Month: March 2021

Week 13 2 Samuel

The last chapter of 2 Samuel tells a story about David’s national military census.
For some unexplained reason he shouldn’t have done it.
But I don’t waste time wondering why it was wrong because today I’m looking at what prompted it: the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and it incited David against them to say, “Go, number Israel and Judah”.
But then there’s a cross-reference to the same story in Chronicles: then Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel. So Israel had done some unnamed evil that angered the Lord. Then David personally initiated the census – he admitted later: it is I who have sinned, and it is I who have done wrong – but the text says that the Lord incited it and that Satan motivated it too.
I don’t have a big problem with the idea that an event can have a bunch of inputs. The problem is that in this story the inputs that you’d think would work against each other seem to be collaborating.
For me this story is part of the bible-reader’s minefield. I don’t like having to manage multiple contrary inputs. My preference is for simplicity clarity & common-sensicality.
That said…even though I don’t get it doesn’t mean I don’t believe it.
But it’s a complex story and so I finish the book of Samuel filing the Census Story in my Inconclusive Events drawer.

Note: quotes from 1 Samuel 24:1, 17, 1 Chronicles 21:1 (NASB)

Week 13 2 Samuel

After king David had his adulterous sexual intercourse with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed to cover it up the prophet Nathan came to David and told him a story.
A rich man had herds of livestock. His poor neighbour only had a single lamb. One day company came to the rich man’s house and he wanted to prepare a meal for them but he didn’t want to use any of his own animals. So he stole the poor man’s lamb and slaughtered it for his feast.
When David heard the story he was furious with the rich man.
But David got off his high-horse when Nathan told him: you are the man!
It’s an interesting thing to see. How clearly and accurately David judged another guy who had basically done the same thing that David had just done but that David didn’t see clearly or accurately.
It was easy for David to judge the other guy. Things got a little fuzzier and complicated when it came to judging himself.
I don’t know what the hardest thing in the world to do is. But getting an error-free read on myself is right up near the top.
It’s pretty much impossible to be impartial about me, to face up to what I am.

Note: quote from 2 Samuel 12:7 (NASB)

Week 13 Psalm 77

Psalm 77 seems like two psalms to me…
Psalm 77A (1-10) and
Psalm 77B (11-20).
Psalm 77A seems like a Downsider Blues psalm.
Psalm 77B is sunnier.
Asaph sounds like he was down when he wrote 77A : this is my fate, that the blessings of the Most High have changed to hatred. That’s pretty strong language (even though I understand the feeling and I’m reassured he said it).
Of course Asaph doesn’t end with that. He goes right on into 77B with its Remember What the Lord Has Done reminder.
In my bible the space between the end of verse-ten and the beginning of verse-eleven is fractional. I think it’s deceptively fractional. In real life that fractional-looking transition might be Grand Canyon-sized.
I’ve got no problem with Asaph saying the Lord’s past actions can be a helpful management tool when it comes to dealing with my blues. But I think his shift from verse ten to eleven is a bigger one – psychically-emotionally-spiritually – than he lets on.
But I don’t fault Asaph. He can’t say everything.
And if some things are left unsaid I still walk away from 77 with the reminder that being familiar with what the Lord has done has the potential to help me. Reading through familiarizes me. And being familiar can help with the Deep Blues.

Note: quote from Psalm 77:10 (NLT)

Week 12 2 Samuel

Nathan came to David with a big-time prophetic message: the Lord declares that he will build a house for you – a dynasty of kings! For when you die, I (the Lord) will raise up one of your descendants, and I will make his kingdom strong. He is the one who will build a house…for my name…If he sins, I will use other nations to punish him. But my unfailing love will not be taken from him…Your dynasty and your kingdom will continue for all time before me and your throne will be secure forever.
I’ve read the story before and so I know the first part of the forecast comes true because Solomon does build the temple in Jerusalem. Then the if-he-sins part comes true too. Solomon turns from the Lord. His kingdom is busted-up. He dies and things go off the rails. The short-range prophecy comes true.
But there’s also the longer-range forecast: your kingdom will continue for all time before me and your throne will be secure forever.
For a prophecy to be true it has to come true. So for this longer-range forecast to be accurate David’s dynasty has to – in some way – keep on going permanently. For-all-time. Forever.
Which means that technically David’s perpetual-dynasty has to have maintained momentum from his time up until 27/03/21 – in some identifiable way – and then to carry right on-and-on into the future.

Note: quote from 2 Samuel 7:11-16 (NLT)

Week 12 2 Samuel

So far I’ve only read about David’s Hebron Years: he had reigned over Judah from Hebron for seven years and six months, and from Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah for thirty-tree years. Something I noticed is that other than the Lord specifically telling David to go to Hebron at the beginning of chapter two there isn’t much said about the Lord for the next 86-verses. I counted about twenty-two events that happened during the Hebron Years – Ishbosheth Abner Joab Asahel & like that – but almost nothing said about the Lord being part of that mix.
I’m not sure why the writer wrote it that way but he really keeps the Lord under wraps.
It’s way more useful for a reader when the bible says something like: David became more and more powerful, because the Lord God Almighty was with him. Then I know.
Still…even though 2 Samuel two-three-four don’t spell out that the Lord helped David it doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t.
I read the bible and I find things left unsaid.  I can just keep reading. Or I can try filling in the blanks – which can be a bit of a risky game. But one pretty fair place to begin is to ask myself: if the original writer had filled in that gap what would he likely have said?

