130 2 Chronicles 18-20

  Jehosephat allied with Ahab, the king of Israel, through marriage, and started repairing the fracture between the two nations.  Ahab asked to Jehosephat to go to war with him against Ramoth Gilead, some random middle-eastern parcel of desert.  Befoire Jehosephat would agree to such a war though, he asked about what the Lord thought.  Ahab brought all his prophets out and they all said that whatever Ahab wanted to do would be awesome, but Jehosephat pressed him and asked if he had any prophets of the Lord.  Ahab admitted that there was a prophet of the lord in Israel named Micah, but he complained that it was a drag to listen to Micah because all he did was say negative things all the time.  Jehosephat insisted that they hear what Micah had to say though so Ahab dutifully summoned him.

  Micah heard that all the cool prophets were telling Ahab that he would crush Ramoth Gilead and be awesome forever, so he tried to tell the two kings the same thing they had been hearing so far.  Micah was a bad liar though and Ahab ordered him to tell them what the Lord had actually revealed to him.

  Micah told the kings that things would not go well at all in battle, so Ahab had him put in prison and ordered that he have nothing  but bread and water until his own safe return from the front.  So really there's no way for Micah to win here.  The warning must have had some effect though because Ahab wore a disguise to the battle so no one would know who he was.

  When they actually went out to fight Ramoth Gilead, the enemy had orders to ignore all of the Judean and Israelite soldiers and to concentrate only on the king.  Since Jehosephat was dressed as a king and Ahab was disguised as a random charioteer, this did not bode well for Jehosephat.  Enemy soldiers began pursueing him immediately.  He prayed to God though and the Lord protected him.  The enemy soldiers realized that he was not the king of Israel and stopped following him.  Meanwhile, Ahab was struck by a random spear and died by nightfall.

  Jehosephat wasn't completely off the hook though.  He had gone to war on the side of Ahab even though he knew that a prophet of the lord had spoken out against it.  As soon as he got back home, his own prophets of the Lord gave him an earfull.  But, he did tear down all the Ashera poles so he bought himself a little bit of leeway I guess.

  Some people from the east came in later and tried to invade Judah, but Jehosephat went before the Lord and prayed about it.  He asked God if He would allow someone to come in and take the land that God had given to the Isaraelites back in the day, especially since the only reason they were neighbors with these people from the East anyway was because God had forbidden Aaron and the original Israelite armies from wiping these guys out.  Now God is surprisingly susceptible to cogent arguments in the Old Testiment so He agrees that it's not fair for foreigners to come in and swipe the land He gave to them, so if the Judean army goes out and stands their ground in an act of faith, they won't even have to fight.  They do, so they don't.  Judah wins without firing a shot when the other army tears itself apart in the night.  Judah even gets the plunder.

  Jehosephat rules for 35 years which it a huge amount of time compared to most other kings.  The impression I get from him is very devout, but a little naive.  Aside from that misguided alliance with Ahab, he also tries to reconcile with Israel a second time by allying with Ahzakiah, another king of Israel, to build some ships for trading.  God still doesn't like Israel though so all his ships sink.

129 2 Chronicles 13-17

  Abijah succeeded Rehoboam as king of Judah.  The text very conspicuously omits any mention of Abijah being of the anointed line of David, which is interesting given how heavily Abijah leaned on this anointed bloodline thing when he railed against Jeroboam and Israel.  And he must have at least been on good terms with God because he eventually angered Israel into attacking Judah and fended them off handily because, as the book says, God was on his side.
  That's pretty much all Abijah did during his reign though. Next king:

  Abijah's son king Asa ruled over a period of peace.  He was a big fan of the Lord and oversaw the removal of all kinds of shrines and ashera poles which I guess were all there during his father's reign?  After a decade the cushites came and attacked though, leaving a lush, Indian paradise to come take over a whole bunch of desolate Middle-eastern tumbleweeds.  This seems a little bit like Oregon invading Arizona to me, but Judah was a power-house around this time so maybe it was just a matter of principle.
  Anyway, Asa was tight with God so he won easily and the cushites went home defeated.  Then God spoke to the prophet Azariah and told him to tell Asa that He would be found if Asa would seek Him and that Asa could turn Judah back toward God if he tried.  Asa did try and had all the pagan idols in Judah destroyed (again?  more thoroughly?) and restored the temple that Solomon had built.
  Honestly, I didn't realize that Judah had turned away from God since Solomon's time.  This is all happening withing the "18 year reign of Jeroboam" in Israel, so it's not like we're looking at a long, slow decline over several generations here.  Judah must have forgotten about God literally within months of the death of Rehaboam.  I guess there's probably a lesson there about how much damage a lame representative can do to the church.  David did pretty well and the nation flourished.  Solomon did pretty well and the nation flourished.  Rehoboam was kind of a jerk, spending the credibility that his predecessors had earned, and the nation splits, both side descending almost immediately into idolatry.

