2
ND
SAMUEL
Week 7, chapter 5 continued

I told you at the beginning of our last lesson that 2
nd
Samuel chapter 5 is flowing over with
information and issues that are easy to rush right by, but are quite important to our overall
progression through the Bible and thus we would make a few detours to help explain matters.
So we spent a great deal of time last week discussing and defining terms for that ancient city
that most represents Israel: Jerusalem. We learned that the oldest known name for this place
is Yerushalayim and that name, surprisingly, is NOT Hebrew but Akkadian. The term
Yerushalayim was represented in clay tablets found in northern Syria in the late 1960’s and
early 1970’s. The tablets were written in the Akkadian language about 4500 years ago, or
about 500 years before the time of Abraham.

Meaning something like “the foundation of the god Shalem”, a shortened name for this city
was Shalem and we find that this is the name of the place (or at least one of the names) that
was in use at the time of Abraham’s encounter with the mysterious king and priest
Melchizedek. Further, a clan or tribe named Jebus eventually conquered or built-up
Yerushalayim and walled off a section of it, so Jebus and Yerushalayim were both common
names for this place and in use at the same time. The walled off section the Jebusites named
Zion. It was this walled off section that we find David and his private army conquering in 2
nd
Samuel chapter 5, and then renaming it The City of David.

Since David took Zion with his own men and didn’t involve the national tribal troops he felt free
to assign a personal name to his new capital, the City of David, because in fact this became
his private estate. We need to get the picture that Yerushalayim was the name for the general
area and the City of David was merely the name of the walled city that resided on a portion of
that area; the area that lay downhill on the southern slope of Mt. Moriah. So the City of David
was NOT synonymous with Yerushalayim and as we go forward in the Bible we need to keep
this in mind. We’ll revisit this subject as we arrive at the time of King Solomon building the first
permanent temple for Yehoveh atop the crest of Mt. Moriah, which is located OUTSIDE of the
City of David.

Let’s re-read a portion of 2
nd
Samuel Chapter 5 to get our bearings for today’s lesson.

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RE-READ 2
ND
SAMUEL 5:6 – end


Starting in verse 6 we get a very brief account of the conquering of the Jebusite-held walled
city of Zion, and so we get frustratingly little detail that is so typical of Biblical narrative when it
comes to battles. The thing that is striking about this event is that the writer of this narrative
focuses on the apparently insulting words that the Jebusites hurled at David from the safety of
their massive fortress walls, and (from David’s side) the clever means that David uses to gain
entrance into this stronghold.