Note: quotes from 1 Samuel 5:4-5, 10 (NLT)

Week 12 1 Samuel

In the middle of 1 Samuel there’s a changing-of-the-guard statement made. Samuel had told the young David that he would be the next king and then the bible says: the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon (David) from that day on. Then the very next verse says: now the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul, and the Lord sent a tormenting spirit that filled him with depression. These two verses land right in the middle of the book – I counted 395 verses before them and 413 after.
If I’m reading through 1 Samuel for the first time I’m likely getting a sense at this point that things will a) get worse for Saul and b) get better for David. But what actually does happen is that things a) get worse for Saul and b) get worse for David.
After the Spirit of the Lord came on David Saul tried to murder him twice before sending a death squad to assassinate him. So David left town. He spent time going from pillar to post – Nob, Gath, Adullam, Moab, the forests of Hereth, Keilah, Ziph, Horesh, the Arabah valley, Engedi, and back to Gath and Ziklag. Hiding out, living like an outlaw from the Dead Sea to Philistine country.
This all happened after the Lord’s Spirit came on him.
It’s tempting to think that when the Spirit comes to people things will get better.
In David’s case the Spirit came and things got worse.

Note: quotes from 1 Samuel 16:13 & 14 (NLT)

Week 12 1 Samuel

I finished reading 1 Samuel today and since the book ends on a dark note my mind drifted a bit, I guess turning away from the gloom. I remembered yesterday I found a connection between Psalm 54 and the two Ziphite Betrayal stories in 1 Samuel so I thought I’d get my mind off Saul being impaled on a wall by doing a quick search to see if there were other psalms with a 1 Samuel connection.
The easiest way was to check psalm subtitles that identified other David-on-the-lam stories. I found six that seemed pretty definite: 34 52 54 56 57 59. The subtitles spelled out events from 1 Samuel. And the editors of my bible added cross-references to those exact stories. So that helped.
When I was done I sat asking myself: what-was-the-point-of-that?
I’m not saying there was no point. I think I was just miffed that I didn’t have time to do anything with what I’d found. But my guess is that if I took time I’d likely find some useful tips about what to expect and how to react when I’m under the gun.

Note: Psalm 7 sounds like an on-the-run psalm but there wasn’t a cross-reference; Psalms 18 & 63 might refer to stories from 2 Samuel – I was looking at 1 Samuel; so I didn’t include those three. Added note: since I’ve only read up to Psalm 72 this year I didn’t look for subtitles from 73-150. The point? Don’t take my references to the bank.

Week 12 1 Samuel

A couple of weeks ago I read Psalm 54. Its subtitle said: a meditation of David, regarding the time the Ziphites came and said to Saul, “We know where David is hiding.”
So yesterday I got to the story where the Ziphites came to Saul and said: we know where David is hiding – the story behind psalm 54. But then the Ziphites showed up again in my reading today and told Saul: David is hiding on the hill of Hakilah, which overlooks Jeshimon. The margin of my bible cross-references both of these Ziphite Betrayal stories to Psalm 54. I’m not too sure what to make of that.
Q: Is psalm 54 a meditation on the first story or the second? Or both?
A: I don’t know.
That’s okay because my real bonus is finding the events behind the psalm. I see that when David says violent men were trying to kill him he was talking about Saul.
David’s reaction is pretty good the way it rises above the circumstance. Saul is trying to kill him but David can say: God is my helper. The Lord is the one who keeps me alive.
I don’t get the sense David will be letting down his guard. But he admits that staying-alive was in the Lord’s hands.
David’s Rule: I’ll do everything in my power to stay alive but I know that everything I do isn’t everything that will get done.

Note: quotes from 1 Samuel 23:19, 26:1 & Psalm 54:6 (NLT)

Week 11 1 Samuel

A while back I heard an audio recording of a talk about the David & Goliath story. The guy said the story is baffling unless you understand what’s really going on. And what’s really going on is that David was not as inferior – and Goliath wasn’t as fearsome – as you might think. In fact David was so dangerously lethal – and Goliath so physically deficient – that an informed person wouldn’t be surprised by the outcome.
It was a pretty interesting intelligent perceptive & well-told tale. And surprising too since it turned the bible story on its head so that D&G is not about weakness-overcomes-strength. It’s about strength camouflaged-as-puny vs. feebleness disguised-as-power.
Creative as it is I don’t get the impression the revised version is the point the bible writer was making. David told Goliath: you come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord Almighty…Today the Lord will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. The writer isn’t saying David is stronger than he looks. He’s saying the Lord would conquer the giant, and David would just finish him off.
When I’m reading through it isn’t illegal to think my own thoughts about what the bible’s saying. At the same time I figure it isn’t up to me to decide what a writer was actually thinking. He gets to make his own point.

Note: quote from 1 Samuel 17:45-46 (NLT). Speech by Malcolm Gladwell.

Week 11 1 Samuel

The story of Samuel meeting David’s family and then choosing David as the king-to-be is a pretty interesting one.
Jesse had eight sons and he & Samuel went through a kind of Future King Selection Process. They didn’t have explicit directions from the Lord about how to run it so decided to go with common sense categories like birth-order maturity qualifications experience strength appearance physical-size & like that. But almost right away the Lord tipped Samuel off about something he should have already known: don’t judge by his appearance or height…The Lord doesn’t make decisions the way you do! People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at a person’s thoughts and intentions.
I underlined the section in my bible because it’s a useful thing to remember: the Lord doesn’t make decisions the way I do. He takes other things into consideration, invisible internal unknown things. Things I don’t see or care about. So he has a vision advantage. By contrast I’m going into a dark room with my sunglasses on.
The idea sticks with me; concerns me a bit too.
I turn it around: I don’t see things the way the Lord sees them. He and I don’t see eye-to-eye.
Seeing the wrong way isn’t that much better than being blind. So I can have an argument with myself about who sees best, the Lord or me. But it’s a goofy debate if I’m the one with glaucoma.

Note: quote from 1 Samuel 16:7 (NLT)