Bible Difficulties (41 page)

"to bring me up" make this very doubtful.

On the other hand, it should be observed that the witch herself was quite startled by this ghostly visitor, as she said, "I see a god [Heb.
'elohim
] coming up out of the earth" (v.13).

This clearly implies that this authentic appearance of the dead (if such it was) was no result of her own witchcraft; rather, it was an act of God Himself that terrified her and that she had in no sense brought about in her own power. It would seem that God chose this particular occasion and setting to give His final word to the evil king who had once served His cause with courage and zeal. No scriptural basis for spiritism is furnished by this episode, nor for necromancy--both of which are sternly condemned as abominations before the Lord (Deut. 18:9-12; cf. Exod. 22:18; Lev. 19:26, 31; 20:6, 27; Jer. 27:9-10).

First Samuel 31 gives account of Saul's death that conflicts with another given in 2

Samuel 1. How can both be correct?

1 Samuel 31:3-4 informs us that Saul was fatally wounded by a Philistine arrow at the disastrous battle of Mount Gilboa. Realizing that he was about to die, Saul himself appealed to his own armorbearer to thrust his sword through his heart and kill him immediately-- "lest these uncircumcized [Philistines] come and pierce me through and make sport of me" (NASB). But since the armorbearer could not bring himself to take the life of his king, Saul took his own sword, fastened its hilt firmly in the ground, and then fell on it in such a way as to end his misery right then and there.

In 2 Samuel 1 we read that a certain Amalekite who had served in Saul's bodyguard fled from the battlefield and made his way to David's camp, in order to bring him news of Saul's death. According to the account he gave to David (vv. 6-10), he was summoned by King Saul to his side while he was hopelessly surrounded by the triumphant Philistines; and he was ordered by the king to take his life immediately, in order to end his misery from his fatal wounds. The Amalekite then complied with his request (v.10): "So I stood beside him and killed him, because I knew that he could not live after he had fallen. And 180

I took the crown which was on his head and the bracelet which was on his arm, and I have brought them here to my lord" (NASB).

This presents obvious discrepancies with the account in 1 Samuel 31, but it is not presented as being an actual record of what happened during Saul's dying moments; it is only a record of what the Amalekite mercenary said had taken place. Coming with Saul's crown and bracelet in hand and presenting them before the new king of Israel, the Amalekite obviously expected a handsome reward and high preferment in the service of Saul's successor. In the light of the straightforward account in the previous chapter, we must conclude that the Amalekite was lying in order to gain a cordial welcome from David. But what had actually happened was that after Saul had killed himself, and the armorbearer had followed his lord's example by taking his own life (1 Sam. 31:5), the Amalekite happened by at that moment, recognized the king's corpse, and quickly stripped off the bracelet and crown before the Philistine troops discovered it. Capitalizing on his good fortune, the Amalekite then escaped from the bloody field and made his way down to David's headquarters in Ziklag. But his hoped-for reward turned out to be a warrant for his death; David had him killed on the spot, saying: "Your blood is on your head, for your mouth has testified against you, saying, Ì have killed the LORD'S

anointed'" (2 Sam. 1:16; NASB). His glib falsehood had brought him the very opposite of what he had expected, for he failed to foresee that David's high code of honor would lead him to make just the response he did.

It should be added that this particular Amalekite came from a different Amalekite tribe from that which Saul had earlier destroyed at God's command--the tribe over which Agag had ruled (1 Sam. 15:7-8). Those Amalekite lived between Havilah and Shur. But there were other Amalekites not involved in this campaign, some of whom raided David's settlement at Ziklag (1 Sam. 30).

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2 Samuel

How could David have reigned seven and a half years in Hebron if Ish-bosheth, his
rival, reigned only two years before he died?

