06/02/2026
June 2, 2026 TUESDAY 2 Samuel 5-6
Chapter 5. David becomes King over what is left of an impoverished and divided nation. God had told David he would be King of Israel, yet David, like Jesus, never forces his rule on anyone; he offers himself in service to lead and shepherd God’s chosen people. Even when he was running from Saul, wanted dead or alive, some 600 men and their families chose to follow him. Almost ten years later the men of Judah CHOSE David, their favorite son, to be their King. And here in chapter 5, some 7-years since Saul fell in battle, the leaders of the other eleven tribes come to Hebron and democratically choose David to be King of all Israel. David was 30 when he was made king of Judah, and 37 or 38 when he was anointed King of all the tribes of Israel. He will rule Israel for 33-years, and will die somewhere between 71 to 75 years of age. The last few years of his life his son, Solomon, will be on the throne.
Remember when 15-year-old David left Goliath’s big head at the city gate of Jebus (called Salem during the days of Abraham, Jeru-salem today) as a promise that he would return to take on the Jebusites who had held the city for well over a century? Well, it is now 20-years later, and the time has come. But the King of Jebus just laughs at the Israelite forces assembled against his city, saying, “Ha, ha, ha! With your pitiful army you could not take our great fortified city if every one of our soldiers was blind and crippled. (LOL)”
But David knew the city got its water from the Gihon spring in the valley below, bringing the spring water in through tunnels and water shafts. David challenged his men to find a way in through that water system into the city. To whichever one was successful in his attempt, David promised the position of his top General. 1 Chronicles 11.6 tells us it was Joab who successfully planned and executed this dangerous and arduous climb to secretly enter the city, overwhelm the guards, open the gates to the rest of David’s new Israelite army, and catch the Jebusites by surprise.
Jerusalem sits on three hills. The Mount of Olives lies just to the East of the city. Mount Moriah is the northern portion of the city on which Abraham offered Isaac, and on which, in the days of Solomon, Son of David, the Temple will be built; and Mount Zion was just south of Mt Moriah, which is known to this very day as the city of David. David will expand the ancient city walls of Jebus, and will build his palace on Mt Zion [Zion means ‘highest point’…and it will be a symbol of heaven in the rest of the Bible.]
Today, the JEWS, God’s chosen people, are the only people group in the history of the world who after 3,000-years are living in their original homeland, speaking the same Hebrew language, with the same capital city, with the same religion! Not because they were exceptional, but because their exceptional God swore to Moses, “I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that is My Name forever!”
The Philistines were complacent when Israel was divided by civil war. But suddenly, Abner and Ishbosheth are gone, and David, the giant killer, is King of all Israel! And when they hear that King David has taken the mighty walled city of Jebus, the Philistines feel the momentum shift. And they decide they have to nip David’s rise to power in the bud! So out of their cities they come in full force against him. David leaves Jebus and moves SE to the mountain stronghold of Masada. The Philistines set themselves in array in the fertile valley of Rephaim (‘valley of the giants’) SW of Jerusalem (Jebus).
God tells David to attack and assures him of victory. So, David leaves Masada and hits the Philistines with shock and awe in a sudden surprise attack. The army of Israel easily overruns the Philitines’ position and chases them back to their fortified cities. David returns to the battlefield and gathers up all their idols and occultic objects and burns them at Baalperizim (“breaking of Baal” or “breakthrough against Baal”), and David returns with his army in triumph to his new capital city.
But the Philistines weren’t through. They regrouped and came back full-force into Rephaim. While David is grateful for his previous victory, he is not lifted up with pride because of it. He knows it was not because of his great wisdom and skill on the battlefield, but because of his great God. So instead of storming out, thinking he will win like last time, David humbly asks God what he should do, and God tells David to circle around and attack the Philistines from the rear so that this time they can’t retreat back to their fortified cities. But, God told him, don’t attack till you hear the sound of ‘going’ in the tops of the Mulberry trees. The rabbis say this ‘going’ was the movement of angels, preceding David and his men into battle! David waits on the Lord, and God’s power becomes his offense. Israel smashes the Philistines so decisively, that while they will remain an irritant, they will never again dominate Israel. Some 400-years-later, in 607BC, the great Babylonian General Nebuchadnezzar will wipe the Philistines out, and they disappear forever as a nation from the pages of history.
