1 Kings 5-11: The Reign of Solomon

King David got a whole book to describe his reign; Solomon reigned just as long and gets seven chapters.  This This is because ancient biographers were not concerned with chronicling every detail of a significant person's life, but only with recording the parts of the person's life that made them significant.  I wish that modern biographers would take this approach; I hate reading biographies.

Anyway.  The most significant event of Solomon's life, as we all know, was the building of the Temple.  This was a huge undertaking, and to accomplish it, Solomon had to get outside help from the king of Tyre, a guy named Hiram.  Solomon bought cedar and cypress timber from Hiram in exchange for lots of food.  Solomon also hires some of Hiram's servants in addition to his own tens of thousands of laborers.  It took this many people, I suppose, because they had to transport the materials, and that could not have been easy.  Solomon, being a smart dude, had 30,000 people divided into 3 rotating shifts - each shift of 10,000 would work 1 month and be home for 2 months, which is a pretty nice deal I think.  I don't know what his other workers' hours were.

Anyway, the book gives general specs on the building - dimensions, materials, rooms, some of the decorations, etc.  But it's not a blueprint, so we don't know exactly what it looked like, although a lot of people have made good educated guesses.  Wikipedia has an article about it.  The point is, this was supposed to be the most beautiful building in Israel - just about everything in it was overlaid with gold, and there were cherubim statues and engravings of palm trees, flowers, and more cherubim.  It took seven years to build and all 38 verses of chapter 6 plus 39 verses of chapter 7 to describe.

In the next chapter Solomon builds himself a house, which is much smaller and much less impressive, and only takes 12 verses to describe.  Clearly, the house of God was more important to Solomon than his house was, and that is as it should be.

Then the ark is brought into the temple, and Solomon addresses the people to tell them why he built the temple, and gives a very long prayer of dedication, asking God to hear the prayers of His people and have mercy on them when they are in distress or when they have turned from Him and then repent.  He finishes with a benediction and then a really huge sacrificing party - 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep.  I don't know how long it took to sacrifice each animal, but using a little bit of basic math I figured out that they definitely needed multiple priests sacrificing at once or they'd be there for like a week.

Now God appears to Solomon again, like he did before when Solomon asked for wisdom.  God tells Solomon again that if he lives as David did and follows God all his life, his throne will be established forever and everything will be good; but if he doesn't, the land will be taken away from him and the temple will be destroyed.  That makes me wonder, if Israel had never sinned, and if all the kings had been good, would Jesus have been born in a palace?

Now that all the temple work has been completed, Solomon gives fellow king Hiram twenty cities in Galilee, just to have.  I think that is really generous, because remember he's also been giving him food for the last 7 years.  But Hiram doesn't like the cities he got (maybe he doesn't like Galilee).  This, to me, is kind of like looking a gift horse in the mouth, don't you think?  But we don't know if Solomon did anything to make him more grateful.  We just know that those 20 cities were nicknamed Cabul, meaning "as good as nothing," and that Hiram sent Solomon 120 talents of gold.

Earlier, we heard that kings came from around the world to meet with Solomon because he had a reputation of being so wise.  Now the queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon.  Sheba is apparently where Ethiopia is today.  The queen and Solomon seem to hit it off, to the point that many people believe the queen returned to her country carrying Solomon's child.  And to this day, I believe the Ethiopians claim to be descendants of the queen of Sheba and Solomon, to some extent.  And maybe that's why they accepted Christianity so readily.  I don't know.


Now we get a description of how rich Solomon was - the armor, the chariots, the armies, the goblets, etc.  Apparently Solomon made Israel so rich that silver because a common metal.  How would you like to live in a land where there was as much silver as gravel!

Unfortunately, the other thing Solomon has a lot of is women.  300 wives and 700 concubines - seriously, that's disgusting.  How is it that the wisest ruler in the world is probably the stupidest husband?  Well, God didn't say he'd give Solomon wisdom for everything in life, just for ruling.  I don't believe that Solmon was the overall wisest person ever to live, because he made really foolish mistakes in his relationships - namely, that he had so many.  And guess what?  Since Israel apparently ran out of single women for Solomon to collect, he started turning to foreign women, including women from countries and religions that God said never to intermarry with.  And wouldn't you know it, all those women eventually turned Solomon's heart away from God.  If your heart is divided among 1000 women, I think it's only natural to suppose that it would become divided from God sooner or later as well.  Really, really stupid idea, wise guy.

So of course, trouble starts to come, and it comes from Israel's cousin, Edom.  Edom rebels against Solomon, and there was strife between the two nations for the rest of Solomon's life.  Now God tells a prophet named Ahijah that he's going to divide the kingdom between David's descendants and another guy named Jeroboam, and he'll even give Jeroboam the majority of the kingdom.  Ahijah tells Jeroboam that if he follows God, things will go well for him and he'll have a descendant on the throne of Israel forever - kind of like what God said to Solomon.  God doesn't want to destroy Israel, but he is going to use it as an illustration of what a heart divided looks like.  But out of love for David, God's decided to wait until after Solomon's death to do this.

Solomon dies, and I don't know what the state of his heart was.  God told Solomon himself that he's going to take the kingdom away from him, and we don't hear whether Solomon repents or not.  That's kind of discouraging, because God had been so important to him before - or maybe it was that he was preoccupied with David's vision, without ever making it his own.  I suppose we'll never know on this side of heaven.  Either way, it's clear that the old saying is true: God doesn't have grandchildren.  Just because David followed God wholeheartedly, doesn't mean that Solomon could do whatever he wanted.  Maybe Solomon was basing his relationship with God off his father's relationship, figuring that being the son of David was good enough to keep him in God's good graces.  And you just can't do that.