  Later in king Asa's reign, he stripped his grandmother of her political power because she promoted the worship of foreign gods, and he sent a bunch of treasure to the king of Damascus to restore a treaty from back in Solomon's day.  This latter move proved to be a mistake because, even though it worked out well in the short term and Israel stopped causing trouble with Judah, Asa relied on this treaty in stead of relying on the Lord.  A prophet told Asa as much and Asa was angry with him and put him in prison, then started oppressing the people.  I think the moral there is that once you start turning your back on God, it's a small step to becoming a huge jerk.  So Asa had a good start, but eventually screwed up being in charge.  Next king:

Jehosephat was the son of Asa, but the text also refers to David being his ancestor so now we finally have some evidence that we're still talking about the line of David here.  Jehosephat fortified the border with Israel and removed the high places and Ashera poles.  He's the third king in a row to have removed the high places and Ashera poles, so I guess the people must have been just sort of constantly erecting these things all through these times.  Jehosephat sent teachers and Levites around through Judah teaching people about the Lord.  Smaller groups in the area like the Philisitnes and the Arabs paid tribute to Jehosephat.  It's interesting that a pretty solid indicator of how tight the king is with God seems to be what the neighboring pagan tribes think about him.  Whenever a Jewish leader is really on the up an up, all the key gentiles in the area also think that he's great.  God said in Exodus that He would reveal himself to anyone who honestly sought Him, although he was talking specifically to Moses and the Israelites.  There seems to be a theme though of foreigners outside of the Jewish tradition still knowing that God is God, and supporting whomever God supports.  Balaam and Malchizedek come to mind specifically.

128 2 Chronicles 10-12

  The story of Rehoboam, the son and heir of Solomon.  Again, one perspective on this story was covered in 2 Kings, but the account in 2 Chronicles has a little different pacing.  Major themes are common to both stories.  King Rehoboam took over after Solomon died (I forgot to mention Solomon died at the end of chapter 9) and the people petitioned him to lighten their workload some.  Solomon's huge building projects were neat and all, but the people were tired of the constant labor.  Rehoboam came back and told them that his little finger was thicker than his father's waist and that he would work them even hard so shut up.  The people did not react well to that and they ran the king out of town.  Jeroboam led the angry people back to their homes and started a new kingdom in the north.  This was the split between Judah and Israel.

  Now this part is a little different than in Kings.  Before, there was no mention that I recall of the Levites in Israel.  I remember specifically pondering what happened to them in this split since they're spread through all the tribes of Israel and would have trouble picking their allegiance.  Since they're exempt from military service anyway though, it doesn't really matter.  In this new version though, the Levites, as well as everyone in Israel who wanted to continue to worship the Lord up and moved south to Judah.  In their eyes Rehoboam was the heir of David's line which was anointed by God, so they had no choice but to follow Rehoboam.  Jeroboam in this story immediately erects pagan shrines all across the country and starts ignoring God.
  Rehoboam still seems to have a functioning relationship with God in this section, at least by way of the prophet  Shemaiah.  Rehoboam comes home and starts getting ready for a big battle with Judah but God tells him not to.    While Rehoboam does not seem like a great king as far has his leadership abilities go, he seems at least receptive to what God tells him and that puts him ahead of the average.  Eventually he slips though, because being king seems to make it pretty difficult to be properly in tune with what God wants, and God has Egypt ally with a few other nations and come in to conquer them.  They're all set to wipe out Israel but at the last second the leaders of Israel realize that the reason God's turned on them is because of their pride and them humble themselves.  God is impressed by the display and decides to let them keep their country.  The Egyptian king just loots the gold shields that Solomon put in the temple and lets them go.