Chapter 6. In celebration of this miraculous, decisive victory over the Philistines and their gods, David decides it is time to show YHWH and Israel how much he loves and appreciates their God, by bringing the Ark of the Covenant from the house of Abinadab, the Gibeonite, in Kirjath-jearim, to Jerusalem. The Ark has been in Kirjah-jearim for twenty years, ever since it was returned by the Philistines. You remember that the Philistines had overpowered the men of Israel and had killed Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phineas, and had destroyed the Tabernacle in Shiloh, and had with great fanfare carried the Ark as a trophy into the temple of their god, Dagon, in Ashdod (1 Samuel 7.2). After seven months of disease and death, the Philistines could not give back the Ark fast enough!
David had a new tent made for the Ark, and had it erected in his palace courtyard. King David invited all the lords of the land... ‘people from baale of Judah’ [‘baale’ means ‘lords’] to come to Jerusalem as his special guests to celebrate the God of Israel with him.
But remember that David never wrote out his copy of the law, so he has not read God’s word every day as God said every King was to do [and as you and I as Kings and Priests are to do]. So, David has never read how God said the Ark is to be moved. And the new generation of priests have never had the Ark in their possession to learn how the Ark is to be carried. Anyway, their job as priests was to offer the sacrifices properly, and sadly [as so often is the case in America’s churches] they seldom read the scripture for themselves.
David had heard how God had instructed the pagan Philistines to transport the ark on a new cart, so David, doing the religious thing, relying on his own understanding, has a new cart built...it was a really nice cart... and they put the Ark of God on the new cart. One of Abinadab’s boys, Ahio, walked in front of the cart driving the oxen, while his other son, Uzzah, walked along beside the cart. As the crow flies it’s just over six miles back to Jerusalem, but the winding mountain road from Kirjath to Jerusalem was eleven miles…a 4 or 5-hour journey. David strikes up the band and off goes the parade. Somewhere along the road, Ahio took his eyes off the road to look at the crowd, maybe to wave at his wife, and the ox cart hit a pothole, a jar that caused the Ark to shift, and his brother, Uzzah, quickly reached up to steady the Ark. ZAAAP! POW!!! And Uzzah dropped DEAD!
IT RUINED THE WHOLE PARADE! We cannot just come to God any old way that seems right. We can only come through Jesus. All other ways are ways of DEATH! David is stunned. He is not about to bring the Ark into Jerusalem and have happen there what happened twenty years earlier when the mama cows pulling the Philistine cart brought the Ark back to Israel; when 70 gawkers opened the Ark and fell dead in the field at Bethshemesh. So, David has the Ark carried into the nearby home of Obededom (his name means ‘servant of Edom’) the Gittite. ‘Gittite’ is what they called the people from the Philistine city of Gath! So, it would appear that Obed was from Edom, and had been a slave of a Philistine master. His master may have been killed in the recent battles against King David, or his master may have fled the battlefield, leaving his servant behind. Rather than return to Edom, Obededom, had stayed there near Jerusalem, and had become a Jewish proselyte.
Instead of being embarrassed and humiliated, we learn from 1 Chronicles that David wisely humbles himself and returns to his palace to pours over the Scripture for the next three months to discover how he had offended God. David has learned that when there is a problem, it is never on God’s side. The problem is always in our actions or our attitude. And NOTE: What you don’t know CAN kill you.
During those three months, as David read the sacred scrolls and sought the will of God, God blessed Obed and his family and his business so much that everyone around noticed it, and it was reported to the King. David saw in the blessing of Obed, proof that God WANTS to dwell with and bless His people, but He wants His people to glorify Him as God by acting according to His revealed will. David has to school the priests on proper Ark etiquette. The Ark must be covered by a royal blue cloth and be carried on the sanctified shoulders of the sons of Aaron.
