(8) В¶ But Abner the son of Ner, captain of Saul's host, took Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim; (9) And made him king over Gilead, and over the Ashurites, and over Jezreel, and over Ephraim, and over Benjamin, and over all Israel.
The opposition made to David for the crown was in fact made against the government of God; for all Israel could not but know, that David had been long before both appointed and anointed as the successor of Saul in the kingdom. And one might have thought, that the success of David against the Philistines, and the awful end of Saul, would have prompted all Israel as one man to have fled to David, the moment Saul was dead, to have called him to the government. But alas! what punishment, or what distresses are heavy enough, unsanctified by the Lord, to bring home the heart to him? But Reader! let us not stop here in our improvements on this view of things in Israel. Was not David, in this instance, as in many others, a lively type of the ever blessed Jesus? When the Lord Jehovah set Christ as his king in Zion, did not the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing, against the Lord, and against his anointed? Psalms 2:1. Precious Jesus! make me one of thy happy subjects, with holy joy and thankfulness to bend my knee before thee, and with the heart confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord and king to the glory of God the Father!