The Shepherd King

2 Samuel 5:1-12

Immanuel – 7/30/23

After so much waiting, after so much anticipation, last week we finally saw David crowned king, though his dominion was constrained only to the tribe of Judah. David’s reign only extended over the southern half of the Promised Land. The north was ruled by Saul’s son, Ish-bosheth, and Saul’s military commander, Abner.

But in chapters 3 and 4, the might of the north utterly fails. First, Abner defects and pledges his loyalty to David in Hebron. But the promise of Abner joining David, and the powerful unifying force their allegiance could have fostered, was burned to the ground when Joab tricked Abner and ruthlessly murdered him (Joab was David’s military commander). This tremendously grieved David and he – and all Israel – wept over Abner’s body.

Then, a short time later in Israel’s north, Ish-bosheth was murdered by two of his own military captains. They thought they were doing a favor for David. But David had them executed for slaughtering the northern king.

In this way, with both Abner and Ish-bosheth dead, the northern tribes of Israel have no leader, no commander, no king; an enormous flock without a shepherd.

Purpose

1. The king represents God to the people.

2. The shepherd-king motif begins with David and culminates in Christ.

As I have said, the south has their king in David, but the northern throne was empty and washed with blood. With no one to lead them, the people of the north turn their eyes southward to God’s anointed.

Read vs 1-2

King of Israel

Judah, and very likely the tribe of Simeon, have set David upon their throne. Now see how the rest of the people stream to Hebron, to David. Each tribe sending their delegation of elders: Benjamin, Dan, Reuben, Ephraim, Gad, Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali. All these northern tribes see – or are forced to see – that David is Yahweh’s king.

Though the north has recently been hostile towards the south, God’s will is now discernable to all. The proud have been humbled. The northern delegation comes to Hebron almost like beggars, offering their loyalty, adjuring that David peacefully accept them.

They present a threefold appeal.

First is familial. They are like family, bound by flesh and bone. They are all Israelites, the covenant people of Yahweh, sons of Abraham. Surely it is better for family to be united.

Second is militaristic. David always took up the militaristic purpose of the king; the reason why Israel wanted a king in the first place.

There shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. -1 Samuel 8:19-20

David led Israel in battle more faithfully and more victoriously than Saul ever did. David has earned their loyalty and they pledge it to him.

The third and final appeal of the elders is divine. God has spoken that David shall be Israel’s shepherd: It’s a euphemism for king. The elder’s quote a prophesy that is not recorded, but it is entirely in line with Yahweh’s call upon David and we have every reason to think that this oracle was indeed spoken over David – likely by Samuel himself.

Remember when Samuel came to Bethlehem so that God would show him who to anoint as Israel’s next king? Do you remember where young David was? He was out tending the sheep. He was, quite literally, a shepherd. From the day Samuel anointed David, God was taking David on a journey from shepherding sheep to shepherding a nation.

The prophesy that the elders of Israel cite bursts with subtle wonders. But that’s perfect for me, because it’s often the most subtle things, the hard-to-discover things, that are the most beautiful.

In the prophecy of verse 2, David is not referred to as a king. He’s called a shepherd and a prince. Certainly, prince here is a euphemism for king; but why not just say it? Why call David a shepherd-prince and not a shepherd-king?

Because there was always a greater king than David, a higher shepherd king. Yahweh was Israel’s King and Yahweh was Israel’s Shepherd. In the most fundamental way, Jacob – who God named Israel – he understood that Yahweh was his shepherd. Jacob said:

The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day. -Genesis 48:15

Jacob was a wanderer, like a stubborn and roaming sheep. But God was Jacob’s gentle shepherd; always bringing him back, holding him in the promises, persistent and firm and faithful.

Yes, Yahweh was Israel’s shepherd – then and always. Yahweh was also always to be Israel’s king. Remember 1 Samuel 8 when Samuel was enraged with the elders of Israel; rejecting King Yahweh for a human king?

The LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”

-1 Samuel 8:7

Shepherd-King: this was the role of God. This is how God had chosen to relate to the people. But the people did not want it. The book of Judges ends with the people rejecting God as shepherd, with everyone doing what was right in their own eyes (Judges 21:25). They were like a flock of stupid and rebellious sheep that wanted wolves rather than the Shepherd. And then in the very next book, 1 Samuel, the people reject God as king.

So what does God do? He does not cast off His sheep. He does not give up on the whole project and move on to pigs. No. He is patient with His sheep, gentle, even humble. He gives the people what they want. If they want to follow their own, then He will give them one of their own. If they want to be ruled by a man, then He will give them a man to rule over them.