1 Kings 1-4: The King Is Dead; Long Live the King!

We start 1 Kings with David being on his death bed, or at least very near it.  He's very old and he gets really cold just lying around in bed all day.  So his advisers advise that they find a virgin to take care of David and sleep in his bed to keep him warm.  Now, my question is, where are all David's wives?  He's got at least eight, but none of them volunteer to take care of him - not even Abigail, the smart one.  Guess we know how committed those relationships are.  So they hire some pretty girl to be David's nurse, and good boy, he doesn't sleep with her (in that sense).  Maybe he's finally learned his lesson.

Then Adonijah, one of David's sons sets himself up as king - before David is even dead - even though David had already declared that Solomon would be king after him.  So the prophet Nathan talks to Solomon's mom Bathsheba and tells her to talk with David to make sure Solomon becomes king.  Sure, now the loving wife wants to spend time with her husband.  But David doesn't really mind too much; he declares that Solomon is going to be king, and he orders Nathan to set up a party anointing Solomon.  So they do.

Oh yeah, guess who else was behind Adonijah's becoming king?  That's right, Joab.  Finally, David tells Solomon not to let Joab die in peace, but he doesn't kill him himself (though I wish he would've). So David dies, Solomon becomes king, and Adonijah wants to keep his place in the land of the living, so he surrenders to Solomon, or rather to Bathsheba, and says all he wants is David's nurse, the cute girl who David fortunately didn't sleep with.  Bathsheba asks Solomon's permission, but Solomon isn't too thrilled with the idea - actually he says that Adonijah must be put to death.  He also fires the priest, since he was in cahoots with Adonijah, and apparently he's a relative of Eli - remember him from 1 Samuel?  God told Eli that He would judge his house.

Then finally - finally - Solomon order his new army commander to kill Joab, who has run away, and he does.  Solomon also kills the guy who had cursed David that David had let go.  Now all the resistance has been put down and Solomon's rule is secured.

Then God appears to Solomon in a dream and tells him to ask for something.  Solomon, wisely, asks for wisdom to rule.  God is really pleased with this request, so in addition to giving Solomon wisdom, He promises him wealth and long life and rest from his enemies, as long as he continues to be devoted to God.  Then we have an example of Solomon making a really wise decision - two women claim the same baby and Solomon figures out whose kid that baby is.

The next chapter basically tells us Solomon's kingly stats: who his officials are, what the extent of his territory is, and how his reputation as a wise ruler grows.  Solomon had 3000 proverbs, 1005 songs, and knew about trees, animals, birds, and all kinds of stuff basically.  And you thought your parents were know-it-alls.

So things are going well for Solomon.  His country has grown and it's at peace, he's got lots of money, and he's making good decisions for his people.  That means only one thing: It's time for a project.  But we'll find out about it next time.

2 Samuel 22-24: David's Last Days

We're coming to the end of another book, and at the same time we're coming to the end of David's reign.  He's just returned to Jerusalem after Absalom chased him out and after the other guy revolted against him, so he sings a psalm praising God for delivering him from all his enemies, from Saul onward.  The song is also found in Psalm 18, by the way.  The heading in my Bible calls it "David's Psalm of Deliverance," and it's all about the faithfulness of God, the greatness of God, and all the ways that God has saved David.  It talks about how God delivered David because David was righteous and kept God's commands.  This kind of runs contrary to what we're generally told about how God deals with people, that it's not about how good we are.  And when it comes to our eternal salvation, that's true, because nobody is beyond needing to be saved.  But with life's problems, the truth is that it pays to do the right thing.  God does reward obedience - he rewarded the Israelites, he rewarded David, and He rewards us too, although we don't always know when or how it'll happen.

Next, David sings a song declaring the greatness of God and rejoicing in God's covenant with him.  Things are good.

Then the story shifts to talking about David's "mighty men."  These are the heroes of David's army, the bravest of the brave and the strongest of the strong.  It lists all the names of the Thirty (there are 37 of them), but it talks in greater detail about the Three, who are the bravest of the bravest of the brave and the strongest of the strongest of the strong, and it briefly mentions each of their military exploits.  But then it tells about another adventure they had that was of a different nature - one time when they were at war, David said something about wishing for water from the well at his hometown, and his three mighty men sneak through the Philistine ranks and risk their necks to get David some of the water.  When they come back and present him with the water, he is too overwhelmed with their sacrifice to drink the water, and he pours it out as an offering to God.  This might sound like a really ungrateful thing to do, but I think offering it to God was really a way of honoring the men for what they did - kind of like, just saying thank you would not have been enough.  One time in college, I wasn't feeling too well.  I tend to crave apples when I'm not feeling well, but our college cafeteria only had icky mushy apples.  My favorite apples in the world are Galas.  I said something at dinner about wishing I had a Gala apple.  A few moments later Justin left the table without a word.  He returned an hour later with a giant bag of Gala apples.  I was so grateful that I think I was speechless for a minute.  Unlike David, though, I ate the apples.

Then something weird happens: David takes a census of Israel.  What's weird is, I don't understand this first sentence of chapter 24.  It says, "Now again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and it incited David against them to say, 'Go, number Israel and Judah."  What did Israel do to make God mad, and why did David's anger give him the idea to take a census?  Was that such a miserable experience that he thought it would teach them a lesson or something?  I have no idea.  But David tells Joab to do it, and Joab warns David that it's not a good idea, but David wants to do it anyway so they do.  For some reason God doesn't like this, and David feels guilty about it.  I'm not sure why - maybe God doesn't want David to know the size of his army, kind of like the Gideon situation where he wanted the people to know God was the one who won their victories.  Whatever the reason, God gives David a choice of 3 punishments for his actions.  The choices are basically between natural disasters or or being chased by enemies.  David says he'd rather fall into the hands of God than men, so God sends a plague.  Then David feels guilty because a bunch of people are sick and dying for his stupid mistake, so he prays and builds an altar, and God hears him and ends the plague.  And that's how this book ends.  Kind of a sudden ending, huh?

