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| "How could you stretch out your hand against the Lord's anointed?" |
2 Samuel begins with David receiving word that Saul was dead. It has been guessed that perhaps the young man who came to David was lying about killing Saul and found him dead and made up the story to gain favor with David. We don’t know, it could have been that the sword-bearer was wrong when he thought Saul was dead before he killed himself 1 Samuel 31:4. However, if this young man was telling the truth there is a strange irony which might be easy to miss.
In 1 Samuel 15, God told Saul to go and utterly destroy the Amalekites. In verse 20 Saul claims he did kill all the Amalekites except the King. Yet over and over we see Amalekites showing up. The one which really stands out is here in 2 Samuel 1. The person who claims to have killed Saul was someone who Saul claims he had killed. There is an irony here. Could it be that Saul’s own disobedience caused his death? Perhaps if nothing else it is an example of one’s actions having unintended consequences.
It also reflects to the warning God gave Israel in Deuteronomy 32:23 about not driving out the inhabitants of the land, “But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the LORD; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out.”
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