The Death of Ishbosheth
December 17, 2025
Dr. Bradford Reaves
Crossway Christian Fellowship
2 Samuel 4
When God’s Will Is Used as an Excuse for Sin
One of the most dangerous phrases a Christian can utter is this: “God understands why I had to do it this way.” Those words have justified betrayal, slander, manipulation, abuse of power, and spiritual shortcuts for centuries. They sound spiritual. They feel practical. And they are almost always wrong.
Second Samuel chapter 4 is a sobering warning to anyone tempted to “help God along.” It shows us what happens when fear replaces faith, when ambition overrides conscience, and when people wrap sinful actions in religious language and expect God’s blessing in return.
As we close out 2025, this chapter presses a final question upon us—not about prophecy, or kings, or ancient politics—but about integrity: Will we trust God to accomplish His promises in His way, or will we grasp for outcomes at the cost of obedience?
God’s Promises Never Require Sinful Shortcuts. God does not accomplish His promises through sinful shortcuts. He establishes His kingdom in righteousness, judges treachery, and honors those who trust His timing rather than grasping for outcomes.
A Kingdom Already Cracking
By the time we reach 2 Samuel 4, the house of Saul is already in decline. Saul is dead. Jonathan is dead. David has been anointed king over Judah and reigns from Hebron. Yet the nation remains divided. Abner—Saul’s former commander—has installed Ish-bosheth as king over the remaining tribes of Israel.
Everyone knows this arrangement is temporary. Even Abner knew that David was the Lord’s chosen king (2 Samuel 3:9–10). But knowledge does not equal submission, and power rarely relinquishes control without resistance. When Abner is murdered by Joab—not for righteousness, but revenge—the last support beam holding Ish-bosheth’s throne in place collapses. Chapter 4 opens not with strategy or repentance, but with fear.
I. Fear Reveals False Foundations
When Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, heard that Abner had died at Hebron, his courage failed, and all Israel was dismayed. 2 Now Saul’s son had two men who were captains of raiding bands; the name of the one was Baanah, and the name of the other Rechab, sons of Rimmon a man of Benjamin from Beeroth (for Beeroth also is counted part of Benjamin; 3 the Beerothites fled to Gittaim and have been sojourners there to this day). (2 Samuel 4:1–3)
These verses expose the heart of Ish-bosheth’s reign. His courage does not merely weaken—it fails. The Hebrew word implies collapse, melting, dissolving. Why? Because Ish-bosheth’s confidence was never rooted in calling or conviction. It was borrowed strength.
David Guzik captures this precisely: “Ish-bosheth was weak because he trusted in man.”
Abner put him on the throne. Abner propped him up. Abner defended him. And when Abner died, Ish-bosheth knew—instinctively—that his reign was finished. Abner was the engine. Ish-bosheth was the hood ornament.
If your security is built on human strength, your peace will always be conditional. When the person, position, or platform disappears, fear rushes in to fill the void. What is sustained by flesh will always crumble by flesh.
II. A Different Kind of Weakness
Jonathan, the son of Saul, had a son who was crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and his nurse took him up and fled, and as she fled in her haste, he fell and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth. (2 Samuel 4:4)
In the middle of political collapse, the narrator pauses to introduce an unexpected figure: “Jonathan, the son of Saul, had a son who was crippled in his feet…” (v. 4)
This is not a footnote. It is a theological interruption. Mephibosheth was five years old when news of Saul and Jonathan’s deaths reached Jezreel. His nurse panicked, grabbed him, fled—and dropped him. He became lame for life, but it might actually be a kind way of saying that he remained like a big child.
David Guzik makes a crucial distinction here: Ish-bosheth is weak because of misplaced trust. Mephibosheth is weak because of circumstances beyond his control. Mephibosheth did not choose fear. He inherited it. His injury came not from rebellion, but from another person’s panic. And there is more: Mephibosheth was the last male descendant of Saul with a legitimate legal claim to the throne. Humanly speaking, if succession law mattered most, the future belonged to a crippled boy.
Much later, king David wondered if there were any survivors of the house of Saul whom he might honor, and a man named Ziba told him about Mephibosheth. Though lame and stripped of his honor, Mephibosheth appears to have managed to acquire himself a wife, because when David reinstated him, Mephibosheth had a young son named Mica. The author probably mentions him to indicate that the house of Saul was not wiped out but was allowed to continue (2 Samuel 9:12, see 1 Chronicles 8:35 and on).
And Mephibosheth had a young son, whose name was Mica. And all who lived in Ziba’s house became Mephibosheth’s servants. (2 Samuel 9:12)
Mephibosheth means: One Who Destroys Shame, End Of Shame. The Lessons here is that sin at the top always splashes suffering downward. Leadership panic creates lifelong wounds in innocent people. God slows the narrative here to remind us: kingdoms collapse publicly, but suffering often happens quietly. And God sees it all.