In 2 Samuel 5:5 we are told that the length of David's reign in Hebron as King of Judah (before he became acknowledged by the northern tribes as king over all Israel) was seven and a half years. This is confirmed by 1 Chronicles 3:4. Yet 2 Samuel 2:10 reports that David's rival, Ish-bosheth son of Saul, ruled over Israel (under Abner's sponsorship) for only two years. But this did not prevent the very next verse from affirming that David's rule in Hebron was indeed seven and a half years. How could both statements be true? On the assumption that the two years for Ish-bosheth represented the true interval, the Jerusalem Bible even amended 1 Chron. 3:4 to read, "Hebron, where he reigned for
three
years and six months" [italics mine]--even though no similar alteration has been made in the other two passages [2 Sam. 2:11; 5:5], interestingly enough!

A careful survey of the circumstances surrounding the career of Ish-bosheth furnishes a clue for the brevity of his reign. After the total collapse of Israel's army at the disaster of Mount Gilboa, it became necessary for Abner and the other fugitives from the victorious Philistines to take refuge east of the Jordan, leaving the entire area of Ephraim and Manasseh to the control of the conquerors. Abner must have set up his headquarters at Mahanaim, where he placed Ish-bosheth for safekeeping in the hinterland of the tribe of Gad. It apparently took Abner five long years of hard fighting to force the Philistines back from Beth-shan (where they had displayed the impaled bodies of Saul and his sons) all the way up the valley of the Esdraelon, and thus link up the northern tribes of Issachar, Naphtali, and Asher with Benjamin to the south. But until that was accomplished, it was premature to celebrate any formal coronation of Ish-bosheth as king of Israel.

However, at the end of five years Abner had been sufficiently successful to call representatives from all Ten Tribes to a public coronation ceremony in Mahanaim--which remained the provisional capital for the time being, safely out of the reach of retaliatory expeditions launched by the Philistines. Thus it came about that Ish-bosheth actually reigned for only two years, at the end of which he was assassinated in bed by two of his army commanders, Baanah and Rechab (2 Sam. 4:5-6), sometime after they had heard of Abner's murder at the hand of the treacherous Joab (2 Sam. 3:27).

David, however, had been crowned by the men of Judah at Hebron quite soon after the battle of Mount Gilboa; and thus he wore the crown for a full seven and a half years, even though Ish-bosheth had formally begun his reign only two years before his death.

What is the correct number of horsemen that David took in his battle over
Hadadezer, seventeen hundred (2 Sam. 8:4) or seven thousand (1 Chron. 18:4)?

In the war against Hadadezer of Zobah, David won a significant victory near Hamath, capturing many prisoners, listed in 2 Samuel 8:4 as "a thousand and seven hundred 182

horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen." But in 1 Chronicles 18:4 the number taken in this engagement is given as "a thousand chariots, and seven thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen [i.e.,infantry]." There is no question but that these two accounts refer to the same episode, and therefore the prisoner count should be the same in both instances. There has been a scribal error or two either in Samuel or in Chronicles.

Keil and Delitzsch (
Samuel
l, p. 360) have a most convincing solution, that the word for chariotry (
rekeb
) was inadvertently omitted by the scribe in copying 2 Samuel 8:4, and that the second figure, seven thousand (for the
parasim
"cavalrymen"), was necessarily reduced to seven hundred from the seven thousand he saw in his
Vorlage
for the simple reason that no one would write seven thousand after he had written one thousand in the recording of the one and the same figure. The omission of
rekeb
might have occurred with an earlier scribe, and the reduction of seven thousand to seven hundred would followed by chain reaction when the defective copy was next copied by a later scribe. But in all probability the Chronicles figure is right and the Samuel numbers should be corrected to agree with it.

How could a kind and loving God take the life of Bathsheba's first child just because
of the sin of its parents (2 Sam. 12:15-23)?

One of the profoundest insights granted to us through Holy Scripture is the true meaning of death. Apart from divine revelation we may think of death as a fearsome menace, a terrible curse, a final stroke of judgment. Insofar as death--that is to say, physical death with its separation of the soul from the body--means the end of all opportunity to find God and to glorify Him with a godly life, there is something very solemn and awesome about death. But God's Word tells us very plainly that physical death, regardless of how it looks to the human observer, is not the end for any man. He goes right on into the eternal phase of his career, whether in heaven or in hell--whichever he has chosen during his earthly life. But since the Son of God has come and given His trustworthy assurance to all believers, that everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die" (John 11:26), death has taken on an entirely new meaning. Because it was through death--death as the sinner's substitute on the cross--that our Savior "conquered death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2 Tim. 1:10) death has been robbed of its sting and the grave has been deprived of its victory (1 Cor. 15:54-56). "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord....that they may rest from their labors" (Rev. 14:13, NASB).