Beginning in verse 13, where we learn that David removed his royal robes and put on an ephod, the white linen robe of a priest, and acting as a priest, offered sacrifices every six steps on the way to Jerusalem, the passage gets quite controversial.
There is no question that David’s actions were contrary to the law. Only a son of Aaron of the tribe of Levi was allowed to offer sacrifices. Remember when Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, got himself in trouble for offering sacrifices down at Gilgal rather than wait for the prophet and Levitical priest, Samuel? 1 Samuel 13:13-14 says, “Samuel said to Saul, ‘You have done foolishly: you have not done as YHWH your God commanded you. Had you obeyed the Lord, He would have established your kingdom in Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not succeed you…”
When they get to Jerusalem, David leads the whole nation in worship, dancing with all his might in honor of the true King of Israel, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, of whom he is but a humble servant. A number of scholars question if David, like King Uzziah, in 2 Chronicles 26.19, was not sinning by acting as a priest and in dancing with such abandon in the joy of his Lord, not only because it violated the law, but also because of what his wife, Michal, says to him when he gets back to the palace: “How glorious was the king of Israel today! who uncovered himself [some translations say, ‘took off his royal robes’] in the eyes of slave girls of his servants, like one of the vain fellows [some translations have ‘riff raff’ or ‘lower classes’] shamelessly uncovers himself!” When Uzziah had tried to act as a priest, God struck him with leprosy [that’s a hint God was not pleased]. But here, nor anywhere else in the Bible is there any rebuke of David’s worship except by his Queen, Michal, ‘the daughter of Saul.’
Hold that thought, I need to quickly interject here, a few times I have heard teachers and pastors actually say, ‘David danced naked before the Lord.’ When I had the chance to talk with them in private, I showed them that scripture says David wore the “linen ephod of the priest” [2 Samuel 6.14 and 1 Chronicles 15.27], which went from the neck down to below the knees. And beneath it the priests wore linen britches. I don’t know who started that slander, but what shocks me is what it reveals about Pastors teaching stuff they heard someone say without taking the time to study the word for themselves. Don’t ever parrot what I or some other teacher tells you. Check everything by the Word of God.
So what do we make of David’s actions? Samuel’s message to Saul in 1 Samuel 13.14 continued, “YHWH has sought out for Himself, A MAN AFTER HIS OWN HEART, and YHWH has commanded him to be captain over His people, because you [Saul] have not done as YHWH commanded you.’” WOW! When Samuel gave that prophecy to Saul, David was not yet born; or if he was, he was but a baby. Several times God defines for us what He meant by ‘a man after His own heart,’ by adding, “he will do what I tell him.” Not only do we see David constantly seeking the LORD, we see a stark contrast between Saul and David in how they reacted when they were rebuked and reprimanded for their sin by one of the prophets. Saul gives excuses and gets angry. David humbly repents and confesses his sin.
And from the days of David on, he is the Bible’s standard against which all the kings to follow are judged:
2 Kings 14.3, “Amaziah did that which was right in the sight of YHWH, yet not like David his father.”
Or, 2 Kings 16.2, “Ahaz did not that which was right in the sight of YHWH his God, like David his father.”
Or, 2 Kings 18.3, “Hezekiah did that which was right in the sight of YHWH, according to all that David his father did,” just to cite a few.
So, I think we must understand that in those many hours spent in the scripture seeking God, God revealed to David what he was to do to bring the Ark safely to Jerusalem. But David also read in the Torah that only the Sons of Aaron were to act as priests and only the priests were to offer sacrifices. So either David deliberately sinned when he, from the tribe of Judah, took the roll of a priest, or David was doing exactly what God told him to do. The Bible calls David a prophet. And Jesus says that David spoke by the Spirit of God [Matthew 22.43]. David here, wearing a linen ephod and offering sacrifices, is God’s picture of Jesus, God the Son, the Messiah to come, who will be both Priest [after the order of Melchizedek] and King, who will offer Himself as the sacrifice that will take away the sins of the world. David wrote about this revelation God gave him of Jesus, our High Priest, “a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” in Psalm 110.4. The writer of Hebrews will devote three chapters: 5, 6, and 7—to Jesus as this priest forever after the eternal order of the Melchizedekian priesthood.
