapter 8 last week where it shows David's triumph again, and we saw that it was not a chronological order of what had taken place, but basically a summarization of David's campaign.

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Look at the visitor that just came in.

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Good morning.

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2 Samuel chapter 9 and 10.

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So in chapter 8, it showed that his military campaign, basically running out everyone that was in the land and then extending it from, remember if we went down further on our map, he took over Amalek all the way down.

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It would have been down towards the Nile, and then he smashed Hadad Ezer, which would have been Syria, and if you keep going over here a little bit, remember King Zobah, and then the Euphrates and the Tigris would have been over here, which was God's promise to Abraham that he would have the land from the Nile River to the great river Euphrates there.

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So we see this as a fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise.

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That brings us to chapters 9 and 10.

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At this point, you say something? You sneeze? Okay.

07:16

You need something? You good? Okay.

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So chapters 1 through 8, we're seeing David as being an example of a man who protects God's people, loves God, loves his law, wants to dispense justice, shows mercy, shows kindness, and multiple times we've seen David, even back in 1 Samuel, that when David saw that God's people were being done wrongly, did that not inflame his desire to defend God's people? Right? We would agree.

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Alright.

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So now we're here at chapter 9.

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It says that David said, Is there anyone yet in the house of Saul that I may show kindness for Jonathan's sake? Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba.

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And they called him to David the king and said, Are you Ziba? And he said, I am your servant.

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And the king said, Is there not yet anyone in the house of Saul whom I can show the kindness of God? Do you see right here? We'll stop right here.

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Do you see what he's doing? He is remaining faithful to what he told Saul.

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You remember the last interaction he had with Saul when he could have killed him and he didn't.

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They went into him and Abishai.

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And Abishai says, Hey man, I can run my spear right through this joker one time.

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I'll pin him to the ground.

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And he said, No, don't do it.

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Saul said, Because you didn't kill me, you're greater than me.

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He says, But I'm asking you this.

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Don't cut my people off.

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In other words, don't wipe them out when you become king.

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And what does he say? He says, Okay, I'll show kindness.

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But why is the reason he wants to show kindness to Jonathan? Do we remember back a year ago maybe? He made two covenants with him.

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Yeah, one, but then reaffirmed it I would say.

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Yeah, I would say he made one covenant with him to show kindness.

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And what was his? He extended the covenant.

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Hey, I want to show you how much I love and care about you.

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And he gave him his robe and his belt and his sword.

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Basically he says, Hey man, you're the crown prince now, not me.

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But as Mike said, it wasn't another covenant.

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It was just an extension of the same covenant is when he says basically the same thing Saul says.

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Hey, I know you're going to be king one day.

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And when you do, man, show kindness to my offspring.

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Because what was the common practice when a new king came in? Yeah, anybody that has the opportunity to heir to the throne, you kill them.

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And that was common practice.

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He's saying don't do that.

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And that's what David's going to do.

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Now, Ziba winds up being a relative of Saul.

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He is still alive.

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He summons him.

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Hey, can you show me anybody of Jonathan's descent or is there anybody left alive of Saul's house that I could show kindness to? And at this point, did we know that anybody was alive? Because what happened to all of his sons at Mount Gilboa? Yeah, they were killed.

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Their bodies were nailed up on the wall.

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And they went and got them in the middle of the night.

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So David, being a man of integrity and a man of his word, says, hey, is there anyone else that I could show kindness to for Jonathan's sake? He wants to uphold his covenant that he made with Jonathan.

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Then Ziba said to the king, there is still a son of Jonathan who is crippled in both feet.

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So the king said to him, where is he? And Ziba said to the king, behold, he is in the house of Mekar, the son of Amel in Lodibar.

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And the king, David, then sent and brought him from the house of Mekar, the son of Amel from Lodibar.

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And Bephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and prostrated himself before David.

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We remember that he was crippled in his feet.

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Why? And when did that take place? They were running for their lives because remember back in Gilboa, when they found out that Saul and all his sons were dead, this nurse grabbed him to run to hide because what were they coming to probably do? They were going to kill Bephibosheth.

