Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Samuel 12-13.

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God sent Nathan to rebuke David for what he did with Bathsheba, and to Uriah.  Nathan brought the rebuke home by telling David a story which David at first thought was true.  When Nathan pointed out to David that what he had done was at least as bad as the villain in the story, David recognized, and repented, of his sin.  Nathan told David that God would forgive him this sin, but that David would still face the consequences.  The consequences began immediately when the first son born to Bathsheba and David became sick and died.  David actually models something important for us in dealing with this.  While the child was sick David fasted and prayed to God, seeking healing for the child.  Once the child died, David resumed his life (having mourned the child during his sickness).  David recognized that he would join the child again, but that the child would not return to this world.  Those of us who love Christ know that we will be reunited with our loved ones who also love Christ once more.  Death is not the end for those who trust and obey Christ.

David began to experience other consequences when Amnon, David’s first born son, raped his half-sister Tamar.  Followed again two years later by Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, killing Amnon for raping his sister.  Every time I read this I think that David was a poor father to both Amnon and Absalom.  It seems to me that David had failed to teach Amnon that bad behavior has consequences.  And if David had forced Amnon to marry Tamar (which Mosaic law prescribes for this sort of situation), Absalom would likely have been mollified.  Or, would have at least been reluctant to murder his sister’s husband.

We also get two insights into the intrigue of David’s court in this passage.  First, Joab tells David that he had better come out from Jerusalem and lead the final battle against Rabbah, or people might start seeing Joab as a rival to David rather than as his subordinate.  An example of how Joab seems to look out for David’s interests.  It suggests to me that while Joab liked being the commander of the army, he did not want to be king.  The second is the role Jonadab played in Amnon’s actions and later close knowledge of Absalom’s plot.  Jonadab was another nephew of David.  His involvement in advising Amnon in how to seduce/rape Tamar and later knowledge that Absalom had only killed Amnon suggests that he was a confidant of both men.  I have long wondered what Jonadab’s agenda was in this situation, but we learn nothing more about him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Samuel 8-11.

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Every time I read this passage I wonder what led David to kill two thirds of the Moabites (I am assuming there were the same number of people in each of the lines David had them form).  This seems strange since David’s great grandmother, Ruth, was a Moabite and he had put his parents into the care of the king of Moab while he was on the run from King Saul.  The only thing I have seen which explains this is a Jewish tradition which says that the king of Moab either killed his parents, or turned them over to King Saul, who killed them.

This year when I read the passage I wondered about something else.  When David asked after anyone left of the house of Saul that he could show kindness too, why did they only mention Mephibosheth?  After all, in a few chapters we will learn that, in addition to Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth, there were two sons and five grandsons of King Saul still alive.  I will be perfectly honest, no sooner had I begun to wonder about this than I realized the answer.  David said that he wanted to show kindness to this descendant of Saul for Jonathan’s sake.  The logical answer was therefore Jonathan’s son.  Is it possible that David was made aware of the rest of King Saul’s descendants who were alive at this point?  Absolutely, but since they were all healthy and did not need assistance, he chose only to show special kindness to the crippled son of his dear friend, Jonathan.

Finally, I want to touch on something else I noticed for the first time with this reading.  I have read/heard some people suggest that Bathsheba was on the roof bathing in an attempt to catch King David’s attention.  I always felt that was taking a position which was not supported by the text, but I could not say that they were wrong.  Except that today I noticed that the text says that Bathsheba had been “purifying herself from her uncleanness”.  I am sure that was included to indicate that she was particularly fertile at the time David took her, but it also explains why she was bathing at that time.  Bathsheba was not bathing in order to get David’s attention and “trade up”.  She was bathing because Mosaic law called for her to bath after the end of her menstrual bleeding.  So, Bathsheba was not bathing in order to attract David’s attention.  Rather she was doing so to return to a state of ritual cleanness.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Samuel 4-7.