But this man must be after God’s own heart: For this man, this human king, will represent God to the people. He will rule in God’s righteousness, judge with God’s justice, triumph in battle through faith, and shepherd the people just as Yahweh shepherds him. The king will shepherd the people in covenant relationship with God by being as god to the people; the most humble and magnificent representation of God upon the earth.

All these glories, these absolute wonders, burst forth from the final appeal of elders. And when they speak them, they have no idea that this prophesy is not ultimately about David.

Even still, the prophesy of verse 2 does find an immediate and penultimate fulfillment in David. The shepherd boy becomes the shepherd king. And surely, all the say of his life, this shepherd king will be shepherded by Heaven’s king. There is no place we see this more clearly than in David’s most famous Psalm.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever. -Psalm 23

This Psalm expresses a whole spectrum of emotion and experience and yearning and the Shepherd’s goodness with such powerful concision. It’s like a welcome arrow to the heart, and its genius is absolutely breathtaking. You could spend a month beneath the branches of Psalm 23 and not grow weary of its fruits.

And it shows us just how profoundly David saw Yahweh as his shepherd. David’s love for his Shepherd, and the ways of his Shepherd, prove that he was truly a man after God’s own heart. He was God’s anointed shepherd-king.

This now returns us to the threefold appeal of the elders: they are David’s family, he is the king they will follow into battle, and God has anointed David to shepherd them. Apparently, their appeal is effective because David immediately makes covenant with the 10 northern tribes.

Read vs 3-5

We’re not told the terms of the covenant David makes with the northern delegation, but we can infer that it had to do with their threefold appeal. David would honor the Abrahamic covenant that bound them. He would continue to be the king who goes before them. He would be their Yahweh-guided shepherd.

It is David who makes covenant with the people, not the people who make covenant with him. There’s something of Jesus in this. David establishes a covenant with the people. In response, the people joyfully anoint David as king. The king is bound by covenant, which will have enduring implication for the future of the kingdom.

At the point they anointed David, he had already been king over Judah for seven years. For 33 years David was king over a united kingdom. Israel never really was a single nation, it was always divided, always fractious. Only under David, and David’s son Solomon, were the 12 tribes united.

And to further unite the tribes, and strengthen the bond between north and south, David chose to move his throne to a border town.

Read vs 6-9

As I have mentioned in sermons past, Jerusalem was not called Jerusalem prior to 2 Samuel 5. It was called Jebus. From long before the times of David, Jebus was a heavily fortified Jebusite city (though it wasn’t always called Jebus). Its defenses were formidable. During the conquest, at which Joshua led Israel to take the Promised Land, Jebus was never conquered. At best it was partially taken. But in time, the Israelites grew comfortable with the Jebusites and they both inhabited Jebus.

But David had other plans.

When God apportioned the land to the various tribes, Jebus was allotted to the tribe of Benjamin. According to the allotments, it was a border town within the southern reaches of Benjamin, but a stone’s throw from Judah.

It’s very likely that David took Jebus because of these strategic elements. It was a neutral site, not presently occupied by any tribe. It sat on the border between the north and south divide; a great place from which to promote unity. And on top of all that, by taking Jebus, David was further fulfilling the ancient command to conquer the Promised Land.

And with its formidable fortifications, Jebus was a promising place from which to govern the Promised Land. But beyond these things, and perhaps beyond the knowledge of David, Jebus held powerful covenantal significance.

Jebus was once called Salem. Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem, had spoken a blessing over Abraham. Then, outside of Salem, on one of the undeveloped hills of Moriah, Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son. Salem, Jebus, Jerusalem, was a city of such significance that it very likely surpassed David’s understanding.

Verses 6-9 are notoriously hard for translators to interpret, it appears that the Jebusites mock David when he shows up with his loyal band of mighty men. They appear to say, “This city is so well fortified that even the blind and lame can defend it!” But amongst his men, David’s hurls the insult right back; ironically stating, “We’ll surprise attack through the waterway and kill these blind and lame Jebusites.”

It's exactly what he did. He entered Jebus, killed the Jebusites; blind to the ways of God and crippled by their sins. He officially renamed the city Jerusalem and the people – and Scripture – forever refers to Jerusalem as the “City of David.”

Verse 9 then zooms ahead and summarizes that during David’s reign he enacted a massive building campaign which significantly increased Jerusalem’s size. We don’t know exactly what the Millo is, but we know the expansion was extensive enough that it deserves a mention.

Read vs 10

The is one of the key statements in the whole chapter – in the whole rise of David. David only became greater because the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him. All of this, from shepherd boy to shepherd king, all of it was by the hand of Yahweh. God planned it and God had accomplished it.

