2 Samuel 21:15

_MOREOVER THE PHILISTINES HAD YET WAR AGAIN WITH ISRAEL; AND DAVID WENT DOWN, AND HIS SERVANTS WITH HIM, AND FOUGHT AGAINST THE PHILISTINES: AND DAVID WAXED FAINT._ Moreover the Philistines had yet war again with Israel. Although the Philistines had completely succumbed to the army of David, yet the appearance of any gigantic champions among them revived their courage, and stirred them up to renewed inroads on the Hebrew territory. Four successive contests they provoked during the latter period of David's reign, in the first of which the king ran so imminent a risk of his life, that he was no longer allowed to encounter the perils of the battlefield....

15-22 These events seem to have taken place towards the end of David's reign. David fainted, but he did not flee, and God sent help in the time of need. In spiritual conflicts, even strong saints sometimes wax faint; then Satan attacks them furiously; but those who stand their ground and resist him, shall be relieved and made more than conquerors. Death is a Christian's last enemy, and a son of Anak; but through Him that triumphed for us, believers shall be more than conquerors at last, even over that enemy....

Verse 2 Samuel 21:15. _MOREOVER THE PHILISTINES HAD YET WAR_] There is no mention of this war in the parallel place, 1 Chronicles 20:4, c. _DAVID WAXED FAINT._] This circumstance is nowhere else mentioned....

This, like the preceding paragraph 2 Samuel 21:1, is manifestly a detached and unconnected extract. It is probably taken from some history of David’s wars, apparently the same as furnished the materials for 2 Samuel 5; 2 Samuel 8; 2 Samuel 23:8. There is no direct clue to the time when the events here related took place, but it was probably quite in the early part of David’s reign, while he was still young and active, after the war described in 2 Samuel 5. The Book of Chronicles places these Philistine battles immediately after the taking of Rabba

EXPOSITION 2 SAMUEL 21:1 THERE WAS A FAMINE IN THE DAYS OF DAVID; Hebrew, _and there was. _There is an entire absence of any mark of time to show in what part of David's reign this famine took place. It does not even follow, from the mention of Mephibosheth's name, that it must have happened at a time subsequent to the sending for that prince from Machir's house; for it may have been the search after the descendants of Saul which made David remember the son of his old friend. The burial, however, of the bones of Saul and Jonathan as an act of respect to the slaughtered king makes it probable that the narrative belongs to the early part of David's reign, as also does the apparent fact that the seven victims were all young and unmarried. Mephibosheth, we read, had a young son when David sent for him. Now, he was five years old whe

MOREOVER THE PHILISTINES HAD YET WAR AGAIN WITH ISRAEL,.... Besides what is before recorded in this and the preceding book; being animated to it partly by the number of giants among them, and partly by the decline of David's life, and it may be chiefly by the insurrections and rebellions in Israel; though some think that these battles were not after the rebellions of Absalom and Sheba, and the affair of the Gibeonites, though here recorded; but before, and quickly after the war with the Ammonites, next to which they are placed in 1 Chronicles 20:1; but they seem to be placed here in their proper order: AND DAVID WENT DOWN, AND HIS SERVANTS WITH HIM; to the borders of the Philistines, perceiving they were preparing to make war against him: AND FOUGHT AGAINST THE PHILISTINES; engaged in a battle with them: and David waxed faint

IV. THE APPENDIX TO THE HISTORY OF DAVID 1. The Famines and the Wars with the Philistines CHAPTER 21 _ 1. The Famine and the Gibeonites (2 Samuel 21:1)_ 2. The Wars with the Philistines (2 Samuel 21:15) The fourth section of the second book of Samuel is an appendix to the history of David. When the great famine happened in the days of David we do not know. After the famine had returned year after year, for three years, David inquired of the Lord. Why did he not inquire in the first year? It is an evidence of the low spiritual state which prevailed at that time. The answer which David received revealed the cause of the judgment which rested upon the land. It was Saul and the blood-guilt in having slain the Gibeonites. The story of the Gibeonites is recorded in...

DAVID'S HEROES (first section). _Cf._ above. (J). These verses are probably from the same source as 2 Samuel 23:8 ff., and the source is no doubt ancient. The events in 2 Samuel 21:15 ff. and 2 Samuel 23:8 ff. belong to various periods in the life of David. 2 SAMUEL 21:15. ABISHAI RESCUES DAVID. The text of 2 Samuel 21:16 is corrupt; the general sense seems to have been: At Gob, some place otherwise unknown, David was in danger from a giant whose name has been lost through corruption of the text....

WAR AGAIN. 930-923 B.C. WAXED FAINT. David was now sixty....

_had yet war again_ "Again" refers to earlier wars, the account of which preceded this narrative in the document from which it was taken. _went down_ From the high lands of Judah to the low country of Philistia the _Shephêlah_or maritime plain....