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He was five years old.

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And when she fell, it somehow broke his feet.

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And obviously they didn't have modern ways of setting bones, so either they were not set properly or they just let them grow how they were.

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And I would imagine just based on the timeframe, we know that from the time that David started to reign in Hebron, and he reigned there seven years.

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So if he was five years old, from the time that David reigned just in Hebron alone, he would have been 12.

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We would agree with that.

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Then I would say now this time is at least 10, 15.

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So that puts this guy somewhere in his 20s, and we're going to see later on that he has a son.

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Not everything was broken.

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Huh? Not everything was broken.

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That's right.

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Yeah, there was some stuff that still worked because he had kids.

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So it says, Here is your servant.

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And David said to him, Do not fear.

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This is in verse 7.

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David said to him, Do not fear.

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I will surely show kindness to you for your father's Jonathan's sake, and I will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul, and you shall eat at my table regularly.

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And again he prostrated himself and said, What is your servant that you should regard a dead dog like me? What do you think Mephibosheth, what do you think he thought was going to take place when these men, I would say probably guards, brought him into the presence of the king? What do you think? Oh, yeah.

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It's fixing to be off with the head or thrust through with the sword because that was common practice.

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Imagine how overwhelmed with joy when David said, Hold on a second.

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Hey, I'm going to show you kindness because of your father.

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Not because of you, but because of someone else that I had a relationship with that I loved and cared about.

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I'm going to show you kindness.

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And he does basically recognize his position before David is, Hey man, I'm a dead person to you.

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Should be.

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And he said, The king said in verse 9 that he called Saul's servant Ziba and said to him, All that belong to Saul and to all of his house, I have given to your master's grandson.

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You see what he just did? Every member, Ziba is probably the last descendant around Saul.

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He basically gets Saul's estate.

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David says, Everything that you got is now his and all your servants are going to work the land and give it to him and feed him.

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So I do believe that this will have ramifications in future chapters when Ziba's called back in and there's some issues when David's basically run across the other side of Jordan.

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When we get there, you'll understand.

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Because Ziba, I think, is a man of opportunity.

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I think Ziba is looking out for his own best interest and right now you think he's going to tell the king no? What would happen to him if he says, No, king, I'm not going to do that.

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He could be put to death for disobeying the king.

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And the king, I'm sorry, And it says, All that belong to Saul and to his household I will give to his grandson and you and your sons and servants shall cultivate the land for him and you shall bring the produce so that your master's grandson may have food nevertheless.

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Mephibosheth, your master's grandson, shall eat at my table regularly.

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So Mephibosheth basically is going to, by all means and purposes, probably be in the king's palace.

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He's not going to be able, he's crippled.

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He can't get around real well and you'll see later on that he's offered a donkey to ride on by Absalom and he doesn't get around.

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They have wheelchairs.

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So he's going to be at the table with the king, eating regularly with him and then it says, at the end of verse 10, Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.

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So you understand what's in Mephibosheth's disposal.

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He's got a good bit of people to work his land.

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He's got a good bit of people to serve him however he wants.

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Remember, if he wants something, at this point he can say whatever he wants and those servants are to go and do it as bidding.

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Why? David has said this is what you're going to do.

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Whatever he says do, you do.

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You cultivate the land in the best interest of him, not Ziba anymore.

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I do wonder though, from Ziba's perspective, Man, we're going to go cultivate this land, do all this stuff.

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The produce goes to him.

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He's going to use it how he sees fit.

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He can't cultivate it and all this joker's going to do is just eat it up.

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I mean that's all he's going to do.

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What can he do? Nothing.

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He's helpless.

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He is at the mercy of the king.

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And how much are we at the mercy of Christ and how he has provided stuff for us that we didn't.

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In a sense, we were crippled and lame, were we not? We were unable to do anything for ourselves.

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Dead dogs.

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Yeah, we were unable to do anything for ourselves until Christ came and did what we could not do for ourselves.

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And that is what David is doing.

