2 SAMUEL 16 - TRUSTING IN GOD NO MATTER WHAT
2 Samuel 16
Context is of great importance in understanding the Bible, and so before we move on into Chapter 16, it would be helpful to review a few key events from Chapter 15. In that Chapter, the attempt by Absalom to take over the throne from his father, David, was on full display. Absalom cleverly wooed others to his cause, and after being warned by a messenger in 2 Sam. 15:13 that the men of Israel had gone over to Absalom’s side, David decided to take his servants and flee Jerusalem, and stated that his concern was not just for his own safety and for that of his servants, but also for the safety and protection of Jerusalem lest the city be attacked. Even though the Levites who fled with David had taken the Ark of the Covenant with them, David instructed them to take it back to Jerusalem, and he declared in 2 Sam. 15:25-26, that if God wanted him back in Jerusalem, God would bring him back, but that if God was not pleased to do that, then he was okay with whatever God thought was best to do to him. When David learned that one of his main counselors, Ahithophel, had joined with Absalom, David simply asked the Lord in 2 Sam. 15:31 to turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. At the end of Chapter 15, a loyal servant of David’s agreed to become a spy for him in the house of Absalom.
This same pattern of David simply trusting in God in the midst of his terrible difficulties, and then helpful things coming David’s way continues into Chapter 16. In Vs. 1, Ziba, a servant of one of Saul’s grandsons shows up with loads of food for David. Then, in Vs. 9, David gains an ally who is willing to fight for his cause. When the ally, Abishai, wants to cut off the head of a crazy man who is cursing David and throwing stones at him, David stops him from doing so, and then declares that the Lord has told the crazy man to do this, and that God may look at this man’s attack on him as being unfair, and will repay him with good. This is a foreshadowing of our Lord’s rebuke of Peter for cutting off the ear of the servant of the high priest when the crowd came to arrest Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, and His declaration that if God wanted to, He would send legions of angels to rescue Him. After that, David is blessed in Vs. 14 with a time of refreshment at the river Jordan. And then, as the Chapter ends, Ahithophel counsels Absalom to go have sexual relations with David’s concubines in the sight of the people. This gross sin was not only a humiliation of David, and a declaration by Absalom that he was entitled to be king, but it was an answer to David’s prayer in Chapter 15 that Ahithophel would give foolish counsel to Absalom, as well as the fulfillment of a prophecy that Nathan had given in 2 Sam. 12:11-12 that David’s wives would be taken from him and that his neighbor would publicly have sexual relations with them.
It is clear that David knew and understood a few things about God that we would do well to remember in our own times of trouble. David’s patience and humble submission to the will of God in his life show that he trusted God no matter what, and that he knew that God was in control of all that he was going through. He was also open to the fact that while God might be chastising him for his sin, that God might also be blessing him in some amazing ways in the midst of his trials. While a casual reader who is unfamiliar with the ways of God may see all the helpful things that came David’s way in these two Chapters as merely a random series of events, David knew and probably by this time in his life may have even expected that God would send blessings his way even while he was suffering. David’s focus was not on himself and his difficulties, and he was open to the fact that he may have deserved them. Rather, his focus was on God and the blessings that God was giving him in the midst of his difficulties.
David knew that he deserved judgment for his sins. But, he understood that his righteousness, or his being in a right relationship with God, was not dependent on his own works or behavior, but rather was a gift from God that flowed out of the nature and character of God. David saw God as being full of grace, and that the only righteousness that he, as a wretched sinner, could have in the presence of God, was a righteousness given to him by God, not one that he could ever merit or earn. The way that we obtain a right relationship with God is no different. We fully deserve God’s judgment for our sin. Yet, in Christ, he has offered us a free gift of being forgiven for our sin by Christ’s atoning work of paying for that sin on the cross, and not only that but the free gift of righteousness in God’s sight.
As a man who knew these truths, and trusted in them, David also knew that, as he wrote in Ps. 34:15, the eyes of the Lord were on him, and that the Lord heard his cries as he was fleeing from Absalom, and he knew as he also wrote in Ps. 34: 17 that when he, as a righteous man, cried for help, God would hear his cries and would deliver him. As a result, David was a man who could trust in God no matter what.