2 Samuelchapter 4
12 verses · Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition · 10th century BC · History
And Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son that was lame of his feet. He was five years old when the tidings came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel, and his nurse took him up, and fled: and it came to pass, as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.
Introduction
Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition, History, 2 Samuel Overview.
This short chapter closes the rival throne in the north. Its first hearers lived in a world where a new dynasty usually wiped out the family of the old one, and where men who did the killing expected a reward. The chapter was told to Israelites who needed to know how the last of Saul's line fell and whose hand did it. Listen for a single verse that seems to interrupt the story, and remember the name it gives. Then watch how the king answers the men who think they have brought him good news.
Context
- Who
- Israelites watching the last of Saul's line die by treachery
- What
- The murder of Saul's son by two of his own captains, and David's sentence on the killers.
- Where
- The house of Saul's son at Mahanaim, east of the Jordan, and then the pool at Hebron.
- When
- About 1005 to 1004 BC, in the months between Abner's death and the anointing over all Israel.
- Why
- To show that the throne of all Israel came to David with no act of his against Saul's house, and that he punished the men who acted for him.
Historical context
2 Samuel names no author, and Samuel himself is dead before the book opens. The oldest internal lead is 1 Chronicles 29:29, which names the histories of Samuel the seer, Nathan the prophet and Gad the seer behind the acts of David. The chapter sits in the months between Abner's death and the anointing over all Israel, about 1005 to 1004 BC, a window inferred from the order of events. It runs from the house of Saul's son at Mahanaim to the pool at Hebron. A first hearer knew the house the killers walk into, mud brick on stone footings with an inner room where a man rested through the worst heat of the afternoon. He knew grain was cleaned at the door, so a servant sifting wheat by the entrance was the ordinary daytime scene and the ordinary way past a doorway unnoticed. He knew that displaying a defeated enemy's head was standard across the ancient Near East, recorded on Assyrian palace carvings where heaps of them are counted before the king. Hands and feet cut off and bodies hung by the pool where the whole town drew water was a punishment aimed at the crowd as much as at the men. He knew why a five-year-old boy dropped by his nurse carries weight, since an injury to the feet ruled a man out of leading an army and made him no threat to a throne. The name Ish-bosheth means man of shame, and Esh-baal elsewhere uses an old word for lord that Israel dropped from names for its link to the Canaanite storm god.
Significance
Two soldiers assumed the new king wanted what every new king in the region wanted, the rival's family wiped out and no questions asked. They guessed wrong twice over, since David had already executed the last man who brought him a royal death and expected thanks. The first hearers were being shown a throne that arrived without David lifting a hand against Saul's house, which is the point of the whole civil war section.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The corpus for this chapter holds twenty-four commentary entries and four rabbinic locators, which is the thinnest rabbinic file of the twelve. Six entries carry English text under a licence that permits quotation, and all six are Rashi in the Metsudah translation, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY, cited below by ref alone. Malbim stands at four further places, Metzudat David at nine and Radak at five, with no English version, so those eighteen are cited and never quoted.
Rashi reads the chapter as the last stage of one process rather than as a separate killing. At the verse that turns aside to Jonathan's lame son, he writes that Scripture is continuing to recount "how the monarchy was stripped from the house of Shaul". He counts the king and his sons killed, this son killed on his bed, and the heir left lame (Rashi on II Samuel 4:4:1). That is the classical frame for the whole chapter, and it puts the murder of Ish-bosheth inside the fall of a house rather than beside it.
Two smaller comments fill in the setting. The flight of the men of Beeroth he dates to the rout after Saul's death, when the towns near the Philistines were abandoned (Rashi on II Samuel 4:3:1). The killers' entry into the house he explains by the traffic of the place, saying they came in with the traders who were buying wheat (Rashi on II Samuel 4:6:1). On David's answer to the murderers he reads the man's motive plainly, that he thought he was bringing news which would earn him a reward (Rashi on II Samuel 4:10:1). Metzudat David and Radak stand at nearly every verse of the chapter, among them Metzudat David on II Samuel 4:7:1 and Radak on II Samuel 4:12:1, and the corpus holds no English for either.
