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2 Samuel 5: What the Passage Says

78 claims across 25 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 2 Samuel 5 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

All the tribes of Israel come to David at Hebron, make an agreement with him, and anoint him king over the whole nation, after he has already ruled Judah for seven and a half years. David then captures the Jebusite fortress of Jerusalem and makes it his own city, receives cedar and craftsmen from Hiram of Tyre, and takes more wives and concubines, who bear him more children in Jerusalem. Twice the Philistines spread out in the Valley of Rephaim, and both times David asks the LORD what to do before fighting, and defeats them. The chapter marks the point where David's rule over one tribe becomes rule over all Israel, with a capital city of his own.

Claim by Claim

  1. 5:1
    • All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron.
    • They spoke to David.
    • They said that they were his bone and his flesh.
  2. 5:2
    • They said that in time past, when Saul was king over them, David was the one who led Israel out and brought Israel in.
    • They said the LORD had said to David that David would shepherd the LORD's people Israel.
    • They said the LORD had said to David that David would be ruler over Israel.
  3. 5:3
    • All the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron.
    • King David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the LORD.
    • They anointed David king over Israel.
  4. 5:4
    • David was thirty years old when he began to reign.
    • David reigned forty years.
  5. 5:5
    • In Hebron David reigned over Judah seven years and six months.
    • In Jerusalem David reigned thirty-three years over all Israel and Judah.
  6. 5:6
    • The king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites.
    • The Jebusites inhabited the land.
    • The Jebusites spoke to David.
    • The Jebusites said David would not come in there unless he removed the blind and the lame, or that even the blind and the lame would turn him back; the wording is ambiguous.
    • The Jebusites thought that David could not come in there.
  7. 5:7
    • David captured the stronghold of Zion.
    • The stronghold of Zion is the city of David.
  8. 5:8
    • David spoke on that day.
    • David spoke of whoever strikes a Jebusite and reaches the water shaft or conduit; what the striker is to do with it is not made plain.
    • David spoke of the lame and the blind, who are hated by David's soul.
    • In the King James text David said that such a man would be chief and captain.
    • Therefore they say that the blind and the lame shall not come into the house.
  9. 5:9
    • David dwelt in the stronghold.
    • David called it the city of David.
    • David built around it, from the Millo inward.
  10. 5:10
    • David went on and became great.
    • The LORD, the God of hosts, was with David.
  11. 5:11
    • Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David.
    • Hiram sent cedar wood.
    • Hiram sent woodworkers.
    • Hiram sent workers in stone for walls.
    • They built a house for David.
  12. 5:12
    • David knew that the LORD had established him as king over Israel.
    • David knew that the LORD had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.
  13. 5:13
    • David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem after he came from Hebron.
    • More sons and daughters were born to David.
  14. 5:14
    • These are the names of those born to David in Jerusalem.
    • Shammua was born to David in Jerusalem.
    • Shobab was born to David in Jerusalem.
    • Nathan was born to David in Jerusalem.
    • Solomon was born to David in Jerusalem.
  15. 5:15
    • Ibhar was born to David in Jerusalem.
    • Elishua was born to David in Jerusalem.
    • Nepheg was born to David in Jerusalem.
    • Japhia was born to David in Jerusalem.
  16. 5:16
    • Elishama was born to David in Jerusalem.
    • Eliada was born to David in Jerusalem.
    • Eliphelet was born to David in Jerusalem.
  17. 5:17
    • The Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over Israel.
    • All the Philistines went up to seek David.
    • David heard of it.
    • David went down to the stronghold.
  18. 5:18
    • The Philistines came.
    • The Philistines spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim.
  19. 5:19
    • David inquired of the LORD.
    • David asked whether he should go up against the Philistines.
    • David asked whether the LORD would give them into his hand.
    • The LORD said to David to go up.
    • The LORD said he would surely give the Philistines into David's hand.
  20. 5:20
    • David came to Baal-perazim.
    • David struck them there.
    • David said that the LORD had burst through his enemies before him like a bursting of waters.
    • Therefore he called the name of that place Baal-perazim.
  21. 5:21
    • The Philistines left their idols there.
    • David and his men carried the idols away.
  22. 5:22
    • The Philistines came up again.
    • The Philistines spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim.
  23. 5:23
    • David inquired of the LORD.
    • The LORD said that David should not go up.
    • The LORD said to circle around behind them.
    • The LORD said to come upon them opposite the balsam trees.
  24. 5:24
    • The LORD said that when David heard the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, he should act decisively.
    • The LORD said that then the LORD would have gone out before David to strike the camp of the Philistines.
  25. 5:25
    • David did as the LORD had commanded him.
    • David struck the Philistines from Geba to the approach to Gezer.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