Let’s start with the latter first. It seems that David used a water tunnel to more or less sneak
his men into the city. This tunnel, or really more a “shaft”, was first rediscovered in the modern
age by Sir Charles Warren in 1867 and has been aptly named Warren’s Shaft; it neatly verifies
the Biblical account of David’s conquest of Zion. Here we will take another detour because this
will not be the last time that the water system of Jerusalem plays a pivotal role in its history. As
an archeology buff I find this fascinating and hope that you will as well.
The City of David was built on a hill of hard limestone, in which underground water formed
natural caves. The Gihon Spring is the only source of water for the city and it emerges in the
Kidron Valley on the east side of the City of David. It is mentioned many times in the Bible and
this valuable water source is what made the founding of the City of David (formerly Zion)
possible and it sustained its existence for thousands of years. The Hebrew name of the spring
(Gihon) is derived from the verb meaning "to gush forth," reflecting the rapid flow of the spring,
which tends to vary with the seasons of the year and the amount of annual rainfall. This
particular spring operates in a fascinating way; first the water accumulates in a subterranean
cave and then that cave behaves as a cistern (a reservoir) that fills to the brim and then
empties through cracks in the rock and by means of capillary action the water is siphoned
upwards to the surface. This natural feature made it necessary to accumulate water in a pool
so there would be water available in the seasons when the spring was not "gushing forth."
The Gihon spring emerged in a cave on the eastern slope of the City of David above the
Kidron Valley. Over the centuries the various inhabitants of the walled city found it important to
protect their water supply from enemies and to increase the amount of water available so the
population could grow. Therefore three different manmade water systems fed by the Gihon
spring were carved into the rock beneath the City of David and they are the most complex and
advanced of any known from the Biblical era. All three water systems were in operation
simultaneously in the First Temple period, and each contributed to the efficiency of the city's
water supply. They also attest to the efforts of the kings of ancient Jerusalem to guarantee the
water supply in time of siege.
In times of war and siege the city’s water supply was vulnerable since the Gihon spring in the
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Kidron Valley was outside the city walls and various means, including these tunnels and shafts,
were designed to solve the problem. What is today called Warren’s shaft is the earliest of
these subterranean water systems. The entrance to the Warren's Shaft System is located in
the middle of the eastern slope of the City of David inside of the ancient city's walls. It
consisted of a subterranean, rock-cut tunnel with a shaft at its end. At the entrance the tunnel
slopes steeply downward in a stepped passage.
But all of this leaves us with a question: how did David’s men get inside this water shaft if it
was located INSIDE the city walls? This question has caused many scholars to question either
the reliability of this account in 2
nd
Samuel 5, or to wonder if the translation is incorrect.
But let’s leave that matter open while we take the time to understand how the water system
was expanded in later times. The next facility to be built is called the Siloam Channel or it is
also called the Canaanite Tunnel. It was cut at the beginning of the 2nd millennium B.C. and it
emerges from the Gihon Spring and extends approximately ¼ of a mile southward along the
low, eastern slope of the City of David, around the city's southern end and then empties into a
reservoir in the Tyropoeon Valley. The channel's northern part is 3 feet deep and is covered by
large stones; the southern part is open, but becomes a rock-cut tunnel towards the end.
Openings along the channel allowed water to flow out and irrigate the terraces on the eastern
slope of the City of David (these were David’s private gardens).
The third and last water system to be constructed goes by a familiar name to us, Hezekiah’s
Tunnel. The tunnel was cut during the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah (at the end of 8th
century BC) and described in detail in a six-line inscription written in an early Hebrew script, cut
into the rock near the exit:
"…breakthrough and this was the account of the breakthrough. While the laborers were
still working with their picks, each toward the other, and while there were still three
cubits to be broken through, the voice of each was heard calling to the other, because
there was a crack in the rock to the south and to the north. And at the moment of the
breakthrough, the laborers struck each toward the other, pick against pick. Then the
