There are lots of sayings and idioms which are wise to live by. Do to others as you wish done to you. Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. A stitch in time saves nine. Penny wise, pound foolish. Here is another one – “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way”. What does that have to do with 2 Samuel 10?
The reason it is wise advice to follow, is that unwise unbelievers fail to follow it in 2 Samuel 10. King David’s show of kindness to a foreign nation was met with an unwise and outrageous insult. Conflict resulted. Unwise unbelievers met their match, and another lot learned the lesson just in time. These examples serve as reminders of how unwise unbelievers will sometimes respond to Christian kindness today, and their fate at Christ’s hand – unless they repent before it is too late.
In chapter 9 of 2 Samuel, King David’s kindness and his covenant loyalty was shown in the way he treated Jonathan’s son. Other rulers might have dispatched the potential rival. David embraced him. King David was no worldly king, driven by worldly ideas.
David’s kindness and loyalty extended outside Israel’s bounds too. He understood that good relations were necessary, and that through God’s People all of the earth would be blessed. So when the King of Ammon died, David sent an official delegation to pay respects, as David and the King of Ammon had been on good terms (vv.1-2).
Unfortunately, the new King of Ammon lacked his father’s good senses, and followed the unwise advice of the Ammonite leadership who thought the delegates were spies (v.3). The new king had their beards shaved and their clothes cut to bare their buttocks – an insult against their manliness and their propriety – and then ran them out of town (v.4).
This was a diplomatic outrage, one which David noted as he ensured the disgraced delegates’ integrity in Israel was kept (v.5).
Eventually it dawned on the Ammonites that they had “become a stench to David” so they hired Syrian mercenaries to support their own army in the battle sure to come (v.6). Sure enough, David sent out his army under General Joab to deal with the combined Ammonite-Syrian threat (v.7), and the two sides met for battle (v.8).
When Joab realised that the Ammonites and Syrians had formed two separate columns to attack Israel, he put his best troops under his brother Abishai to face the Ammonites, and the rest of the men he placed under himself to face the Syrians (vv.9-10).
Joab then issued the battle instructions. Each group was to support the other depending on who had the worst time of it (v.11). Importantly, “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the LORD do what seems good to him” (v.12).
Whatever we think of Joab’s morals and character, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. And Joab was certainly right to direct the army’s trust into God’s hands, and that whatever God intended would play out.
Inevitably, God’s People won the day. The Syrians fled the field, and the Ammonites in turn fled into their cities (vv.13-14).
When the Syrians realised they had been defeated and had sided with the losers (Ammon) for cash, they gathered a larger army to menace David (vv.15-16). As with Ammon, King David gathered together the army and went out against the Syrians, leading Israel to a great victory over Syria which decimated their military strength (vv.17-18).
When the servant kings of Syria saw Syria’s defeat, they chose discretion and made peace with Israel and became its subjects (v.19). Better that than further destruction. No more unwise foreign adventures with the Ammonites for them (v.19). They learned just in time.
Thus the unwise unbelievers stubbed their toe on God’s anointed king. It led to their defeat and subjugation. David did not start the fight. God certainly finished it.
The kindness of King David is the kindness we should show unbelievers around us too. The same kindness we received from God when we were dead in our sins and trespasses. We should do good to all (1 Thess. 5:15), we should show goodness and kindness even to those who claim to hate us (Matt. 5:43-47).
In doing so, we have to recognise that sometimes no good deed goes unpunished. As delegates of the Son (Ps. 2) we will cop flak on behalf of King Jesus. Perhaps not with shaved beards and cut clothes, but certainly with acts intended to disgrace and humiliate us.
Yet the fight is not ours. Jesus is the true target. Jesus clothes us with robes of his righteousness, restoring our dignity. Jesus will one day punish the nations for their rebellion against him and their treatment of us.
All the more reason to preach the Gospel and call the nations to repentance. Time’s running out.