I think the idea with this last passage is the faithfulness of God in spite of the faithfulness of man.  That is to say, David acted righteously, and God was faithful.  Then David acted unrighteously, and God was still faithful.  It's like that verse that says that when we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

So it pays to do the right thing, but the truth is that we don't always do the right thing.  Even when we mess up, though, we can turn to God and rely on His mercy.

2 Samuel 11-21: Things Go Downhill

In an effort to catch up to where I've read, I'm doing a very large section today.  The good news is there's a theme to these 11 chapters: bad stuff happens.

Now, I am going to disagree with the heading my Bible has for chapter 11.  It calls this chapter "Bathsheba, David's Great Sin."  I would like to inform Zondervan that Bathsheba was not a sin, she was a person; David sleeping with her and murdering her husband, was a sin.  Remember what I said about David and his relationship with women?  This is the part where we see what happens when power goes to a guy's head and when he gets into the habit of having any woman he wants, no matter how recently widowed she is (Abigail) or who else she's currently married to (Michal, although to be fair she was David's wife first).  As much as I love David, at this point he's gotten kind of fat and lazy.  He's supposed to be out at war (apparently it was a regular yearly function for kings, maybe like the Olympics?).  But he stays home - mistake #1.  He's checking out his view and he sees a lady on the roof taking a bath.  Why she was taking a bath on the roof, I have no idea.  Now, I don't want to be too hard on David.  I'm sure it would have been hard not to look.  But he was a married guy - actually a multiply-married guy - and he could look at any of them any time he wanted.  But instead of remembering that, he kept looking at Bathsheba - mistake #2.  Then he asked about her and found out she was married, to one of his best soldiers, no less (he's listed at the end as one of the "mighty men"), which should have been a major red light, but no, he invites the married woman to his house - mistake #3.  He sleeps with her, mistake #4.  When she gets pregnant, he tries tricking her husband into sleeping with her, but he is too honorable to have a good time while his fellow soldiers are at war.  Uriah is a more righteous dude than David is at this point.  So David arranges with dear Joab for Uriah to die in battle - mistake #5.

Now David's got a dead guy and a pregnant widow on his hands; at least he has the decency to marry her after her period of mourning is over (a courtesy he didn't make with Abigail, but her husband was a jerk and it doesn't say anything about mourning him).

Anyway, you know what happens.  His pastor comes and tells him a story to get David to realize what an idiot he is; he wises up and repents.  God forgives him, but there is a consequence: Bathsheba's baby dies.

But since Bathsheba isn't David's only marital sin, she's also not his only problem.  Some time after that, one of his sons falls in love with one of David's daughters (they're half-brother and sister) - yet another reason why polygamy is a bad idea.  He rapes her and sends her away in disgrace.  The woman's name is Tamar - ironically, the last Tamar we saw in the Bible was also a victim of incest - and she happens to have a big brother named Absalom.  Ring a bell?  It should.  Absalom kills his half-brother (Amnon) for raping his sister, and then he gets banished.  But clueless David only cares about how much he misses Absalom, so he mopes around until Joab convinces him to un-banish Absalom.  Then Absalom starts a conspiracy to take over the crown.

Absalom gets pretty much all Israel (minus Judah) to support him, and things get tense to the point that David has to evacuate Jerusalem and go into hiding again.  David goes on the run once more.

Remember our friend Meph from last time?  He has a servant - well, he was really Saul's servant - named Ziba.  Ziba comes to David and tells him that Meph has stayed in Jerusalem thinking he was going to reclaim Saul's throne.  David then decrees that all Meph's property will go to Ziba.  This story really discouraged me because I liked Meph, but the story isn't over yet; there's a twist later on.

David passes some city and a guy curses him.  One of his followers requests permission to impale him, but David says to just let it go.  Around this time, Absalom enters Jerusalem.  It looks like he's going to become king.

Then Absalom's people get advice from two counselor-type people.  One of them, who is like a really important prophet , tells Absalom to sleep with David's concubines, and so he does - in view of all the city.  This is actually a fulfillment of something God told David would happen as a result of his sin with Bathsheba.  But this prophet also tells Absalom to send an army after David's men until they run away and David is left alone.  Absalom considers this, then gets advice from another guy.  The other guy says David's men will never desert, and that Absalom himself should ride in battle with everyone in the whole country and basically overwhelm David's tiny crew.  Absalom decides this advice is better.  Then the author gives us a little commentary: he says that the first guy's advice was actually better, but that God was planning to thwart the good advice and bring calamity on Absalom.

Then the second guy who gave advice goes and warns David about the advice he gave, so David is prepared ahead of time.  He tells all his soldiers to spare Absalom for his sake, and everybody knows everybody hears it.  Then somebody tells Joab that Absalom got stuck in a tree and is hanging there.  Joab tells the guy he should've killed him but the guy says no way, you heard David.  So what does our pal Joab do?  He finds Absalom and sticks him with three javelins, then has his minions finish the job.

David finds out about this, and of course he is really sad.  Joab mouths off to David and tells him not to mope about his son's brutal murder, and does Joab get in trouble? No!  David actually listens to Joab and tries to brighten up to improve his P.R.  But finally, when David gets back to Jerusalem, he replaces Joab with another army commander.  Maybe he doesn't know Joab killed his son.

Then we hear from Meph again.  We fight out that Ziba is a dirty liar and Jerusalem only didn't leave with David because, well, apparently he couldn't.  He's crippled, remember?  So David has Meph and Ziba divide Saul's property - I'm not sure why, because Ziba lied.  Maybe David couldn't tell who was telling the truth.    But Meph actually offers for Ziba to take all the land, because all he cares about is that David is home safe.  I like Meph.  I think he's a good guy.