There are only three people in the Bible who are BOTH Kings and Priests: 1) Melchizedek, KING of Salem and PRIEST of the Most High God, to whom Abraham paid tithes when he returned from his victory over the Mesopotamian invaders. 2) JESUS, our High Priest and soon coming KING. And 3)…drum roll please… you and me...Revelation 5.9-10, “You were sacrificed, and by Your blood You have redeemed us to God out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation, and You have made us Kings and Priests to our God: and we shall reign on the earth!”
And I do think that verses 21-23 call ‘Michal, Saul’s daughter [instead of David’s wife]’ by design. 15-year-old Michal and 20-year-old David did love each other in those early days, and at the risk of her own life Michal helped David escape her father’s murderous clutches. But Michal did not endure the hardships that her dad put David and his other wives through. She was married off to a noble and had lived the life of the elite all of her life. Had she been unhappy in her second marriage, and had she longed for David, she could have easily joined him in the nitty gritty of his daily existence. Remember that her older brother Jonathan, did at the hazard of his own life, take supplies to David to help him survive on the lam. I don’t doubt that had Michal wanted to go to David, Jonathan would have gotten her there. But Michal had fallen for David when all the other girls were singing his praises. Evidently, she was “Saul’s daughter” and had no desire to hide in caves and sleep on the ground in the wilderness.
Because of David, she had been abducted by Abner from her 2nd marriage and the cushy life to which she had been born, and she had only been back with David for a short while. Surely, Michal was happy that her husband had been made king, and even that he had taken the great city of Jerusalem for his capitol, and especially that he had won a huge victory over his most fierce of enemies who had killed her daddy and her brothers, but she wanted a husband she could be PROUD of, and she wanted him to be proud of himself and of her. David’s other wives, were mostly commoners, even country bumpkins, as David himself had been when he was growing up tending sheep. Michal’s tone was anything but respectful, and her biting words oozed hyperbole.
When Michal comes out to meet him, openly mocking and ridiculing him for his public display of affection toward Israel’s God, David is hurt, and responds with emotions perhaps pent up from the years her father, Saul, had abused him. David’s rant is all about not being proud or thinking you are better than others, but about being humble before God and a servant of both God and of God’s people.
When the dust settles, Michal remains David’s wife, and the head of his harem, but she is never again his companion, never again invited into his presence, and dies childless...at least without a child by David.
As I see it, Michal pictures the leaders of Israel who were full of themselves and their self-righteousness when Jesus came the first time, and they rejected Him because they wanted a KING who would act like a king! NOT a servant who came to suffer and die, not just for them, but for the scum of the world. And so, Israel, like Michal, never ceasing to be God’s bride, His chosen people, were set aside [‘UNTIL the fullness of the gentiles is gathered in...’ Romans 11.25-26], and God turned primarily to the gentiles, who had been despised as ‘dogs’ by the Jews. But the day is coming when God will turn the 2,000 years of Jewish ‘mourning into DANCING’ [Psalm 30.11, Jeremiah 31.12-14] when after the rapture, “all Israel shall be saved.”
With the Ark in Jerusalem, God blesses David and the city and the people of Israel, as one-by-one David defeats and subdues his enemies on every hand. And through diplomacy, forms defensive alliances, especially with Hiram, King of Tyre, the great port city of the Phoenicians, the world’s greatest maritime power (which would greatly aid David against the sea power of the Philistines). Tyre founded the mighty colony of Carthage in North Africa. Phoenician money was found in the Mayan ruins of Central America, and Phoenician writing was found on large stones on the coast of Brazil, and up in the New England states all dating from about 1,000BC, this same time frame of King David and King Hiram!
