Opposing the Anointed

When Saul died in battle against the Philistines, three of his sons died with him. That eliminated three men who might claim the throne of Israel by right of descent from Saul. However, Saul has a fourth son, Ishbosheth. He does not appear to be a warrior, but in time he claims the throne through the machinations of Saul’s uncle and army commander, Abner. Together, these two men split Israel and precipitate a civil war between the houses of Saul and David.

The chronology of today’s passage is difficult to understand. Verse 11 tells us that David reigns as king of Judah for seven and a half years in Hebron, but that Ishbosheth reigns over the rest of Israel for two years in Mahanaim, which is east of the Jordan in an area that is favorable to Saul’s house. Because David apparently is embraced as king by all the tribes of Israel as soon as Ishbosheth’s brief reign ends, most commentators believe that Ishbosheth’s kingship corresponds to the final two years of David’s reign in Hebron. If that is so, it may be that Abner himself spends five and a half years fighting the Philistines and essentially carving out a kingdom for himself in the north. Then, in a bid for legitimacy, he sets up Ishbosheth as a puppet king—with he himself pulling the strings as the power behind the throne.

All that is speculation. What is clear is that Abner is rebelling against David, and therefore against God. He surely knows that David is to be the next king. After all, as Saul’s right-hand man, he probably was there when Saul himself declared that David would succeed him (1 Sam. 24:20). But in his pride, he will not be ruled by David, and neither will Ishbosheth. Together, therefore, they represent yet another barrier between David and his anointed task, further stretching his faith in God’s promises. Matthew Henry writes: “One would have thought, when Saul was slain, and all his sons that had sense and spirit enough to take the field with him, David would come to the throne without any opposition, since all Israel knew, not only how he had signalized himself, but how manifestly God had designated him to it; but such a spirit of contradiction is there, in the devices of men, to the counsels of God, that such a weak and silly thing as Ishbosheth, who was not thought fit to go with his father to the battle, shall yet be thought fit to succeed him in the government.”