Commentaria in II Regum (II Samuelis)
Chapter 4. Synopsis of the Chapter
Baana and Rechab treacherously kill Isboseth and bring his head to David, who for the reward of good tidings repays them with death.
1. Now Isboseth the son of Saul heard that Abner was dead at Hebron: and his hands were weakened, and all Israel was troubled. 2. And the son of Saul had two men captains of robbers, the name of one was Baana, and the name of the other Rechab, the sons of Remmon a Berothite, of the children of Benjamin: for Beroth also was reckoned in Benjamin. 3. And the Berothites fled into Gethaim, and were sojourners there until that time. 4. And Jonathan the son of Saul had a son that was lame of his feet: for he was five years old when the news came of Saul and Jonathan from Jezrahel: and his nurse took him up and fled: and as she made haste to flee, he fell, and became lame, and his name was Miphiboseth. 5. So the sons of Remmon the Berothite, Rechab and Baana, came and entered into the house of Isboseth in the heat of the day: and he was sleeping upon his bed at noon. And the doorkeeper of the house, who was cleaning wheat, fell asleep. 6. And they went into the house secretly, taking ears of corn, and Rechab and Baana his brother stabbed him in the groin, and fled. 7. For when they came into the house, he was sleeping upon his bed in a chamber, and they smote him and killed him: and taking away his head they went by the way of the desert all the night, 8. And brought the head of Isboseth to David to Hebron. And they said to the king: Behold the head of Isboseth the son of Saul thy enemy, who sought thy life: and the Lord hath revenged my lord the king this day of Saul, and of his seed. 9. But David answering Rechab and Baana his brother, the sons of Remmon the Berothite, said to them: As the Lord liveth, who hath delivered my soul out of all distress, 10. The man that told me, and said: Saul is dead, who thought he brought good tidings, I apprehended, and slew him in Siceleg, to whom I ought to have given a reward for his news. 11. How much more now, when wicked men have slain an innocent man in his own house upon his bed, shall I not require his blood at your hand, and take you away from the earth? 12. And David commanded his servants, and they slew them: and cutting off their hands and feet, hanged them up over the pool in Hebron: but the head of Isboseth they took and buried in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron.
“Rechab” just mentioned; but they fled from the face of Isboseth, in whose service they had been soldiers, on account of some crime committed which Isboseth wished to punish. So Rabanus, Abulensis, Serarius and others. R. Solomon and Cajetan therefore wrongly understand by Berothites all the citizens and inhabitants of the city of Beroth. For why should all the citizens have fled? And what does their flight contribute to the present history? For what R. Solomon says, and Lyranus after him, that they fled on the death of Saul for fear of the Philistines, because Beroth was near them, is refuted by the fact that these two were commanders of Isboseth’s soldiers after the death of Saul, as was said in verse 12.
4. AND JONATHAN THE SON OF SAUL HAD A SON THAT WAS LAME OF HIS FEET—named “Miphiboseth,” as follows. Why is mention of Miphiboseth introduced here? I answer, to signify that no male of the stock of Saul was left fit for the kingdom: for “Miphiboseth,” who alone survived, was lame and deformed, and unfit to carry on the wars of Israel; wherefore, Isboseth (whose murder is here narrated) being dead, the kingdom had of necessity to be transferred from the stock of Saul to David. So Abulensis. Otherwise the Hebrews in St. Jerome’s Traditions, Rabanus, Cajetan, R. Solomon and others answer, namely that Baana and Rechab served not under Isboseth but under Jonathan, wherefore they favoured his son Miphiboseth and wished to make him king, and therefore conspired for the death of Isboseth: but Miphiboseth disclosed their conspiracy to Isboseth, and they, fearing his vengeance, fled, and secretly returning killed him, to win the favour of David.
But this is a mere conjecture, having no foundation in Scripture.
5. WHO WAS SLEEPING UPON HIS BED AT NOON—as many in Italy and other hot regions take a midday rest, and at noon take a light sleep; though otherwise it is the counsel of physicians: “Shun the midday sleep.” The Chaldee calls this sleep the sleep of kings, saying, and he (Isboseth) was sleeping the sleep of kings; for kings, who are watching, who by night are often compelled to keep watch for the safety and affairs of the kingdom and to pass sleepless nights, desire sleep from noon. As Epaminondas, general of the Thebans, used to keep watch while they were celebrating feasts and banquets and then slumbering, saying: “I watch against the enemy, that you may feast in safety;” truly a golden saying of a prince. The same Epaminondas, when he had run through a certain sentinel who was sleeping, and was therefore charged with excessive severity, said: “I left him such as I found him; for the life of the living is a watching, and therefore the life of the sleeping is rather death than life;” hence Christ in the Gospel often bids us watch.
AND THE DOORKEEPER OF THE HOUSE, WHO WAS CLEANING WHEAT (already threshed, removing little stones, chaff, &c., and picking out the grains one by one, so that they might be perfectly pure for delicacies), FELL ASLEEP—from the labour of cleaning, and from the heat, she fell wearied into sleep. St. Gregory, book I of the Morals, chap. 18, offers a beautiful and very useful tropology on this: “The doorkeeper, he says, cleans the wheat when the guard of the mind, by discerning, separates virtues from vices. If she falls asleep, she admits ambushers to the death of her own master; because when the care of discretion has ceased, she opens the way to malignant spirits for killing the soul. These entering take away the ears of corn; because they straightway carry off the seeds of good thoughts, and they strike in the groin; because they slay the strength of the heart by the delight of the flesh. For to be struck in the groin is to pierce the life of the mind with the delight of the flesh.” He then adds the loss of this sleeping guardian, saying: “Isboseth would not at all have fallen by this death, had he not appointed a woman, that is, a soft guard, at the entrance of the house, to the approach of the mind. For a strong and manly sense ought to be set over the doors of the heart, which neither the sleep of negligence oppresses nor the error of ignorance deceives. Hence he was well called Isboseth, who by a woman for guard is laid bare to hostile swords: for Isboseth is interpreted ‘man of confusion.’ And a man of confusion is he who is not fortified by a strong guard of mind; because, while he thinks he is practising virtues, vices stealing in slay him unaware. Therefore the entrance of the mind must be fortified with strength, lest enemies lying in ambush break in through the opening of a neglected thought. Hence Solomon says: With all watchfulness keep thy heart, because life issueth out from it.”