So, we think that things are going to settle down now, but some random person revolts against David.  Amasa, the new army commander, takes all the people out.  But Joab, the little weasel, goes up to Amasa to hug him, and whilst hugging him, he stabs him with a sword and kills him.  What a jerk!  And so Joab assumes command over David's army, just like he did before.

Finally, there are some Gibeonites who have a grudge because Saul tried to kill them all, so David says he'll give them whatever they want.  They want seven men from Saul's family to be given to them to kill them, and David says okay.  What?  I don't know why that's okay, but there you go.  He doesn't give them Meph, but apparently there are 7 other relatives of Jonathan that David didn't provide for.  I find that really interesting.

So almost everything that could have gone wrong for David, has gone wrong now.  The moral of this story is, what goes around comes around.  David was messed up in his relationships with women, and it came out in his children's relationships with him and with each other.  The other moral of this story is, Joab is a jerk and he should be fired!  I am really upset that he's still alive right now.  Hopefully that won't last for long.

2 Samuel 7-10: Things Are Looking Up

So now that the ark of the covenant is back in Jerusalem, David wants to build a temple for it.  I guess he felt bad that he was living in a big cedar house and "God" was "living" in a tent.  Silly David, God lives in heaven - which I've never seen, but I hear it's much nicer than cedar.  Anyway, David tells the prophet Nathan, who basically acts as David's pastor in this book, and Nathan tells David to go for it.  But then God tells Nathan that was a bad idea and that He never actually asked for a house for Himself.  But then God says that David will have a son who will build God a house, I guess as sort of a compromise since He could tell David really wanted to do it and had good motives and all.  So Nathan gives David the message.  We humans have a tendency to speak too hastily - even pastors and prophets and people like that.  Just because somebody is really close to God doesn't mean they're above speaking presumptuously, and that means you and me too.

David takes the news well and says a really long prayer praising God and thanking Him for His faithfulness to him.

The next chapter is about all David's military victories, and it says that Joab becomes the army commander - bet he was happy about that - and then it says who the priests and so forth were.

The next chapter is one of my favorites.  At this point David thinks about how Saul has been killed, Jonathan's been killed, and even I.B. has been killed, and he asks if there is anybody else alive in Saul's family that he can be nice to before Joab somebody kills them.  And somebody tells them that there is one guy, named Mephibosheth, who is one of Jonathan's sons.  Mephibosheth, on top of having the world's worst name (seriously, it means "exterminating the idol" - what kind of name is that?), is completely lame in both feet because his nurse was a klutz and dropped him when he was a baby.  So Mephibosheth - I'ma call him Meph - is really freaked out to see King David, knowing that most of his relatives have been killed already.  So when David tells Meph that he's going to treat him like a son for the rest of his life, it probably rocks his world.  David kept his covenant with Jonathan after all these years and in spite of all the destruction that's happened in his family so far.  And Meph is grateful - David has won himself a lifelong ally.

Finally, another military story.  David's feeling pretty good about this being nice to others stuff, so he sends a big gift package to the newly crowned king of the Ammonites, whose father has just died, because the king's daddy was friends with King Saul.  But the new king treats David's messengers pretty scandalously, so David sends goes and beats the tar out of them.

So basically these last two chapters tell two stories of doing the right thing, doing something nice for somebody who needs it.  Sometimes when we do the right thing, it works out for us.  The other person is grateful and we get a big happy feeling inside for being generous.  But sometimes when we do the right thing, it's not appreciated.  Sometimes when we do the right thing, people treat us like crap, and there's nothing we can do about it.  Well, we can go beat the tar out of them, but I don't think that's the best thing to do in every situation (or in most situations).  But I think we still have to do the right thing anyway, regardless of how it's going to be taken.

Just don't go to war against people if they're not grateful for your kindness.

2 Samuel 6: The Ark

Somehow in writing this blog I got stuck on chapter 6, so I'm going to stick with it.  I know I'm behind (I'm reading 1 Kings now), but this passage stuck out to me.

Remember the ark of the covenant?  It's been sitting in a guy's house up on a hill for a while.  Well, now David is going to bring it into Jerusalem to stay permanently.  What they do is they put the ark on a cart, hitch the ark up to some oxen, and move it down the hill that way.  If you've ever ridden in a wooden cart over a dirt road, you know that this can get bumpy.  Well, it did, and so the ark started rocking pretty precariously, so this guy named Uzzah, who lived in the house where the ark was staying, reached out and touched it.  God struck him and he died.


At this point you might be thinking, what the heck?  Well, let's back up.  I remember reading in the Law about the ark of the covenant and how it was supposed to be made.  It had these four rings on the bottom with poles that ran through them so the ark could be carried.  And God specifically said that the rings were to remain in the ark and never be taken out.  The Levites would carry the ark, like they did when they crossed the Jordan; they were the only people who were supposed to handle it, as far as I remember.  And this is how it always was carried, up until it was stolen by the Philistines.  Remember that?  When the Philistines returned the ark, they put it on a cart and shipped it off to Israel.

So when the ark is being carried into Jerusalem, I see a few problems already.  First is that the Israelites know the proper mode of carrying the ark, and they have the proper means - the poles are, presumably, still in the ark.  Second is that not only are they breaking the rule, they're copying the Philistines.  Since when is that a good idea?  Third, for the past 20 years it's been in a guy's house.  If I'm not mistaken, it's supposed to be in the tabernacle.  And if I'm also not mistaken, the ark of the covenant played a very significant role in the sacrificial system - what with the sprinkling blood on the mercy seat and all that.  I wonder how that's been working out for the past 20 years?  I don't know who Abinadab is; it doesn't say whether he's a Levite or not.