  This story doesn't differ really from the version in 2 Kings I don't think, but I feel like reading it yields different themes and gives a different impression of the major players.  Reading two different historical accounts of anything I would expect there to be differences, but one of the things I'm trying to keep in the back of my head through this whole program is the idea that the Bible is completely literal without any metaphor, embellishment or inaccuracy.  I naturally balk at this interpretation of the bible because I think it undermines the necessity to learn anything about the cultural context of these records.  It seems to be pretty popular though so I'm interested in whether it's really feasible.  It seems possible so far, although it yields some strange things in Genesis.

127 2 Chronicles 6-9

  Kind of a late post for the holiday week, but that's okay because you can pretty much just look at my previous posts from 1 Kings, like this one.  King Solomon has a lot of really ambitious building projects all over the country and people come from all over the world just to listen to him say brilliant things, most notably the queen of Sheba who brought him extravagant gifts of precious metals and gushed about how lucky his attendants were to get to bask in his wisdom all the time.

126 2 Chronicles 3-5

  2 Chronicles is boooorrrriiing.
  I was just rereading some of my older posts from Genesis when everything was all about God walking around telling people off and angels doing stuff.  2 Chronicles is about Solomon building the temple to God in Jerusalem.  Specifically, it's about Solomon negotiating a trade contract with a foreign king for some lumber and craftsmen, then overseeing, in minute detail, the dimension and decoration of the temple.  To summerize: it was really big and pretty much everything was covered in gold.

  For me, the real take-away message is about how our deeds are so different in their scope to God's deeds.  My problem reading 2 Chronicles today was really that I was trying to compare Solomon's administration of the temple building project to God literally creating the universe from nothing.  I'm not saying that the Israelites lost sight of that difference when they were building the temple, but I know how easy it can be to be wowed by a big building project.  It would probably seem quaint to us today if we saw the first temple, since we would try to compare it to the great wall of China for size, the taj mahal for majesty and the white house or Versailles for opulence, and it would probably come up with three strikes.  So it seems silly to us to see something like Solomon's temple and compare it to the majesty of God himself, but we still do the same kind of thing constantly today, just with bigger and better buildings.
  We do this with the things we learn about how the universe works.  And don't get me wrong, I am absolutely all for scientific exploration and advancement, but anyone who gets up in arms about some struggle between science and religion must have some serious misconceptions about one or the other.  Our learning and understanding has increased a thousand fold over the last few hundred years, but it's still not that significant when you start looking at it as a percentage of the whole, of all the learning and understanding there is to be had.

  Of course, in the story of the Tower of Babel God looked at the big tower that was going up and said that He couldn't allow men to work together in such a way because then nothing would be impossible for them, and he confused all their language and made them split up into different nations.  So maybe the things we accomplish are really profoundly important on a Godly scale.  Who knows?  The book of Genesis was weird.


  The ark of the covenant is placed inside the temple once it's complete.  The text says that the only things inside are the stone tablets with the law given to Moses, but wasn't there other stuff in there too before?  Yes, I've found some other mentions of Aaron's staff from that time it grew and budded and a pot of manna from when Moses led everyone through the desert.  I wonder what happened to them.

125- 2 Chronicles 1 and my triumphant return

  Things have been very busy the last few months, with drastically, rapidly changing plans and developments in various ministries and what have you, but those are all stories for other blogs.  I'm going to try to get back into a regular posting schedule here and someday maybe even finish this giant book that's been keeping both my soul and my coffee table so stable all these years.

  There will be a few changes from the last round of posts though.  For starters, no more of this trying to post every day.  The reading schedule is doable, but trying to summarize and comment on another passage every day can quickly get really shallow or really sloppy, and sometimes both.  With everything else I'm working on, I think it will be very doable to shoot for one post per week, maybe two when I'm overcome with the spirit.
  Posting less often means that my system of numbering posts according to how many days it's been from the begining almost completely meaningless, so that's going to have to change.  Call me obsessive, but I just like it when things are numbered, so I'm still going to keep posting a number before each post, but they're not going to mean quite the same thing.  Actually I guess the only difference is that I'm just not going to write the word day in front of them anymore.  That should be pretty easy to get used to.


