2 Samuel 3:17

ABNER SOLICITS THE ELDERS OF ISRAEL FOR DAVID

"And Abner conferred with the elders of Israel, saying, "For some time past, you have been seeking David as king over you. Now then bring it about; for the Lord has promised David, saying, `By the hand of my servant David, I will save my people from the hand of the Philistines, and from the hand of all their enemies.'" Abner also spoke to Benjamin, and then Abner went to tell David at Hebron all that Israel and the whole house of Benjamin thought good to do."

"For some time you have been seeking to make David king over you" (2 Samuel 3:18). Evidently, following the death of Saul, there had been an attempt to make David king of all Israel, but David's involvement with the Philistines and Abner's personal ambition had frustrated that effort.

"The Lord has promised ... by the hand of David to deliver (Israel) ... from all their enemies" (2 Samuel 3:18). "Here Abner went far beyond the text of anything found in the Holy Scriptures."[19] Abner's mention here of what he called the Lord's promise that David would deliver the Israelites from the hand of the Philistines gives the clue behind the real reason for Abner's changing over to David. Abner had not been successful in breaking the Philistines' strangle-hold on the greater part of northern Israel. At that time, all Israel was sorely in need of a deliverer.

Keil and many other dependable scholars suggest that this paragraph has the nature of a parenthesis, recounting what Abner had already done before his first trip to David and the episode involving Michal.[20]