David the King

I am not sure how I feel about David.

According to both books of Samuel, God chose David to be king after Saul was gone.  And Saul spent most of his adult life trying to kill David.  Apparently, Saul's sons felt one of them should be the next king, not David.  God did not agree.  This is where Second Samuel begins.

David finds out Saul and his son Jonathan have been killed in battle.

David repays the messenger of this news by having him killed.  Then he begins lamenting Saul's death and ordering everyone else to learn his lament.  I picture David being very dramatic in his wailing.  This is followed by a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David over who is the rightful king of Israel.  David's men killed Saul's sons, thinking this would make David happy, and David repays them by, wait for it, having them killed.

Soon after, at age thirty-seven, David officially becomes king of all Israel.

David defeats the Philistines and decides to bring the Ark of God to Jerusalem.  As they enter the City of David, he starts dancing before the Lord, making quite a spectacle of himself.  David's former wife Michal, who was forced to leave her current husband and live with David, gives him a piece of her mind.  He made her angry and embarrassed.  David doesn't care.

Sometimes David acts like a child.

David spends his life doing both good and bad.  On one hand he saves Jonathon's disabled son and sets him up for life.  On the other hand he sees his neighbor's wife as she is bathing on her roof and has her brought to him so he can sleep with her.  David tries to hide what he did when he finds out Bathsheba is pregnant, hoping to get her husband to sleep with her, too, so they can convince him the baby is his.  Her husband doesn't cooperate.  So David sends him out to battle, knowing he will be killed.  Of course, he is and David brings Bathsheba to his house as a wife.  David broke so many commandments here it is ridiculous.

God is not happy with David and says the baby will die because of his behavior.

The baby dies but Bathsheba and David have another son, Solomon.  I don't know yet, but I suspect this is the wise Solomon we heard about in Sunday School.  You know, the one who settles the argument between the two women who both claimed to be mother of a baby.  He proposed cutting the baby in two and the woman who gave up her claim to save the baby was decided to be the real mother.  God has this habit of putting two unlikely men and women together to create special people in Jesus's line (Ruth the Moabite and Boaz, now David and Bathsheba).

The book ends with David singing a song of praise.

David sings, "All his laws are before me, I have not turned away from his decrees.  I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin."  What is he talking about?  Davis is far from perfect.  He is arrogant.  He is childlike.  He is short tempered.  He broke God's commandments and yet God forgave him.  Sometimes I really don't like David.  Maybe it is because he is too human, too flawed.  And I wanted more.

Why do I care that David is flawed?

I care because of God's promise that was revealed through Nathan near the beginning of the book.  He prophesied the birth and death of Jesus (at least that is what I think this is saying).  He said Jesus is part of the line of David. "...I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom.  He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands.  But my love will never be taken away from him..."

I guess I wanted Jesus to come from a line of superheroes and not just mere mortal men. 

Drama, Drama, Drama

I finally finished reading 1 Samuel.

We are in the middle of a worldwide health pandemic where stay at home orders are the norm.  You would think staying at home would mean I could read more and write more, but no.  I am able to work from home so no reading, binge watching Netflix or cleaning closets for me.  My days are generally spent working on my computer, answering the occasional phone call and attending skype meetings.  I take a long lunch hour walk, just to get some fresh air.  I long for someone other than my husband to see and talk to in person.

But I digress...

I thought I would be reading a book about Samuel.  I mean, that is the name of the book.  And since I had no idea who he was, this seemed reasonable to me.  The beginning of the book does talk about Samuel.  His mother, Hannah, prayed to God that He would give her a son.  If He did, she would dedicate that son to God.  Samuel was born and Hannah left him with the priest Eli.

Normally, Eli's sons would become the next priests, but they were wicked so God decided Samuel would lead the Israelites.  And he did for many, many years.  But, the Israelites wanted to be like the other nations around them.  They wanted a king to follow, not a priest.  Samuel consulted with God and is told what life would be like under a king's rule.  It will not be good.  Samuel relays this to the people and they don't care.  They want a king.  So, with God's blessing, Saul becomes king and reigns for forty-two war filled years.  

The rest of 1 Samuel reads like an action movie script.

Saul doesn't obey God and he fall out of God's favor.  God then decides that a young man named David should be the new king.  Saul is blissfully unaware of God's new plan and hires David to work for him, playing the lyre when Saul needs soothing, which is often.  This is where the story of David and Goliath is told.  This is the story of the close friendship of Saul's son Jonathan and David.  This is the story of Saul trying to kill David, over and over again.  This is the story of David asking Saul, why, why does he want to kill him?  This is the story of how David spares Saul from death twice.  And in the middle of all this, Samuel dies, a side note in the complicated story of Saul and David.

The book ends with Saul's death.

1 Samuel is filled with conniving villains, taunting enemies, complicated plots to kill the competition, daring escapes, ferocious battles, unexpected heroes and an evil king.  There are stories of marriage, survival and forgiveness.  The stuff of action movies.

What is left for 2 Samuel?  Guess I'll find out...