  In the first chapter of 2 Chronicles, David is dead and Solomon is the new king of Israel.  He goes to the tent of meeting and makes a huge sacrifice to the Lord.  When God appears to him that night and asks him what he wants, Solomon requests the knowledge and wisdom to  rule well.  God considers this a very classy request since Solomon could have used this opportunity to increase his own holdings, which is the sort of request we've seen from most people to date.  God grants Solomon's wish and also grants him all the riches and power that he could have asked for but didn't.  Afterword, Solomon had a lot of nice things imported from other places and the economy of Jerusalem thrived.

  This is more or less unrelated, but bear with me.  We always write the titles of books like 1 and 2 Kings and Chronicals and John and so forth with numerals in the titles, but when we say them out loud, we say first and second.  So how would these books be alphabetized?  Is 1 Kings under F or in that weird section off to the side where you find books that start with numbers and symbols?  Most lists of Bible books just omit the numbers and treat the sets as complete books just broken into parts, like the last two Harry Potter Movies, which I suppose is exactly what they are.  I suppose it doesn't matter much either way, but this is just a warm-up question anyway.  We'll get into some more controversial stuff later.  Promise.

A short break

  Obviously I haven't been updating this blog regularly.  I've had some other projects demanding my attention and I just am not able to maintain a regular posting schedule.  Even though this is supposed to run over the course of a year, I would like to simply pause for a while until I can get back on track and then pick up where I left off, starting 2 Chronicles.  Maybe in the fall.

Day 124-8 1 Chronicles 15-29

            David brought the ark of the lord to Jerusalem and celebrated with a lot of music.  He was about to build a temple for the ark too, but God told him not to via a nearby prophet.  God also told David that He would raise up David’s son and establish his rule forever.  This son would build a house for God and God will be his father, never withdrawing His love.  David’s son was Solomon who did build the temple and I don’t think God ever did get really angry with Solomon.  Israel hardly lasted forever though, under the rule of David’s line.  It split into two nations and then a few generations later both were taken prisoner and carted off to Babylon.  I think a lot of people would argue that this promise to David is actually about Jesus.  The word son seems to be pretty much interchangeable with a more general idea of a descendant in a lot of these stories and Jesus was a descendant of David’s.

            With God happy, David won battle after battle with the Israelite army against everyone around them.  Everything was going great until David ordered a census taken of all the fighting men in Israel.  For some reason, this was a horrible, sinful thing for him to have done.  This story is really strange, but it already came up at the end of 2 Samuel so there’s no real need to go over it again.

            David had a son, Solomon, and he wanted to start early cashing in on God’s promises about the son of David.  David made a lot of preperations for the temple Solomon would build, saying that Solomon was young and inexperienced so he was just getting things set up for him, he was just helping.  My mom used to help me write essays the same way when I was young.  It can be a little frustrating.

            At the end of his life, David made Solomon king of Israel and delegated groups of Levites to different tasks around the temple according to their families.  Then chapters 23 through 26 of 1 Chronicles give a breakdown of the Levite family tree and the divisions of the priests.  Levites were assigned by David to be musicians, gatekeepers, treasurers and other things in the new temple.  The word prophecy is used around the musicians a lot, which seems like a new development.  The role of music so far in scripture seems like it’s mostly been to talk about how awesome God is or to record some historical event in verse so people will remember it better.  Music seems to be a big deal to David though and these temple musicians sound like they actually have some connection to God through their music.  This raises further issues though because, if that’s true,  and being a musician is supposed to give these Levites the ear of the Lord, David is way overstepping his authority appointing them.  Kings don’t get to make prophets, prophets make kings.

            The rest of the book is a list of military and government officials under David’s administration up until Solomon is crowned king and David handed over to him the plans for the temple.  David had drawn up plans for every part of the temple in such detail that there were already designated weights for the gold to be used for the forks and sprinkling bowls inside.  David was not taking any chances on this temple not turning out the way he wanted it.  From the story in 1 Kings it sounded like Solomon had no trouble planning and building the temple on his own, but by this account, it seems that all Solomon really needed to do was say go and David’s temple would essentially start building itself.

            David then took up a collection from the whole assembly for the building fund, gave thanks to God, had Solomon acknowledged as the new king of Israel a second time, and then died.

