Biblion Bible Commentary
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Abner Changes Sides
2 Samuel 3:1-21
1 Now there was a long war between Saul’s house and David’s house. David grew stronger and stronger, but Saul’s house grew weaker and weaker. · WEB
A quarrel over a concubine sends the north's kingmaker to Hebron — and David's price for the treaty is a wife taken back from a weeping husband.
Now there was a long war between Saul's house and David's house. David grew stronger and stronger, but Saul's house grew weaker and weaker 2 Samuel 3:1.
The summary covers years, and the list that follows it covers the reign's future trouble: six sons born at Hebron to six different mothers 2 Samuel 3:2–5. Amnon is first and Absalom third, by a foreign princess of Geshur — half-brothers with rival mothers and rival claims, which is precisely the arrangement the law had warned a king against Deuteronomy 17:17. Chapter thirteen is already in the household.
"Why have you gone in to my father's concubine?" 2 Samuel 3:7.
Ishbosheth's charge is a political accusation, not a domestic one — a dead king's harem belonged to his successor, so taking Rizpah was a move on the throne, as Absalom will later demonstrate in public 2 Samuel 16:21–22. Abner's fury is the fury of a man who has heard the truth: am I a dog's head that belongs to Judah? 2 Samuel 3:8, followed by a list of everything he has done for the house of Saul and an oath to end it.
"As Yahweh has sworn to David... to transfer the kingdom from Saul's house, and to set up David's throne over Israel and over Judah" 2 Samuel 3:9–10.
Here is the chapter's most revealing sentence. Abner has known all along what God swore about David — and has spent years fighting it, at the cost of a civil war and a nephew's life. He changes sides not by repentance but in a rage over an insult, and quotes the divine oath as the instrument of his revenge. Men can concede God's purposes and still time their obedience by their own grievances.
"You will not see my face unless you first bring Michal, Saul's daughter" 2 Samuel 3:13.
David's one condition is his first wife, and the demand is both. She was his by a bride price he had paid twice over 1 Samuel 18:27, taken from him by her father 1 Samuel 25:44; and she is Saul's daughter, so her return makes the new king son-in-law to the old dynasty in front of the whole north. Legitimacy and affection in one requirement, and the text will not tell us the proportions.
Her husband went with her, weeping as he went, and followed her to Bahurim. Then Abner said to him, "Go! Return!" and he returned 2 Samuel 3:15–16.
And the account pauses on the only person in the transaction with nothing to gain. Paltiel walks behind his wife, crying, until a general tells him to go home — and he goes. Michal is not asked anything; she has now been given, taken, and given again by three men. Whatever passes between her and David at the ark 2 Samuel 6:20–23 should be read with this road in view.
The negotiation itself is deftly done: Abner works the elders, works Benjamin — Saul's own tribe — and comes to Hebron with twenty men to a feast, leaving in peace 2 Samuel 3:21. The union of the kingdom is three sentences away.
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