2 Samuel
Introduction

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24

Contradictions
Cruelty and Violence
Injustice
Absurdities
Family Values
Women
Sex
Intolerance
Science and History
Interpretation
Homosexuality
Prophecy
Language
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SAB: 2 Samuel

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Family Values in 2 Samuel

  1. David, by this time, has at least seven wives (Michal, Ahinoam, Abigail, Maacah, Haggith, Abital, and Ehlah), and he was just getting started. 3:2-5

  2. David says, "deliver me my wife Michal, which I espoused to me for a hundred foreskins of the Philistines." Well, he actually paid with two hundred foreskins (see 1 Sam.18:27). 3:14

  3. Michal was bought by David with 200 Philistine foreskins (1 Sam.18:25-27), then she was "given" to Phatiel (1 Sam.25:44), and then "taken back" by David. Poor Phatiel must have loved her dearly since he "went along weeping behind her." 3:15-16

  4. "And David took him more concubines and wives." (How many? God knows I suppose, but he doesn't tell us in the Bible.) 5:13

  5. King David dances nearly naked in front of God and everybody. Michal criticizes him for exposing himself and God punishes her by having "no child unto the day of her death." 6:14, 20-22

  6. David sees a woman (Bathsheba) bathing and likes what he sees. so he sends for her and commits adultery with her "for she was purified from her uncleanness." She conceives and bears a son (of course). 11:2-5

  7. David tells Joab (his captain) to send Bathsheba's husband (Uriah) to "the forefront of the hottest battle ... that he may be smitten and die." In this way, David gets another wife. 11:15, 11:17, 11:27

  8. God gave the wives of king Saul to David. 12:7-8

  9. God is angry at David for having Uriah killed. As a punishment, he will have David's wives raped by his neighbor while everyone else watches. It turns out that the "neighbor" that God sends to do his dirty work is David's own son, Absalom (16:22). 12:11-12

  10. To punish David for having Uriah killed, God kills Bathsheba's baby boy. 12:14-18

  11. After Bathsheba's baby is killed by God, David comforts her by going "in unto her." She conceives and bears another son (Solomon). 12:24

  12. Ammon (David's son) says to his half-sister Tamar, "Come lie with me, my sister." But she resists, so he rapes her and then sends her away. Tamar, knowing that she now belongs to him (since she was a virgin), expects him to marry her, but he refuses. 13:1-22

  13. Absalom has his servants kill his brother for raping his sister. (This chapter, which includes incest, rape, murder, should be rated NC-17.) 13:28-29

  14. David leaves ten of his concubines home to clean house. 15:16

  15. Absalom "went in unto his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel." This was according the God's plan as announced in 2 Sam.12:11-12. 16:21-22

  16. To punish his ten concubines for being raped by his son, Absalom (See 16:21-22), David refuses to ever again have sex with them and forces them to "keep house" for the rest of their lives. 20:3

  17. To appease God and end the famine that was caused by his predecessor (Saul), David agrees to have seven of Saul's sons killed and hung up "unto the Lord." 21:6-9 a former king had done. 21:1