Hold That Champagne

Growing up, I remember excitement building when an NFL team would go undefeated for ten, eleven, or twelve weeks. When they would finally lose, the team’s fans were, of course, dejected. But the cameras would always cut to a group of old men in a skybox, laughing and drinking champagne. They were members of the 1972 Dolphins, the only undefeated team in NFL history. They celebrated this new team’s loss and misery; it meant that their own interests were safe. This Amalekite is counting on that from David.

We know from 1 Samuel 31 that Israel has just suffered a catastrophic defeat to the Philistines: King Saul’s sons were all killed, and Saul himself took his own life. But David doesn’t know this yet. So the Amalekite rushes up with a report—only it doesn’t quite add up. He says he was with wounded Saul as the chariots were closing in, and that the king begged him to perform a mercy-killing. It doesn’t match what we read in 1 Samuel 31, and you should always go with the biblical author over an Amalekite. This guy is a liar and a looter; he was likely scavenging the battlefield when he grabbed Saul’s crown and cooked up this story. He assumes David will pop out the champagne and reward him—after all, Saul’s demise makes David king. He pegs David as a typical, ruthless, self-advancing politician. He soon finds out how badly he miscalculated.

A King who Finds Out (1–10). The Amalekite seems legit at first: he runs up calling him “my lord.” His story is vivid, detailed, and he has Saul’s crown and armlet. But David isn’t taken in by appearances or flattery. He wants the truth. So, like a relentless attorney, he keeps asking question after question until the man’s story falls apart. You can almost see the sweat beading on the Amalekite’s forehead as David puts the screws to him: “You ‘just happened’ to be on Mt. Gilboa in the middle of a battle? With all these chariots bearing down on you? Saul had to ask you to kill him?” Thread-by-thread, the tale unravels, and David discerns the truth: this Amalekite is no friend of God’s kingdom, only a cheap opportunist. He thought he could sneak into the kingdom, but he runs into a discerning king who sees past all the lies. It’s one of many ways David provides a little shadow of David’s true Son, Jesus—you can’t sneak anything past him (Matt 7:21–23).

A King who Fears God (11–16). This Amalekite assumes David is ambitious, power-grabbing, and win-at-all-costs. He gets a clue that he misjudged when David excuses himself to tear his clothes and weep at the news of Saul’s death. David’s interrogation revealed that the man has lived in Israel long enough to know that Israel’s king is Yahweh’s anointed. So David’s final question is simple: “How is it you were not afraid to put out your hand to destroy Yahweh’s anointed (14)?” This Amalekite misread David. Yes, he wants to be king: this is his destiny (1 Sam 16:12–13). But he won’t take the kingdom in an ungodly way. He has had opportunities to kill Saul himself, and his friends have begged him to do it! But he refused (1 Sam 24:10; 1 Sam 26:23). David’s position is, “If God wants me to be king, he’ll do it his way, in his time. God won’t honor it if I take it in my way, in my time.”

David is not ruled by selfish ambition, or by peer pressure, but by the fear of God. He knows he answers to the Lord, which is why he is afraid to stretch out his hand in disobedience to Yahweh. This Amalekite was not; now he pays for it. One day, we will also stand before a truth-finding King of perfect integrity (2 Cor 5:10). Will you be ready for that meeting?

Many of us know the headlines of David’s career, but may be less familiar with the details of 2 Samuel. The early chapters (1–10) pick up where 1 Samuel left off, with David rising to the kingdom through humility, integrity, and patient faith in God. Here is David at his best and brightest, an imperfect man who is nevertheless “alive to God (Rom 6:11),” and thus vibrantly different from everyone around him. In turn, God establishes David’s steps up the long, steep climb to his destiny. As king, David presides over Israel’s age of Camelot: “ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them, like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth (2 Sam 23:3–4).”

The brilliance of David’s early reign leaves us unprepared for his tragic fall, detailed in the book’s middle chapters (11–20). Like two kings before him, Saul and Adam, humble David exalts himself to the place of God, and brings down ruin on himself, his family, and his kingdom. At his lowest point, David’s own son, Absalom, rises against him. We find David, now at age 70, in a familiar position: betrayed and abandoned, hunted by enemies, fleeing into the wilderness, with nothing to rely on but God. But in his desperation, the old king’s faith revives, and he is delivered.

The final chapters (21–24) portray a David wrung out like a dish rag and limping to the end of his long, stormy, magnificent life. He does so leaning on the One he has learned to call “mine:” “Yahweh is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior; you save me from violence. I call upon Yahweh, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies (2 Sam 22:3–4).” In 2 Samuel, David shows us what it means to make our way through the real world, upheld by God’s covenant love. By the end, I pray that we will all know what it means to call this God “mine.”
 
I am grateful to look back on all those who have helped me to understand and apply 2 Samuel through the years, especially Dale Ralph Davis, Eugene Peterson, and Tommy Nelson. But it was my wonderful mom and dad who first read David’s stories to me, and so gave me a friend with whom I have been walking ever since. Thank you!

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Article by Eric Smith
Senior Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church