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I want to focus on David’s actions while he brought the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem.  As the ark was being transported, David danced and shouted before the Lord with all of his might.  The passage makes a point that David was wearing a linen ephod.  I want to note that when the priestly garments are described in Exodus it specifies that the priest is to wear undergarments to “cover their naked flesh” under the priestly ephod.  David is wearing an ephod because it is a garment with associations with worship, but he did not take it into account in his enthusiasm.  Michal, David’s first wife and the daughter of King Saul, saw David dancing enthusiastically and exposing himself (accidentally) and looked down on him for being “undignified”.   Michal’s criticism of David was not just that he had exposed himself, but that he had done so in front of people below his “station”.  When she confronted David about this, he replied that he was celebrating before God, and would be willing to suffer even greater embarrassment in order to praise God.   Further David was not willing to consider those among whom he celebrated God to be below his station.

David ignored social censure in order to praise God fully.  We should do likewise.  He was not embarrassed by what he had done, and was willing for those who were embarrassed on his behalf to be even more embarrassed, as long as he was serving God.  We should allow the spirit of worship to enter into us and not allow ourselves to be embarrassed by what we do in the moment of praising God.  David did not consider what others thought of his actions while he was dancing before the Lord, and when it was pointed out to him that others were embarrassed by his actions his response was, “If you thought that was bad, wait until you see what I do next.”  The point is not that he raised the level of his behavior to further embarrass Michal.  Rather, his point was that he was not going to even entertain the idea that he should worry about what others think of his actions praising the Lord.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Samuel 1-3.

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Today’s passage divides into three parts.  First, it tells us about David learning of the death of King Saul and his son Jonathan.  Second, it tells us about David becoming king over Judah and his war against the House of Saul.  Finally, it tells us about Abner’s attempt to bring all of Israel over to David and Joab’s murder of Abner.  People often claim a contradiction between the account of Saul’s death given here by the man who brought the news to David and the account of Saul’s death given at the end of 1 Samuel.  The problem is that there is only a contradiction if you believe that the passage here intends for you to believe that the man who brought the news was telling the truth.  As I read it, it reads to me as if this man, an Amalekite, brought the news, and told it the way he did, in order to gain favor with David.  David’s action in killing the Amalekite who brought him news of King Saul’s death, and who claimed to have delivered the death blow, is consistent with his repeated refusal to take opportunities to kill Saul while Saul was hunting him.  David received power because God delivered it into his hand, not because he sought it out.

It reads to me like the war between David and the House of Saul was more because Abner tried to set up Ish-bosheth as ruler over all of Israel, rather than because David tried to expand his power base.  While Joab’s murder of Abner prevented Abner from ending that war. it was effectively over from the time Abner came to David to negotiate peace.  We see in that ending, and in David’s reaction to Abner’s murder, how David relied on God to establish his kingship.  Our ambitions should be similar.  Our ambitions should be to do God’s will, and if God desires for us to be leaders, He will direct us into that role.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 28-31.

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I struggle to interpret the story about the woman of En-dor who summons Samuel’s spirit (ghost?) for King Saul.  The description of it actually being Samuel who was summoned runs contrary to my understanding from other parts of the Bible about what happens when a medium actually produces results (as opposed to those mediums who are just charlatans).  However, I do not want to get too caught up on that because the point of the story is that King Saul went into his final battle with the Philistines knowing, and feeling, that he had been abandoned by God.  Repeatedly throughout his life, Saul turned to God for aid when things looked bad, but he did not truly turn from his sins.  King Saul sought God’s guidance to deal with problems he could not deal with on his own, but he did not seek God’s guidance in the rest of his life.  So, God finally stopped answering his requests for guidance.  Let us not let ourselves come to that point.

In contrast to that we see what happened with David at almost the same time.  While Saul was visiting a medium to consult Samuel’s spirit about what he should do, David was coming into the Philistine camp.  David had spent his time among the Philistines making it seem like he was attacking his fellow Israelites while actually raiding other peoples in the area (which lends an interesting insight into the peoples of the area at the time).  Now, his deception has led him into a place of prominence in the Philistine order of battle with the Philistine lord under whose protection he had placed himself.  However, the other Philistine lord’s remembered how in the battle involving Goliath the Hebrews who were in their army turned against them.  Therefore they told Achish to send David away.  They did not want David in their order of battle.  This shows God working to spare David from having to go against his own people in this war.  So, while Saul was seeking God’s guidance and not finding it, God was working to put David in the right place at the right time.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 25-27.

