Peace

In 2 Samuel 2 there is conflict between the house of David and the house of Saul. One day there was a fierce battle between the 2. Asahel was chasing Abner. Abner keeps telling him to stop, that he (Abner) doesn't want to hurt him. But he doesn't stop and Abner ends up killing him.
Then Asahel's brothers pursue Abner and Abner again strikes out for peace.

26..."Must the sword devour forever? Don't you realize that this will end in bitterness? How long before you order your men to stop pursuing their brothers?"

This actually works and they stop fighting. But the anger of Asahel's brothers' festers.

In 2 Samuel 3, it tells us that in Hebron David has 6 sons by 6 different women. I guess as king, that's the sort of thing you do.

Then Saul's son accuses Abner of sleeping with Saul's concubine. Now I don't really see what the problem was as Saul was dead, but there must have been some rules and things about who gets whose concubine, or whatever. But the accusation offends Abner and he goes and makes peace with David.

But Asahel's brothers get mad that David has made peace with Abner and they go off and murder him. Either their pain must have been deeper than David's and they were not able to forgive or David had more grace for forgiveness.

Medium

1 Samuel 28 is certainly an interesting chapter. It deals with methods of consulting spirits.

3 Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in his own town of Ramah. Saul had expelled the mediums and spiritists from the land.

Now is Saul's expulsion of the mediums a good thing or a bad thing? Was he doing it to honour God?

Then the Philistines come up. (again)

6 He (Saul) inquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. 7 Saul then said to his attendants, "Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her."

So first he expels the mediums. Then when God doesn't answer in the manner that He had been when you asked him a question, he says to find a medium. Saul seems a bit on the confused side. Does he want mediums in his country or not?

So then it gets even wonkier as Saul dresses down, goes to the medium and has her 'conjure' up Samuel. As soon as she does, she knows he is Saul. Then Saul asks her what the spirit looks like and she says an old man with a robe and he knew it was Samuel. Well, ok then.

Samuel tells him that the reason that God wasn't answering by the other methods is because He had turned away from Saul. Now, that's not a good place to be in! Then Samuel tells Saul that he's going to lose the battle and die.

Saul is, of course, upset by this! But he still goes into battle and dies. It might have been he had no other options left but to fight. I don't know- I might have tried to create some more options!

Trust

In 1 Samuel 27, we have moved on to the story of David. He had opportunity to kill Saul but would not take the opportunities. So, he finds himself on the run as Saul seems to be very unstable in relation to David and David (rightfully) feels a bit scared. So David goes to live with the Philistines. So he joined up with a Phil named Achish. And David goes out and raids some people (the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites) but he tells Achish that he raids different people. He is playing Achish a bit here to get his trust. When he does his raids, he is careful to kill everyone in the area so none can report back to Achish. And this goes well and Achish trusts him.
But what I thought of in this story is how David must trust his men. He has 600 guys, anyone of whom could tell Achish what was going on, but none do. He had unity and trust in his men and it was well founded.

Music

1 Samuel 16:23 Whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul, David would take his harp and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.

Biblical precedent that music is healing :)

Saul

I'm in 1 Samuel now and my goodness a lot went on with Saul. Before he's appointed king he seems kind of lowly- from a small tribe. Not much pride. It talks about his heart and how it changed so he could prophesy. How he hides when Samuel wants to anoint him. How he doesn't brag to his uncle when he could.

Then he's appointed king and what happens?
First, some people grumble about it.
How does this make Saul feel? Some people taking an obvious dislike to him. 1 Samuel 10:27 says he kept silent, but it must have hurt.
In 1 Samuel 11 Saul brings unity to the battle and rescues the city of Jabesh.

The first problem with Saul shows up in 1 Samuel 13. The battle against the Philistines is not going well. The troops are "quaking with fear". Saul is waiting for Samuel, and waiting, and waiting. He waited 7 days and then he offers the burnt offering himself. Samuel arrives and rebukes him.

I feel for Saul here. He was in a bad situation. It's hard to be patient in a good situation, let alone in a situation where you are living in dirt and quaking with fear. God sets the bar high. You can do this. You can hang on. You can wait. You don't need to do it your way, you can wait and do it His way.

Saul also seems to make weird 'rules' that everybody has to follow, even though logically, they make no sense.

Later, Samuel gives Saul a mission to destroy the Amelkites and he does 95% but spares 5% or so. Now, to me 95% is an A. But it was not obedience to God's word.

22"Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD ?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
he has rejected you as king."

I haven't finished the whole story of Saul yet, but I recall he does some crazy stuff to David. What happened that led to this? Did he become prideful in being the new king? Was it a mental illness? Was his heart changed again? Is it because the king has so much more responsibility, so much more is required?

Drama

I just finished the story of Samson and boy he has a lot of drama!

After the angel of the Lord tells the parents of Samson about his impending birth, I was amused at the reaction:

Judges 13:22 "We are doomed to die!" he (Samsons to-be dad) said to his wife. "We have seen God!"

23 But his wife answered, "If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things or now told us this."

Samson's to be dad has a very emotional response, and the wife a very logical one.

Samson's first wife (not Delilah) gets an answer to a riddle/bet out of Samson and so it turns out that Samson loses the bet and owes 30 outfits of clothing. To pay this debt he kills 30 guys and takes their clothing. Don't mind the bloodstains. I think if he's asked, he probably could have gotten the clothes without killing the people, but that's just the way he went.
The first wife gets given away to one of Samson's friends and when Samson evidently gets over the treachery and goes back for her he's not too impressed that she was given away, because as we see later, he can forgive the treachery of a woman. So he burns the crops of the Philistines using foxes. Then the Philistines burn the first wife and her father for causing Samson to be angry.
And this fiery man is the leader of Israel. There's something to be said for fiery.
Then he 'fell in love' with Delilah. What does this mean? She evidently didn't feel the same for him, as she just wants to get his secret out.

She uses her womanly ways on him:

Judges 16:15 Then she said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength." 16 With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death.

17 So he told her everything.

He made a fool out of HER? Surely it was her making a fool out of HIM. Interesting how she turns it around.

After the battle

In Judges 12, Jephthah has returned from winning the battle against the Ammonites. Yay. The Israelites should be happy right?
Not.
The men of Ephraim come over looking for a fight because Jephthah allegedly didn't invite them to the battle with them. (Jephthah disagreed with them- he said he did call for them)
All the fuss over what sounds like minor things (though it probably felt major to them)
And they fought. Again.