The Amalekite thought he was delivering good news. He arrived at David's camp in Ziklag carrying Saul's golden bracelet and royal crown, claiming he had personally killed the wounded king as an act of mercy. He expected a reward. David had him executed on the spot.
According to Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, David's grief over Saul and Jonathan was genuine and devastating. He tore his clothes and wept all day—not just for Jonathan, his closest friend, but for Saul, the king who had tried repeatedly to kill him. David then composed funeral lamentations for both men, songs that Josephus says were still known in his own era, centuries later.
The path to kingship was anything but smooth. God directed David to the city of Hebron, where the tribe of Judah anointed him king. But only Judah. Abner, Saul's powerful general, installed Saul's surviving son Ishbosheth as king over the remaining tribes across the Jordan. Israel was split in two, and civil war followed.
The first battle at Gibeon was savage. Abner proposed a contest—twelve fighters from each side. All twenty-four killed each other simultaneously, grabbing their opponents by the head and driving swords into each other's sides. Then the real fighting began. David's forces won, but the pursuit turned tragic when Asahel, Joab's young brother—famous for being so fast he could outrun a horse—chased Abner relentlessly. Abner begged him to stop. Asahel refused. Abner killed him with a single backward thrust of his spear.
The war dragged on, but David's side grew steadily stronger. The turning point came when Abner himself defected. Insulted by Ishbosheth over an accusation involving Saul's concubine Rizpah, Abner switched allegiance and brokered a deal to deliver the northern tribes to David. He also returned Michal, David's first wife, whom Saul had given to another man.
But Joab, David's general, saw Abner as a rival. He lured Abner back to Hebron under false pretenses and murdered him in the gate, claiming vengeance for Asahel. David publicly cursed the act and wept over Abner's body, convincing the nation he had no part in it. Shortly after, two of Ishbosheth's own officers assassinated him in his bed and brought his head to David—who executed them too. David would accept no throne built on treachery.
Finally, all the tribes converged on Hebron with their armies—hundreds of thousands of soldiers—and made David king over all Israel. His first act as unified king was to conquer Jerusalem from the Jebusites, a fortress so strong its defenders mocked him by putting the blind and lame on the walls. Joab was the first to scale the citadel, earning command of the entire army. David renamed it the City of David and made it his capital.