As we’ve got famous earlier than, First and Second Samuel and First and Second Kings are one steady narrative divided into 4 “books.” This four-volume story relates sure occasions of Israel’s historical past from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian Exile. A part of the story is the transition from judges and prophets to kings. Second Samuel relates occasions from the reign of the second king, David. David gives lots of the prayers in Second Samuel, many looking for God’s in for vital selections, others throughout instances of betrayal and disaster, and a few throughout instances of David’s personal sins and failures.
When King Saul and his son are killed, David seeks God’s steering on how he ought to proceed. We realized that prayers may be each formal and casual petitions. David additionally sought steering when he tried to seize Jerusalem to make it the capital metropolis of Israel. Later, when he was pressured to flee his personal metropolis, and lots of family and friends had betrayed him, he turned to God for assist. After many of the disaster with enemies are received, a prolonged famine comes upon the land, and David asks God why He permits it.
David additionally gives a number of blessings, as he did upon the individuals who gave Saul a correct burial (though this might have upset a few of David’s personal followers). The prayer raises the query of whether or not our personal prayers may generally be self-serving. A lady gives one other transient blessing upon David—she is a part of a plan to assist him see his failure to take care of the rape of Tamar. Is it permissible to make use of a blessing to govern somebody into doing the appropriate factor? (A prayer-vow by Absalom may additionally present this drawback—he makes use of the excuse of fulfilling a vow to depart the palace and foment a insurrection towards his father, the king.) One other blessing, provided upon God by a messenger to David, speaks a phrase of fact about rebelliousness when David is just involved about his personal ache. Can we use prayer as daring speech to talk fact right into a tough scenario?
There are curse-prayers in Second Samuel, too. David’s errant son, Abner, pronounced a prayer-curse upon himself ought to he not comply with by way of together with his (egocentric) plan. This demonstrates the significance of our prayers (and our actions) being real. David pronounces three curses through the time after Abner’s defeat. The primary is upon Joab for killing Abner. Although Joab acted towards the king’s needs, the curse flows from David’s personal private emotions and never for the great of the nation. A second curse-prayer is by David upon himself if he doesn’t maintain a vow he made; a 3rd is upon anybody who may act badly. In all these, we study that, whereas curse-prayers are part of our prayer arsenal, there’s a nice hazard that they are often self-serving and towards the desire of God.
David gives two prolonged prayers pf reward that present his love for God, his humility, and his need to honor God in all issues (although he generally failed within the latter). The primary is an instance of how several types of prayer may be interwoven: reward to thanksgiving to petition and again to reward. The second praise-prayer comes after David has lastly defeated all international and home threats and unified the nation. It’s a hovering psalm of reward, and a very good instance of the best way to provide prayers of pure reward.
Lastly, the final prayer in Second Samuel is a confession by David. The story begins with a blessing by Joab upon the king, however he additionally questions on why David desires a census taken. David quickly realizes that he had targeted on his personal victories and strengths and fewer on God’s position. His prayers of confession are glorious fashions for our personal confessions of our sins.
Along with these items we’ve got realized about prayer, there are two bigger classes. The primary is the significance of looking for God in all issues. We might generally fail, we could also be self-serving, however looking for Him in prayer will maintain us on the appropriate path over our total lifetime, simply because it did for David.
Second, we see that prayers may be egocentric. It might be tough for us to discern this in ourselves—in any case, we’re praying: “I’m being non secular!” But Second Samuel exhibits us that nobody is free from this temptation, whether or not or not it’s “the person after God’s personal coronary heart” or egocentric and evil folks. Such an issue with prayer is refined, and exhibits our want for non secular pals who will converse frankly with us, simply as Joab and others spoke boldly to the king when he wanted to listen to a tough fact about himself.
Like lots of the books we’ve got studied, Second Samuel gives a wealthy number of prayers set in fairly human tales of triumph and failure, victory and loss, betrayal and faithfulness.
- “Introduction to the Prayers of First Samuel,” “Introduction to the Prayers of Second Samuel.” ↩
- “Formal and Casual Petitionary Prayers (2 Sam 2.1).” ↩
- “Inquiring of the Lord—Good and Dangerous (2 Sam 5.19, 23).” ↩
- “Praying in Occasions of Injustice or Betrayal (2 Sam 15.31).” ↩
- “Selecting the Proper Sort of Prayer (2 Sam 21.1).” ↩
- “Self-serving prayers? (2 Sam 2.5–6).” ↩
- “Taking Prayer for Granted (2 Sam 14.17).” ↩
- “The Privilege of Prayer (2Sam 15.7).” ↩
- “Prayer as a Revolutionary Act (2 Sam 18.28).” ↩
- “Let Your ‘Sure’ be ‘Sure’ and Your ‘No’ be ‘No.’ (2 Sam 3.9).” ↩
- “Wrestling with Prayers That Curse (2 Sam 3.29, 36, 29).” ↩
- “The Interconnectedness of Prayer (2 Sam 7.19–29).” ↩
- “My Rock and My Fortress Half 1 (2 Sam 22.2–51),” “My Rock and My Fortress Half 2 (2 Sam 22.2–51).” ↩
- “The Energy of Confession (2 Sam 24.3, 10, 17, 23).” ↩
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