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Once again, showing how kind and compassionate it is, how David is to the people of God.

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Meaning, I said people of God, the covenant people of God.

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Remember that.

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Remember how good David looks at this point because just in a week or so, things are going to really turn bad.

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So then it says in verse 12 that Mephibosheth had a young son.

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Like Mike said, his exegesis said that we knew that something didn't get broken in his fall.

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So he had a son and his name was Micah.

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And all who lived in the house of Ziba were servants to Mephibosheth.

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So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem for he ate at the king's table.

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Now he was lame in both feet.

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So Mephibosheth is basically indigent until David finds him, takes care of him, puts him in a place of prestige.

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And when it says he lives in Jerusalem, I really do believe he either lived in very close proximity of the king's palace or maybe even lived in a room in the king's palace.

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Like I said, it would be difficult to come back and forth to eat at the king's table regularly if you weren't in the palace and both your legs were broken.

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He had a nice rehab house, didn't he? He sure did.

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Yeah.

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So before we go on, any questions, any observations you all see in this text? Did you want to...

18:59

Didn't...

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As we get further into the book, didn't Saul...

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Shimei? Yeah.

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Wasn't he another one of Saul's descendants? He is.

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And that takes place, what I was saying earlier, when Shimei, when he was the rock-throwing, dust-kicking...

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Cuss-slinging.

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Cuss-slinging, yeah.

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Guy at the end who actually is cursing David.

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And it's interesting that you bring that up because when...

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Two different ways people that were hearing that heard that.

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How did Abishai hear Shimei was cursing? He saw that as a defamation of the character of David and he did what he always wanted to do, was looking for a reason to cut somebody's head off.

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And he says, hey, why don't you let me hop over there and take that dude's head off.

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But then what David's hearing is what this man's saying about me is true.

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It's a reproach from God.

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Yeah.

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What he is saying is true.

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So it's interesting how David understood it and how Abishai understood it.

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And you don't think Abishai knew David's infractions at this point of adultery, murder.

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I mean, Abishai was Joab's brother.

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So we understand that he knew, but that's not how...

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To answer your question, yeah, Shimei was that and he comes with Zeba and when the conspiracy is over, he falls on his face and says, hey, dude, what I said to you was wrong.

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Please don't kill me.

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But Zeba is an opportunist and remember that.

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I do believe what he does in those chapters, it's right at that chapter, has to do with what David has done to him here.

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I mean, what has David done to Zeba? Seized all of his property.

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Was it Zeba's property, though? Zeba assumed it.

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It's interesting, though, because who should have been taking care of Zeba? I mean, Mephibosheth.

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Zeba should have.

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He's the steward of the land.

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Yeah, he's the steward of the land, so he should have been.

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And part of me goes, man, is David embarrassing Zeba for not taking care of him? Hey, we do know this, that David has a way of mocking people.

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If you remember, who walked behind mourning behind the casket of Abner? Do you remember? Who did he say walks behind it first? Joab.

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Who killed him? Joab.

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So we see David does have a sneaky way of humiliating people, and I do believe that may be what has taken place here.

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Oh, so you know where Mephibosheth is.

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You're not showing kindness to him.

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Well, I'll take all that property that's yours that you've been a steward of, and I'll give it to him.

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As a matter of fact, you're going to work it, and you're going to give him all the produce, let him do what he wants to with it, and you know what? I'm going to let that lame dude eat it.

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It's my good food, too.

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So that brings us to chapter 10, and it says, Now it happened that afterwards the king of the Ammonites died, and Hanun, his son, became king in his place.

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Then David said, I will show kindness to Hanun, the son of Nahash, just as his father showed kindness to me.

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So David sent some of his servants to console him concerning his father.

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But when David's servants came to the land of the Ammonites, the princes of the Ammonites said to Hanun, Your Lord, do you think that David is honoring your father because he has sent counselors to you? Okay, this is where we don't really know what has taken place.

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From the time of Nahash, king of the Ammonites, remember up here in Jabesh Gilead, the Ammonites were over here.