In the case of children who die in infancy, it may well be that they are spared a life of tragedy, heartbreak, and pain by their immediate departure from this world. It is perhaps too simplistic to maintain that all children dying in infancy are thereby guaranteed a place in heaven, as if the saving benefits of Calvary were somehow imputed to them without any response of faith on their own part. Such a doctrine would be a powerful encouragement to parents to kill their babies before they reached the age of accountability, as the only sure way of their getting into heaven. But since infanticide is sternly condemned in Scripture as an abomination before God (Lev.18:21; Deut. 12:31; 2

Chron. 28:3; Isa. 57:5; Jer. 19:4-7), even when perpetrated in the name of religion, we must conclude that there is some other principle involved in the salvation of infants 183

besides their managing to die in infancy. That is to say, the omniscience of God extends not only to the actual but also to the potential. He foreknows not only whatever
will
happen but also whatever
would
happen. In the case of babies who die at birth or before they reach the age of accountability, God knows what their response would be to the proffers of His grace, whether acceptance or rejection, whether faith or unbelief.

It was probably for this reason that David took comfort after he learned that his prayers had been fruitless, and that God had taken his little one "home." He resigned his baby to the grace of God and said only, "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me" (2 Sam.

12:23, NASB). David had a quiet confidence in the perfection of God's will, even in a heart-rending situation like this. And, furthermore, he understood why God had seen fit to chasten the guilty couple by taking from them the fruit of their sinful passion. He saw that they needed this rebuke as a reminder that God's children, even though forgiven, must bear the temporal consequences of their sin and patiently endure them as an important part of their repentance.

Second Samuel 14:27 says Absalom had three sons; 2 Samuel 18:18 says he had
none. Which is right?

2 Samuel 14:27 says, "And to Absalom there were born three sons, and one daughter whose name was Tamar" (NASB). But 2 Samuel 18:18 states, "Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and set up for himself a pillar which is in the King's Valley, for he said, Ì have no son to preserve my name.' So he named the pillar after his own name, and it is called Absalom's monument to this day" (NASB)--that is, to the time of the final composition of 2 Samuel, which may have been in the middle of the eighth century B.C.

(The so-called Absalom's Tomb that now stands in the Kidron Valley probably dates from Hellenistic times, ca. second century B.C., judging from the style of its facade [cf.

K.N. Schoville,
Biblical Archaeology in Focus
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), p. 414].) This establishes the fact that by the time he set up his monument (which may have been a year or two before his rebellion against his father, David), Absalom had no male heirs surviving to him. But it does not prove that none had been born to him previously.

Keil and Delitzsch (
Samuel
, p. 412) point out, in regard to 2 Samuel 14:27, that

"contrary to general usage, the names of the sons are not given, in all probability for no other reason than because they died in infancy. Consequently, as Absalom had no sons, he afterwards erected a pillar to preserve his name (ch. xviii. 18)." Apparently he endured the heartbreak of losing all three little boys in their infancy, and it had become apparent that his wife would not bear him any more. It would seem that Tamar was the only one to survive out of all his children; and that meant he had no male heir to carry on his name, hence the poignancy of his remark in 18:18, and the rather pathetic attempt to compensate by the erection of a monument in stone. Within a few years Absalom himself died in disgrace, as the would-be slayer of his own father, David, and as a defiler of his father's wives. Thus any son of his would have had a sorry heritage had he survived to adulthood.

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As for the daughter, Tamar (named after Absalom's beautiful sister, whom her half-brother Amnon had raped, but whom Absalom later avenged by having Amnon assassinated), she apparently lived on and married well. Her husband was Uriel of Gibeah (cf. 2 Chron. 11:20-22; 13:1). Their daughter was the infamous Maacah (=Micaiah), who married King Rehoboam (1 Kings 15:2) and became the mother of his successor, Abijam.