Chapter 1
An Amalekite comes to David's camp, and tells David that Saul and Jonathan are dead.  David asks how he knows.  The Amalekite claims to have killed Saul himself, at Saul's request, and he's brought Saul's crown and armlet to David.  (But in 1 Samuel, it says that Saul fell on his own sword, so the Amalekite is not being 100% truthful.)

2025 - What was an Amalekite doing in Saul's camp anyway?  It was the Amalekites from whom David had just recovered his wives and the wives and children of all his men.  These were no friends of Israel - they would plague Israel for many years yet to come.  Why would he come to David and make such a claim?

David and his men tear their clothes and mourn.  Then David confronts the messenger, and asks him where he gets off killing God's anointed?  By his own words, the Amalekite has condemned himself.  David has the messenger killed.  Wonder if this is where "killing the messenger" came from?
The rest of the chapter is a lament for Saul and Jonathan.  The phrase "how the mighty have fallen" is repeated a couple of times in the ESV.  Older translations render it "how have the mighty fallen".

Chapter 2
David asks God whether he should return to Judah, and God says yes.  David asks where he should go, and God says Hebron. David and his men go, and he is anointed king there.  This verse:
4 And the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. Then they told David, "It was the men of Jabesh-gilead who buried Saul," [2Sa 2:4 ESV]
So it says David was anointed king only over Judah - his own tribe - at this time.  They weren't really making him king of all Israel, only of their tribe and the land that belonged to Judah.  How many times does Jabesh-Gilead show up in the Bible?  That town is so prominent.  It is a place I would want to go if I ever go to Israel.  David sends them a message thanking them for recovering Saul's body, and tells them he is now anointed King of Judah and intends only good for Jabesh-Gilead.

However, Abner, Saul's bodyguard that David had publicly shamed when he took Saul's water pot from the camp, makes Ish-bosheth King over some of the southern territory and over all of Israel in the north.  
2021 - Did anyone ask how Abner survived when the King and his three sons and so many others were killed?  Where was Abner at that time?  Also, I don't remember Ish-bosheth being mentioned before.   Saul had three sons earlier, but Ishbosheth was not named as the fourth.  So where did he come from?   Checked this.  The first mention of Ish-bosheth is in 2Sam 2:8.  No idea of his origins.  But we do know he is 40 years old.  If I am not mistaken, Saul reigned for about 40 years.  So Ish-bosheth would have been very early.  But he is not mentioned with Jonathan and the other two sons at any point.

This lasts two years.  (Doesn't say what happens after that yet...).  David rules Judah from Hebron for 7 1/2 years.

Abner comes to fight at Gibeon.  The battle is fierce, but David's army, under Joab, wins.  This is worded strangely.  It is almost like they each chose 12 men to fight each other, and it seems to be that all 24 died, because of simultaneous sword thrusts.  Indeed, MSB says the contest was proposed to avoid the battle, but instead, since they all were killed in even matches, it just excited the blood lust of those on both sides, and a fierce battle ensued.

Joab is commander of David's army.  He has two brothers, Abishai and Asahel.  All three are at this battle.  Asahel is a fast runner, and sets his sights on killing Abner and taking his stuff.  Abner tells him twice to go away, but Asahel refuses.  So Abner hits Asahel in the stomach with the butt of his spear, and it goes all the way through Asahel, and he dies.  I thought maybe dying this way was a disgrace, and since Abner did it, maybe that was why Joab comes to hate him so much, as we will see later.  But MSB says nothing like that.  In those days, killing the one who killed  your brother might well have been almost a requirement.

Chapter 3
1 There was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David. And David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul became weaker and weaker. [2Sa 3:1 ESV]

2022 - It doesn't really tell us how long this went on, but long enough for David to have six sons, each with a different mother, while he lived in relative safety as King of Judah - but only Judah - in Hebron.  There had to be ongoing military operations also during this time - that's what a war is about.  So for years at least, you had Jews killing Jews, and civil war.  

As the war drags on, Ish-bosheth accuses Abner of consorting with one of Saul's concubines.  It is not clear whether Abner did so, but he is angry at being accused, and in his anger tells Ish-bosheth that he, Abner, is now going to help David be King.  Ish-bosheth is afraid of him, and does nothing.  Abner has become the real head of Israel.  MSB says that a man going into the dead King's concubine is like saying "I am the true heir to the kingdom".  So by doing this, Abner was elevating himself from commander of the army to a contender for rule over the kingdom.  Abner is ambitious, and is gaining in power, and is being an open challenger to Ish-bosheth.  Further, he tells Ish-bosheth that were it not for him (Abner), Ish-bosheth would not be king anyway.  When Ish-bosheth confronts Abner with the things he has been doing, Abner gets angry, and swears that he is now switching sides and will help David remove Ish-bosheth from the thrown.  Seems quite rash.  With David on the throne, Abner will have a stronger man to contend with for the throne he is after.

2022 - This verse shows Abner's real feelings:
8 Then Abner was very angry over the words of Ish-bosheth and said, "Am I a dog's head of Judah? To this day I keep showing steadfast love to the house of Saul your father, to his brothers, and to his friends, and have not given you into the hand of David. And yet you charge me today with a fault concerning a woman. [2Sa 3:8 ESV].  He loves the house of Saul, but he is specific about just exactly who he loves in that house:  Saul's brothers and Saul's friends....and by the way, I have protected you too, even though I don't include you in those I love.  Pretty sure Abner is guilty as charged.  He's barking pretty loud.  And then he promises to commit treason and put Ishbosheth off the throne and put David there instead.  But he doesn't just kill Ish.  He stomps out to go and "leverage" his services to King David.

Abner contacts David and says that he can deliver Israel to him if David will covenant with him, and not with Ish-bosheth.  David agrees, but puts a stip on it.  Abner must bring Michal, Saul's daughter and David's wife whom Saul gave to another, with him.  
2022 - Why did David require this?  Some kind of tying loose ends now that he is king?  Some guy out there somewhere in Israel is sleeping with King David's first wife.  Yes, put that way, this needed to be corrected.

Then David contacts Ish-bosheth, asking that Michal be sent to him.  Ish-bosheth takes her from her "husband" and sends her, with her husband crying behind her all the way.  Abner sends the husband home. 
(So Abner knows that David contacted Ish-bosheth directly also concerning Michal.)

Abner and twenty men come to meet David at Hebron.  Abner says he will bring all of Benjamin and Israel under David's rule.  He leaves in peace.
Joab and some raiders arrive.  Joab is upset that David let Abner leave in peace, and says Abner was just spying on David.  Joab and Abner both seem discontented with their roles in their respective kingdoms, and they both seem to think they are in charge of their kings, instead of the other way around.  We will see Joab's ambitions even more plainly later.

In secret, Joab sends men after Abner and they bring him back.  Joab kills him by striking him in the stomach, as Abner had killed Asahel, Joab's brother (though Asahel had several chances to just leave Abner alone.)  

When David hears of it, he pronounces the following curse on the house of Joab:
29 May it fall upon the head of Joab and upon all his father's house, and may the house of Joab never be without one who has a discharge or who is leprous or who holds a spindle or who falls by the sword or who lacks bread!" [2Sa 3:29 ESV]
Seems to me that pronouncing a curse like this on your commander, and then keeping that commander around, would be a horrible idea.  Better to execute him for his crime...except that killing the one who killed your brother was not a crime but an obligation...