III. Opportunists Thrive Where Conviction Is Absent
Now the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, set out, and about the heat of the day they came to the house of Ish-bosheth as he was taking his noonday rest. 6 And they came into the midst of the house as if to get wheat, and they stabbed him in the stomach. Then Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped. 7 When they came into the house, as he lay on his bed in his bedroom, they struck him and put him to death and beheaded him. They took his head and went by the way of the Arabah all night, (2 Samuel 4:5–7)
Into this unstable moment step two men: Rechab and Baanah, sons of Rimmon. They are captains—raiders—men accustomed to violence. And Scripture notes something deeply ironic: they are Benjaminites, members of Saul’s own tribe. Ish-bosheth is not murdered by enemies, but by insiders. They enter his house at midday while he rests—unguarded, careless, complacent—and stab him in his bed. Then they behead him and travel all night to Hebron.
Matthew Henry’s era captured it well, and Guzik cites Thomas Trapp sharply: “He dieth therefore in his sloth, who had lived slothfully all his days.” Ish-bosheth’s carelessness mirrors his leadership. Passivity invites danger.
A kingdom built on fear will eventually be consumed from within. When conviction disappears, loyalty evaporates. Opportunists smell blood in chaos and call it “timing.”
IV. When Sin Dresses Itself in God-Talk
and brought the head of Ish-bosheth to David at Hebron. And they said to the king, “Here is the head of Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life. The Lord has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and on his offspring.” (2 Samuel 4:8)
Rechab and Baanah present Ish-bosheth’s severed head to David and say: “The LORD has avenged my lord the king this day of Saul and his descendants.”
This is the most dangerous moment in the chapter. They take murder and clothe it in theology. They presume divine approval. They frame themselves as instruments of God. As Joyce Baldwin notes, “They presumed on God’s approval as though they had acted on the Lord’s express orders.”
This is spiritual manipulation and it is one of Satan’s oldest lies is that disobedience becomes acceptable when it appears useful. The Bible never allows us to do evil so that good may come. God may overrule sin—but He never authorizes it.
V. David Draws the Line
But David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life out of every adversity, 10 when one told me, ‘Behold, Saul is dead,’ and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and killed him at Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news. 11 How much more, when wicked men have killed a righteous man in his own house on his bed, shall I not now require his blood at your hand and destroy you from the earth?” 12 And David commanded his young men, and they killed them and cut off their hands and feet and hanged them beside the pool at Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth and buried it in the tomb of Abner at Hebron. (2 Samuel 4:9–12)
David’s response reveals the heart of a righteous king. “As the LORD lives, who has redeemed my life out of every adversity…” (v. 9) David roots his judgment in testimony. God redeems. God delivers. God vindicates.
He recalls the Amalekite who claimed to have killed Saul—and how David executed him for touching the Lord’s anointed. Rechab and Baanah underestimated David. They assumed pragmatism would outweigh principle. They were wrong. David orders their execution and publicly displays their punishment—not as cruelty, but as warning.
And Ish-bosheth? David honors him in death, burying his head in Abner’s tomb. Godly leadership refuses to normalize sin—even when it seems to serve a good purpose. David knew the difference between defeating God’s enemies and destroying God’s people. Goliath was an enemy of the Lord. Saul’s house was not.
VI. Lessons for the Church
• God’s Sovereignty Does Not Excuse Human Sin. God promised David the throne—but never required betrayal to deliver it.
• Integrity Matters More Than Results. Obedience is not optional just because outcomes look favorable.
• Beware Spiritual Pragmatism. Success is never the measure of righteousness—faithfulness is.
• Leadership Is Revealed Under Pressure. David’s character shines brightest when compromise is most tempting.
• God Has Not Forgotten the Wounded. Mephibosheth’s story is not over—and neither is yours.
VII. Christological Fulfillment
The Greater King Without Compromise. David points us forward to Christ. David refused a throne built by bloodshed. Jesus refused a kingdom offered through Satan’s shortcuts (Matthew 4). David waited. Jesus endured the cross. David executed the guilty. Jesus bore guilt Himself—so mercy could flow without compromising justice.
Conclusion
A Final Word for the End of 2025 As we close this year, the question before us is not whether God will fulfill His promises. He will. The question is who we will be while we wait.
• Will we trust God—or try to help Him?
• Will we choose obedience—or outcomes?
• Will we value integrity—or influence?
God’s kingdom will come. But only one path honors the King.
The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them. (Proverbs 11:3) Let us end this year resolved to walk the narrow path—trusting God’s timing, God’s methods, and God’s righteousness.
