Study Desk

When Joab and his whole army arrived, Joab was informed, “Abner son of Ner came to see the king, the king dismissed him, and he went in peace.”

May it hang over Joab’s head and his father’s whole family, and may the house of Joab never be without someone who has a discharge or a skin disease, or a man who can only work a spindle, or someone who falls by the sword or starves.”

Joab and his brother Abishai killed Abner because he had put their brother Asahel to death in the battle at Gibeon.

Then the king said to his soldiers, “You must know that a great leader has fallen in Israel today.

As for me, even though I am the anointed king, I have little power today. These men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too fierce for me. May the Lord repay the evildoer according to his evil!”

Saul’s son Jonathan had a son whose feet were crippled. He was five years old when the report about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel. His nanny picked him up and fled, but as she was hurrying to flee, he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.

Rechab and Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, set out and arrived at Ish-bosheth’s house during the heat of the day while the king was taking his midday nap.

They entered the interior of the house as if to get wheat and stabbed him in the stomach. Then Rechab and his brother Baanah escaped.

They had entered the house while Ish-bosheth was lying on his bed in his bedroom and stabbed and killed him. They removed his head, took it, and traveled by way of the Arabah all night.

They brought Ish-bosheth’s head to David at Hebron and said to the king, “Here’s the head of Ish-bosheth son of Saul, your enemy who intended to take your life. Today the Lord has granted vengeance to my lord the king against Saul and his offspring.”

But David answered Rechab and his brother Baanah, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As the Lord lives, the one who has redeemed my life from every distress,

when the person told me, ‘Look, Saul is dead,’ he thought he was a bearer of good news, but I seized him and put him to death at Ziklag. That was my reward to him for his news!

How much more when wicked men kill a righteous man in his own house on his own bed! So now, should I not require his blood from you and purge you from the earth?”

David was thirty years old when he began his reign; he reigned forty years.

The king and his men marched to Jerusalem against the Jebusites who inhabited the land. The Jebusites had said to David: “You will never get in here. Even the blind and lame can repel you” thinking, “David can’t get in here.”

Then David knew that the Lord had established him as king over Israel and had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.

The Philistines abandoned their idols there, and David and his men carried them off.

He and all his troops set out to bring the ark of God from Baale-judah. The ark bears the Name, the name of the Lord of Armies who is enthroned between the cherubim.

Then the Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah, and God struck him dead on the spot for his irreverence, and he died there next to the ark of God.

The ark of the Lord remained in his house three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and his whole family.