David orders Judah to bury Abner with honors, and mourns for him until sundown.  David says this about Abner:
33 And the king lamented for Abner, saying, "Should Abner die as a fool dies? 34 Your hands were not bound; your feet were not fettered; as one falls before the wicked you have fallen." And all the people wept again over him. [2Sa 3:33-34 ESV]

2022 - These moves by David were, at least in part, to persuade those that Abner had persuaded in Israel and Benjamin that David did not at all condone what Joab had done to Abner.  David knows that they may see this as treachery on David's part, and so withdraw their promised support for him as their King.  They might go back to Ishbosheth, and the war would have continued.  So David made a great show of honoring Abner, though it was in fact Abner that put Ishbosheth on the throne to start with, and it was Abner that has been conducting the war against David.  The risk for David is in antagonizing his own general, Joab, just when he needs him most!

2024 - Abner was no saint.  He is already in trouble for "going in" to Saul's concubine, which we shall see later, when Solomon becomes King, is a way of indirectly claiming a right to the throne that Ishbosheth occupied.  He is acting the traitor to Ish.  Abner is not a good man, not really.  Joab is not a good man either, as we shall see as time passes.  A big deal was made of the fact that Abner urged Asahel repeatedly to just leave him alone, but Asahel continued, and he died for his persistence.  Perhaps in the eyes of David, this made Abner an honorable man...but he was all that honorable.  This incident, with Joab embarrassing the King before the whole country by killing a man who'd gone from David in peace, is the beginning of a very testy relationship between the King and his commanding general.  It all gets resolved when Solomon becomes King, and Joab dies like a coward.  

Chapter 4
Ish-bosheth's courage fails him when he hears that Abner is dead.  After all, it was only because of Abner that he remained in power.  Two raiding party captains come to Ish-bosheth's house (palace?), pretend they want wheat from inside, and instead stab Ish-bosheth in the stomach, cut off his head, and then they flee.  
We also learn about Mephibosheth, a son of Saul who's nurse secrets him away, but he falls and goes lame during the flight.
The two captains take the head of Ish-bosheth - Saul's own son - to David in Hebron.  Idiots.  
Sure enough, David reminds them what happened to the messenger who claimed to have killed Saul, and points out that they deserve even worse for killing a righteous man in his own house as he lays on his bed.  He calls them wicked, and has them killed.  Their hands and feet are cut off, and they are hanged.

2022 - More raiding parties.  We saw earlier in the Chapter that Joab had been out raiding and brought home lots of spoil, and now in the north, two raiding parties.  Were they sniping at each other, or raiding nearby towns outside Israel and Judah?  Is this how these kings were financing their operations - through raiding rather than taxation?  That must have been a difficult time.  Being king with no king's treasury and dependent on spreading terror far and wide for your living expenses.

So, a LOT of things go on in these first four chapters.  This seems right as these chapters cover the "regime change" from the house of Saul - whom Abner wants to see succeeded by his son, after the manner of most kingdoms - to the house of David, whom God has anointed as the new royal line.  One would expect much violence, intrigue, and positioning to take place, and that is exactly what happens.

Chapter 5
We go back to the historical narrative here.
The elders of all Israel came to David in Hebron and anointed him King over them all.  He reigned 7.5 years from Hebron and from Jerusalem 33 years.  He became King of all Israel at the age of 30, and died at the age of 70.
David has to fight to take Jerusalem from the Jebusites, who were still in the land.  They taunted David that their blind and lame could hold off his army.  It didn't work out that way.  The King of Tyre sent labor and materials and built David a house.  God blessed David's kingdom.  When the King is right with God, the nation prospers.

The Philistines find out David is now King.  Twice they come against him, twice God grants David the victory.  The Philistines are thoroughly whipped...but not wiped completely out.

Chapter 6
The Ark is moved to Jerusalem.  It takes two tries.  Uzzah is killed when he touches the Ark to steady it.  David is angry at God about this, and also this verse:
9 And David was afraid of the LORD that day, and he said, "How can the ark of the LORD come to me?" [2Sa 6:9 ESV]  
The story here is very similar to the previously read version.  I don't see many differences at all.
2021 - I note that David is not only angry, but decides to just leave the ark where it is.  He sees God's action as sort of an "effect without cause", and refuses to flirt further with unpredictable consequences.  He just goes on home, sort of  goes home to pout.  David is just a man, just like the rest of us.  He set out to do a good thing, and bring the Ark of God to the City of God, and then there's this mishap - no one's fault really - and David decides to just forget it.  Let God get His own ark home if he wants it home!
2023 - I had not noticed before that the cart drivers were the sons of Abinadab, who had apparently been keeping the ark since the Philistines brought it back , per this verse:  1 And the men of Kiriath-jearim came and took up the ark of the LORD and brought it to the house of Abinadab on the hill. And they consecrated his son Eleazar to have charge of the ark of the LORD. [1Sa 7:1 ESV].  So the Ark had been kept safe here at Abinadab's for quite some time, and his sons "volunteer" to help move it.  It would have made sense for them to do so.  And then one of them, Uzzah, dies trying to take care of the ark when the oxen stumble.  No wonder David was upset.  And yet...you DO NOT TOUCH the ark!  God takes care of what is His.  And wasn't there a precedent for this?  I think someone else had also died for touching the ark.  Maybe not though...
One might say the lesson was that we are not to usurp God's sovereignty over what is his own...but that would be everything.  We could say don't interfere with God's plan, but everything that happens is His plan.  Only the high priest could touch/care for the items in the Holy of Holies.  The requirement was clear, the penalty was clear.  So if there is a lesson here, is it about fearing God, and fearing the consequences of not fearing God.  Uzzah may have been rewarded in heaven for taking care of the ark for so long, but on earth, he broke a rule that required his death.

After three months, they try a second time and get it to the tent David prepared for it.  The details of this second attempt are not as complete as the other version.  
2021 - This happens after David hears that the place where he left the Ark is being blessed by its presence.  Perhaps this tells him that God is no longer angry, either about Uzzah or about David's pouting.  So David once again moves the Ark.  I suspect everyone involved is far more respectful of the Ark this time.  
The Ark is brought to a tent David had prepared for it.  So the  tabernacle must have been abandoned and left in Shiloh at this time.   Surely the temple utensils and such were moved.  They almost had to be.   This verse:
17 And they brought in the  ark of the LORD and set it in its place, inside the tent that David had  pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings  before the LORD. [2Sa 6:17 ESV]
2021 - How was it ok for David to make these offerings?  He was not a Levite.  We can infer that he was still wearing that linen ephod mentioned in vs 14, which identified him somewhat as part of the priesthood...but he was not a Levite. (I see that this bothered me before in the comment below.)
As they are coming in, Michal, Saul's daughter now David's wife, sees him dancing before the ark and she is offended by this.
The Ark is delivered to the tent and this says David offered the sacrifices.  I suspect that he ordered them, and  the priests carried them out.  David offered them in the sense that they  were "from" David, not physically burnt by him personally.  No MSB  comment on it though.  David gives everyone - man and woman - some bread, some meat and some raisins.  A very generous thing to feed the whole city and those from outside the city who were in attendance.  

After making the offerings, David goes home.
It does say, clearly, that David was wearing a linen ephod as he danced  before the Ark.  He was not naked.  God wouldn't have stood for that.   He had required that the priests always wear undergarments, so as not to  offend God.  
Michal "despised him in her heart", that is, despised David, for his  dancing in public.  It was more about him donning priestly attire  instead of royal robes as he went before the Ark.  She believed he had  demeaned himself.  The MSB note says she thought the dancing was beneath  the dignity of a King because it "exposed him in some ways".  

It reads as if Michal meets David at the door as he gets home.  She confronts David for "uncovering" himself before the people, especially the female servants.  The MSB note says this refers to him wearing priestly instead of royal attire.  Her words do NOT mean that David was dancing nude in the streets.  David says it was before the Lord, and that God chose him as King, over Michal's father.  There is this:
22 I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor." [2Sa 6:22 ESV]
David is not ashamed, and in fact, says it is her attitude that is the problem.  She has no more children after this incident.  It doesn't say she was made barren so it could mean that David never slept with her again after this.  Per MSB note, whatever the case was, she had no children, and therefore no descendants from Saul that could make a claim to the throne of David.  (But what about Mephibosheth, who comes later?  Disqualified because he is lame maybe?)