water flowed from the spring to the pool for 1,200 cubits. And the height of the rock
above the heads of the laborers was 100 cubits."
It is the most impressive of the water systems built in the City of David. The tunnel was cut into
the rock beneath the City of David over a nearly ½ mile "S" shaped course. Even more, in
order to hurry to finish the tunnel it was dug from each end and they managed to meet in the
middle perfectly, which is what the inscription was explaining. How they did that without
modern instruments is simply amazing. In a straight line, the distance from the Gihon Spring to
the Siloam Pool is only ¼ of a mile. The average width of the tunnel is about 2 feet and it is
about 6 feet high along most of its course
This final water system is what feeds the newly discovered and very large Pool of Siloam that
we read about in the New Testament. I have been in both the Canaanite Tunnel and
Hezekiah’s Tunnel and it is not for the feint of heart! But I can also tell you that the tunnels are
amazing and it’s hard to imagine that they were built using the most primitive tools. The flow of
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water in the winter especially is substantial and one can understand how a sizeable city could
grow from only the water supplied by this single spring, Gihon.
Let’s move now to the 2
nd
focal point in this chapter, the words spoken to David and his army
by the inhabitants of this walled fortress.
As big a mystery as how David was able to use the water tunnel to get into Zion, is the
meaning behind the words of the residents of Zion who taunted David’s army by saying that
even the lame and the blind could fend them off. Thus I don’t think very many Bible
translations agree with one another on this point and so if we did some comparisons we’d find
slightly different meanings assigned to those words from version to version.
Further, when we look down to verse 8 the passage ends with yet another statement about the
lame and the blind and it seems to be saying that David is disgusted and repelled by people
who are lame and blind. So when the two statements about the lame and the blind of
Yerushalayim are taken together we get a mystery. The most popular assumption is that this is
simply insulting words thrown at David by the Jebusite soldiers who are standing in their
defensive positions atop the city walls. And that David’s retort about him despising the lame
and the blind is sarcasm thrown back in return.
But another theory is that lame and blind people were actually brought to the scene and lined
up on the walls of the city and THEY hurled the insults at David, and thus David made it clear
that when he entered the city that he wouldn’t looked upon them with mercy the way you
would normally expect a warrior to deal with such severely disabled people.
Yet another approach is from the Rabbis. Some Rabbis say that the lame and blind were
pagan idols that the Jebusites placed upon the walls as talisman to place a curse on David and
his troops. Rashi has another solution: he says that the inhabitants were descendants of
Abimelech and that the lame and the blind were two statues; one who symbolized Jacob (who
was made lame in that all-night wrestling match with the Angel of the Lord), and the other who
symbolized Isaac (who became blind in his latter years and so was easily tricked by Jacob).
Thus David despises those statues and plans on destroying them. There are also a few other
theories that rely on Hittite mythology to solve this riddle. Some scholars just say that the text
must be corrupted so that this is the reason we get such strange wording and unintelligible
thought. But the Dead Sea Scrolls say essentially the same thing so that seems rather
disingenuous.
What are we to make of this issue with this strange emphasis on the lame and the blind? I
think the problem can be solved by incorporating the Biblical principle of progressive
revelation; we need to look to the entire Bible and not just focusing on this particular passage
in isolation. Using the progressive revelation principle let’s remember who David presages: the
Messiah. Whether one adheres to Judaism or Christianity David is the model or type for the
future Messiah. And in both religions the Messiah must come from David’s line. So I see this
issue about the lame and the blind in the same light as we see some of David’s Psalms: it is
prophetic and Messianic. Not until we have the New Testament does the key to unlock the
mystery of these words spoken in 2
nd
Samuel 5 appear.
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Listen to this passage from Matthew 11;4 -6 :
4
Yeshua answered, "Go and tell Yochanan
what you are hearing and seeing
5
the blind are seeing again, the lame are walking,
people with tzara'at are being cleansed, the deaf are hearing, the dead are being raised,
the Good News is being told to the poor
6
and how blessed is anyone not offended by
me!"