Anyway, so what happened here?  I think that Uzzah and family, having the ark in their house for 20 years, kind of lost their sense of reverence for it.  Remember, the ark of the covenant was the earth's one physical dwelling-place of the presence of the Most High God.  The golden carved cherubim on the top of it had their faces covered because the angels who stand in God's presence cannot even see His face.  The ark is not a mascot, which is how they're treated it in the past; and it's not a pet, to be taken care of.  So when the ark is being toted down the hill on a cart and it starts to tip over, Uzzah feels like he has to take care of it.  He reaches out and touches, as it were, God, the God that cherubim in heaven don't even have the guts to look  at.  So that's why Uzzah died.  It's not that God has a thing for arbitrary rules of transportation; it's about reverence.

I think this is what happens to us sometimes.  We know what God expects of us, we have the means of obeying, but we think somebody else's stupid method is better than what we know we're supposed to do.  And sometimes, our idea of God gets really mutated.  We think that God is a lucky charm, a lamp to rub when we need something.  Or we think that God is a fragile little trinket that we have to protect, like if we don't, He won't be able to take care of Himself.  God is none of that, and we shouldn't treat him that way.

After Uzzah dies, the ark stays at another guy's house for three months (presumably he lived close to where Uzzah was killed).  Then David tries to bring the ark into Jerusalem again.  This time they have people carry it, and more than that, every six steps they stop and David sacrifices two animals.  They do this all the way to Jerusalem.  And nobody dies this time.  David is so psyched that the ark is coming to Jerusalem and nobody's dying that he has a party in the street as they go.  He and some girls start dancing, and David for some reason isn't wearing tons of clothing, and well, you can imagine how that would go.  His beloved wife Michal sees him from her window and gets really put off seeing her husband dancing the way he is.  I think she would rather the King of Israel be a little more dignified (maybe like her own father, although we all know how his reign turned out).  They have a fight, and David tells her that worshiping God is not about being dignified, and he would be even more of a disgrace if that's what worshiping God meant.  And guess what, we find out that David has kids with every woman in Israel, except Michal.  Either God made Michal barren, or Michal gets to sleep on the couch for the rest of her life.

Sometimes we get really caught up in what we look like, especially around other people, and sometimes we let that matter more than our love for God.  Actually, I'm going to back that up.  I think that if we look down on people who are so free in their worship in adoration of God, maybe it's because we are not free in our worship of God.  Have you ever noticed that the things that bother us the most about other people, are often things that we ourselves are guilty of?  I've noticed that about myself.  How lame is it to criticize other people for the way they worship God?  And if I do, maybe it's not their problem, but mine.  So maybe the next time somebody does something that really bothers me, instead of deriding them for it, I should check my own heart.

2 Samuel 1-5: David Is King!

When I said last time, the book ends with Saul's death and the valiant men recovering the body of him and his sons, that wasn't entirely true.  I mean, that's how 1 Samuel ends, but the original Book of Samuel was not divided into parts like it is today; it was just written on two scrolls.  So now we're on the second scroll.

It starts out with an Amalekite coming up to David - who's in his house in Philistia still - and telling him that Saul and his sons are dead.  David asks him how he knows, and the Amalekite says that he killed Saul himself.  Now, this might be true - Saul might not have killed himself immediately when he fell on his sword, and he might've seen the passing Amalekite and asked him to finish the job - or, the Amalekite might be lying in order to get some kind of reward from David for killing his mortal enemy and paving the way for him to become king.  Not so!  David is so mad that he has the guy killed on the spot, and all David's people fast and mourn and weep all day long.  David sings a dirge for Saul and Jonathan.  This is where that famous saying, "How the mighty have fallen" comes from.  I didn't know that.

Now one line in this dirge thing is interesting.  David says that Jonathan's love was better than the love of women.  Considering the kind of relationships David had with his wives and concubines, I find that really easy to believe.  Jonathan and David had a friendship based on mutual respect and a commitment to one another; David's relationships with his wives were not really based on much of anything.  The exception to this, I think, is Abigail, whom David seemed to admire for her brain and her graciousness, but the others? not so much (otherwise, why would he keep taking more wives?).  But we'll find out more about David's wives later.

So David then asks God if he should go to Judah, and God tells him to go to Hebron.  Hebron is one of those major cities during this time, by the way.  David goes there, and the people of Hebron anoint David king over them.

But meanwhile, Saul's army commander Abner anoints one of Saul's other sons, Ish-bosheth, king of Israel.  Ishbosheth was not one of the sons of Saul who was killed in battle, so either he was lucky that day, or he was too young to fight.  Either way, he lasts two years, but meanwhile all the people of Judah are following David - no surprise, because David is from that tribe.

Then Abner and Joab, who takes on the role of head of David's army, start a fight to see who will be king.  Joab's side is winning, and Abner runs away.

Then we get a list of the kids David has had during this time: there are six of them, and each of them is from a different woman.  Go figure.

Meanwhile, Abner gets really angry at Ish-bosheth, hereafter I.B., because I.B. accuses Abner of sleeping with one of Saul's concubines.  So for that reason alone, Abner decides to follow David and turn the whole army of Israel over to him.  David says great, just give me back my wife (Michal, who's been living with some other guy this whole time that David's been gone).  So they do.

Now, Joab doesn't like this turn of events.  I think it's because Abner is the commander of the army, and now that he's on David's side, he's probably going to be the commander of David's army, and Joab was just starting to take the title for himself.  Also, Abner killed Joab's brother earlier in that battle.  So Joab and his brother kill Abner.  David mourns him, which is good for his PR with the people of Israel - the ones who have been following I.B.  When I.B. hears about all this, he gets really freaked out that he's going to be next - and he's right!  Some people come in the middle of the night and murder I.B. by cutting his head off while he's in bed.  Now, can you get much lower than killing a guy in his own bed?  I don't think so.  They take I.B.'s head to David, for some reason thinking he'll be happy - weren't they paying attention this whole time?  Didn't they see what happened to the Amalekite when Saul died?  Yeah.  Big surprise, David kills them too.

