Gospel Reflections #1034: Reaffirm Who our God is

2 Samuel 2:25‘The men of Benjamin joined Abner, and they gathered together and  remained on the top of a hill.’

This passage depicts a tense moment in a tragic civil war between kinsmen, where the cornered defeated army (the northern Israelites and the tribe of Benjamin) held their ground, having formed a defensive formation.

Following the death of King Saul, Israel split into the ‘House of David’ (the tribe of Judah) in the south and the ‘House of Ish-Bosheth’ (the House of Saul and the tribe of Benjamin) in the north.

The skirmish that began by the pool of Gibeon escalated into a fierce all-out clash, and the northern Israelite army, led by Abner, was overwhelmed by David’s forces under Joab and forced to retreat.

The retreating soldiers of Abner’s army and the tribe of Benjamin ceased their scattered flight and gathered on a single hill (mountain top) to regroup.

 By securing the high ground (the hilltop) against David’s pursuing army, they established a defensive position to prevent further annihilation.

The fact that the cornered soldiers showed a readiness to ‘fight back with a death-defying determination’ created a situation in which Joab’s pursuing army, too, had to be prepared for significant bloodshed (heavy casualties) if they pressed the attack any further.

It was precisely because Abner’s forces held their ground here that the dialogue in the following verse 26 took place, in which Abner called for a truce to avert mutual destruction, saying to Joab, ‘How long shall we make one another the prey of the sword? If this continues, the outcome will be disastrous.’

 Just as the soldiers, when pursued by the enemy and facing the threat of defeat, did not flee individually but ‘gathered around Abner and stood as one’, this teaches us the importance, in the trials of our lives and in spiritual battles, of not isolating ourselves but gathering with our fellow believers, standing firm in unity.

Furthermore, amidst the panic of retreat, Abner and his men made the deliberate decision to ‘stand their ground’.

Rather than being swept away by their emotions towards destruction, they paused to regroup, which ultimately led to reconciliation and the saving of lives (the truce in verse 28).

In our own journey, whether in good times or bad, we need to pause and reaffirm who our God is.

God uses even our failures and mistakes for our own good.

We should always return to such a God.

AUTHOR'S BIO: This Gospel Reflections page is written by Masae San, who resides in Hiroshima, Japan. Masae is a dedicated student of the Bible with a deep passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She shares her daily reflections on Gospel perspectives to reach out to others and spread the message of God's true love through a Christ-centered approach. We are sharing her insights here so that you, too, can experience the joy that comes from knowing and understanding the true Gospel and the love of God through Jesus Christ.