The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker. – 2 Samuel 3:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 19, 2016): 2 Samuel 3

The Cold War. It is a strange name, yet one that dominated the world from about 1947 until 1991. The symbol of the cold war was a wall built in Berlin separating the German City between an East and West sector. When the Berlin wall came down in 1989, accidentally according to some reports, its destruction was one of the symbols that the Cold War was coming to an end. The Cold War ended as both East and West tried to come to an understanding of each other. But it also ended because the U.S.S.R ended, leaving only a loose collection of nations trying to make their way economically in a new world.  

The name basically describes the nature of the conflict. Actually, the cold war was simply a time of heightened tensions between the West, represented by the United States, and the East, represented by the U.S.S.R. But there were no actual fighting, strictly speaking, between those two entities – hostility never actually broke out. What existed were proxy wars between countries supported by the major powers. But it was this state of high tension combined with no fighting that made the war “cold.” There were times when people on both sides of the Cold War feared that the tension might allow the cold war become a hot one, but that never actually happened. Only the tension told the story of a war between East and West.

The war between the houses of Saul and David was, for the most part, a cold one. There were hot outbreaks between the two factions at times, but for most of the war it was just a state of tension that existed between the houses. The problem that complicated the hostility between the houses was that the house of Saul was also struggling against Philistine incursions into its territory. There was no way that the house of Saul could win an actual fighting war against David and against the Philistines. And that began to become apparent. The house of Saul simply became weaker.

Of course, all of this was the resolution to a prophecy spoken by Samuel a little more than two decades earlier. “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you [Saul] today and has given it to one of your neighbors [David]—to one better than you (1 Samuel 15:28). According to the prophecy, there could be no other outcome – Saul had to decrease while David rose.    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 4