5:1
Hebron was the chief town of Judah's southern hill country, about twenty miles south of Jerusalem; David had already been ruling Judah alone from there for over seven years. "Bone and flesh" is a Hebrew idiom for blood relationship, the northern tribes are claiming David as one of their own kin, not an outsider imposed on them. The "tribes of Israel" were the twelve family groups, each with its own territory, traced back to the sons of Jacob.
5:2
"Led out and brought in" was ordinary Hebrew for commanding an army on campaign and bringing it safely home. "Shepherd" was standard political vocabulary across the ancient Near East for a ruler: he pastures, guards, and provides for the people the way a herdsman does for a flock. Where the English prints LORD in capitals it stands for the personal name of Israel's God, written in Hebrew with four consonants usually transcribed YHWH; readers said a different word aloud in its place, and English Bibles preserve that custom by using capitals.
5:3
The "elders" were the heads of families and clans who acted as the tribes' representatives in public business. The agreement made "before the LORD" was a covenant sworn with God as witness, setting binding terms between the king and the people. Pouring perfumed olive oil over a man's head was the ceremony that installed him in office; the Hebrew word for someone treated this way, mashiach, "anointed one," was the ordinary term for the reigning king.
5:5
Judah was the single large southern tribe; "Israel" here means the remaining northern tribes, who had stayed loyal to Saul's family after his death. For the seven and a half years in Hebron the two had effectively been separate kingdoms. The figures add up to forty and a half years, rounded to forty in the previous verse.
5:6
The Jebusites were the Canaanite population holding Jerusalem, a city Israel had never captured; it sat on the border between Judah's territory in the south and the northern tribes, which made it useful ground for a king trying to hold both. Their taunt is hard to translate and its point is disputed: either the walls are so strong that even blind and lame defenders could hold them, or the defenders actually posted disabled men on the walls as an insult, or they invoked their gods' protection in some formula now lost.
5:7
Zion was the name of the fortified ridge the Jebusites held, a narrow spur of hill south of what later became the temple mount, not the whole city. Later writers and poets stretched the name to mean Jerusalem generally. "City of David" marks it as his personal possession, taken by his own household troops rather than allotted to any tribe.
5:8
The Hebrew word rendered "water shaft" (tsinnor) appears almost nowhere else and nobody is certain what it means; suggestions include a water tunnel, a drain or gutter (the King James guess), and a grappling hook. The sentence is broken enough that translations differ widely about who does what to whom. "The house" could mean either the royal palace or a place of worship, the Hebrew does not say which.
5:9
The Millo comes from a Hebrew word meaning "to fill." It was some filled-in structure on the steep eastern slope, most likely the stepped stone terracing that made the hillside buildable, but its exact form is unknown; the King James simply transliterates the name.
5:10
"God of armies" renders the older phrase "LORD of hosts." "Hosts" is an old English word for armed forces; the title pictures God at the head of massed troops, understood variously as Israel's fighting men or heavenly ones.
5:11
Tyre was a wealthy Phoenician port on the coast north of Israel, known throughout the region for its shipping, its timber trade, and its craftsmen. Cedar cut in the mountains of Lebanon was the prestige building material of the ancient Near East (fragrant, straight-grained, and resistant to rot) and kings from Egypt to Mesopotamia imported it for palaces and temples.
5:13
For a king of this period, the size of his household of wives and concubines was a public measure of his standing, and marriages were routinely used to seal treaties and alliances with neighboring rulers.
5:14
This is the list of sons born after the move to Jerusalem; David already had six sons born back in Hebron, listed in chapter 3. The Nathan here is David's son, not the prophet Nathan who confronts David later in the book.
5:17
The Philistines were a people settled in five cities on the coastal plain southwest of Judah, with origins in the Aegean world; for generations they were Israel's chief military rival, and they held an advantage in ironworking. They had tolerated David earlier as a small-scale vassal ruler at Hebron; a David who now controlled all the tribes was a different matter. The "stronghold" is a fortified refuge, probably one of the hill hideouts David had used while on the run from Saul.
5:18
The Valley of Rephaim is a broad, fertile valley running southwest from Jerusalem, good grain land and one of the main routes an army would use to approach the city from the coastal plain. Its name is connected with the Rephaim, a people remembered in Hebrew tradition as giants.
5:19
Asking the LORD in this way normally meant putting a question to a priest, who used sacred lots (the Urim and Thummim, kept in the priestly vest called an ephod) that returned yes-or-no answers. Hence the shape of David's question.
5:20
Baal-perazim means roughly "master of breakings-through," matching the words David speaks; the name is explained by the event. "Baal" means owner or master and was a common element in Canaanite place names as well as the title of a Canaanite god. The image behind the phrase is water bursting through a dam or embankment and sweeping everything before it.
5:21
Armies of this period carried images of their gods into battle for protection, so losing them was a public humiliation as well as a material loss. The Hebrew here says David and his men carried the images off; the King James follows the parallel account in 1 Chronicles 14:12, where they are burned.
5:23
The King James calls these mulberry trees and modern versions usually say balsam; in truth nobody knows which tree is meant, since the Hebrew word occurs only here and in the parallel passage. It was probably a shrub or small tree yielding aromatic resin.
5:24
The Hebrew word describes the tramping sound of troops on the move, the noise in the treetops is being compared to an army marching.
5:25
The Hebrew text reads Geba, but other ancient copies and the parallel in 1 Chronicles 14:16 read Gibeon, a town a few miles west, which fits the line of the pursuit better. Gezer stood roughly twenty miles northwest, guarding the road down from the hills to the coastal plain, so the two names mark the Philistines being pushed out of the highlands entirely.

Read 2 Samuel 5