So at last, with I.B. out of the way, David becomes king over all Israel, and it's David who moves the capital city to Jerusalem.  People build David a house, and David takes even more wives and concubines - because apparently six isn't enough - and he has eleven more sons and some number more daughters.  Now, I know David is a man after God's own heart, but this is really not what God had in mind when he invented marriage.  God made one Adam and one Eve, not one Adam and twelve Eves, and when He gave instructions in the Law for kings, He specifically said they weren't supposed to take a bunch of wives.  David has done that, and it's going to get him into trouble eventually.

Finally we have one more battle with the Philistines.  David may be crummy with women, but he is consistent when it comes to asking God about war.  God tells him to go up against the Philistines, and they win.

Wow, so it really took a long time to get to this point.  David has really grown up from the puny adolescent who had the guts to mouth off a giant.  He's experienced many joys and many sufferings, but one thing has remained constant: his devotion to God.  Unlike Saul, who started to drift away after not very long, David is always seeking God's will when he makes executive decisions as king.  Being in a position of leadership is tough, because you are responsible not just for you, but for everybody under you.  Leaders are held to a higher standard of accountability for that reason.  Saul didn't get that; David, for all his faults, does.

1 Samuel 27-31: David in Philistia?

That's kind of like the ultimate irony, isn't it?  David got famous by killing Goliath, champion of the Philistines, and now, having been chased by Saul for some time (apparently he didn't put too much hope in Saul's second moment of clarity, as discussed in the last post), he runs away to Philistia.  Go figure.  But it works - Saul stops looking for David.  And David does well in Philistia for about a year and four months.  At first the Philistines are pretty leery of him - can't for the life of me think why - but then David tells them that he's killed some people from around Judah and the surrounding area (in reality it was the Amalekites and some of those), and that makes the Philistines think David and his people are on their side and they think he's going to be on their side for the rest of his life, which would be a major plus, as evidently he's pretty handy with a weapon.

Then the Philistines go to war with Israel - big surprise, right? and Saul is scared because there are a lot of them.  So he does something majorly wrong.  You know how I said before that whenever David was about to attack someplace, he inquired of God to see if he should or not?  Saul does almost the exact opposite; he goes to a medium.  We know from the Law that mediums were not supposed to be allowed even to live in Israel, so somebody clearly hasn't been doing their job because there's at least one, and Saul goes to her.  He wants to talk to Samuel.  Remember, the last time Saul asked God something, God didn't answer him, so Saul is probably thinking Samuel is the only person who would listen to him, except he's dead.

Now, apparently opinions are divided as to whether or not this woman really conjured up the spirit of Samuel.  I have heard that the word for "medium" in Hebrew is the same as the word for "ventriloquist," although I don't know if there were such things as ventriloquists in ancient times.  Also, if you read the passage, Saul doesn't see Samuel.  He asks the woman who she sees, and she replies that she sees an old man with a robe, so then

Saul immediately believes it's Samuel.  Like, really?  How would you describe Abraham then?

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that it really is Samuel.  Samuel gives Saul a mini-lecture for calling him up just because he can't get a hold of God, and tells him the Philistines are going to win and he and his sons are going to die.  Considering that this is exactly what happens, it just might have been really Samuel.

Meanwhile, the Philistines start to mistrust David again, probably because they're going to war with his people, and they think that David's going to turn on them.  So the guy who's basically David's boss tells him that he can't go into battle with them.  David acts all sad like he wants to fight against Israel, but then he goes back to his Philistine home while the Philistines all go out to battle.

When they get there, though (they meaning David's people), they find that the Amalekites have raided their city and burned it and taken all the women and children (cuz those are the only people who were there once everybody went to battle) captive.  So David and his people go and get them back.  They run into an Amalekite deserter (well, he was actually left behind), who tells them where his people have gone in exchange for his life, and some of David's people get too tired to go after them so they stay behind with the stuff while the rest of the people go get the women and children and spoils.  When they come back, there's an argument over whether the tired people should get any of the spoils or not, since they didn't help fight.  David says they should because they were protecting their stuff, so they still deserve a reward.  The moral of this story is, don't leave the stuff you care about unprotected, or somebody will steal it.  Also, staying behind and defending what you have can be just as important as going out after what you've lost/what you don't have.

So then we shift focus back to Israel, fighting against the Philistines.  Three sons of Saul die, including our beloved Jonathan.  It's hard for me to picture Jonathan dying in battle like that.  He was the guy who sneaked out and killed Philistines for fun, after all.  And we don't even find out how he died, just that he did.

Saul has been hit by archers, his sons are dead, and his army is losing.  Rather than go out in a blaze of glory, Saul commits the ultimate act of cowardice: he asks his armor-bearer to kill him.  But his armor-bearer is like, no way.  So Saul falls on his own sword.  His armor-bearer, seeing that his master is dead, does the same.  That, to me, is like the ultimate act of loyalty, although I don't necessarily think it was the right thing to do.

The Philistines take Saul's body and his sons' bodies and cut their heads off and basically put the bodies on display for all the Philistines to mock.  But then the valiant men of Jabesh-gilead hear about it, and they steal the bodies of Saul and his sons and burn them, but then bury the bones and fast for seven days. And that's the end of the story.  Really, that's how the book ends.

The Jews were pretty much rotten people for most of their history, but they were good when it came to one thing: honor.  Saul may have not been a very good king, and he may have lost the battle, but the valiant men - those are like the knights - would not allow his body to rest in dishonor.  They risked their lives to bury their dead king.  That's pretty amazing to me.  And I guess that's why the Bible calls them valiant.  Valor goes beyond mere bravery; it's (according to Dictionary.com) "boldness or determination in facing great danger, esp. in battle; heroic courage; bravery."  These men were heroes, and it was the heroes who respected the dead so tremendously.  I don't know what to say about that, but it's something to think about.