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You remember back in chapter 11 of 1 Samuel, Nahash came over and he told those people, Look, you're going to be my servants.

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I'm going to gouge out your right eye.

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And what did they say? Can you give us seven days? Give us seven days to see if we can get somebody to come deliver us from you.

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And if they don't, poke out our eye and we'll serve you.

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Well, when that word got to Gibeon, where Saul was at, remember Saul had already been anointed as king.

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You remember what happened? He was inflamed with anger.

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It says that the Holy Spirit then empowered him to go and defeat the king, Nahash, and deliver the people of Jabesh Gilead.

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So that's the last time we see Nahash.

23:57

So we would say that's been, he reigned for 40 years, probably been somewhere in the 20s now that David's been reigning.

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So 60 years.

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That's been an old dude, especially to be a warring king.

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Been 60 years and now that he dies.

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It says though, and this is the strange part, David said, I will show kindness to his son just as his father showed kindness to me.

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We have no idea what kind of relationship, when David was on the run, that he sought provisions or protection or something from Nahash.

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But we do know that David's pattern when he was on the run was to go to his enemies because who's your best friend? Your enemy's enemy.

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So remember, when he was running from Saul, where did he go the first time? He went to the Philistines to seek refuge from them.

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Then where did he go when he left there? He went to the king of the Moabites.

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So we do see that David had a way of manipulating other kings and men to help him knowing that, hey man, I'm Saul's enemy.

25:14

We can be friends.

25:17

I don't agree with it because if you see what David has done in chapter 8, the very, go ahead.

25:25

Then he goes back and kills Saul.

25:26

Yeah, it's like he double-crossed him.

25:29

So then he goes back and we don't know if Achish was still alive at the time.

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We don't know, but man, that would probably have been tough for Achish to go, man, this guy just invaded my city and killed all of my family and I'll help this dude out for 16 months.

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But then what did he do with Moab? Remember, what did he do? Something we saw last week.

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He was ruthless.

25:51

He laid him out on two lines.

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He didn't eat any, meeny, miny, moe, however he did it.

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Lined him up.

25:57

Imagine he's separating two lines and you're going, hey man, what's this guy going to do? And then he just says, you know what, the one's on the right I'm going to kill and the one's on the left I'm going to keep.

26:08

And that was David's right.

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I know we talked about that.

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I thought about that when we left last week.

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He had the authority to do that.

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So right may not be the correct term, but he had the authority to dispense justice and kill God's enemies or not, and he chose to save some and not others.

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So he says he's going to show kindness to Hunan for whatever Nahash had done.

26:34

I mean, we know that Nahash wasn't kind to the people of God and Jabesh-Gilead, but for whatever reason he's been kind to David.

26:42

David says, hey, I want to show kindness to him now that his dad's dead.

26:46

So David basically sends ambassadors to go say, hey, dude, check it out.

26:52

Your dad was good to me.

26:53

I want to send gifts.

26:54

I want to show you some consolation.

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And whoever the cabinet members are of the prince, hey, you think he's coming over here to honor your father and send these consolers to you? Has David not sent these servants? This is in the end of verse 3.

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Has he not sent these servants to you in order to search the city, to spy it out, to overthrow it? Was David's plan to do that at this point? Okay.

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So they have assumed something that David really is not doing.

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He really is sending these servants.

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Hey, man, your dad was good to me, and I want to show you kindness.

27:42

Could have.

27:44

Could have.

27:45

They could say, hey, man, this guy's a double-crosser.

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We don't know, but we do know this, that David was sincere.

27:55

However they took it was not.

27:58

David was sincere.

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And we're going to see why we know that David was sincere.

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It says, And then the princes of the Ammonites said to him, do you think he came to console you? And then it says in verse 4, So Hunan took David's servants, shaved off half their beards, cut off their garments in the middle as far as their hips, and sent them away.

28:22

Okay.

28:24

Imagine me coming in on next Sunday morning and half of this gone.

28:29

Would that not be a little embarrassing? Sure.

28:33

Yeah, and then as I turned around to write on the board, the back of my drawers was cut out.

