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
Good Stuff
SAB: 2 Samuel

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on CD 		"Thus saith the Lord ... I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun." -- 2 Samuel 12:11

Second Samuel for Skeptics

Second Samuel is about divine justice. Here are a few examples.

  • God kills Uzzah for trying to protect the ark from falling. 6:6-7

  • To punish David for the Bathsheba/Uriah affair, God killed the resulting baby and had David's wives publicly raped by David's son, Absalom. 12:11-12, 12:15-18, 16:21-22

  • When David had a census (that God "moved" him to have), God gave him a choice of three punishments: seven years of famine, three months of war, or three days of pestilence. David couldn't decide, so God chose for him and 70,000 men died in a plague. (The details are different in 1 Chronicles, but the principle is the same.) 24:1-15

Other highlights:

  • David tells Jonathan that he has given him pleasures more than that of woman. 1:26

  • David has his "young men" kill people, cut off their hands and feet, and hang them up over a pool. 4:12

  • Whoever kills the lame and the blind "that are hated of David's soul" shall be made "chief and captain." 5:8

  • "And David took him more concubines and wives." 5:13

  • David dances nearly naked in front of God and everybody. 6:20

  • David watches a women bathe, likes what he sees, and "goes in unto her." 11:2-4

  • God says he will give David's wives to someone else who will "lie with thy wives in the sight of the sun." 12:11-12

  • To punish David for having Uriah killed, God kills David's newborn son. 12:15, 18

  • Ammon rapes his half-sister. 13:11

  • Absalom "goes in unto" his father's [David's] concubines. 16:21-22

  • Hanging dead bodies up "unto the Lord." 21:6, 9

  • God kills a couple hundred thousand people to punish David for having a census. 24:15