3:1-6 The length of this war tried the faith and patience of David, and made his settlement at last the more welcome. The contest between grace and corruption in the hearts of believers, may fitly be compared to this warfare. There is a long war between them, the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; but as the work of holiness is carried on, corruption, like the house of Saul, grows weaker and weaker; while grace, like the house of David, grows stronger and stronger.

Verse 6. - Abner made himself strong for the house of Saul. The Hebrew really means that until this miserable quarrel about Rizpah, Abner had been the mainstay of Ishbosheth's throne and dynasty. She is proved to have been a noble woman, with a warm and devoted heart, by the narrative in 2 Samuel 21:8-11. But the harem of a deceased king was looked upon as the special inheritance of his successor; and Absalom, by taking David's concubines (2 Samuel 16:21, 22), treated his father as a dead man, and committed so overt an act of treason as made reconciliation impossible. So Solomon put his brother Adonijah to death for asking Abishag to wife (1 Kings 2:23-25). Still, as Bathsheba there saw no impropriety in Adonijah's request, and as Solomon deposed Abiathar and put Joab to death for complicity, as we must conclude, in Adonijah's request, it was probably part of some scheme of conspiracy, and that, if granted, it would have been used by Adonijah as a proof that the kingdom really was his. Here there was no plot, and as Rizpah had probably always lived apart from Ishbosheth, Abner may have expected that the king would see no difficulty in the matter.

And it came to pass, while there was war between the house of Saul and the house of David,.... As long as that continued, as it did until the following quarrel happened between Ishbosheth and Abner:

that Abner made himself strong for the house of Saul; or was strongly in the interest of that house, and used his utmost endeavours to support and confirm it.

2Sa 3:6-12. Abner Revolts to David.

6-11. Abner made himself strong for the house of Saul—In the East, the wives and concubines of a king are the property of his successor to this extent, that for a private person to aspire to marry one of them would be considered a virtual advance of pretensions to the crown (see 1Ki 2:17). It is not clear whether the accusation against Abner was well or ill founded. But he resented the charge as an indignity, and, impelled by revenge, determined to transfer all the weight of his influence to the opposite party. He evidently set a full value on his services, and seems to have lorded it over his weak nephew in a haughty, overbearing manner.

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