28:40

That's what they did.

28:43

They exposed their backside butt.

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Nakedness.

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And that was the shaming of a man.

28:51

And I go, man, these guys didn't even put up a fight.

28:55

Were they bound when they sent them back? You know, we don't know.

29:00

First thing I'd want to do if my beard was half cut was, man, let me find me a flint rock and try to at least straighten out so I don't look a little crazy.

29:09

And let me find something to sew up my backside so I don't look like I'm wearing buttless chaps all the way back to Jerusalem.

29:17

Hospital gowns.

29:18

Yeah, that's basically what it would probably look like.

29:21

So this is what they've done.

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And it even says it in verse 5.

29:26

It says, and when this was told to David, he sent to meet them for the men had been greatly humiliated.

29:31

Hey, anytime you strip someone open to their nakedness, that's usually how it's coined in the Old Testament, was a type of shaming someone.

29:41

Even when you think about the children of Israel, when they said they were whoring with the other nations, the prophet sometimes says that God was going to throw up their skirt like a whore.

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He says, I'm going to throw up their skirt like a whore and show them of their nakedness as if she was on the auction block.

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So here it is.

30:00

He says, look, they've been humiliated by showing their backside.

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And the king said, stay here in Jericho until your beards have grown and then return.

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So we don't know how long that is.

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I know how long it has taken me to grow this.

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So was it long enough just for their beards to become even? Or was it long enough for just to where it wasn't slick? We don't know.

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But it was long enough for them to stay in Jericho.

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I wonder why did he tell them to stay in Jericho and not come back to Jerusalem? That's what my conclusion would be.

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Yeah, man, they come into the city.

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What are people going to think? Once again, David is thinking about himself, I think.

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What are they going to think about me when my ambassadors come back into the city and I have let them come in here for public shaming into the king's city? So in order for him not to be publicly shamed or to say, hey man, David hasn't done anything yet, you stay in Jericho once that situation squares up, get you some new drawers, and come on back.

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Now in verse 6, Now when the sons of Ammon saw that they had become odious to David, the sons of Ammon sent, and they hired the Arameans of Bethrahab and the Arameans of Zobah, 20,000 foot soldiers, and the king of Macca with 1,000 men, and the men of Tob with 12,000 men.

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And when David heard all of it, he sent Joab and all the army and the mighty men.

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Alright, so the Ammonites find out that David's ticked.

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So they know, hey, David's mad.

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What does David do when he's mad at his enemies? He kills them.

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So they try to basically get the first strike.

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They don't have a big enough group of fighters, so what do they do? They hire them from around.

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And if you remember back in chapter 8, that's what it says they did.

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They hired them to fight for them, and then they hired more once they regrouped because they had lost some.

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So their goal is to wipe David out.

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It says in 7 that when David heard that this was taking place, he sent Joab and all the army of the mighty men.

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I want you to remember that phrase.

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When we get to chapter 11, and you say, hey, wait a minute.

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It was wrong for David to stay back in Jerusalem when they went out to war.

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Remember that.

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I also want you to remember not only this, but when you get to chapter 18, when it says David was actually given counsel to not go fight, but to stay in Jerusalem.

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So next week, I'm going to make the argument in chapter 11 that David's sin was not for staying back.

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He had every right, authority.

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I'm sorry, Ms.

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Dipper.

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He had every authority to stay back in Jerusalem.

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We don't know.

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I think when it says that David stayed back when the kings went out at the time of war, that's just giving a description of the time.

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It's not saying that David sinned by staying back.

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There was nothing in the Mosaic law that said David had to go out and lead the campaign.

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David's life was leading campaigns against God's enemies from Jerusalem.

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And if you look at chapter 18 when we get there, he even says that.

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You stay back in Jerusalem.

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You give us basically intelligence and strategic fighting because your head's worth more than 10,000 of ours.

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Understand? What happens if the king is killed? Yeah, the wagon falls down, and it falls down like a deck of cards.