MSB says that David was hoping his house would be blessed as Obed-edom's had while the Ark was there.  Michal's attitude aborted that blessing until 2 Sam. 7:29.

Chapter 7
David wants to build God a house because David lives in a house but the Ark is in a tent.  David tells Nathan about this, and Nathan tells him to build the house.  God tells Nathan that very night that this is not to be.  God says He is fine as is for now, but God makes a covenant with David to make one who came from David's body king after him, who will establish David's throne forever, and who will himself build that house for God.
2021 - This is the Davidic Covenant, superimposed...no, separate from...any previous covenant.  This is between God and David.
12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.'" [2Sa 7:12-16 ESV]
2021 - Note that a lot of this Davidic covenant is specifically about Solomon, and anticipates Solomon's fall.  BUT, God won't "break the line of David" as he did that of Saul.  And  once beyond Solomon, somewhere down the line, David's kingdom will be established forever.  The wording though, leaves plenty of room for the Age of the Gentiles.
God reveals all this to Nathan the prophet, who tells David.  This goes through vs. 17.
Beginning in 18 is the prayer of gratitude from David to God.

Chapter 8
In 2 Sam 7, God promised a descendant of David on the throne forever.  This chapter opens with "After this..." in the ESV, so that gives a time stamp, though not a very precise one.  David defeats the Philistines, and takes Metheg-ammah from them.  Here is an interesting explanation of the word:
METHEG-AMMAH
me-theg-am'-a,  meth-eg-am'-a (mathegh ha-'ammah, "bridle of the metropolis"; Septuagint  ten aphorismenen): It is probable that the place-name Metheg-Ammah in 2 Samuel 8:1 the King James Version should be rendered as in the Revised Version (British and American), "the bridle of the mother city," i.e. Gath, since we find in the parallel passage in 1 Chronicles 18:1  gath ubhenotheha, "Gath and her daughters," i.e. daughter towns. The  Septuagint has an entirely different reading: "and David took the  tribute out of the hand of the Philistines," showing that they had a  different text from what we now have in the Hebrew. The text is  evidently corrupt. If a place is intended its site is unknown, but it  must have been in the Philistine plain and in the vicinity of Gath.
The link is here:  https://bibleatlas.org/metheg-ammah.htm
I have seen VERY FEW places where the words "corrupt text" are used, as it is here.   MSB note takes no notice of the words, other than to say David's first priority was to subdue the Philistines, and that he took their "chief city".
Moab defeated.  David has them lie down in three lines.  He puts two lines to death, and spares the third.  They pay tribute to David after that.  It does not say where these three lines came from.  Survivors of a defeated army?  Prisoners taken during a lengthy campaign?  Residents of a large city?  We don't know.  But we know David had 2/3's of them executed.  MSB says the measuring could mean that David spared the young ones, who were only a cord tall, and executed all the adults.  This was common practice at the time.  Seems very outrageous to us today.

Syria.  He convincingly defeats them when they come to the aid of Hadad-Ezer of Zobah.  They begin paying tribute to Jerusalem and to David.  
He also defeated Edom and put garrisons throughout that land.  The phrase "the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went" shows up twice in the last half of the chapter.  David defeated all of the surrounding countries.  

vss 15-18 are sort of a "who's who" in David's kingdom.  Here are the names:
16 Joab the son of Zeruiah was over the army, and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was recorder, 17 and Zadok the son of Ahitub and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar were priests, and Seraiah was secretary, 18 and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites, and David's sons were priests. [2Sa 8:16-18 ESV]
Many of these names are familiar to me, so we either saw them before or we will be seeing more about them soon.  Joab especially.  The MSB notes on these verses are pretty extensive.  That last phrase about David's sons being priests bothers me.  The MSB note says this translation is from the Hebrew text and that the LXX used the phrase "princes of the court".  He says that 1 Ch 18:17 - the parallel passage - refers to them as "chiefs at the king's side" which supports the non-priest interpretation.  Further, I note that none of this is about doctrine, but is a telling of the historical facts of the time.  

Chapter 9
The story of Mephibosheth.  David searches for a survivor of Saul, and Jonathan's son Mephibosheth is located.  Seems to me that Mephibosheth, as a grandson of the former King, would have a claim to the throne.  Yet David not only lets him live, but restores all of Saul's lands to him, and has him eat in his house.  Keep your enemies closer?  Possibly, but I think it has more to do with the oaths of David and Jonathan to each other.  We will see later that M is not as beholden to David for this as he probably should have been.  Further, Mephibosheth had a son also, named Mica.  Another who could claim the throne.  MSB note says the descendants of Mica are given in 1 Ch 8:35-38; 9:41-44.  I still wonder if M was disqualified as king because of his lameness, and why these others never tried to usurp the kingdom.  

Also, the MSB note at the beginning of this chapter says that the next "chapters" will show that like Saul, David was a failed king, albeit a repentant failed king.  It says that had it not been for the covenant God had already made with David, David too would likely have been removed from the Kingship along with all his heirs.  These "chapters" run all the way to 20:26, and will show the troubles of David's kingship, all of which he brings upon himself.

Chapter 10
Chapter 10 follows the story of David's kindness to Mephibosheth.  We are still early in David's consolidated reign over all Israel.

The King of Ammon dies.  David thinks to befriend the new king, but his leaders poison him against David.  They demean and embarrass the messengers that David sent to offer condolences.  The poisoners call them spies.  David meets them coming back and does not require them to come home until their beards have grown back.  

After this, the nation of Ammon realize that "they are a stench" to David.  So they hire mercenaries - the Syrians - to fight for/with them. When David learns that an army has been raised he sends Joab and the mighty men to deal with it.  The Ammonites form into battle lines...but stay near the gate. They send their mercenaries out into the open field.  Joab has opposing armies in front of him and behind him.  So he puts some under the command of his brother.  There are a few more battles, but ultimately all of Syria - under Hadad-ezer - is defeated, and all those in service to Syria become vassals of David.  The Syrians will no longer help Ammon either.

Chapter 11
Starts this way:
1 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. [2Sa 11:1 ESV]
Chapter 10 ended with the defeat of Ammon's mercenary allies in Syria.  Syria was now afraid to aid Ammon, and that left Ammon to fight alone.  Apparently, David had not forgotten about the way the new king of Ammon had treated his messengers of peace after the death of Hanun's father.  David sends his armies.  Note that they "ravaged" the Ammonites.  The city of Rabbah (modern day Amman, Jordan) is besieged.  But David doesn't go to war. He stays in Jerusalem.
2022 - I wonder...was this springtime attack on Ammon spiteful and vengeful, and maybe the army should have just taken a break this spring?  If they had, Uriah would have been at home.  None of this would have happened.  Was David's first mistake his sense of vengeance in the matter of the consoling ambassadors?