Angelomus, Rupert and Eucherius transcribed the same word for word from St. Gregory; whence it is clear that this Eucherius is not St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, who preceded St. Gregory by a hundred years and more, but Bede, or someone of that age.
Politically, let princes learn here to keep watch, either themselves or through faithful friends, especially at those times when others sleep, as at noon and by night; for these are the times that enemies seize to attack and overpower the unwary. So Philip king of the Macedonians, father of Alexander the Great, when he had slept in the army and awakened, said: “I have slept safely, for Antipater kept watch.” So Plutarch in the Apophthegms. The same, when he was sleeping by day, and the Greeks, gathering at his door, were accusing him, Parmenio defended him: “Do not wonder, he said, if Philip now sleeps; for when you were sleeping, he was watching.” For true is the saying of Plato, which Laertius reports in book III: “No one sleeping is worthy of any thing, because he is like one dead. For sleep is the image of death,” as Alexander the Great said, declaring that from sleep he gathered that he was a mortal man, not the son of Jove, as some flatterers said, as Plutarch attests. Nay, often from sleep one goes into death. Hence Gorgias of Leontini, feeling a deadly drowsiness creeping on, when a friend asked how he did: “Sleep, he said, is now beginning to commend me to his brother (death).” So Aelian, book II.
6. AND THEY WENT INTO THE HOUSE SECRETLY, TAKING EARS OF CORN—that the fraud and the plot of the murder of Isboseth might be hidden if they met any watcher; for they seemed to be reapers of wheat, or buyers and merchants, as the Chaldee, R. Solomon and others render; hence from the Hebrew render, they entered into the midst of the house as those who receive wheat; although the Hebrews in St. Jerome think that they carried ears of corn because they pretended that they were about to offer them to King Isboseth as firstfruits and gifts. Others say it was to cover their faces with the ears, lest they be recognised. Others think that they brought green ears to the doorkeeper, that she, who was accustomed to clean the wheat, might husk and grind the ears, and so make the meal that was a delicacy to the ancients; for this was women’s work. Hence Abigail offered meal to David to appease his anger, book I, chap. 25:18. So Sanchez. Which conjecture is apt and probable.
AND STABBED HIM IN THE GROIN—In Hebrew, under the fifth rib, which is the last, under which there is nothing bony but the soft belly, and therefore open to a deadly blow and piercing.
11. HOW MUCH MORE NOW, WHEN WICKED MEN HAVE SLAIN AN INNOCENT MAN, &c.—Isboseth was an enemy and a hurt to David, and was contending with him by the sword for the kingdom; yet David calls him “innocent,” because he judged that he in good faith supposed that the kingdom belonged to himself, as the son of the deceased King Saul; for it was not clearly established to him that it had been transferred by God’s gift to David: for although he had perhaps heard that David was anointed king by Samuel, yet David’s right was not clear to him; for he could object and say that David was indeed anointed king, but only of his own tribe of Juda, and that the other tribes therefore belonged to himself; or that David was anointed king, but to reign on the occasion when the royal stock of Saul should fail, that he might succeed it: but that this stock had not yet failed, but remained in himself, wherefore David could not, the royal stock being excluded, seize his kingdom.
12. AND THEY SLEW THEM.—David did this to remove from himself the suspicion of the people that he had secretly been the author of or privy to the murder of Isboseth. Again, to show his love for Saul and Isboseth, though they were his enemies; and so to win for himself among all the tribes a fame for clemency and kindness, which wins for a king great goodwill and authority among his subjects. Thirdly, that as king and judge he might punish so great a crime and avenge the unjust slaughter of a king. For the royal body ought to be inviolable to all.
Moreover Theodoret and Abulensis think that David crucified these regicides. Josephus, book VII, chap. 2, says that they were put to the most exquisite tortures; but Scripture has nothing of the kind, and it hints that they were killed at once, and therefore run through with sword or spear, and then the hands with which they had done the murder, and the feet with which they had hastened to it, were cut off and hung up for a perpetual memorial and vengeance of the crime.
BUT THE HEAD OF ISBOSETH THEY TOOK AND BURIED IN THE SEPULCHRE OF ABNER IN HEBRON—because Hebron was as it were a holy place, consecrated by the burial of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and, as many hold, of Adam. See what is said at Josue 14:15.
Moreover David did not show Isboseth the pomp of funeral which he had shown Abner, both because Abner was slain in his own dominion near Hebron, but Isboseth outside the limits of his kingdom; and because Isboseth had been David’s perpetual adversary, whereas Abner had gone over from Isboseth to David and was striving to bring the other tribes over to him. Finally, when Abner was slain, there was altogether a vehement suspicion in many that he had been killed by David’s command or nod; wherefore, to remove this suspicion from them, it was necessary for him to honour Abner highly in his funeral. So Abulensis, Salianus and others.