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So just remember, if we're going to say that David was wrong in chapter 11 for not going to war at the time of spring, was David wrong for not going here when he sent Joab? If you're going to be consistent, you would have to say he was wrong here.

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And I'm saying he's not.

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He had the authority to send Joab.

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He sends Joab to battle, verse 9, and he set up against them in the front and in the rear.

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And he selected from the choice men of Israel and arrayed them against the Arameans.

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But the remainder of the people he placed in the hand of Abishai, his brother.

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So we would say that Joab's the main general.

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That's what it says.

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He was the leader of the army, and his brother was basically his co-leader.

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And they have now decided, hey, we're going to split the army a little bit so that we can get a better spread out to fight the Arameans and the Ammonites.

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It says in verse 11 that he said, If the Arameans are too strong for me, then you shall help me.

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But if the sons of Ammon are too strong for you, then I will come to help you.

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So pretty obvious.

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Hey, when we're fighting these guys, if we're slaying them, and you get to where you're in a pickle, let us know, and we're going to come, and we're going to help you.

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Understand that that is giving Joab's really trusting that his army is going to defeat these people.

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From my understanding of it and how we read it, is there any question in Joab's mind that they're not going to win? No.

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Hey, it's going to get hot.

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It's going to be nasty.

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It's a hand-to-hand battle.

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But if you all get to where you're being overthrown, let me know, and we're going to come save you.

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And likewise, but we're going to win this thing somehow.

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See, Joab's trusting that their army is bigger and better and more vicious.

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And then it says, but if the sons of Ammon are too strong, I will help come to you.

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Verse 12, Be strong, and let us show ourselves courageous.

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And here's what he says.

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Courageous for the sake of our people and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what is good in His sight.

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This is one of those times when you see Joab and you're like, man, was he a man of faith? You know? What do we know about Joab so far? Yeah.

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He is looking out for the best interest of the kingdom.

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For the best interest of the kingdom.

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I would even say at times, he's not looking out for the best interest of David.

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I think he's looking out for the best interest of the nation as a whole.

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Because as we go through the conspiracy with Absalom and all of that, you're going to see, man, the kingdom is what's the main focus.

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He says, hey, we've got to save the kingdom.

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And obviously part of that is whoever's on the throne.

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But Joab's responsibility is to make sure the monarchy stays as pure as it can.

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And one, Joab wants to remain in power.

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And how does he remain in power? By killing all the enemies around him.

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What did he do with Abner? Did Abner threaten Joab's position? Sure.

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Sure it did.

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Yeah.

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Who was the leader of, basically, from right here, that way? Army.

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When the kingdom split with Ishbosheth.

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Abner.

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He had ten tribes that he was leading the army.

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So when he saw that not only did he kill his brother, but when he saw that David had made an agreement with Abner, his immediate response was, man, this guy could threaten my position.

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And we're also going to see that that happens also with Amasa.

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Almost the exact same thing takes place.

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Amasa in the book, David's going to make him the general and remove Joab.

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And what does he do to Amasa? Grabs him by the beard.

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Yep.

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Stabs him in the gut.

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So we know that Joab is a ruthless man.

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His desire is to maintain the kingdom's purity.

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It's the monarchy to stay under whoever's in place at the time.

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Whoever that king is.

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And he says, hey, that God's going to do what's good in his sight.

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And from what Joab knew at this point, was it good for God's people to overthrow their enemies.

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Yep.

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It was.

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And he says, hey, God's going to do whatever he wants to do and we believe it's going to be good in his sight.

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So Joab and the people who were with him drew near to the battle against the Arameans and they fled before him.

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Now the sons of Ammon saw that the Arameans fled and they also fled before Abishai.

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Okay.

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Here it is.

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These guys who had raised up and valorated all their saber rattling, they're getting their tails kicked.

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And what do they do? Remember, these were mercenaries.

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These men were paid to go fight.

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And now what are they doing? They're tucking their tails like cowards and running.

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And Joab returned from fighting against the sons of Ammon and he came to Jerusalem.

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So however long that campaign was, Joab comes back to the king's city.

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And verse 15, and when the Arameans saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they gathered themselves again.