David and Bathsheba.
David sees her, wants her, sends for her.  All these are on him.  Bathsheba is the daughter of Eliam, wife of Uriah.
She comes when David sends for her.  Several translations say that he "sent messengers and took her" as if to say it was not entirely a free choice on her part.  After all, the King himself has sent for her.  Did she really have a choice so that she too is guilty in this?  Note also that it says she had just finished the purification rites following her menstrual period.  She was not pregnant by Uriah before going to see David.  (Uriah didn't go home when David told him what to do.  I think she could have said no.)
2021 - This verse:  4 So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. [2Sa 11:4 ESV]  As I read this today, I don't think she really had much choice.  Here are the possible translations for the word "took" in this verse:  to take, get, fetch, lay hold of, seize, receive, acquire, buy, bring, marry, take a wife, snatch, take away.  There seems to me to be a strong implication of coercion at the least and force is not out of the question.  Add to this that this young wife - presumably childless, possibly very young - is summoned into the presence of a man that has the authority to say "off with her head" if she dares resist him.  At the very very least, David is using his authority to gain sexual favors from Bathsheba.  And it may have been out and out rape.  Maybe that's why she sent him word by messengers, because she was angry about the whole thing.  But...knowing the rest of the story, she seemed positively disposed toward David in the rest of the story, and over the years.  Despite what David did, she was perhaps also swept off her feet.
2023 - There is also the question of why Bathsheba would be bathing - performing the rites of purification after her period - up on a rooftop in the middle of the afternoon.  Was that the procedure?  It hardly seems likely.  There was nothing wrong with her eyesight.  If she could see the roof of David's house, then he could see the roof of her house.  Even so, the Bible never gives us a glimpse of what was really in her head at the time.  Maybe she was just young and stupid - she wouldn't be the first.  Maybe she like to wear short shorts and halter tops with no thought of consequences.  And sure enough, her disdain for modesty and propriety, and her "showing off" her attributes provoked an entirely inappropriate response from a man who had the power and the will to do whatever he wanted.  This version sounds very likely to me this year.  She was showing off, and he got excited, and he took her.

This verse:
5 And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, "I am pregnant." [2Sa 11:5 ESV]
So she didn't go and tell him herself.  She sent a messenger.  Many had to know that she went to the palace to see David.  So there was no real secret here.  But now she sends the pregnancy message, so that is not a secret either...at least not a very well kept secret.
David finds out she is pregnant, and calls her husband.  David is plotting now to cover up his sin, rather than confessing his sin.
Uriah won't go home.
Next, since Uriah felt a strong sense of duty, and would not go home to be with his wife while his fellows camped in the open field, David got him drunk.  Drunkenness lowers one's sense of responsibility.  It makes self-imposed denial seem less restrictive.  David knew this also.
But Uriah does not go home.
So David sends an order to Joab to put Uriah in a hot spot, and then abandon him there to die.  Uriah carries the order for his own death, unknowingly.  Joab, who has no idea what this is about, but only that his King has ordered it, complies.  Is Joab also guilty?  Uriah is certainly dead.
A messenger is instructed to tell David how the fighting is going.  He is told that if David is angry about the tactics, to mention that Uriah is also dead.  When David learns this, he surmises that Joab is angry about having to send good men to be killed, having to order what he also knows are poor tactics.  Joab's men surely know that Joab ordered this pursuit that resulted in the deaths of some good soldiers.  Joab is bearing the shame that should have been David's.  David tells Joab that Uriah might have been killed anyway.  David is making light of Uriah's death, he is saying that all he did was maybe help "fate" along a little bit.
Bathsheba mourns for the appropriate time.  David sends for her, marries her, and she gives him a son.
All seems well, David has gotten away with this, and there is little if any suspicion thrown on him.  Still...a few people must have known, besides Joab and the servants of Bathsheba.  Then there is the last sentence in the chapter...
"...But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord."  2 Samuel 11:27b
Whatever may have seemed hushed up as far as various messengers and servants and soldiers were concerned, these events were never ever a secret to God.  It is unwise ever to believe that any sin is without consequences.  Or that the consequences will not fit the crime.

Chapter 12
God's first step in response to David's sin is to send Nathan the prophet to David.  Nathan tells David the story of a rich man who steals and serves a poor man's lamb.  A beloved lamb, raised in the family as we raise pets today.  David is incensed about the death of this little lamb, and orders the lamb restored four fold.  (NKJV says David said the man "shall surely die".  ESV says he "deserves to die".  Literal translation says the man "is a son of death".  My guess is that David did not pronounce a death sentence on the man.  It might have been necessary for that to be carried out.  David would have condemned himself to death.  Since that isn't how it plays out, and since he says the theft is to be repaid, we should think of this as what David thought should be done, but not what the law required.  I am sure I would like to see severe punishment on the people licking the Blue Bell Ice cream at the store and putting it back.  But my punishment is more severe than what the law says.

The next verses tell first why David's sin is so terrible in God's sight, and then tell about the consequences to David.  The consequences last a lifetime.
1.  The sword shall never depart from your house.  Violence and death on David and those he loves.
2.  Evil will rise against David from his own house.
3.  His wives will be taken from him in plain sight.  Not secret adultery, but stolen wives in plain sight.
4.  His neighbor will get his wives and lie with them, not in secret, but with the full knowledge of all Israel.  The whole country will know that other men are openly sleeping with David's wives, and that David was powerless to prevent it, and is still powerless to stop it.  What a crushing, awful thing to live with.  Unable to protect those you love, and laughed at by your enemies because of your weakness.  And this was to go on and on.  This reads as if David is to be disgraced as a king and as a man for the remainder of his life.  Many of the Psalms about enemies laughing, and asking that they be silenced and that God avenge David on them may in fact have to do with the removal of this curse.  Maybe David believed that there would be an end to this curse, that eventually God would consider the consequences adequate to the crime.  But I don't know that he ever did.  But God "puts away" Davids sin, and David does not die.  Having your sin forgiven does not, however, release you from the consequences of your sin.  David accepts the just punishment of God.

The child of adultery gets sick, as would be expected from this verse:
14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die." [2Sa 12:14 ESV]

David fasts and prays that he will get well.  The child dies.  This is frightening.  That little child died because of what David and Bathsheba had done.  God removed his shielding of David's family, but the verse above says it was God's will that the child would die.  This consequence to a little child was God's own doing.  No other way to read it.  MSB does not address it other than to say God would begin his judgement with the death of Bathsheba's baby son.  Perhaps we can get a little more "explanation" for why the child died from the phrasing in the NKJV:
14 "However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also [who is] born to you shall surely die." [2Sa 12:14 NKJV]
All knew what David had done, and that it was an affront to God himself.  Lest the enemies of Israel think that the God of Israel had been made the fool in all this, something very drastic - something very public - was needed.  And that public vindication from God was the horrible, terrible, consequence of a dead child.

After the child dies, David gets up, goes to church, and asks for something to eat.  His servants are astonished.  David's reply is in 12:23b:
23 ...I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." [2Sa 12:23b ESV]  David knows that he will meet this son again, but not on this earth.  What will he say to that son when he meets him?  What will we say to those we didn't tell about Jesus?   What will we say to those we know and see every day that we never got around to inquiring about their souls?  Think they won't blame us?

2023 - Here is a most astounding thing, and it amazes me that I had not heard anyone say it until I read one of the chapters in Systematic Theology by Grudem.  This child died unsaved.  The child was born, but died as an infant, and David says that he will see that child again.  "I shall go to him...".  This seems to be profound evidence that babies don't go to hell.  The child dies on the seventh day.  On the eighth day, he would have been circumcised.  I do not think that this external ritual is what determines the age at which a child is held responsible for their actions.  I think it is more individual than that, but even if not, there is that verses where the youngsters below a certain age in the wilderness would get to go into Canaan, though their parents would die.  Here is that verse:  39 And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. [Deu 1:39 ESV].  Having no knowledge of good and evil would seem to suggest an age of accountability.

((((People who have decided to hate God because they resent his authority over them, will continue to hate Him, in fact may hate Him even more, when He demonstrates that the last word is always His.  When he demonstrates that all power is His, and that there is no defense against the consequences that He sends for sin.  In Revelation, there are lost people who know beyond a doubt that the worldwide death and disaster is coming directly from God.  They know that God exists, and that He is dispensing His justice, and that He has the power to do it against all attempts to mitigate it.  And it just makes them madder.  They are not atheists.  They know God is real.  They "believe" in God, and they understand His position.  And still they rage against Him.  We shouldn't be surprised when we encounter this same attitude today.))))

