2nd Samuel – God’s shepherd: King and mercy-bearer, David
David anointed king in Judah, civil war breaks out 2 Samuel 2
Chapters 2-4 record the tension and positioning of two rival men, two lineages, two different spiritual directions. Ish-bosheth, the surviving son of the deceased Saul, the Saul who was judged by God as disobedient, is put forth as king of the northern tribes and the trans-Jordan, by Abner, a powerful and ambitious general. David, originally anointed by the prophet Samuel is called by the Lord and affirmed by the tribe of Judah in the south. This spiritual distinction of God’s approval of David and the reality of the political tension ends up breaking out into civil war, not so much because the two competing kings want it, but because of the ambitions and fleshly impulses of the two generals on either side: Abner in Israel holding forth for Ish-bosheth,, and Joab in Judah, representing David.
Chapter 2 Opens later in 1010BC with the 30 year old David, very importantly from a spiritual perspective, inquiring of the Lord whether he should head north from Ziklag into the upper/central Judean area of Hebron.