AP

2 Samuel 2:26-28  Abner called out to Joab, “Must the sword devour forever?  Don’t you realize that this will end in bitterness?  How long before you order your men to stop pursuing their fellow Israelites?”  Joab answered, “As surely as God lives, if you had not spoken, the men would have continued pursuing them until morning.”  So Joab blew the trumpet, and all the troops came to a halt; they no longer pursued Israel, nor did they fight anymore.

On the strength of the fact that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16), I struggled long and hard over what the Holy Spirit wants me to learn and profit from the narrative of this part of 2 Samuel, and I didn’t find much help in resolving this from the commentaries!  This, of course, could be my fault (which may be obvious to others!) but there is a general principle at work that could also help me to understand the present conflict in the Middle East (?).

As we draw ever closer to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, when the whole course and purpose of history (HIS story) will become clearer, two conflicting things appear to be in operation: On the one hand we are trying to solve our problems by our own methods without reference to God; and, on the other hand, our Sovereign God is carrying out his Eternal Plan of Salvation for the sake of his elect.

The first of these is summed up by Abner, the initiator of the conflict and the ultimate loser: “Must the sword devour forever? Don’t you realize that this will end in bitterness?”  The secular media keep on pointing this out to us regarding the devastation and suffering in Gaza and ‘Palestine’ generally.  Nevertheless, we know that the conflict in 2 Samuel is really between whether Saul is the rightful (God-appointed/anointed) King of Israel, or whether it is David – and we now know the answer to that question from subsequent history, and, in fact the whole world will know the answer to this question when the Promised Descendant of David comes to rule in power.  The apostle Paul makes this clear: “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:8-11).

So, at least I can learn from the 2 Samuel saga, that whatever mess we make of things in the Middle East along the way, the Sovereign Lord, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, will achieve his saving purposes in the (near?) future, and so, in the meantime, while the battle rages, I will persevere with the prayer Jesus taught me: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

 – Bruce Christian