1 Samuel 21-26: David on the Run

Now that David knows for sure Saul's out to kill him, he takes off.  First he comes to a place called Nob, and there's a priest there named Ahimelech.  David asks him for food, but all he has is the consecrated bread that only priests are allowed to eat.  David tells him Saul has sent him on a secret mission, which is not true, and also that he has a bunch of companions waiting just outside town, which I don't think is true.  But I'm not entirely sure because Jesus, in Matthew 12, makes a reference to this story and specifically says that David "and his companions" ate the bread.  I know that later on David has about 600 guys following him; maybe some of them are already with him?

Anyway, so one of Saul's servants, a guy named Doeg, overhears this whole conversation.  Remember that because we'll see him again shortly.  And David also asks for a weapon, and the only thing available is Goliath's sword - kind of ironic, eh?  So David takes that.

In the next chapter, David goes to a cave somewhere, and a bunch of people join him, including his family and people who are in debt or distressed circumstances.  I think it's pretty cool that David's brothers join him; the last time we saw one of David's brothers, he was telling David to go home because war is no place for little boys.  I guess the brothers realize that David is a grown-up now (and David probably is a grown-up now, being married and all; I don't know how many years have passed between when he killed Goliath and now).  Then David goes to Moab and the king lets his family stay there.  You might wonder, why is the king of Moab suddenly being nice to an Israelite?  The last time we heard from Moab, they were not on friendly terms with Israel.  Well, if we were reading the Bible chronologically, we would have seen already that David's father Jesse is the son of a guy named Obed, and Obed is the son of a man named Boaz, whose wife was named Ruth.  Ruth was from Moab.  Anyway, then David leaves because a prophet tells him to.

Meanwhile, Saul is trying to track David.  He asks people where David is, and who should volunteer information but Doeg, who happens to be around.  Doeg tells Saul about Ahimelech giving David food, so Saul summons him and tells his guards to kill him, but the guards are intelligent enough to see that it's a bad idea to kill a priest.  So Saul tells Doeg to do it, and Doeg kills not only Ahimelech, but 85 priests total in that one day, plus pretty much every living being in the city of Nob - men, women, children, babies, and animals.

What is up with this Doeg guy?  First he rats on David, then he kills priests?  Is he trying to get a raise or something and thinks that's the way to do it?  He seems pretty unscrupulous and shady to me.  I don't like him at all.

Now, while David's on the run, he's not so busy hiding that he doesn't have time to help people.  There's this town that's at war with the Philistines, and David consults God and then goes and helps them out.  Now what I love about David is that before he goes and fights someone, it always says that he inquires of God and asks him whether he should go or not, and then whatever God tells him to do is what he does.  I think that's a smart battle plan.

Now Saul is actually out following David's tracks, and he catches up to him.  Saul's men take a pit stop, and they don't know it, but they park outside the very cave where David and his men are hiding.  Saul thinks the cave is a bathroom so he goes inside, and all David's people tell David to kill him.  But David refuses because Saul is the Lord's anointed.  I find this really intriguing.  David knows that he is also God's anointed, and he probably knows that God has rejected Saul, or at least that His Spirit has left Saul.  David could probably convince any judge or jury that he was acting in self-defense if he killed Saul, and I bet nobody would think the worse of him for doing so.  I mean, the guy's already responsible for the deaths of 85 priests plus who knows how many hundreds or thousands of lives on top of that - all just because he was jealous.  But David refuses to harm Saul.  Why?

I think, honestly, that David likes Saul.  The guy is his father-in-law, after all, and before the Goliath thing it seemed like they had a really good relationship.  And David is best friends with Jonathan.  I'm sure that for Jonathan's sake alone he wouldn't do anything to hurt his dad.  David knows Saul will die someday, but he doesn't want it on his conscience.  David chooses to be above reproach.  And more than that, he tries to repair his relationship with Saul by showing him that he spared his life.  And Saul appears to have a moment of clarity.  It's like there's this dark cloud hovering around Saul, and for a moment the sun breaks through and he comes to his senses.  He goes back home.

Very briefly, the text says that Samuel dies and all Israel gathers together to mourn for him.  I wonder if Saul and David were there - especially if they were there together.  But the author doesn't want to dwell on this, probably so they can get back to the action of David, who moves again, this time to a place called Paran.

Next there's a story that I really like, about Nabal and Abigail.  They're a rich couple who live near a place called Carmel (not Caramel).  David and his people are staying out in the wilderness where Nabal's sheep graze, and apparently David's people are kind of watching out for Nabal's flocks and shepherds and stuff, making sure nothing bad happens to them while they're around.  So then David wants to move on, but first he wants to get some provisions, so he sends messengers to Nabal to ask him.  Nabal is a jerk; he basically thumbs his nose at David's messengers.  David gets really mad that his people were insulted, so he's about to go desecrate this guy's house.  But before he can, Nabal's wife gets wind of what happened, and she shows incredible domestic powers by somehow coming up with a ton of food and bringing it out to David and apologizing very gracefully for her husband.  So David doesn't go desecrate Nabal's house after all, and he's very grateful to Abigail for preventing him from doing something stupid.  A few days later, Nabal gets struck by God and dies.  David hears about it and proposes to Abigail, so she goes and joins him.  David already has another wife by this time named Ahinoam.  We don't really know anything about her.  We also find out that Saul has given David's first wife, Michal, to somebody else.  I didn't know that was allowed.