What the rabbis say
Four rabbinic locators stand on this chapter in the corpus, all four from the Midrash and none from the Talmud, and every one is a locator without text. Shemot Rabbah 33:4 stands at the captains of the raiding bands, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 12:11:5 at the verse about the lame son, and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Ki Teitzei 1:1 at the murder itself. A fourth locator, Midrash Tehillim 12:2, is anchored in the corpus at a verse number beyond this chapter's count, so it is left out here rather than cited at a verse that does not exist. A chapter with four locators gets four, and the part is not padded to match the chapters around it.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Samuel 4:3:1, 4:4:1, 4:6:1 and 4:10:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Samuel 4:7:1 and eight further places, cited only, no English version in the corpus; Radak, Radak on II Samuel 4:12:1 and four further places, cited only; Malbim, Malbim on II Samuel 4:1:1, 4:3:1, 4:11:1 and 4:12:1, cited only; The Midrash on this chapter, Shemot Rabbah 33:4; Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 12:11:5; Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Ki Teitzei 1:1, as the corpus records them.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Panic in Mahanaim; a lame prince dropped by his nurse
his hands were feeble: Abner was the whole strength Ish-bosheth's throne had, and when Hebron takes him the son of Saul has nothing left to stand on. The verse answers 3:1 directly, where the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker while the house of David waxed stronger and stronger, and Ish-bosheth's feeble hands are that sentence made visible. Henry reads the fear spreading through all Israel because it was Abner, not the king, who had carried the kingdom.
2 Samuel 4:1
“All the Israelites were troubled - Abner was their great support; and on him they depended; for it appears that Ish-bosheth was a feeble prince, and had few of those qualities requisite for a sovereign.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Samuel 4:1
“All the strength they ever had was from Abner's support, and now that he was dead he had no spirit left in him. Though Abner had, in a passion, deserted his interest, yet he hoped, by his means, to make good terms with David; but now even this hope fails him, and he sees himself forsaken by his friends and at the mercy of his enemies.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 4:2-3
were captains of bands: Rechab and Baanah come from Beeroth, one of the four Gibeonite cities Israel had sworn to spare at Joshua 9:17, a town the narrator has to explain still counts as Benjamin's own. Its people have already scattered to Gittaim by the time this book is written, refugees from within Saul's own reign rather than from any foreign army. Two men carrying that history are the ones who walk into the king's house claiming to fetch grain.
2 Samuel 4:2
“Captains of bands - Principes latronum, captains of banditti, says the Vulgate; the Syriac is the same. Whether Ish-bosheth kept bands of marauders, whose business it was to make sudden incursions into the country places, and carry off grain, provisions, cattle, etc., we know not; but such persons would be well qualified for the bloody work in which these two men were afterwards employed.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the Beerothites fled to Gittaim: John Gill dates the flight of the Beerothites to the death of Saul, when many in Israel fled their towns. Albert Barnes ties it to the attack of Saul on the Gibeonites at 21:1-2, and he reads Rechab and Baanah as Beerothites avenging their own. Adam Clarke takes Gittaim to be Gath.
2 Samuel 4:3
“And the Beerothites fled to Gittaim, and were sojourners there until that day. At the death of Saul, when many of the Israelites deserted their cities, and left them to the Philistines, 1Sa 31:7; and so the inhabitants of Beeroth forsook their city, which was near the Philistines, and went to Gittaim, a city in the same tribe, though a little further off, see Neh 11:33.”
lame of his feet: Jonathan's son enters the story at five years old, crippled in the same flight that killed his father and grandfather, and the verse is planted here for chapter 9, where David will seek him out to show him the kindness of God. Chronicles gives his name as Merib-baal, 1 Chr 8:34, and the shift from baal to bosheth, shame, in Samuel's own text is read by the scholars as a later softening once Baal's name had become an idol's name in Israel's ear. A chapter built around a murder stops to name a crippled five year old boy, and the narrator does not waste that kind of detail.
2 Samuel 4:4
“Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son that was lame of his feet--This is mentioned as a reason why, according to Oriental notions, he was considered unfit for exercising the duties of sovereignty.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 4:4
“He was but five years old when his father and grandfather were killed. His nurse, hearing of the Philistines' victory, was apprehensive that, in pursuit of it, they would immediately send a party to Saul's house, to cut off all that pertained to it, and would especially aim at her young master, who was now next heir to the crown.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 4:4
“He fell, and became lame - Dislocated his ankle, knee, or thigh; which was never after reduced; and thus he became lame. Lovely Jonathan! unfortunate in thy life, and in thy progeny.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Two captains and a head in a bag
2 Samuel 4:5-7
about the heat of the day: The captains walk in as though they would fetch wheat, the ordinary errand that gets two armed men past the door to a sleeping king. Ish-bosheth is struck under the fifth rib, the same wound the narrator gave Asahel falling to Abner's spear at 2:23 and Abner falling to Joab's hand at 3:27, with Amasa struck in the fifth rib at 20:10 the fourth private killing this book measures the same way. Verse 7 adds the detail the confession of verse 8 will need: the captains behead him and carry the head north through the plain all night.
