50 Fun Facts About 2 Samuel

Which refrain of David's lament for Saul and Jonathan is now an everyday saying?

How the mighty have fallen opens, punctuates and closes the lament, which David ordered taught to Judah as 'the lament of the bow'. Its line 'Tell it not in Gath' is still quoted too.

With which blunt rebuke did Nathan turn his story of a rich man's stolen ewe back on King David?

'You are the man' landed seconds after David had raged against the thief in the story; Nathan then told the king the stolen ewe was Bathsheba and the killing of her husband was his.

What did Hanun of Ammon do to the envoys David sent to console him?

Hanun shaved off half their beards and cut their robes off at the buttocks, a humiliation David answered by telling the men to wait at Jericho until the beards grew back, and then by war.

What did David do when he learned that the infant born to Bathsheba had died?

He washed, changed and ate after a week of fasting, baffling his servants, and explained: 'Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.'

Why was Jonathan's son Mephibosheth lame in both feet after news came of Saul's death?

His nurse dropped him fleeing when he was five, the day word came from Jezreel that Saul and Jonathan were dead, so the one grandson of Saul whom David later honoured never walked properly again.

What was David wearing as he danced 'with all his might' before the ark on its way up to Jerusalem?

A linen ephod was what the boy Samuel had worn serving at Shiloh, and leaping about in one was what Michal scorned as going 'half-naked in full view of the slave girls'.

What became of Michal, Saul's daughter, after she mocked David for dancing before the ark?

She remained childless 'to the day of her death', the text says, so the woman who once saved David by lowering him out of a window never gave Saul's line a royal heir.

How was the ark carried from Abinadab's house toward Jerusalem when Uzzah reached out to steady it and died?

On a new cart, the way the Philistines had once sent it back, the ark set off; the law in Numbers had it carried on poles by Levites, which is how David moved it three months later.

What did David insist on buying from Araunah, refusing to sacrifice what 'cost me nothing'?

His threshing floor and oxen made an altar site, and 2 Chronicles places Solomon's temple on that very floor, Mount Moriah, so the altar that ended the dying fixed where the temple would stand.

Which foreign king sent timber, carpenters and stonemasons to build David a palace in his new capital?

Hiram of Tyre, the Phoenician timber king, would later supply the same wood for Solomon's temple, and David read the palace as proof that God had established him as king over Israel.

What did the Amalekite who claimed to have finished off the dying Saul bring David as proof?

His crown and armband cost the messenger his life: David had him killed on the spot for touching the Lord's anointed, telling him 'Your blood be on your own head.'

What had God never asked any ruler of Israel to build for him, according to the promise delivered through Nathan?

A house of cedar was David's own new home, and God replied that he had been 'moving from place to place with a tent' and never asked why no temple stood; the job went to David's son.

What did Tamar put on her head, tearing her ornate robe, after her brother Amnon assaulted and rejected her?

Ashes on the head and the torn robe were signs of mourning, and the robe itself, the kind 'the virgin daughters of the king wore', is described with the same Hebrew word as Joseph's famous coat.

How did Absalom force Joab to visit him after two years back in Jerusalem without once seeing the king's face?

Absalom set his barley field ablaze, Joab's field lying next to his own, and the stunt worked: Joab came, then went to the king, and David at last summoned Absalom and kissed him.

In which city did Absalom have himself proclaimed king on the pretext of fulfilling a vow?

Hebron, where David had reigned seven years and six months before taking Jerusalem, was also Absalom's birthplace, and the trumpet signal 'Absalom is king in Hebron' opened the revolt.

Which of David's counsellors, whose advice was 'like that of one who inquires of God', went over to Absalom's revolt?

Ahithophel may have been Bathsheba's grandfather, if the Eliam named as her father is his son of that name; when Absalom ignored his plan he went home, put his house in order and hanged himself.

According to 2 Samuel 18, what claimed more men than the fighting in the battle that ended Absalom's revolt?

The forest of Ephraim 'swallowed up more men that day' than the fighting did, and it caught the prince too: Absalom's head lodged in an oak as his mule ran on beneath him.

What did David do with the water three warriors fetched him from Bethlehem's gate?