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Today’s passage contains three stories which tell us something about how David became the king that he was: the account of Nabal and Abigail, the account of David sparing King Saul’s life again, and the account of David’s time among the Philistines.  Over the years, I have written various things which we can learn from the account of Nabal and Abigail, but I still feel like there is something about that interaction that I am missing.  So, I am going to mention things which I noticed today and see where that takes me.  I never noticed before, but the passage seems to make a comment on the character of Caleb’s descendants.  It says that Abigail was discerning and beautiful, but that Nabal was “harsh and badly behaved, he was a Calebite.”  That seems to me to suggest that Calebites had a reputation for being harsh and lacking in tact.  Almost as if the descendants of Caleb took pride in their lack of tact to the point of being needlessly offensive.  Which reveals to me a lesson for us.

Some people speak plainly and accidentally offend others.  This passage indicates that Nabal went beyond that.  He likely prided himself on being a “plain speaker”, when he actually purposely spoke in ways which offended others.   We see how Nabal did this when he responded to David’s messengers.  Nabal implied that David was powerless to do him either good or harm because David was but a rebellious servant of King Saul.  Then the passage seems to imply that Nabal had a stroke, which led to his death a few days later, when he learned what had almost happened to him because of his rudeness.  Alternatively, it may mean to suggest that his harshness and bad behavior led to his stroke and death.  In either case, the passage clearly shows that being intentionally rude is bad.  Nabal would have called himself “blunt”, when in fact he was rude.  It is not wrong to be blunt and direct.  In fact, it is probably good.  However, there is a difference between being blunt and direct and being rude.  It is wrong to be rude.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 21-24.

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I always notice when I read this that Ahimelech was frightened when David came to Nob, apparently because David was alone.  This suggests that King Saul often sent out men to kill people he saw as a threat of some sort.  I suspect that David had been sent on such missions, but possibly not.  As we read the rest of this passage, it becomes clear that Ahimelech was dedicated to at least appearing to be a loyal subject of King Saul.  We also see that Ahimelech’s fear was justified.  We see David’s behavior contrasted with King Saul’s.  King Saul killed Ahimelech and most of his family because he, Saul, perceived Ahimelech as being disloyal for helping David at a time when almost everyone thought David was still one of King Saul’s favorites.  David, on the other hand, went to Keilah, at significant risk to himself and his men, in order to protect it from Philistine raiders.  Then, when David realized that the men of Keilah would surrender him to King Saul he left without causing any problems in Keilah.  Later when presented with an opportunity to kill King Saul, David refused to do so, or to allow his men to do so.

I want to take note that David had been anointed to be king in Saul’s place, yet he was not willing to raise his hand against King Saul because Saul was God’s anointed.  I struggle to articulate the lesson we learn from this, but we get part of it in Saul’s response to David showing him what he could have done.  Saul tells David that he had repaid Saul with good while Saul had repaid David with evil.  This seems to me to tell us that David did something which the Apostle Paul told us to do in Romans 12.  “Repay no one evil for evil, … Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 18-20.

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I like today’s story, but I find it challenging to identify a spiritual lesson for us in it.  This passage makes me really like Jonathan, and then I feel bad about what happens to him as a result of his father’s sin.  So, this is not actually a spiritual lesson, but King Saul demonstrates some behaviors of a bad leader.  When people praised David, Saul became jealous.  Rather than see David’s actions as things which strengthened his kingdom and looking for ways to benefit from David’s skills, Saul felt threatened by him.  When King Saul offered his daughter(s) in marriage to David, he saw it as a means to set David up to be killed by the Philistines.  Instead of seeing it as a way to get David to be loyal to his family, Saul saw David’s success in getting the bride price he set as a threat.  Further, Saul failed to accept his son Jonathan’s assessment of David’s character, or to recognize that the loyalty between them went both ways.  King Saul failed to recognize that his daughter, Michal, also thought highly of David, to the extent of helping him escape Saul’s assassination attempt.  King Saul refused to recognize that both his son and his daughter thought highly of David.  A good leader would have found ways to use David’s success and popularity to strengthen his kingdom.  A good leader recognizes that the success of his subordinates reflects will upon himself.  Throughout the description of King Saul’s reign we see evidence that he was a totalitarian ruler.  He viewed everyone with power which did not depend upon his power as a threat to be eliminated.  A good leader seeks to empower those under them to become as powerful as possible.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 16-17.