2 Samuel 4:5
“Lay on a bed at noon - It is a custom in all hot countries to travel or work very early and very late, and rest at noonday, in which the heat chiefly prevails.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
John Wesley notes that the captains drew wheat from the house of the king to pay their men. Albert Barnes calls the verse obscure. He reads Rechab and Baanah either as captains drawing wheat or as men who entered the house among those carrying it.
2 Samuel 4:6
“As though they would have fetched wheat - The king’s stores were probably near his own dwelling; and these men were accustomed to go thither for provisions for themselves, their cattle, and their men. This supposition which is natural, renders unnecessary all the emendations of Houbigant and others.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 4:6
“Fetched wheat - Which was laid up in publick granaries in the king's house, and was fetched thence by the captains and commanders of the army for the pay of their soldiers, who, in those ancient times were not paid in money, but in corn.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Verse 7 tells the killing of Ish-bosheth a second time, and Albert Barnes finds the double account hard to explain. The king was lying on his bed during the heat of the day. Adam Clarke notes that men in hot lands rest at midday.
unto David to Hebron: Rechab and Baanah bring the head to Hebron expecting the same payment Saul's death earned at Ziklag, and they even borrow the Amalekite's own words, that the Lord hath avenged my lord the king. Clarke and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown both read this as the common coin such men expected a rival's death to buy from a prince, a court custom David is about to refuse to keep.
2 Samuel 4:8
“They brought the head of Ish-bosheth unto David . . . and said, Behold the head of Ish-bosheth--Such bloody trophies of rebels and conspirators have always been acceptable to princes in the East, and the carriers have been liberally rewarded.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 4:8
“Sentence passed upon them. There needed no evidence, their own tongues witnessed against them; they were so far from denying the fact that they gloried in it. David therefore shows them the heinousness of the crime, and that blood called for blood from his hand, who was now the chief magistrate, and was by office the avenger of blood.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 4:8
“They brought the head - unto David - They thought, as did the poor lying Amalekite, to ingratiate themselves with David by this abominable act.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
David repays murderers as he repaid the Amalekite
2 Samuel 4:9-12
who hath redeemed my soul: David answers by naming the earlier case himself: the man who told him Saul was dead expecting a reward was taken and killed at Ziklag, 1:14-16, for laying hands on the Lord's anointed. Ish-bosheth carried no such anointing, yet David judges the count that does apply, a righteous man killed in his own house on his bed, and rules the same way a second time within one book. He hands the sentence to his own young men rather than to Joab, and the killers' hands and feet are cut off and hung over the pool at Hebron while Ish-bosheth's head is buried in Abner's own grave, the general whose death opened this chapter.
2 Samuel 4:9
“He expresses himself thus resolutely, to prevent the making of any intercession for the criminals by those about him, and thus piously to intimate that his dependence was upon God for the putting of him in possession of the promised throne, and that he would not be beholden to any man to help him to it by any indirect or unlawful practices.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Matthew Henry notes that David names only the news the Amalekite brought to Ziklag, and he takes this to mean the boast of killing Saul had been found false. The Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, names the reward here with the word behind gospel. Adam Clarke reads it as a messenger’s pay.
2 Samuel 4:10
“A reward for his tidings - Ὡ εδει με δουναι ευαγγελια, Septuagint. Here is a proof that ευαγγελιον, evangelium or gospel, signifies the reward which the bringer of good tidings is entitled to receive. See my preface to St. Matthew’s Gospel.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jerome holds that Ish-bosheth is called a righteous man because he was killed innocently. Matthew Henry adds that David judged his rival misled by others. Adam Clarke notes that the king lay on his own bed in his own house without guards.