He poured it out on the ground as an offering, refusing to drink what was 'the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives', though the wish that sent them had been his own.

Which punishment followed David's census after he asked to fall into God's hands rather than human ones?

Three days of plague killed seventy thousand people 'from Dan to Beersheba' before the angel was halted outside Jerusalem, at the spot David then bought for an altar.

Which psalm repeats, almost word for word, the song of deliverance that fills 2 Samuel 22?

Psalm 18 carries the same lines, 'The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer', under the same heading: David sang it when the Lord rescued him from all his enemies and from Saul.

What sentence did David pass on the rich man in Nathan's parable, unaware it was about himself?

Death and fourfold restitution went beyond the law, since Exodus asks only four sheep for a stolen one; Jewish tradition counts four of David's own children struck in turn, beginning with Bathsheba's infant.

What name, meaning 'loved by the Lord', did Nathan bring from God for the second son born to David and Bathsheba?

Jedidiah was the name God sent for the boy his parents had already called Solomon, a quiet signal that the child of a marriage begun in adultery was nonetheless the chosen heir.

Who, 'a very shrewd man' and David's nephew, told the lovesick Amnon to feign illness and ask for Tamar to feed him?

Jonadab later reappears to assure the king that only Amnon is dead and not all the princes, which suggests he knew Absalom's plan in advance.

At what kind of gathering, two years after the assault on Tamar, did Absalom's servants kill a tipsy Amnon?

A sheepshearing feast near the Ephraim border drew all the king's sons, and the signal to strike when Amnon was 'in high spirits from drinking wine' echoes Nabal's fatal shearing party in 1 Samuel.

Where did Absalom spend three years in exile after Amnon's murder, at the court of his maternal grandfather Talmai?

Geshur kept Absalom until Joab coached a wise woman from Tekoa to tell David a made-up tale of a son condemned for killing his brother; the king saw Joab's hand in it and let the prince come home.

Why had Absalom raised a pillar to himself in the King's Valley?

He had no son to carry his name, the text says, though chapter 14 had given him three; the 'Absalom's Tomb' shown in Jerusalem's Kidron Valley was built centuries after his death.

Which man of Gath, arrived only 'yesterday', refused to leave David and went into exile with him?

Ittai, a foreigner, answered with a vow that echoes Ruth's, 'wherever my lord the king may be, whether it means life or death, there will your servant be', and ended up commanding a third of the army.

How were David's two runners, the sons of Zadok and Abiathar, hidden from Absalom's searchers?

Down a well under scattered grain, the pair waited while the householder's wife lied to Absalom's men, the same trick Rahab had pulled with flax on her roof for Joshua's spies.

Which eighty-year-old Gileadite, David's supplier in exile, declined a place at court and sent Kimham in his stead?

Barzillai said he could no longer taste his food or hear the singers, and David, on his deathbed, told Solomon to keep the old man's sons at the royal table for the kindness shown during the flight from Absalom.

Whom did David make commander in place of Joab after the revolt, only for Joab to gut him with a hidden dagger?

Amasa had led Absalom's rebel army and was David's own nephew; Joab took him 'by the beard with his right hand to kiss him' and stabbed him once in the belly, as he had once killed Abner.

Which Benjamite's trumpet blast and cry 'We have no share in David' launched a second revolt straight after Absalom's?

Sheba son of Bikri ended with his head thrown over the wall of Abel Beth Maakah by townsfolk a 'wise woman' had talked round, and his slogan was recycled when the northern tribes split from Rehoboam.

Which kinsman of Saul pelted the retreating David with stones and curses at Bahurim, then begged pardon at the Jordan?

Shimei was spared twice, once when David refused to let Abishai take his head and again at the river, yet the dying king told Solomon to 'bring his gray head down to the grave in blood'.

Which concubine of Saul kept vigil on a rock from harvest until the rains, keeping birds off seven exposed bodies?

Rizpah's sackcloth vigil over her two sons and five grandsons of Saul, handed to the Gibeonites to end a famine, moved David to bury the bones of Saul and Jonathan at last.

What happened to Eleazar, one of David's Three, as he fought the Philistines alone?