Day 123 1 Chronicles 12-14

            This is a summary of the story of David as he took over Saul’s office as king of Israel.  A lot of men follow him as the Lord is on his side.

            The brevity with which 1 Chronicles covers these important figures and events brings to mind the time I spent in high school and college doing my best to follow the teachings of the Buddha.  No matter what is happening, whatever crisis, the universe continues onward.  Any issue seems trivial when compared to the progress of creation as a whole.  There are epic battles, great heroes, incredible acts of valor, and then the next thing happens and none of it matters anymore.  Time marches onward.

            Imagine if one simple sandstorm had happened at the wrong time and robbed us of the book of 1 Kings the same way some series of events has obviously robbed us of the books of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah.  All we would know of David would be based on the couple chapters we have in Chronicles talking about him and his men being great warriors.  How would that have changed our idea of king David the shepherd, the vulnerable father and reluctant leader of the nation of Israel appointed by the prophet Elijah?

Day 122 1 Chronicles 9-11

            Wow, I could have saved myself a lot of time reading through 1 Kings if I’d known about this section.  It basically recounts the short version of that whole book.

            I’m glad we have both versions to compare though.  It’s interesting which facts each account considers important.  1 Kings tells like a story at it’s core, something that could be told to the kids.  This version in Chronicles is for the historical ledger though. It tells who begat whom and not much else.

            It still mentions Saul falling on his sword, but none of the stuff about Samuel, Elijah or Elisha pulling the strings behind the scenes.  This section is pretty clearly written after the exile in Babylon so maybe the prophets just got marginalized over the years.  After all, kings leading armies around make a way better story than a dusty old man hiding out uneventfully by a stream in the wilderness.

Day 121 1 Chronicles 7-8

            Geneologies for the tribes that no one really seems to care about as much.  Naphtali, Asher, Benjamin.  Saul came from Benjamin, so there’s some extra care given to his line.

            This section also covers the half tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, which I think are kind of under-valued.  For one thing, Manasseh seems to be involved somehow in every third major even that happens in Israel.  Come to think of it, Ephraim seems to have more than their fair share of important people and events too.  If you look at all the Josephites together, they’re pretty major players in the shaping of Israel.

Day 120 1 Chronicles 6

            The sons of Levi.  All Levites had special title within the theocracy of Israel, but only the sons of Aaron could actually approach the altar to offer sacrifices.  Other Levites were assigned to various other tasks related to keeping up the tabernacle, and later the temple.

            It’s tempting to try to think of the Levites, and especially the priests, in kind of the same way people think of the Vatican or the president of the LDS church or something where these guys are in charge of the temple because they have a direct line to God.  They’re listening to Him so we need to listen to them.

            This doesn’t seem to be the case though through the last couple books.  When priests are mentioned, they are usually referred to as so-and-so’s priest, like the king’s priests for example.  Chronicles mentions that King David assigned a bunch of Levites to be in charge of music in the temple, so obviously the king is able to boss the priests around.  Even Aaron back in Moses’s time was aware of (and not very happy about) the fact that he and his sons were kind of like glorified janitors, with no authority beyond doing exactly what the law and Moses told them to.

            The guys with the direct line to God are the prophets, who have the authority to anoint kings themselves.  So it looks like it goes God, prophets, kings, priests, other levites, and then the general public in terms of who gets to tell whom what to do.  The trick is though, the kings are in charge of the day to day affairs of the country and, more importantly, the army, so there’s an enforcement issue when prophets roll in and try to tell kings what to do.

            1 Chronicles 6:55 says that Hebron was made a city of refuge and given to the Levites, but back in the book of Joshua, Hebron was given to Caleb, the scout who had originally gone out with Joshua to reconnoiter Canaan for Moses and came back with a positive attitude about it, so there’s a bit of a conflict there.  It turns out the city itself, and the pasture land around it, were given to the Levites, but the fields and villages in the area were given to Caleb.  That must have been pretty awkward.  Herders and planters didn’t get along under the best of circumstances in the ancient world.  Also, I think I mentioned before how Caleb really seems to get the short end of the stick.  Joshua is basically the unofficial king of Israel, while Caleb, who we’re told did most of the same stuff Joshua did, got Hebron thirty years later.  Now we find out that e didn’t even get all of Hebron, just some of the leftover bits of Hebron.