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So we understand that this is a decent amount of time of war.

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So they gathered themselves together and Hadadezer sent from out of the Arameans who were beyond the river, and they came to Helium and Shobak the commander of the army of Hadadezer led them.

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And when it was told David he gathered all of Israel together, he crossed over the Jordan and he came to Helium.

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Now who is coming to the battle now? David.

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And he's going to cross the Jordan.

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David basically says, all right, I'm going to take care of this myself.

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This time when I put them down, they ain't coming back.

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So he crosses the Jordan heading to Ammon.

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And it says that David fought against him.

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In verse 18, the Arameans fled before Israel and David killed 700 charioteers of the Arameans, 40,000 horsemen, and he struck down Shobak the commander of their army, and he died there.

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And when all the kings of the servants of Hadadezer saw that they were defeated by Israel, they made peace with Israel and served them.

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So the Arameans feared to help the sons of Ammon anymore.

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So basically the Arameans said, hey, check it out.

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We're done with you.

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We're not going to lose any more of our men.

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The Israelites are too strong.

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We're going to pay tribute to David.

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Money is no good if we're dead.

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Yeah, sure.

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And property and everything else.

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Now, if you look at the discrepancy in the numbers from chapter 10 and chapter 8, and that is normally how we look at it.

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Okay, if this is an exposition of what took...

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This is the same war, and you're looking at 700 charioteers, 40,000 horsemen, and the other one says 20,000.

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My understanding is that the amount of men that were killed in one is the Arameans, and the other is a telling of how many was killed of Hadadezer.

41:49

Okay, remember Hadadezer was a Syrian, so it's showing the differences.

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I don't think there's any conflict.

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It's just saying who died in 10, saying Hadadezer's men, and then the other dealing with the Arameans.

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So you understand this sets up chapter 11.

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There is still a war in Ammon, right? Against the Ammonites.

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So David, after he gets the Arameans to serve him, David goes back to Jerusalem.

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So we're drawing an inference.

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Remember, an inference is a conclusion based on not explicit but internal evidence.

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If David goes back to Jerusalem, and he's there until the time of the spring, that means this battle began to die down in what time? Winter.

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Winter or rainy season, which could be both over there.

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We're not real sure, because when it says that the kings went out to fight at the time of spring, why would they go out and fight in the spring? Man, it was good fighting weather.

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It wasn't cold.

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It wasn't rainy.

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It wasn't muddy.

43:02

Yeah, it wasn't muddy.

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If they needed to use horses, they could use horses.

43:07

It's interesting that they take the chariots, though.

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If you know anything about this area, and you can see the topography in this, man, chariots don't do you no good right there.

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So it's like, what did...

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You know, David basically goes in, you know what, we like chariots.

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Those chariots look good.

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We're just going to take them.

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You know, and then you get to another place where David actually chops them up and burns them, and he keeps the gold off of them, and then he keeps 100 for himself.

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So it's just interesting that the chariots become 700 of them here get taken, and chariots just don't do you no good here.

43:46

That's all mountainous range.

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I don't know if anybody's ever been there.

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All this right here is just mountains.

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I mean, when we were over there, I could look up, and you're basically looking down into this hole here.

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So that's where we're at, and that sets us up for next week, which I would say this battle with the Ammonites is continuing on, which sets up why Uriah winds up being sent to the forefront of the Ammonites.

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Any questions? Well, it seems more like a historical history lesson, but that's where we're at.

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Any questions? Nope, nope, nope.

44:29

Visitor, would you pray as well? Thank you.

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Father, we come to you this morning once again, Father, just to say thank you.

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And I want to thank you, Father, for Mike, Andy, Keith, for their time that they take to study your Word and present it to your people that we may listen and it may resonate in our hearts.

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Father, we thank you for this new day, and we just ask that as we go into the main sanctuary that your Word and our praises will be heard upon your ears, Father, that our joy and honor that you are so worthy of may sit at the foot of your throne.

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For these things I pray in Christ Jesus' name, amen.

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Amen.