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I first thought to title today’s blog, “The Battle Is the Lord’s,” but as I began to gather my thoughts to write I realized that the message God gave Samuel when he thought Eliab was the one to anoint to take Saul’s place applied to Goliath as well.  When Jesse had his sons pass before Samuel, Samuel saw Eliab as having the qualities we look for in a leader: he was tall and handsome, and probably stood with presence (eldest sons often do, they are used to bossing their younger brothers around).  However, God told Samuel that Eliab did not have what He was looking for in the next king.  After Samuel checked each of David’s older brothers, he asked Jesse to send for David.  The fact that David was not present tells us something about how even his father viewed him.  David was just the kid brother.   In the account about Goliath we get some hints as to why God did not choose Eliab, and clear evidence about why He chose David.  We also see in that account reason to believe that Jesse, David’s father, explicitly chose not to include David in the feast with Samuel.  When Jesse needed to send David with supplies to his brothers, he was able to leave someone else in charge of the sheep while David went.  Yet, he did not think it worthwhile to do the same in order to have David present for a feast with Samuel, the man who had made Saul king.

When David was trying to get someone in King Saul’s army to confront Goliath, Eliab did not just call him to account and correct him, he belittled his little brother.  I do not want to condemn Eliab  for this.  However, Eliab should not have been angry with David.  One should even consider that he may have felt called out by David.  Most importantly, we see that God did not choose Eliab to be king because he did not do what David did.  When King Saul had David brought before him to chastise him for trying to instigate trouble among his men, David immediately said, “If no one else is willing to fight this Philistine, I will go.”  David then dismissed Saul’s contention that he was too inexperienced to take on a seasoned warrior.  David said that he had taken on lions and bears to protect his father’s sheep and God had delivered him.  How much more could he expect God to deliver him from this Philistine who had defied the armies of the living God?*  When David confronted Goliath, Goliath proclaimed that he would kill David and cursed David by his gods.  David replied by saying that God would give him the victory bringing glory to His name because Goliath had defied God.  David did not believe he would win because he was the superior warrior or better tactician.  David outright stated that he would win because the battle was the Lord’s.  We will not emerge victorious from this life’s challenges and battles because of our own greatness, any victory worth having will come to us because God gives it to us.  God chose David to be king because he was willing to rely on God, even when others were afraid to act.

Note: this is one of the earliest references in the Bible where an Israelite compares YHWH, the living God, to the gods of other nations, which were carved out of wood, or formed out of metal.  It is clear that David did not fear the gods of the Philistines because they were man made.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 14-15.

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This passage highlights how King Saul went wrong, and gives us a warning of something to watch out for in our own lives.  First, Saul made a foolish vow which almost resulted in him killing his son Jonathan.  Jonathan’s life was spared only because the army insisted that Saul not kill him.  Later, God ordered Saul to conquer and completely destroy the Amalekites and their possessions.  However, Saul kept the best of the cattle and sheep captured from the Amalekites for a sacrificial feast, and spared the life of their king.  When Samuel came to him, King Saul greeted Samuel by saying that he had performed the command of the Lord.  When Samuel called him out for not completely doing as God had commanded, Saul repeated that he had done as God commanded and attempted to blame the people for his failure to destroy all of the sheep and cattle.  In doing so, he glossed over the fact that he had indeed violated God’s command by keeping Agag, the king of the Amalekites, as a captive.

Here’s the thing, I think King Saul actually believed it when he said, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.”  Despite the fact that he clearly had not.  He justified keeping the best of the sheep and cattle because he was going to have a big sacrificial feast.  We all too often do the same sort of thing.  We tell ourselves, “Oh, I am only doing this thing which is contrary to God’s commands in order to do this other thing to honor God.”  I thought of giving an example here, but I think that each of you can look at your lives and see the areas where you are tempted to justify violating God’s commands in order to do something which you think honors God.  We might even do what King Saul did here, blame others for our failure to fully carry out the will of God.  Let us not do that.  Let us examine our lives and our motives and seek to do away with our justifications for not following God’s instructions.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.