Bathsheba has a second son, Solomon.  God loves this son, and calls him Jedidiah - Beloved of the Lord.  

Rabbah, the capital city of Ammon, has been weakened enough to fall, so Joab has David come and lead the final attack.  Joab wants David to have the glory for this conquest.  David does so, and brings out a huge amount of spoil from the city.  The rest of Ammon's cities also fall in due time.

Chapter 13
Tamar is the sister of Absalom.  Amnon, another of David's sons, and presumably half brother of Tamar, begins to obsess about her.  Jonadab, a nephew of David's, and very crafty man, learns of Amnon's obsession and offers him a plan to seduce her.  So David's nephew is helping one of David's sons seduce/rape the sister of another of David's sons.  The curse in 12:11 comes to pass quickly.  It said in part "11 Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house... [2Sa 12:11a ESV]
The plan works.  David comes to see the ailing Amnon, who is basically lying to his father about the whole thing, and then includes his Father - the King - in the plot to rape Tamar.  This is a sick situation.  Perhaps David's unknowing complicity in the events makes him hesitate even more about dispensing justice later to Amnon.  When Amnon tries to force her, she begs him to go to David, as she is sure David will give his daughter Tamar to his son Amnon.  I don't see how that wouldn't be a bad thing too, but at least it wouldn't be rape.  But Amnon will not be prevented, will not wait, will not even try to be legitimate.  He rapes Tamar.
After he is done with her, he hates her more than he loved her before and tries to send her away.  She says that will be worse than the rape, but he has her thrown out of his house and bolts the door behind her.  She ends up living as a "desolate woman" in Absalom's house.  Absalom won't speak to Amnon, but hates him. 
David is also angry about these events.  There is a note in the TCR that the Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint add the words "But he would not punish his son Amnon, because he loved him, since he was his firstborn."  This explains a lot.  No wonder Absalom was plotting murder.  Justice was not done..
Two full years later, Absalom gets all of David's sons together in one place.  When Amnon is intoxicated, Absalom has his servants kill him.  This frightens all the other brothers - probably thinking Absalom is making a play for the crown - and they all flee.
News travels faster, and David is told that Absalom indeed killed all of David's sons.  David is distraught, but Jonadab appears again to tell David that only Amnon is dead.  Interesting that Jonadab was in on the plot to rape Tamar in the first place, and was now privy to Absalom's plan to avenge her with murder.  I wonder if Jonadab's father, Shimeah, was extremely jealous of his brother David?
vvs 37-39 are a little confusing, and the TCR notes make it more so.  It is clear that Absalom fled to Geshur, and was there in hiding for three years.  Then it says David mourned for his son day after day...but which son is he mourning?  The dead rapist or the fleeing murderer?  Hard to know...
Verse 39 says this:
39 And the spirit of the king longed to go out to Absalom, because he was comforted about Amnon, since he was dead. [2Sa 13:39 ESV]
A TCR note says Vulgate is written "ceased to go out", not longed to go out.  So was David anxious to go see Absalom, or no longer cared to go see Absalom?  And was David glad that justice had finally come about, even though it was technically murder by another hand?  What seems to make the best sense is that David wanted to see Absalom, and absolve him of murder, because what he did needed to be done, though David himself couldn't bring himself to order it, as a King should have!  (First vs of 14 seems to confirm this interpretation.)

Chapter 14
Joab knows David wants to bring Absalom home, and hatches yet another plot, this one with a wise woman of Tekoa.  She tells David a tall tale that her sons fought and one killed the other, and now the "avenger of blood" wants her to turn over the remaining son so the murder can be avenged.  David tells her he will protect her, even from this avenger.
She then points out that in letting her guilty son go free, David is guilty, because he will not allow his own son to go free.  David pins her down as to whether Joab put her up to this, and she rolls over.

2024 - How have I not seen this before!?
‭2 Samuel 14:14 NASB1995‬
[14] For we will surely die and are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away life, but plans ways so that the banished one will not be cast out from him. 
The last half of this especially.  God's justice stated quite plainly by the woman of Tekoa, though Joab's words.  We can always come back.  God makes His plans to bring us back!  This is a FB post for 6/17/24 Monday

(2021 - Joab is summoned, and because the king has decided to overlook this murder of one son on the other, Joab sees himself as "honored" by the king for his suggestion.  "I know I have found favor in your sight" is how he words it.  Maybe Joab and Absalom are closer than we're told...but doesn't Joab end up being the one that kills Absalom later???"  And why did David suspect Joab in the first place?  There is a lot of royal innuendo going on here that I don't really understand.)
David calls Joab in, and sends him to get Absalom.  But Absalom is required to live apart, in his own house, and not come to see David.

(2021 - While living in "local exile", Absalom has three sons and a daughter.  He names the daughter Tamar, after his sister who was raped, and whom he avenged with murder.  It is like he is proclaiming that he is very proud to have killed his brother, and wants the memory of the event in front of him at all times through this daughter.  What a bold, in your face, statement of disobedience!  Absalom is NOT a good son.)
After two years, Absalom summons Joab to him to deliver a message to the King.  (2021 - Absalom sends for Joab twice without success.  So the third time, Absalom has his servants set Joab's crops on fire!  This Joab is an expert on power and hierarchies.  He most certainly considers himself higher in the power structure than Absalom, though Absalom is the King's own son!)  Joab finally comes, and Absalom says he was better off in Geshur than in exile right there in town.  He wants to see David, and if there is guilt in him, David can have him put to death.
So Absalom is summoned to David, and David accepts him. 
So now a murderer is living in the open with the King's sanction in the capital city of Israel.  And everyone knows the whole story.

Chapter 15
Absalom sets himself up as a judge, and dispenses favors to those with disputes by playing favorites.  (2021 - He is usurping the authority of the King by dispensing corruption to those who will then owe him a favor.  He is doing the Godfather thing in Israel.  Both Joab and David had to have known about this.  Such a public thing could not have been secret for long.  Yet apparently, nothing is done to stop it.)  Once many people owe him favors, Absalom gets David's permission to go to Hebron - to separate himself from David and those loyal to David.  

2024 - ‭2 Samuel 15:7 NASB1995‬
[7] Now it came about at the end of forty years that Absalom said to the king, “Please let me go and pay my vow which I have vowed to the Lord, in Hebron. 
Most translatioms say 40 here, but a few, including EDV, call it 4.  It surely cannot be 40...David would have been dead?  Or he may have been very old.  Hmmm...maybe that's why nothing was done.  The word translated is surely 40 so the thing to do is see how similar in Hebrew are 4 and 40.  See if it could be a transcription error...but if so, why wouldn't they fix it?  Note in BLB says in Hebrew, it is 40, but in Syriac and the Septuagint, it is 4.

David initially ruled from Hebron when he was ruler over Judah and Benjamin only, during the days before the kingdom was united.  So Hebron would be seen as kind of a capitol city.  He takes 200 men with him, who don't know that Absalom intends to have himself declared King in Hebron.  These 200 men make it look like David is "sharing" the kingdom with Absalom, because David is growing old.  
This verse:
12 And while Absalom was offering the sacrifices, he sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's counselor, from his city Giloh. And the conspiracy grew strong, and the people with Absalom kept increasing. [2Sa 15:12 ESV]
Ahithophel is Bathsheba's grandfather, and may have been harboring a grudge against David, though he was in a position as David's advisor.  This also reinforces the legitimacy of Absalom's claims, since a close personal advisor of David is also now with Absalom in Hebron.  Absalom should not have been offering sacrifices in Hebron, however.  That should only have been done in Jerusalem.