And then later in Matthew 15:31:
31
The people were amazed as they saw mute people
speaking, crippled people cured, lame people walking and blind people seeing; and they
said a b'rakhah to the God of Isra'el.

I think it is hard not to see a connection to David’s descendant Yeshua triumphantly entering
into Yerushalayim and healing the lame and the blind. In 2
nd
Samuel 5 I see the people of
Yerushalayim saying to David (on one level) and to Messiah (on another level) that unless you
are the one who can heal the lame and the blind you are not welcome to come in to
Yerushalayim. And the response of both David and Messiah is that they despise the blindness
and lameness that has harmed these people. In other words where so many translators have
David saying that he despises lame and blind people (which is rather out of character for
God’s anointed), what we really have is David saying that he despises the condition of
lameness and blindness itself. And so when Jesus speaks in Matthew 11:6 and says, “How
blessed is anyone not offended by me” (in referring to the blind and the lame) this fits hand
and glove with David’s response to the people of Yerushalayim in 2
nd
Samuel 5:8.
In any case David conquers Zion and we learn that he set about expanding the city. His first
step was to start building at the terraced area at the north end of the city just outside the city
walls. Called the Millo at that time, and in later times known as the Ophel, homes were built in
this open area that lay between the City of David and the crest of the hill known as Mt. Moriah
where the Temple would someday be constructed. In time the walls of the City of David were
added onto in order to incorporate the new housing area into David’s compound.
But verse 10 re-centers the entire narrative by reminding the listeners that David’s success
was actually Yehoveh’s doing; David was merely a participant. David grew greater because
God was faithful to His word, for His own Name’s sake, and David sees and acknowledges
that. I believe this is the key to godly success in life: act in co-operation with the Lord and give
Him all the glory because whatever victories that come will be His. In my 6 decades on this
earth I’ve known and observed many good people who have worked hard and made sound
judgments, but things just never worked out for them. And substantially more often than not
when things were on the upswing in their lives they credited their own wisdom and hard work
as the reason. David knew that his own hard work and courage were definitely needed to
become king and to rule God’s Kingdom as king but the results were dependent on the Lord.
And that’s the same attitude that a worshipper of the God of Israel needs to approach life.
Next we hear that David set about building a palace for himself. King Hiram of Tzor sent cedar
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logs along with especially skilled craftsman to David to aid in constructing a proper palace for
the King of Israel. Tzor is another name for Tyre, the capital of Phoenicia. While the story
seems to make the construction of David’s palace a nearly immediate event after conquering
Zion, in fact it must have happened later in David’s reign. It’s not at all unusual in Scripture for
events to be placed in an order that has little regard to time. We know that David reigned until
about 960 B.C. and that King Hiram didn’t begin his reign over Phoenicia until about 970 B.C.
So somewhere in between those two dates is when this palace construction began.
The Cedars of Lebanon are proverbial because cedar was such an admired and valuable
wood. Cedar was as beautiful as it was durable. It was strong enough to be used for load-
bearing and lovely enough to be used for exquisite interior paneling. As early as 3000 B.C.
cedar was being exported from Phoenicia to Egypt (so prized were this wood’s qualities).
Cedar wood was in such demand that by the time of David the cedar forests were nearly
depleted and thus it became a precious commodity that was reserved for only the wealthiest
aristocrats and kings.
This passage implies that David must have had a good relationship with the Phoenicians. No
doubt it served an economic purpose that was mutually beneficial. Phoenicia lay along the
Mediterranean coast; the Phoenicians were seafarers and merchants. But a people who rely
on shipping and trading for their economy need goods to sell. Wine and olive oil produced in
Israel was highly prized and so it made sense for Israel to ally with Phoenicia.
Verse 13 adds to the overall picture of what occurred once David acquired his new capital city;
once he was settled in the City of David, David moved his harem from Hebron to Yerushalayim
and even added to it with more wives and concubines. Let me remind you that a concubine
was not a sex slave or a play thing for the man. Rather she was a like a wife but usually she
didn’t receive a marriage document so she was sort of a 2
nd
class wife. A concubine (especially
in the case of kings) was often the handmaiden of an aristocratic woman that the king would
marry to create a needed or wanted political alliance with another king or potentate. The list of
names of David’s sons represents only the firstborn sons from each of the mothers. Many
daughters and other sons were born as well to these women. David was creating quite a
dynasty of loyal leaders for his administration.
But what of David’s jilted friends the Philistines? Up to now the Philistines had not deemed
David to be a threat to them and this was due primarily to the strong relationship he had
established with the Achish, Lord of Gath, when David was a guest in Philistine territory and
lived in Ziklag. They apparently looked upon him as a trusted vassal when he left Philistia to
return to Judah, and no doubt David let them continue in that fiction because as he was
consolidating his power over Israel the last thing he needed was a confrontation with the
Philistines to distract him.
Being made king over Judah would have raised eyebrows among the 5 Philistine lords, but
upon being crowned king over Israel any pretense of vassal status vanished. The Philistines
attacked. Was it to punish David for what in their eyes was rebellion? Probably that was at the
heart of it but it was also undoubtedly to keep David from achieving the full political unity of the
Israelite tribes and clans that Saul had never been able to achieve. Philistia desired to keep