            I’ll bet that being right next to a city of refuge really brought down local property values too.

Day 119 1 Chronicles 3-5

            More recap, genealogies from David through the sons of Elioenai.  We haven’t heard about that guy so far, the book says that he came after the exile so I guess we haven’t gotten there yet.  The narrative kind of jumps around here.

            Jabez is mentioned in this section for the first, and I believe only time in the Bible.  The prayer of Jabez is a popular thing, spawning a multitude of books on its own.  All of this hype is based on a throw-away line in 1 Chronicles chapter 4 about how Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, which, lets not forget, does not mean he was honorable, but merely more honorable than his brothers.  He was from one of the other clans of Judah, the ones that weren’t directly related to David.  Jabez prayed for his lands to increase and for nothing bad to happen to him. 

            Revolutionary, I know.

            I’m certainly not saying that some parts of the Bible are not important.  The prayer of Jabez is a part of the history of God’s interaction with humanity.  I feel like this section is well-known for the wrong reasons though.  I worry also that it is famous at the expense of other passages that may have a more profound day-to-day influence on our faith.  This is getting kind of frustrating honestly.  Methuselah, Onan, Jabez.  If these guys didn’t have catchy stories attached to them, there is no way they would be better known in our culture than the people of real importance to the narrative of the Bible.

Day 118 1 Chronicles 1-2

            Recap.  The first two chapters traces the geneology of God’s chosen people from Adam, through Abraham and on through the line of Judah.

Day 117 2 Kings 23-25

            King Josiah, upon finding the lost book of the law,  desecrated and destroyed every shrine and high place belonging to a foreign god and began following the law again as it was written.  He also got rid of all the priests who had been put in their positions by kings instead of by God and went through a ceremony renewing the covenant with God.  This wasn’t enough in itself to turn God’s rage completely away though.  Egypt comes in and conquers Judah, subjugating Jerusalem and eventually killing Josiah.  God has seen so many times how we can be so devout for a short burst and then so quickly fall back into disobedience. 

            And, sure enough, Josiah’s son falls right back into the old routine of Manasseh and the kings of the past, worshiping other gods and failing to acknowledge the lord.  God allows him to rule for less than a year, and all the while as a vassal of the Pharaoh.

            It seems like a really big deal that Josiah found the book of the law.  It certainly changed the way he saw God.  It’s interesting though that we never heard anything about it having been lost.  How long has it been gone for and exactly what have the priests been doing all this time?

            Judah was then taken from Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.  He completely destroyed the nation.  He took everyone with him to Babylon except the poorest people around, who he left to work the land some.  There was a little bit of politics among Judahites surrounding who got to be in charge of Judah, but they were ultimately just fighting over Nebucadnezzer’s scraps.  After he laid siege to Jerusalem, the king dismantled the entire temple and carted all the valuable metals off back to Babylon.  Solomon had built the temple during a pretty lush time and there was gold, silver and more bronze than could be measured.

Day 116 2 Kings 20-22

            King Hezekiah got sick and God told him, via the prophet Isaiah, that he was going to die.  He prayed about it and God told him he could have another 15 years and, as an added bonus, He would protect him and Jerusalem from the Assyrians.

            Some guys from Babylon came down to Judah and Hezekiah gave them a tour of everything he had.  Isaiah told him later that everything they have is going to be taken away to Babylon.  Hey, at least it won’t be the Assyrians who take it though.

            Hezekiah’s son Menasseh took the throne when he was only 12, so he didn’t get a chance to glean any of Hezekiah’s piety.  He rebuilt all the high places that his father had destroyed and did all kinds of evil.  While he ruled, God said that He was done with Judah and Jerusalem’s nonsense and He’s going to wipe out Jerusalem like one wipes a dish.  His son’s rule went pretty much the same way.

            Josiah was crowned king when he was only 8, so he didn’t have a chance to learn from his father and grandfather how to be a jerk.  Under Josiah, the priests in the temple found the book of the law, which I guess had been misplaced sometime before.  When Josiah had it read to him, he tore his robes and sent some men to go inquire of the lord.  A local prophetess told him that God was going to destroy Jerusalem and Judah because of their sin, but because of how legitimately bad about the whole thing Josiah felt, He would at least wait until after Josiah was dead to really start cursing everyone.