Upon learning all this, David flees Jerusalem.  He does not want the restored and beautified city to be ruined in a war between he and Absalom.  
(2021 - But is David over-reacting to Absalom?  Absalom doesn't really have an army capable of besieging Jerusalem, he only has a few hundred men?  Before, we have seen David stop to ask God what he should do even when most would think the course of action obvious.  But this time, we have no indication that David checked with God at all.  Or perhaps he did, and God is still withdrawn because of the sin with Bathsheba and the consequences that were promised?  In any case, this seems like over-reaction.)

30 But David went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went, barefoot and with his head covered. And all the people who were with him covered their heads, and they went up, weeping as they went. [2Sa 15:30 ESV]
See notes on this elsewhere.............

David hears that Ahithophel is with the conspirators.  So maybe David doesn't realize that the 200 don't know what is afoot.  But David prays that Ahithophel's advice to Absalom will be foolish advice.

David enlists an old friend's help as a spy for him in the palace of Absalom.  The friend's name is Hushai.  He is to communicate with David through the sons of Zadok the high priest.  Hushai agrees, and gets back to Jerusalem just as Absalom is entering.

(2021 - Conspiracy and counter-conspiracy are the order of the day.  So much intrigue is being put into place.  David does pray, and it seems God is with him, but still...things are very much in question.)

Chapter 16
As David is leaving, Ziba, the servant to Mephibosheth, brings David two donkeys and some food.  David asks where Mephibosheth - Jonathan's son that David sought out, gave all the property that belonged to Saul and Jonathan to, and fed daily in his own house - is at that time.  Ziba says Mephibosheth stayed in Jerusalem, believing that now, Israel will make Mephibosheth King, since he is the only surviving heir to King Saul.  Totally ungrateful.  David tells Ziba that all that had belonged to Mephibosheth is now his.  This would make a good post.  Like Mephibosheth, when God gives us uncountable blessings that we can never repay, we feel no obligation to the giver, but follow our own ambitions.  Is this also a type for Israel, being given the best God offers, then rejecting His law and His Son, and all that was given to Israel is now given to the Gentiles?

11 And David said to Abishai and to all his servants, "Behold, my own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjaminite! Leave him alone, and let him curse, for the LORD has told him to. 12 It may be that the LORD will look on the wrong done to me, and that the LORD will repay me with good for his cursing today." [2Sa 16:11-12 ESV]
The Benjamite was cursing David and his party continually, throwing rocks at them and dirt.  A continual stream of profanity directed at them from Shimei.  He calls David a man of blood.  At first it might seem like this is about the murder of Uriah, and maybe it partly is.  But the man doing the cursing, Shimei, is a relative of Saul's, through his father's house.  Maybe not a close relative, but of the same tribe and house.
When things start to go wrong, don't expect any breaks from those who didn't care for you in the first place.  But...be patient.  The blessing for taking what God has decreed with patience and without reacting out of pride may yet appear.

As this is happening, Absalom and Ahithophel enter Jerusalem.  Hushai presents himself.  Ahithophel counsels Absalom to "go in" to the concubines David left to take care of the house.  In the sight of all Israel.  Everyone was aware that Absalom was "in" with David's women.  Just as God's curse had said in Chapter 12.  At this time in Israel, Ahithophel's counsel was considered to be from God, to both Absalom and David.

Chapter 17
Ahithophel asks for 12,000 men to pursue David and those with him that very night.  He says he will kill only David, and bring the others back.  Absalom calls Hushai and asks him if he agrees.  Hushai does not, and makes a good case for waiting, gathering a very huge army, and pursuing David with them, and with Absalom himself in charge.  This way David and all those loyal to him can be killed to a man.  They all decide to take Hushai's advice.  This advice seems more sound to me also...
BUT, it says that God had ordained for the counsel of Ahithophel (which was after all the best plan) to be defeated so God could bring harm upon Absalom.

Once Hushai's advice is accepted, he sends word to David warning him to go ahead and cross the Jordan immediately, before dawn, so that David and his men cannot be penned against the river by the coming army.

When Ahithophel finds out his advice has been over ruled, he gets on a donkey, goes home, and hangs himself.  I am guessing that Ahithophel knew that following Hushai's advice would result in a victory for David, and that it wouldn't be long until David avenged himself on Ahithophel for his desertion to Absalom.  Lots and lots of intrigue.  No rest, no peace any more for David.  (Ahithophel was Bathsheba's grandfather I believe.)

Chapter 18
David's men march out to do battle with Absalom's men.  David asks them to be gentle with Absalom.  I think he means to capture Absalom but not to kill him.  Everyone hears David make this request.  Battle is joined, and 20,000 men die.  This is civil war.  There is this verse:
8 The battle spread over the face of all the country, and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword. [2Sa 18:8 ESV]  I am not sure what this means.  It must have been a pretty terrifying forest...or a pretty terrible place to have a pitched battle.  MSB indicates it was a very dense forest, but that doesn't really explain it.
Absalom is spotted by David's men and flees on his donkey.  His hair is caught in tree branches, and he is hanging there, helpless.  Joab is informed.

Joab puts three javelins into Absalom.  Seems he makes sure none of these is a mortal wound.  They were just to cause Absalom pain.  Then Joab's 10 armor bearers surround Absalom and kill him.  It says they struck him, so this could have been done with clubs or some other kind of painful, drawn out death.  A bad end by any reckoning.  (MSB says the javelins of Joab killed Absalom, and the armor bearers hit Absalom to make sure he was dead.  So it was Joab that disobeyed the king.)  Then Joab recalls his men, stopping the battle.  Absalom's body is thrown into a pit and covered with stones.  This symbolized that a criminal or enemy was buried there.  

Two runners from Joab go to inform David.  Joab doesn't want the second to go, because Absalom is dead and the King will surely ask.  But he finally consents.  The second runner, Joab's son?, gets there first.  He tells David the battle is won, but feigns ignorance as to Absalom's fate.  The second runner tells David the battle is won AND that Absalom is dead.  David weeps bitterly for his son.  I don't know why he would, but that's what it says.  David even says he'd have preferred to die instead of Absalom.

All these events - David leaving Jerusalem, Absalom entering, the blessing of Ziba and the cursing of Shimei, and the battle of David and Absalom's armies - seem to be in a pretty compressed time period.  I somehow had the idea this was dragged out over years, but now it seems like only days.  Absalom waited two years before killing his brother, hid for three years from David, came home for like 5 years gaining allies and plotting against David, and then a very short time period after he acted, he died.  Our prayers can be like that.  Seems we pray them forever, and never see any progress, and then in a day sometimes, all is answered.

Chapter 19
Joab pretty severely rebukes David for his loud public mourning.  Joab tells him that those who fought for the king that day saved the lives of all the rest of David's family, yet he mourns for Absalom.  This verse:
6 because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you... [2Sa 19:6a ESV]
Seems like Joab was taking a big chance addressing a King this way.  Especially given that Joab is the very one that killed Absalom, against David's orders, and as such should be the one David hates.  I don't see big Joab mentioning this part of the day's events.  MSB says that when Joab says "go speak kindly to the men, or a worse evil than you have ever known will come upon you", David recognized it as a thinly veiled threat from the commander of his armies.  Joab after all had no remorse for killing Absalom.  He might also kill David.  So David goes out.

David is not immediately invited back to Jerusalem as King.  Danger is still there.  David sends word via Zadok and Abiathar to persuade the elders of Israel to invite him back.  AND, David tells one Amasa that if David comes back, Amasa will be the commander of the army in Joab's place.  Amasa was the man Absalom had set over his armies in Joab's place, to lead the fight against David and Joab.  Let us not forget that Amasa lost this battle.  Let us also not forget that Joab is the kind of man who will remember that Amasa took authority on himself against Joab, and fought against him.  Amasa is likely worried about his life, and David offers to put Amasa in charge!  Very shrewd.  David knows what is going on with Joab.  
2021 - This is a message to Joab even though David does not yet know - so far as the text tells us - that Joab is the one who killed Absalom.  But David knows that Joab threatened to kill him, or in some way discredit him.  Seems to me that Joab would have grabbed another of David's sons and promoted him to King had David not gone out.  David was wise enough not to swell up and react in the moment, but seems to be "dividing" the loyalty of the military in order to lessen Joab's influence there.

