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Week 22, Day 5 — 2 Samuel 3-5, 1 Chronicles 12

Jeremy Paschall
05/26/24 - Podcast

And now, a minute with the Word…

Abner was “the commander of [Saul’s] army” (1 Samuel 14.50, et al), joined Saul’s pursuit of David’s life (1 Samuel 26), “took Ish-bosheth the son of Saul and…made him king” after Saul’s death (2 Samuel 2.8-9), killed some of David’s servants during this period of civil war (verses 12-32), and during the same time “was making himself strong in the house of Saul” (3.6). An unlikely peacemaker, for certain, but that is precisely who he became (verses 9-21), earning David’s respect as “prince and a great man…in Israel (verses 38). When Joab, one of David’s mighty men, used these circumstances to exact personal revenge, “avenging in time of peace for blood that had been shed in war” (1 Kings 2.5), he brought a curse upon himself and his posterity (2 Samuel 3.29), “for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1.20).