Then each man grabbed his opponent by the head and thrust his dagger into his opponent's side, and they fell down together. So that place in Gibeon was called Helkath Hazzurim. – 2 Samuel 2:16

Today's Scripture Reading (May 4, 2022):  2 Samuel 2

There is seldom a winner in a civil war as brother fights against brother. And sometimes, that is the literal truth. Stories have been told of fathers who have placed their sons on different sides of the battle in hopes that one of them will be on the side of the victor. But all that action does is guarantee that a family will be mourning the loss of at least one son. The grand democratic experiment that is the United States almost didn't last through its first hundred years as a civil war threatened its future. It wasn't the exception. Since the end of the Second World War, more than sixty civil wars have been fought around our world. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is sometimes seen as a new, international conflict, but the reality is that it is really just an extension of a civil war, the War in Donbas, that has been fought since April 2014.

Abner, the general who had served under Saul and now fought under the leadership of Saul's son Ish-bosheth, and Joab, the general of David's army, come up with an idea. Both men are cut from a similar cloth. Both Abner and Joab were committed military men; they were tough and mean and willing to do anything to win a battle. And they appear to respect each other genuinely. Rather than letting the conflict devolve into a general war, the two military men devise a plan that will pit twelve heroes of the Tribe of Benjamin (Saul's tribe) against twelve heroes from the tribe of Judah (David's tribe).

And so, the twenty-four men are chosen, and they line up against each other. According to the story, each of the twenty-four men had the same idea or had been trained in similar tactics, an all-out attack to kill the other fighter first. As a result, all twenty-four heroes die together on the field of battle. The author of the Book of Samuel tells us that the place where this battle took place was called Helkath Hazzurim, which means "Field of Daggers" or "Field of Hostilities."

But, with nothing decided on the Field of Daggers, the fight devolved into a civil conflict with Israelite fighting against Israelite, a symbolic battle between brothers and men who both knew and respected their opponents. David would win, but that win would come at a high cost of lost lives for all of Israel. It was a war that would end in death and mourning for the whole nation of Israel.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 3