During the devastating war between Philistia and Israel (1 Samuel 31), King Saul and three of his sons were killed. There is now a vacuum of leadership in Israel. What happens to fill that vacuum?
In 2 Samuel chapter 2, verses 1-7, we learn that David finally becomes king! Well…kind of. David inquires of God, and God leads David to vacate the Philistine city of Ziklag and return to David’s tribal area of Judah. There his fellow Judeans make David king over their tribe.
But Judah is one tribe. There are 11 other tribes. When Saul was king, he ruled over all 12 tribes.
Do you see what has happened? The people of Israel have an interesting and tricky situation. They are 12 tribes. Their king is dead. One tribe takes action to anoint a king for that tribe, Judah. Will the other tribes follow suit? Will they have a whole bunch of kings? Will there be disunity? What about King Saul’s family? Yes, three of his sons were dead. But isn’t there a line of succession? Yes there is. It is called primogenitor, and it means that first the king’s sons become king, in order of oldest to youngest. If there are no sons, daughters would become queen, oldest to youngest. If there are no children, the line of successions would move to the kings siblings, and so on. Saul’s whole family was not destroyed in battle. Just Saul and three sons. There are others still alive! We find out about them in the next chapter, which we will study next week.
For now, I want us to think about how people honored their leaders in what we’ve studied this week in 1st Samuel 31 through 2nd Samuel 2, verse 7. Here in 2nd Samuel chapter 2, verses 5 through 7, David honors people who honored Saul. He thanks the people of Jabesh Gilead who recovered Saul’s corpse (see 1st Samuel 31, verses 11-13). In 2 Samuel chapter 1, verses 17-27, David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan, though I personally might be uncomfortable with it (which I discussed in the previous post), I have to hand it to David that his poem honors the leaders who have passed away.
Also, in 2 Samuel 1, verses 13-16, which we talked about in this post, David orders the capital punishment of the Amalekite who did not honor Saul as God’s anointed.
There is a persistent theme in these chapters: Honor leaders, even when they are not acting honorably. That is very appropriate for us today. We are being plastered with election commercials, phone calls, mailers and text messages. We might have strong opinions about the candidates. Our strong opinions can cause us to become dishonorable toward the candidates, and maybe dishonorably to those who like a different candidate than we do. No matter what it is about those candidates that causes us bitterness, we can remember that they are simply people like us, made in the image of God, valued by God, loved by God.
We should honor them as people loved by God, made in his image. We should pray for them. Hear what Paul writes about this in 1st Timothy 2:
“I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.…Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing.”
The same goes for bosses, teachers, coaches, church leaders. Some of you have leaders in your life who are difficult people. I, too, have had some leaders in my world that I thought were difficult. There have also been people I have led who thought I was difficult.
Honoring the dishonorable is difficult, especially when they are leaders with whom we must interact on a regular basis. To honor them, start by praying for them.
Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 