Day 115 2 Kings 18-19

            Now things are getting interesting again.  The king of Assyria has conquered Israel and he’s got his eye on Judah.  His officers come down to Jerusalem and run a big, loud propaganda campeign about how Assyia has conquered a whole bunch of kingdoms already and their gods never helped any of them.  They say that Judah’s only allies are Egypt and God and Egypt is useless and God won’t do anything.  They say the king of Judah, Hezekiah, is lying to them and misleading them and will get them all killed, but if they surrender, thy ‘ll all get nice new lands in Assyria.

            Hezekiah goes to the temple and prays about what’s happening and eventually God tells him that He won’t let anything happen to Jerusalem, that he’ll take care of the Assyrian situation. He sends a long reply through the prophet Issaiah that basically asserts how ridiculous and insulting He finds the claims of the Assyrians and He’s going to show them a thing or two about how He differs from the gods of the people they are accustomed to fighting.

            God sends and angel to kill hundreds of thousands of Assyrian soldiers in their camp that night and the king chooses to withdraw from the field before ever even starting the battle.  He runs all the way back to Ninivah actually, the capital of Assyria, but there his sons murder him, and that’s the end of his story.

Day 114 2 Kings 15-17

            More of the same.  A long line of kings filed through Israel and Judah.  None of them were really great guys, but most of them weren’t too horrible.  King Ahaz of Judah redecorated the temple with a foreign altar and used it for divinations.  Once upon a time God would have vaporized someone for a move like that, but I guess God is in the process of giving up on the Israelites not so there are no immediate repercussions.

            Eventually God completely turns His back on the Israelites and the king of Assyria conquers them and drives them out of the country, relocating them to Assyria.  At first the colonists he sends down to replace them are eaten by lions because the Assyrians don’t know anything about God or how to worship Him and not provoke Him into sending lions after them.  After the Assyrian king hears about these problems and sends a priest down to teach them about God.  They do a little bit of temple stuff, but they also keep worshiping their local gods.  This seems to appease God just enough to stop killing them with  lions, but still doesn’t really ingratiate them.

Day 113 2 Kings 12-14

            Joash was king of Judah.  He repaired the temple in Jerusalem with money donated by the people.  At first he tried to get the priests to sort it out, but after 23 years they had made no progress so Joash personally  took over.

            Jehoahaz was king of Israel.  He followed his ancestors, commiting the same sins as they had.  Aram was decimating Israel so Jehoahaz went to see Elisha for help.  Elisha was very sick, but he still led Jehoahaz through a little ritual and declared that they would defeat Aram, but because of a completely arbitrary thing that Jehoahaz didn’t do right, they would not destroy Aram completely.

            After this prophecy, Elisha died.  Some time later people fleeing from Moabite raiders tossed a body into his grave.  The body touched Elisha’s bones and came back to life.  That’s what happens with a double portion of God’s blassing I guess.

            Amaziah became king of Judah.  He defeated some Moabites, but then he got cocky and challenged Israel to a fight.  He lost.

            King Jeroboam II became the ruler of Israel some time after that battle.  He’s the one who defeated Aram like Elisha said and restored the borders of Israel to where God said they should be.

Day 112 2 Kings 9-11

            Elisha sends a member of his prophet corps to go anoint Jehu the new king of Israel so he can overthrow the family of Ahab and make good on God’s decree that Ahab and his family be wiped out.

            The prophet shows up on Jehu’s doorstep, tells him he’s the new king of Israel and that Jezebel and all of Ahab’s family are going to die horribly, the implication being that Jehu is going to help kill them, then the prophet immediately opens the door and runs, runs, away back to Elisha.  Jehu, kind of confused, comes back outside and tells his men about what happened (he was a commander in the military) and his men lay out their cloaks and declare him king.

            This is the third anointment Elijah was told about by God after the anointment of Hazael as king of Aram and Elisha as his own successor.

            Jehu rode up to the front door of king Joram, son of Ahab, and shot him in the back with an arrow, then shot Ahaziah, the king of Judah, but he ran away to Megiddo and died there.

            Jehu rode up to Jazebel’s tower and yelled up the the servents there asking if any were loyal to him.  A couple gave him the nod so he commanded them to throw Jezebel down.  She died from the fall and then Jehu’s men’s horses trampled her body.  They went out later to bury her but the body was gone, presumably eaten by dogs like God said it would be.

