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4 April. 2 Samuel chapters 1-3
Following the death of Saul, the kingdom is temporarily divided, with David reigning over the tribe of Judah in Hebron (not yet Jerusalem), while Abner, commander of Saul’s army, leads a successful coup, with all the other tribes showing allegiance to him. That is, until first he suffers military setbacks against David’s better army, and finally a squabble over a woman turns him against his own court and he goes to seek peace. But he is murdered by the brother of a man he had killed. Oh, and David gets his favourite wife back, despite the tears of her second husband at the prospect of losing her. Michal must have been a good woman.
One of the facets of David’s character that comes through many times in these stories is his reluctance to gloat over the death of his enemies, or to be directly responsible for the death of another leader. He spared his rival Saul’s life at least twice and wept when he died; and now he mourns publicly for Abner who had been his enemy in battle. Slaughtering soldiers and taking captive civilians was another matter, but he seems to have regarded killing a king or military leader as a sin, on the basis that they were appointed by God to their positions.
As late as the Middle Ages, it was part of European Christian theology that kings had a “divine right” to rule, and the letters “DG” (by the grace of God) on our coins are the last echo of that idea, in an age when politics is seen as a purely secular matter. We may no longer believe that presidents, titular monarchs and prime ministers have a divine right to their posts, but it is still right that we should pray for good and upright leaders, and for God’s will to be done in our parliaments.