Shimei, the Benjamite who ran along cursing David as he left Jerusalem, telling David he was getting what he deserved, is the first to apologize.  David forgives him, and does not have him killed.  Mephibosheth is next.  He claims that Ziba lied about him, took the mules, and came to David, leaving Mephibosheth behind - though he wanted to come with David also.  David splits Saul's holdings between the two men but Mephibosheth says to give it all to Ziba.  Who knows what the real truth was.  The Bible doesn't say.  Perhaps the best clue to the truth is that Mephibosheth had neither trimmed his beard or nails, nor changed clothes since David left.  That seem pretty sincere to me.

As David crosses the Jordan there is infighting between Israel and Judah.  Israel wants David to stay in their part of the country, because they were the first to welcome him back as King, and they are 10 tribes to the 2 in the south.  But Judah says David is a nearer kinsman of theirs and should be in Jerusalem.  Judah prevails because "their words were fiercer".  

Chapter 20
When this happens, a "worthless" man, another Benjamite, blows his horn and incites a revolt of the 10 tribes against David.  Israel indeed does withdraw from David.  So despite coming back to Jerusalem, the kingdom is divided to some extent.  This division didn't start with Jeroboam and Rehoboam.  In fact, it first started when David took over from Saul and Abner set up Saul's son as King.

So David tells Amasa, his new commander, to gather all the men of Israel to him in three days.  Amasa goes out, but he does not come back inside the three days.  David apparently suspects that Amasa has joined Bichri, the worthless guy, and that Israel is plotting against David and Judah, and Amasa - who fought with them as their commander with Absalom - thinks the 10 tribes might be his best bet.
David sends out men to get rid of Sheba son of Bichri, because he is seen as a greater danger than Absalom was.  Joab is in charge of the group that goes.  When they get to a certain town, Amasa comes out to greet them.  Joab "accidentally" drops his sword as he goes forward to greet Amasa.  He picks it up and continues.  He grabs Amasa by the beard, and opens his gut so that Amasa's entrails spill on the ground.  The Bible says Joab did not strike him again, and Amasa died.  Joab murders him, in a very deceitful way, then stands and watches as Amasa dies with his guts in his own hands.  

Joab is a very bad man.

Joab catches up with Sheba in an ancient town.  Joab besieges the city.  The people inside learn that it is Sheba that Joab is after, so they throw Sheba's head over the wall.  Joab goes home.

Chapter 21
Then there is a three year famine.  It is because of Saul's attack on the Gibeonites.  
2021 - MSB says we don't have any record of this action by Saul other than its mention here.  So don't go looking for the details.  Remember that the Gibeonites fooled Joshua into making a covenant with them.  They are also called Hivites.  They were in the land when Israel came knocking and were supposed to be eliminated.  But they fooled Joshua, and perhaps, maybe, we speculate that it could be that Saul, in his zeal to clear the land of enemies, attacked those to whom peace had been sworn.  But we don't know if this is what it was about.
2021 - MSB notes also say that these last chapters of 2Sam are like the last chapters of Judges.  They tell about some events that were occurring in Israel.  They are not necessarily in chronological order - either as a group, or in the chapter.  They are a sort of abccba arrangement.  Six things.  The a's are about God's wrath toward Israel in certain matters, the b's are about David's warriors, and the c's are two of David's songs.
David talks to them to see how to make amends with them, and they ask for seven sons of Saul to be hanged before God.  That will appease them.  David gathers up seven descendants of Saul, sparing Mephibosheth because of Jonathan.  Many manuscripts say that five of these were sons of Michal and whomever she went to after David.  Three manuscripts, including the Septuagint, say the five were sons of Merab.  She is mentioned only  here, in this one verse.  The seven are hanged.  The famine ends.

2024 - In NASB95, five of the sons are grandsons of Barzillai the Meholathite.  We have seen at least two guys named Barzillai so far but I don't think this is either of them.  

2021 - It is interesting that there were these 7 sons, besides Mephibosheth.  Usually, a new king would be sure and get rid of - that is, they would kill - the descendants of the previous king to make sure there was no insurrection, no challenge to the new king.  This is a lot of sons to remain.  These notes about Michal and Merab...they would not have been sons, but grandsons of Saul.  So...probably all his direct sons were indeed gone.  Realizing this, things seem even more horrible here.  Seven young men who themselves did nothing wrong, paying the price for a very flawed King's mistake.  Is this about the sins of the fathers being visited on the sons? I know God says he doesn't do things this way, and yet he also says he does.  This is a difficult passage to justify in our so very enlightened culture today.

Then war with the Philistines starts up again.  During the battle, David gets tired, and is almost killed.  From then on, David is not allowed to go into battle, lest he be killed.  Guess he just got too old.  As war continues, four descendants of the giants of Gath are killed by Israel, one being Goliath's brother, but there were three others also.  So we have the first a and the first b.  You can see why these were important events.  The first because of it's horror and the tragedy of these 7 young men and their mothers.  The second because killing giants is always a huge deal.  

Chapter 22
Labeled David's song of deliverance in TCR ESV.  The first verse says it is about David's deliverance from all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.  But so many of the Psalms are David praying for deliverance from enemies, surely not all were written while he was hiding from Saul.  Surely he still had enemies when he became King, and surely he had enemies when Absalom led his revolt.

vvs 8-20 are a vision of God and his power, as David envisioned God's rescuing him from his enemies.  God is seen exercising total power over the skies, the heavens, the waters.  Over day and night.  He is a King that cannot be opposed.  This is likely how God's final wrath will look also.  God will pour it out on all those still on the earth, and then cast those in Sheol into the lake of fire.  This is a terrifying vision of the power that God can and WILL exercise over those who refuse to worship Him, to believe in Him.  It will not be pretty.
2021 - vs 10 - another place where God is associated with thick darkness.  We almost always think of Him as light, but many times, He is about darkness.  Wrath is a part of God's ways.  When it is time for justice, it comes quickly, completely, and destructively.  When the time for mercy and forgiveness is over, wrath comes in as great a measure as the mercy was.  It is like the breaker trips, but instead of going back to zero, the whole current comes rushing through burning and breaking.

21 "The LORD dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. 22 For I have kept the ways of the LORD and have not wickedly departed from my God. [2Sa 22:21-22 ESV]
How can David say this?  Better yet, how are we to understand "not wickedly departing from" God, in light of this statement by David and knowing all the things that David did?  We surely cannot say that God is ok with some sin...else David would not have received the severe punishment that he did.  But God does forgive sin if we sincerely repent.  And there is no fooling God about sincerity.  David claims clean hands too.  Though he is a man of war, and though he raided Philistine towns and slaughtered man, woman and child, then lied about it to the king who was harboring him.  How is that clean hands?
If we could understand the things going on between David and God, and between God and David, we would go a long way toward understanding how God deals with men in the world.  But I do not pretend to understand them.

Ahhh....if this was written at the time Saul was killed, it was before Bathsheba and all the problems that came after that.  Maybe that's the context to see this here.  It's right there in the very first verse.  Written at the time David was delivered from Saul.

