King at Last

The road into Hebron is packed. Elders from every tribe of Israel, from the far north to the southern desert, are coming to see one man. Years ago, a prophet poured oil on his head in secret. Today, everyone will know.

King Saul was dead, killed in battle against the Philistines, and Jonathan with him. David had mourned them both. Since then, David had been king over his own tribe of Judah, ruling from the town of Hebron, while the rest of Israel followed Saul's family. There had been long years of conflict between the two sides. But now that was over. The northern tribes had no king, and they knew where to go.

All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron. “We are your own flesh and blood,” they said. “Even when Saul was king, you were the one who led Israel out to battle and brought them home. And the Lord said to you, ‘You shall shepherd my people Israel, and you shall be their ruler.’” So King David made a covenant with them there, before the Lord, and they anointed him king over all Israel. The shepherd boy from Bethlehem was thirty years old. He would reign for forty years: seven and a half in Hebron, and thirty-three over all Israel and Judah together.

A king of all Israel needed a capital. David looked north, to a hilltop fortress held by a people called the Jebusites. It sat on a narrow ridge with steep valleys on three sides, and its people were so sure of their walls that they mocked him. “You'll never get in here. Even the blind and the lame could keep you out.” But David took the stronghold of Zion. The text says his men went up by way of the water shaft, though exactly what that was, people still debate. From then on, it was called the City of David. David lived in the fortress and built up the city around it. And David became greater and greater, because the Lord God of hosts was with him.

News travelled. Hiram, king of Tyre on the coast, sent messengers, along with cedar logs, carpenters and stonemasons, and they built David a palace. And David understood something important. The Lord had established him as king, and had lifted up his kingdom, not for David's own sake, but for the sake of God's people Israel.

The Philistines heard it too, and they came up to hunt David down. They spread out across the Valley of Rephaim, just outside the city. David didn't rush out. He asked the Lord, “Shall I go up against them?” “Go up. I will give them into your hand.” And David won. “The Lord has burst through my enemies like a bursting flood,” he said, and he named the place Baal-perazim, Lord of breaking through. The Philistines came back a second time. Again David asked. This time the answer was different. “Don't go straight at them. Circle round behind, and come at them opposite the balsam trees. When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the trees, move quickly, for the Lord has gone out ahead of you.” David did exactly as the Lord commanded, and drove the Philistines back.

Why Jerusalem? According to the book of Joshua, the city lay right on the boundary between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and neither tribe had ever managed to drive the Jebusites out. So it belonged to no tribe at all. Many historians think that made it an ideal capital for a king who needed to unite north and south: a city of his own, captured by his own men, owing nothing to any single tribe.

King at Last. You'll find it in Second Samuel, chapter 5. David waited years for God's promise, and when it came, he still stopped to ask the Lord before every battle. So here's the question to carry with you. Do you ask God for guidance only when you're stuck, or also when things are going well?