Earlier we saw the elders of Israel admit that David was God’s anointed. Now, in the next section, we see a gentile king admit the same.

Read vs 11-12

Even Hiram, gentile king of Tyre, knows that God was with David. So clearly was God’s hand upon David that it was obvious to both Jews and Gentiles.

Just as verse 10 looked into David’s future, so also do these verses. Hiram only reigned in Tyre many years after David came to Jerusalem. So both this description and the description of the building project in Jerusalem are given as examples of how God caused David to grow greater and greater.

The rest of chapter 5 functions in the same way: Not trying to describe what happened immediately after David was crowned, but describing the ways that God caused David to increase. Many sons were born to him in Jerusalem. David then conquers the Philistines, still maintaining a stranglehold on the north. In all these things, God caused David to prosper.

Even still, David was just a man. From the moment David is crowned and establishes his throne in Jerusalem, things begin to change, things begin to sour. He becomes careless with God’s holiness: You’ll see this in next week’s chapter. David will blur the lines uncomfortably between God’s justice and murder. Then he will commit outright murder in an attempt to cover up his adulterous affair. Consequently David’s family, and then eventually the nation, fractures apart.

2 Samuel 5 is the hinge point upon which this dramatic shift occurs. Though he is king, he is a flawed king. Though he is a shepherd, he takes Heaven’s Shepherd for granted. Though he is a man after God’s own heart, his heart is still shot through with sin.

And with the fall of the kings of Israel, so goes Israel’s capitol; Jerusalem eventually falling to flame and famine brought by foreign invaders.

Yet of all the Old Testament kings, David was most certainly the high point. Things descended into chaos after him. Things got so bad that Israel’s leaders mutated into wolves; scattering the sheep and devouring them. After scorching these false shepherds with scathing rebukes, Yahweh speaks:

Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered…I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed.

And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and He shall feed them: He shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken.

-Ezekiel 34:11-12,15-16,23-24

How awesome are these verses! Where man has failed and corrupted and destructed, God will redeem and rescue. He will safely lead His people through the valley of the shadow of death and make us lie down beside still waters. He will do it.

And yet, at the exact same time, God says that His shepherd David will do it. David will feed the sheep and be their shepherd. But how can this be, for these words were spoken centuries after David’s bones were already laid to rest? How can both God and David shepherd the people?

Hear the words of the angelic proclamation: You shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to Him the throne of his father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end. -Luke 1:31-33

Jesus is the human king that has been demanded, but He is the divine king, the Son of God, that cannot be corrupted. He is a man, not after God’s own heart, but possessing God’s own heart: For He is God in human form. Jesus is the “I AM” that has come to gather and shepherd we very many scattered sheep. He said:

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” -John 10:14-16

When David came to Jerusalem, the blind and the lame were killed. But when the Good Shepherd comes, it is an altogether different story.

The blind and the lame came to Him in the temple (in Jerusalem), and He healed them. -Matthew 21:14

Jesus establishes a Jerusalem of a different kind, a Jerusalem where the blind have sight and the lame can walk; a Jerusalem not founded in the blood of its sinful occupants, but a Jerusalem that is born by the blood of the Shepherd – who loved us and gave Himself for us. How gentle, how lowly, is this good shepherd!

Yes, when we come to Jesus – no matter where we are on planet earth – we have come to the New Jerusalem, Mount Zion.

You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.

-Hebrews 12:22-24

We have come to this new Jerusalem and the Shepherd King who reigns there. His victory over our enemies is absolute and eternal. We come to Him, in faith pledging our loyalty, and He immediately brings us into His family. He makes us His own and He lavishes us with life, and life abundantly.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that [the sheep] may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” -John 10:10-11

Jesus is the Shepherd King that represents God to us, for He is God the Son. His victory is complete and His righteousness and justice will never fail. There is no equal nor rival.

Yet as awesome as this is, when we bring our broken and sinful selves to Him, He does not recoil. He does not strike us down for our many offenses. His heart is moved to compassion and love floods His soul. How He loves when the sheep come to Him! It’s His purpose, His pleasure.

Christ has spilled his own blood to establish a new covenant. All we must do is loyally follow his shepherding.

You need not toil, dirty sheep, in vain attempts to clean yourself up. The shepherd knows just how to wash you white as snow. Struggle as you may, His firm yet gentle hand will hold you fast. You worry if you are worthy, but His kind generosity abounds for the unworthy. You fear the shadow of death, but He will lead you through; for He has already traversed its darkness and swallowed it in marvelous resurrection light.

What have you to fear? Why do you despair? Why do you carry such heavy burdens?

The LORD [Jesus] is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever. -Psalm 23