26 "With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; 27 with the purified you deal purely, and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous. 28 You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down. [2Sa 22:26-28 ESV]
David's description of how God operates. Where we imitate God's attributes, he gives us a greater portion of that attribute.  Many of these parallels are repeated in Proverbs.  This is a specific guide to how we should live, and tells us what the results will be.  Hmm...also...how is God dealing with me?  If it seems He is playing bait and switch with me, perhaps it is because I am devious.  If He seems unyielding in His requirements for me, then perhaps I am unyielding.  We get back from God based on who we are.  Oh my.... And that last verse applies this also to nations, not just to individuals.
Possible FB post noted 7/16/20
2021 - Reading this again, I think it is even more profound.  This speaks to examining what is going on between ourselves and God.  How are our prayers answered?  That will reflect the "deals" we're trying to cut with God.  Are the answers delayed?  Then what is God asking from us that is also delayed.  We need to step back regularly and objectively evaluate how God is dealing with us, AND then apply what we see God doing toward us with what we are doing towards God.  This is not a once/year thing to be done when I read this passage.  This kind of examination should be done daily, so that we can more rapidly mold ourselves to operate as God operates.  
6/20/21  God's answers seem delayed.  Do I delay when I am asked?  When Lavayne asks?  Do the kids even bother to ask?  Why don't they?  Do they expect a no every time.  Am I an generous person, only giving where I expect to be repaid?  So God gives to me the same way?

Chapter 23
Labeled "The Last Words of David".
I think this is talking only about the first 7 verses.  They are set off in a different format in TCR.  
vvs 2 says these words are from God.  I think it means in the same way that God speaks through prophets.  An Oracle of David is what it says.  
David says God spoke these words to him - these final words:
3 The God of Israel has spoken; the Rock of Israel has said to me: When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, 4 he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. [2Sa 23:3-4 ESV]
This is what happens with a nation that is ruled by a godly man.  This is what David spoke as his last word.

And then look at these verses about ruling over the worthless:
6 But worthless men are all like thorns that are thrown away, for they cannot be taken with the hand; 7 but the man who touches them arms himself with iron and the shaft of a spear, and they are utterly consumed with fire." [2Sa 23:6-7 ESV]
Worthless men cannot be dealt with in a gentle manner, in a cooperative manner.  If you try to deal with them that way, you will only damage your own hands.  Men like this must be dealt with in a way that keeps us from getting so close we use our hands.  Iron isn't hurt by them, a spear shaft keeps them at a distance.  And then, they must be utterly consumed.  We can't leave thorns lying around, or they will just regrow, thicker and nastier than before.  
MSB says this reference is to the final judgement of God when all the wicked that ever were are cast into hell.  Probably so, since this is an oracle of God, not a Proverb for daily living.
MSB has a lot to say about these final words.  They are about the perfect King, ruling in perfect harmony with the will of God.  The words are about the Messiah who will come.  David admits that his house was not the house of the perfect King.  Nevertheless, God made a covenant that such a king would arise from the house of David, because God's covenants cannot fail.  He makes them work.  The coming Messiah would be the fulfillment of the covenant God made with David.

This would make a really good study, based on MSB notes, and could likely find a John MacArthur sermon or 10 on these verses.

Then we get a description of David's mighty men.
The last one named is Uriah the Hittite.  Uriah was one of David's 37 mightiest, surely a prized asset in the army.  Yet David sent him to his death to cover his own sin.

Chapter 24
Last chapter of 2Sam.

2 Sam 23 started with "The Last Words of David".  Then it named all his mighty men, including Uriah the Hittite.  And now, in 24, we have David still king, and events proceeding.  Why, I wonder, were David's last words inserted well before his actual death?

After the 3 year famine is over, God is again angry with Israel and incites David against them.  David orders that a census be taken.  Joab is against it but David is the King.  So they go to number the people.  This was a military thing, and they were counting the able bodied for the army of Israel.  
2022 - This doesn't really say that David messed up badly in taking the census.  It says God caused this to happen. God "incited" David.
It took 9 months and 20 days to do the numbering.  Israel had 800,000, Judah had 500,000.  These are different numbers than Chronicles has.  Could have been that the "standing" army in each case was not included here but was in Chronicles.  MSB has several other explanations that harmonize the numbers in each place.  He does not think it is a typo.

2022 - It does seem strange however, that there are so many in Judah compared to Israel.  Geographically, Israel is much larger.

After it's all over, David's conscience bothers him and he realizes this numbering not of God was a sin.  It seems interesting to me that David was "incited" in vs 1 because God was angry at Israel, but now it is David that has sinned.    Ultimately, it is the nation that suffers, so this seems to be God's intent from the first.

2022 -
How do you resolve this verse:  1 Again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, "Go, number Israel and Judah." [2Sa 24:1 ESV]
with this verse: 10 But David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the LORD, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O LORD, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly." [2Sa 24:10 ESV].
God seems to me to have ordered David to do this and then held him to account for it as a sin.  How is this not God ordering David to sin?  MSB takes us to the notes on 1 Chr 21 where it says:  1 Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel. [1Ch 21:1 ESV].  This makes things even more difficult - at least for me.  The MSB notes say that God used Satan, as he sometimes does, both sovereignly and permissively, to achieve his purposes.  This is a very unsatisfactory statement.  MSB then  has a list of ways that God uses Satan - four ways are listed, including to judge sinners (Mk 4.15, 2 Co 4.4), to refine saints (Job 1.8-2.10; Lk 22.31,32), to discipline those in the church (1Co 5.1-5; 1Ti 1.20), and to further purify obedient believers (2Co 12.7-10).  There are multiple verses after each one.  Something like this - something as confusing as this - ought to be studied and one should have an explanation ready at hand.  I went back and put in the references so I can study them in East Texas.  Still...is the fact that God does do things this way sufficient to explain what's going on here?  I guess it would be wiser to wait until after I've read all these references to answer that question...but as of now, this seems like one of those things you have to just except without complete understanding.  
From succeeding events, it seems that David was also in error during this time, perhaps prideful about the size of his army, or otherwise exulting in how favored by the Lord he was.  The fact that his song comes before this might be to show that he had developed some pride of position, and was crediting himself with being worthy of it rather than thanking God for undeserved blessing.  In any case, and however these events came about, they were corrective for David.

For punishment, God gives David three choices.  Another three years of famine, 3 months on the run from his enemies, or 3 days pestilence.  David chooses the last, because it is all in God's hands, and not men's hands.
This verse:
15 So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men. [2Sa 24:15 ESV]
The pestilence kills 70,000 people.  How do we read this in light of the corona virus.  A pestilence is surely killing a lot of people in the US.  Is it a punishment against us generally, a punishment brought on by our leader(s)?  Or is this something that happened in the OT, and has nothing to do with today in the US?  I don't think there's a connection, except the general one.  God had a specific covenant with Israel and had told them that if they rebelled, over time, then the corrections he sent to them would grow more frequent and more intense.  We have no such specific covenant - we are under the new covenant.  What we have with corona is the birth pang sequence of the end times.  This is not a new thing, as 1918 Spanish Flu would attest.  Perhaps these diseases will get more frequent.  But the first sign of the last 7 years is the white horse.  Here are my notes about that horse:
First seal, white horse, bow, crown.  Conquering and to conquer.  A bow but no arrows.  A ruler who ascends not through war but through intrigue, subterfuge, and back room negotiations.  BTN chart says this corresponds to Mt 24:4,5:
4  And Jesus answered them, "See that no one leads you astray. 5 For many  will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many  astray. [Mat 24:4-5 ESV]  There isn't even a hint at this point in  Revelation that the "conqueror" is pretending to be Jesus.  Seems a  pretty big stretch to me.  We know that "false Christs" are often spoken of in the epistles, almost all of which were written before 70 AD.   That is when false Christs were everywhere.
So...where is this leader?  If this is end times, then where is he?  I don't think we are at the first seal.  We are still in the birth pangs.

When the angel doing the killing gets to Jerusalem, God relents, and stays his hand.  David asks that the punishment be on him and his father's house, not on Jerusalem.
Gad tells David to build an altar.  He does so, and offers sacrifices, and the plague is averted.

2023 - This chapter, and indeed the book of 2Samuel, end rather abruptly.  They just stop.