Remember Saul's moment of sun breaking through the clouds?  It's over now.  He hears where David is and goes out after him.  And almost the same thing happens that happened before: David has the opportunity to kill Saul, and he doesn't, and afterward he calls out to Saul - only this time he yells at the King's general for not guarding his king better.  Saul has another moment of clarity; he blesses David and goes home.

I think Saul is really troubled.  Whether it's this evil spirit or he's just really twisted his heart around, I don't know, but he is absolutely paranoid.  Even when he sees that David clearly does not want to kill him, he can't accept that; he is determined to think that David is against him and needs to be stopped.  Sometimes when we get a false perception of a situation or a person, we get obsessed with that idea, and it becomes really hard to let go of it even when it's proven to be false.   I think we should pray to see things through God's eyes so we will not misjudge situations or people so badly like Saul did.

1 Samuel 16-20: David

Now we've reached the part of the story where David enters the scene.  This is a story that I think everybody knows, but it's really pretty fun to read because there's a lot of action in it.  It starts with God telling Samuel to stop mourning for Saul and to go anoint the next king, who turns out to be David, the youngest of eight sons.  At first Samuel thinks that one of the older sons is the chosen one - probably because Saul was a tall handsome guy, and Jesse's oldest son is a tall handsome guy too, but God says that he's looking at the heart.

Right after David is anointed as the next king, Saul has really problematic mood swings.  It says that an evil spirit from the LORD torments him.  I've always been confused as to what this means.  Is it referring to a fallen angel type being, a creature that is evil but is under God's control, as all things are?  Or is it more like the angel of death, a good being but one that causes destruction?  I have no idea.  And if it's a demon, then is it God Himself who's telling the demon to torment Saul, or is it more indirect than that?  Why is Saul getting tormented by a spirit at all just because God's Spirit has left him?  These are my questions.  But anyway, it's pretty ironic that they look for a musician to help soothe Saul, and it turns out to be David, the guy who's just been appointed to replace Saul someday.  By the way, I think this makes an important statement about the power of music and the arts, even the spiritual power of art.

Next is everybody's favorite story: David and Goliath.  When I read this story this time, I was struck by the fact that out of Jesse's eight sons, only three of them are at war.  Now what that says to me is that only those three are of fighting age.  From what I learned reading Numbers, fighting age is ages 20 and up, so there are 4 sons between age 19 and whatever David's age is.  The absolute oldest David can be in this story is 16, and that's like if his mom had a kid every 9 months. My little brother is 17.  I can totally picture him in David's role here.  He is super cute, super smart, and super opinionated.  He would have no problem going up to some hotshot gigantic Philistine and telling him to shut the heck up.  He's the kind of kid who really stands up for what he believes in, you know?  I picture David like that, only not blond.  My brother is blond.

Can you just picture a little 14- or 15-year-old kid who hasn't hit his growth spurt yet, running out to meet this 9-foot-tall Yao Ming on steroids?  Yao growls at the kid, who shouts back at him with his voice cracking, I'm going to cut your head off!  Then everybody here will know that there is a God in Israel! You would think, what a punk!  Goliath probably thought David was a punk, and he probably thought that right up until he died.

Thing is, David didn't give himself credit for what he did to Goliath.  It's clear he was pretty confident - he even told Saul that he'd armwrestled a bear and a lion before and won, but he wasn't claiming credit for those victories either.  He said that God was the one who delivered David from those enemies, and God was the one who would kill Goliath.  David had a lot of faith and a lot of courage, but not in himself - it was all in God.  What a dude.  No wonder all the screaming fangirls of Israel fell in love with him after that day.

Saul now goes through a wicked stepmother, "who's the fairest in the land" phase.  He doesn't like being #2 to this punk kid who can't even fit into his armor.  He tries various methods of getting him accidentally killed - send him on a dangerous mission, make him marry his daughter, throw a spear at him - but none of these subtle techniques seem to work.  That's partly because David has an inside man.  It's Jonathan, the honey-eater from earlier.  Jonathan and David are BFFs.  This is where we get a clue about what a great guy Jonathan is, because he knows full well that David is going to be king someday, and that is the job that he, Jonathan, has been brought up for all his life.  But he doesn't resent David.  In fact, it's his idea to make a covenant with David, swearing allegiance to each other all the days of their lives.  That's pretty hardcore.  So when David is afraid Saul is going to kill him, Jonathan finds out so he can warn David.

David has another inside man, actually an inside woman: his wife Michal.  Michal is Saul's daughter.  At first Saul tried to get David to marry his older daughter Merab, but David didn't feel worthy of the honor of being the king's son-in-law.  But Michal was violently in love with him, and Saul wanted him to kill a bunch of Philistines to marry her, so that made it okay.  Michal also helps David escape one time when Saul is trying to kill him, and I think it's pretty big of her to stand up to her dad when he comes looking for her.  Unfortunately, this is the last good thing I'm ever going to say about Michal.

So back to Jonathan.  Jonathan comes up with a plan to warn David if he finds out that Saul wants to kill him. Saul is really furious with Jonathan for being David's friend, and I kind of see why.  Jonathan is Saul's son; he's supposed to be on his dad's side.  Making Jonathan king after him represents everything they've been working for, all of Jonathan's life.  To see Jonathan so willing to give that up to some kid who smells like sheep is an even bigger blow than the son who doesn't want to go be a football player at his jock dad's alma mater because he would rather pursue a degree in musical theatre.

So you can guess what happens: Jonathan warns David, they have a very tearful farewell because they probably know they'll never see each other again, and David takes off running.  He's going to be running for quite some time.

So I think at this point we've seen Saul reach pretty much his all-time low.  I had really really liked him at first, and it makes me sad to see him turn into such a jealous paranoid freak.  I like David though, and Jonathan, and the friendship that David and Jonathan have.  I love the faith that David has in God to protect him in whatever circumstances he faces.  He's going to need that faith for the next several chapters.