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Israel destabilized; a united Israel was a much bigger threat than an on-again off-again
coalition of tribes. A united Israel was not likely to be so easy to lord over as a fractured Israel.
When David heard that the Philistines were coming for him he removed himself to a place
called the stronghold. The stronghold was certainly not the City of David (even though the
place was termed a stronghold). It is self-evident that this particular stronghold was
somewhere else and the most logical place is that it was the one that David had used so often
in years past: Adullam (more specifically The Cave at Adullam). Was David fleeing for his life
from the Philistines? Probably not; more likely he was intentionally drawing them away from his
family and his private estate to a place that he knew so well from a strategic battle standpoint.
Not only that but certainly not all the tribes would have been keen to fight the Philistines in
order to defend King David’s private estate, the City of David. In fact after David inquires of
Yehoveh through the Urim and Thummim stones about how he should proceed, the Philistines
set up camp in the Refa’im Valley (southwest of Yerushalayim) and David takes his army and
goes to a place called Ba’al P’ratzim (which means “the lord of breaking through”) and
defeats them there.
Why would Hebrews incorporate the name Ba’al to commemorate a great military victory? Let
me point out that in an earlier lesson I explained that the term Ba’al means “lord” when used
generically, even though it also was used as the formal name of a Canaanite god. It is very
similar with the word “adonai” that generically means lord or master, and yet it is also a well-
known title that the Hebrews commonly used to refer to God, Yehoveh. By David’s day the
word ba’al (little “b” ba’al) apparently had been adopted into Hebrew and it simply meant
“lord” as in “master” and was NOT meant to indicate a pagan deity. So the name Ba’al
P’ratzim was not at all about honoring the Canaanite god Ba’al.
This use of the name Ba’al in this context gives us a good opportunity to pause momentarily,
back away from this episode and look at the bigger picture of the condition of Israel in their
relationship to Yehoveh. While the use of the term ba’al in the commemorative naming of this
mountain was undoubtedly not intended to honor the Canaanite god, the problem is that this
was just another subtle step in the perversion of the true Hebrew religion as defined by God
through Moses on Mt. Sinai. The term Ba’al had evolved from being entirely identified with
everything that God hated, to simply a common word used by Hebrews in everyday
communications. We have watched the Hebrews (as the proverbial frog-in-the-kettle) slowly
over decades and centuries integrate seemingly small and insignificant pagan observances,
people, customs, and words into their culture and worship practices. But as miniscule and
unimportant as these changes were, they add up; and by the time of David we hardly hear
mention of the word “Torah” or “Moses” or “Law” any more. The Constitution of God’s
Kingdom, His divine regulations and commandments, had been infiltrated with traditions and
common Middle Eastern social conventions to the point that other than for a few oddities, the
Israelites were indistinguishable from any of the other Middle Eastern peoples.
During David’s ascent to the throne and his reign his focus was not to purify their religion;
rather it was to unify the tribes into a powerful sovereign nation. David loved the Lord, but His
hands were full and all his faculties aimed with tunnel vision towards finishing what Joshua had
started over 300 years earlier. So with Solomon in time taking over from David and then with a
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long line of various kings that followed, the Hebrew religion became corrupted with paganism
and social customs because the Word of God was no longer the authority but rather it was
manmade doctrines and traditions that ruled. In fact it would be several hundred more years
after David before a long abandoned Torah Scroll was discovered in a pile a rubble, it was
brought to the king and read to him, and this king realized what had happened to Israel since
that wonderful moment at Mt. Sinai. King Josiah tore his clothes in a sign of mourning and grief
and ordered painful reforms to bring back proper Torah understanding, proper worship, and
therefore a restored relationship with Yehoveh.
It was the rediscovery of the Torah that brought about a true revival for Israel. I am convinced
in all my being that we are living in such an age if only we’ll stand back far enough to
recognize it. If Yeshua’s church on earth is to experience a true revival that we so desperately
need then it is ONLY going to be from the church rediscovering the Torah and falling on our
faces in grief and mourning and repentance over our failure to heed God’s instructions for all
these years. Let those who have an ear to listen, hear.
Verse 22 describes a second attempt by the Philistines to reassert their control over David and
Israel. Once more David consults with the Urim and Thummim but this time the Lord instructs
David not to make a frontal attack but to circle around behind the Philistines. They are to wait
in a grove of trees, in hiding, and only attack once they hear the sound of marching in the
treetops. And the marching sound was David’s indication that Yehoveh had gone out ahead of
him and defeated the Philistines.
Most Rabbis explain that the sound of marching in the treetops was of God’s heavenly angels
moving into battle and rustling the leaves of the trees on the way. I don’t know if that is exactly
the case, but I have no doubts that this is meant spiritually more than physically. Wind rustles
the leaves of trees, and wind is often a Biblical metaphor for a movement of God’s spirit. So
while it indeed may have been God’s angels going into battle against the evil spirits that fought
for the Philistines, or whether it was God’s spirit preparing the way for victory, it was Yehoveh
who won this battle ahead of David.
David did what the Lord instructed and the Israelites achieved a great victory that day. The rule
of the Philistines over Israel was broken after centuries of aggression and subjugation.
We’ll take up chapter 6 and the incredibly meaningful move of the Ark of the Covenant to
Yerushalayim next week.





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