His hand froze to the sword after he had fought until it 'grew tired', and the men who had fled came back 'only to strip the dead'.

Which prophet, called David's 'seer', carried the three choices of punishment to the king the morning after the census?

Gad had been with David since the outlaw years, when he told him to leave the stronghold for Judah, and Chronicles credits him with a book of records on the reign.

By what route did David tell his men to reach the Jebusites taunting him from inside Jerusalem?

The water shaft was the way in that David named, and Chronicles adds that he promised command of the army to whoever led the attack: Joab went up first and won it.

How did Abner kill Joab's brother Asahel, who would not stop chasing him after the skirmish at Gibeon?

The butt of his spear went through Asahel's stomach and out his back, a killing Joab avenged by stabbing Abner in the stomach in his turn, the blood feud that ran through David's reign.

Which son of Zadok outran the Cushite to bring David news of the battle, then dodged saying whether Absalom was dead?

Ahimaaz, whose running style the watchman recognised from the wall, answered the king's only question with 'I saw great confusion', leaving the Cushite to deliver the blow.

Where did David finally lay the bones of Saul and Jonathan, recovered from the men of Jabesh Gilead?

Kish's tomb at Zela, in Benjamin, put Saul beside his father at last: his body had hung on Beth Shan's wall, and his bones had lain under a tamarisk at Jabesh.

What did Shammah son of Agee, one of David's Three, defend alone against the Philistines when everyone else fled?

A field of lentils was all Shammah held when he 'took his stand in the middle of the field' as the army ran, and it became 'a great victory'; the parallel list in 1 Chronicles remembers the crop differently.

Whose name, pointedly, closes the roll of thirty-seven warriors that ends 2 Samuel 23, just before the census story?

Uriah the Hittite, the husband David had killed, stands last among the king's finest soldiers, a placement many readers take as the narrator's quiet verdict on the Bathsheba affair.

To which town east of the Jordan, where Abner had once crowned Ish-Bosheth, did David retreat from Absalom's advance?

Mahanaim, 'two camps', was where Jacob met God's angels on his way home in Genesis, and it served both sides of the civil war as a capital in exile within a single generation.

What sound was David told to wait for before attacking the Philistines a second time at Rephaim?

Marching in the treetops was the sign that God had gone out ahead of him; at the first battle there, Baal Perazim, the Philistines had fled and left their idols for David's men to carry off.

Which office does the Hebrew text of 2 Samuel 8 give, surprisingly, to David's own sons?

Priests, says the Hebrew, though David's sons were not Levites; the parallel in 1 Chronicles quietly changes them to 'chief officials at the king's side', and the NIV footnote offers that same reading.

Which second husband of Michal followed her weeping as far as Bahurim when Abner took her back to David?

Paltiel had been given Michal by Saul while David was an outlaw, and he trailed after her until Abner's curt 'Go back home!' sent him away.

Which lost work, also cited in Joshua for the sun standing still, recorded David's 'lament of the bow'?

The Book of Jashar, 'the book of the upright', is named twice in the Hebrew Bible and survives nowhere, though forgeries claiming to be the rediscovered text have appeared, one of them in 18th-century England.

How did David decide which defeated Moabites would live and which would die?

He measured them off with a cord as they lay on the ground, two lengths to die and one to live, a hard turn for the people who had sheltered David's parents during his outlaw years.

How did the contest of twelve young men a side, staged by Abner and Joab at Gibeon, turn out?

All twenty-four died together, each man grabbing his opponent's head and driving a dagger into his side, so the spot was named Helkath Hazzurim, 'field of daggers', and full battle followed.

Which translation first split the single Hebrew scroll of Samuel into the two books now numbered 1 and 2 Samuel?

The Septuagint, the ancient Greek version, cut the scroll in two as the first two of its four 'Books of Kingdoms'; Jerome's Vulgate kept the split, and printed Hebrew Bibles adopted it only in the 16th century.

In what state did David climb the Mount of Olives as he fled Absalom's coup?

Barefoot with his head covered and weeping, David went up the Mount of Olives, the slope where, a thousand years later, the Gospels have Jesus weep over the same city.