2 Samuel Trivia
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50 free 2 Samuel trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
2 Samuel is the book where David gets everything he was promised and then watches it come apart. It opens with a lament for Saul and Jonathan, moves through a civil war, the taking of Jerusalem and the ark's bumpy arrival there, and pivots on a rooftop, a prophet's story and a rebuke. The later chapters belong to David's children: a prince's assault on his sister, a brother's revenge, a golden-haired rebellion and a father grieving in a gateway. These 50 questions run from the Amalekite messenger to the altar David bought at the end of the census: the commanders who feuded over the throne, the Philistine giants of the appendix, the loyalists and turncoats of Absalom's revolt, the three warriors and the water from Bethlehem, and the covenant that promised David's line would last. Chapter handles are given where they help. It suits a church quiz night, a Bible study working through the historical books, or anyone who knows the Bathsheba story and wants the other twenty-three chapters back. Play on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for a group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which refrain of David's lament for Saul and Jonathan is now an everyday saying?
How the mighty have fallen
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.
Q 02With which blunt rebuke did Nathan turn his story of a rich man's stolen ewe back on King David?
You are the man
'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.
Q 03What did Hanun of Ammon do to the envoys David sent to console him?
Shaved off half their beards
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.
Q 04What did David do when he learned that the infant born to Bathsheba had died?
Washed, changed and ate
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.'
Q 05Why was Jonathan's son Mephibosheth lame in both feet after news came of Saul's death?
His nurse dropped him fleeing
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.
Q 06What was David wearing as he danced 'with all his might' before the ark on its way up to Jerusalem?
A linen ephod
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'.
Q 07What became of Michal, Saul's daughter, after she mocked David for dancing before the ark?
She remained childless
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.
Q 08How was the ark carried from Abinadab's house toward Jerusalem when Uzzah reached out to steady it and died?
On a new cart
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.
Q 09What did David insist on buying from Araunah, refusing to sacrifice what 'cost me nothing'?
His threshing floor and oxen
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.
Q 10Which foreign king sent timber, carpenters and stonemasons to build David a palace in his new capital?
Hiram of Tyre
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.
Q 11What did the Amalekite who claimed to have finished off the dying Saul bring David as proof?
His crown and armband
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.'
Q 12What had God never asked any ruler of Israel to build for him, according to the promise delivered through Nathan?
A house of cedar
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.
Q 13What did Tamar put on her head, tearing her ornate robe, after her brother Amnon assaulted and rejected her?
Q 21What sentence did David pass on the rich man in Nathan's parable, unaware it was about himself?
Death and fourfold restitution
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.
Q 22What name, meaning 'loved by the Lord', did Nathan bring from God for the second son born to David and Bathsheba?
Jedidiah
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.
Q 23Who, 'a very shrewd man' and David's nephew, told the lovesick Amnon to feign illness and ask for Tamar to feed him?
Ashes
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.
Q 14How did Absalom force Joab to visit him after two years back in Jerusalem without once seeing the king's face?
Set his barley field ablaze
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.
Q 15In which city did Absalom have himself proclaimed king on the pretext of fulfilling a vow?
Hebron
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.
Q 16Which of David's counsellors, whose advice was 'like that of one who inquires of God', went over to Absalom's revolt?
Ahithophel
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.
Q 17According to 2 Samuel 18, what claimed more men than the fighting in the battle that ended Absalom's revolt?
The forest
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.
Q 18What did David do with the water three warriors fetched him from Bethlehem's gate?
Poured it out on the ground
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.
Q 19Which punishment followed David's census after he asked to fall into God's hands rather than human ones?
Three days of plague
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.
Q 20Which psalm repeats, almost word for word, the song of deliverance that fills 2 Samuel 22?
Psalm 18
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.
Jonadab
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.
Q 24At what kind of gathering, two years after the assault on Tamar, did Absalom's servants kill a tipsy Amnon?
A sheepshearing feast
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.
Q 25Where did Absalom spend three years in exile after Amnon's murder, at the court of his maternal grandfather Talmai?
Geshur
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.
Q 26Why had Absalom raised a pillar to himself in the King's Valley?
No son to carry his name
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.
Q 27Which man of Gath, arrived only 'yesterday', refused to leave David and went into exile with him?
Ittai
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.
Q 28How were David's two runners, the sons of Zadok and Abiathar, hidden from Absalom's searchers?
Down a well under scattered grain
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.
Q 29Which eighty-year-old Gileadite, David's supplier in exile, declined a place at court and sent Kimham in his stead?
Barzillai
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.
Q 30Whom did David make commander in place of Joab after the revolt, only for Joab to gut him with a hidden dagger?
Amasa
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.