2 Samuel 4:11
“Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, is killed through a ruse at the hands of Rechab and Baanah, the sons of Rimmon, the Beerothite. And, when they announced the news to David and showed him the head of his enemy, they were killed by David, who said, "Wicked men have slain a just man in his own house upon his bed." Ish-bosheth was certainly not a just man, and yet he is called a just man because he was innocently killed.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Against the Pelagians 1.33patristic
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 4:11
“How much more - Here are several things which aggravated the guilt of those wicked men. 1. Ish-bosheth was an innocent man, and therefore none could have any ground of quarrel against him. 2. He was in his own house, which was his sanctuary, and none but the worst of men would disturb him there. 3. He was upon his bed, resting in the heat of the day, and so free from suspicion that he was not even attended by his guards, nor had he his doors secured.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Samuel 4:11
“Ish-bosheth was a righteous person, he had done them no wrong, nor designed them any. As to himself, David was satisfied that what opposition he gave him was not from malice, but mistake, from an idea he had of his own title to the crown, and the influence of others upon him, who urged him to put in for it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the hands and feet as the instruments of the crime. Albert Barnes notes that they were cut off after death and hung where all could see. The sight cleared David before Israel.
2 Samuel 4:12
“And they slew them - None ever more richly deserved death; and by this act of justice, David showed to all Israel that he was a decided enemy to the destruction of Saul’s family; and that none could lift up their hands against any of them without meeting with condign punishment. In all these cases I know not that it was possible for David to show more sincerity, or a stricter regard for justice.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative, a short assassination account closing the house of Saul's claim to the throne, as table classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The same judgment given twice in one book | David names the earlier case himself at verse 10, the man who brought word of Saul's death to Ziklag and was killed for it. The sentence here rests on a different count, a righteous man killed in his own house on his bed, and the outcome is the same. Adam Clarke reads the two scenes as the same mistake made twice.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Samuel 4:10. | 2 Samuel 1:14, 2 Samuel 1:15, 2 Samuel 4:10, 2 Samuel 4:11 |
| The same wound named in four private killings | One Hebrew phrase marks four killings done outside a battle line, Asahel at 2:23, Abner at 3:27, Ish-bosheth at 4:6 and Amasa at 20:10. The King James renders it under the fifth rib and the Berean text renders it in the stomach. Albert Barnes made the same correction, holding that the wound falls in the abdomen. The site's published exposition traces the phrase across all four places. | 2 Samuel 2:23, 2 Samuel 3:27, 2 Samuel 4:6, 2 Samuel 20:10 |
| The feeble hands and the troubled nation | Verse 1 sets the king's hands and all Israel's courage in one line, so the collapse of a man and the collapse of a kingdom are reported as one event. Matthew Henry reads the fear spreading through Israel because it was Abner, rather than the king, who had carried the kingdom.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Samuel 4:1. | 2 Samuel 4:1 |
The court custom David refuses
8 more paragraphs on the patterns
Rechab and Baanah expect payment. They even borrow the Amalekite's own words, that the LORD has avenged their lord the king. Adam Clarke and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown both read this as the common coin such men expected a rival's death to buy from a prince. David refuses the custom twice in four chapters, and the second refusal costs the killers their hands, their feet and their lives.
The judgment is not the same in its ground. Saul carried the anointing and Ish-bosheth did not, and David does not pretend otherwise. He judges the count that does apply, a righteous man killed in his own house on his bed. He also hands the sentence to his own young men rather than to Joab, whose hands are already unclean from chapter 3.
The material detail behind the errand
The kept commentary on this chapter works the ordinary life the murder hides inside. There is the midday rest that leaves a king asleep and a door unguarded. There is the grain stored in a royal house for army pay, which makes fetching wheat a believable errand for two armed captains. Adam Clarke resolves the textual question behind the phrase about fetching wheat.
A word the Septuagint carries
Adam Clarke notes that the Greek word used at verse 10 for the reward of good tidings is built on the root that gives the New Testament its word for gospel. The men who bring the worst kind of news in this book expect the pay of a herald of good news, and the chapter turns the expectation back on them.
How the fathers read the judgment
Jerome takes up verse 11 in Against the Pelagians. He engages directly with the hardest word in the verse. The Berean text reads that wicked men killed a righteous man in his own house, and Jerome's version reads just man, though Ish-bosheth was not a perfectly righteous one. He uses the case to argue what the word righteous can carry in Scripture. The site's published judgment file records that engagement as kept, and the row cites it rather than restating the argument.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
This site's published book sections table, src/lib/bible/book-sections.ts, the entry "2 Samuel": "history" and This site's published judgment file for the chapter, data/commentary/2-samuel-4-judgment.json, its note on twenty-two rows going to twenty.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Against the Pelagians 1.33; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.