            Ahab had 70 sons spread across the nation and Jehu sent letters to the officials in all the cities they were in and told them to come claim the thrown of Israel if they would like it.  Everyone was afraid of Jehu, so they sent messages back to him saying that no, thank you, but no one would like to be king that much.  Jehu wrote a second time to the officials of the towns and told them that if they were going to follow him like they said they would, order number one was to send him the heads of all of Ahab’s sons.  So that’s what they did.

            Ahab’s family had worked it way into the royal family of Judah as well, so Jehu had to kill some of them too.  All three appointments have been made now though and the family of Ahab wiped from the Earth, so I guess that’s the end of that prophecy.

           

Day 111 2 Kings 6-8

            Aram has been stirring up trouble with Israel for some time now, but God is angry with Israel so basically both sides are losing the fight.  Aram’s army will be run off by a miracle, but only after really ruining Israel’s day.  In a siege on the city of Samaria, the food shortages were so bad that people were eating their kids.  This was something that Moses prophesied would happen to Israel when they angered God enough to make Him turn on them back in his last speech at the end of Deutoronomy.  In the end though, God makes the Aramian army run away and leave their camp and all their supplies, so the city isn’t taken or destroyed.

            The king of Aram got sick and sent an officer to inquire of Elisha whether he would get better or die of the sickness.  That seems like an odd move sine Elisha lives in Israel, but maybe it’s public knowledge that he’s not very patriotic.  The officer, a man named Hazael, asks Elisha about the king’s health and Elisha gives him a very strange answer, explaining that the king will die, but that the officer should go tell him that he will recover.  Then he stares the officer down until things get awkward, and starts crying.  When the officer, Hazael, asks him what is going on, Elisha says that he, Hazael, is going to kill tons of Israelites.  He will accomplish this because he’s going to be king of Aram.

            All this borderline gibberish is apparently exactly what Hazael needs to hear though to go back home and kill the king.  This reads different to me than most prophecies in the past.  Before, the prophecies we heard about sort of described things from a distance, either reffering to things happening generations into the future or about other people unaware of the prophecy or something like that.  This prophecy seems to be one of the major causes of the event being prophecied.  The text seems to imply that Hazael would not have killed the king if Elisha had not said that he was going to kill the king.

            I know that God tends to use people to fulfil prophecies anyway, but it’s interesting that this prophecy was the motivation for the fulfillment of itself.  It’s like a trick-shot.

Day 110 2 Kings 4-5

            Elisha got double portion of Elijah’s magic powers so he performed lots of miracles:

            He multiplied the small bit of oil so a widow who only had one small jar of oil was able to keep pouring out oil until she had plenty to use and to sell.

            He brought a lady’s son back from the dead by laying on him.

            He unpoisoned some stew for a prophet’s meeting.

            He fed a hundred men with only a few loaves of barley bread.

            And, finally, he healed a man named Naaman of leprosy.  He was a foreign warrior, but after Elisha healed him, he swore that there is no God in the world but the God of Israel.  He tried to reward Elisha with treasure and nice clothes, but Elisha refused.  Later his servant ran out and collected a little of that reward for himself, but Elisha knew about it and gave him Naaman’s leprosy.

            This particular set of miracles seems awfully familiar.  With the exception of that poison stew trick, Jesus is going to do all these things too when He comes.  He does them all to a greater degree too.  Instead of feeding a hundred, He feeds thousands, and in stead of healing people with rituals and stuff, He does it with just a thought, even Lazarus who was dead for days before healed.

Day 109 2 Kings 1-3

            Ahaziah injured himself and sent some men to inquire of Baal whether he would live.  Elijah intercepted them though and sent back word basically that, because Ahazian had snubbed the God of Israel and not even bothered to ask him,  he would die.  Then he died.

            Elijah is finally ready to die himself.  He asked God to let him die earlier when Ahab and Jezebel were hunting him down, but now he’s done everything he needs to so I guess he’s done.  He’s carried directly to heaven in a tornado without having to actually experience death, but only after his apprentice Elisha asks for a double helping of Elijah’s faith.  This is a big request, but it seems to work out okay.  After Elijah leaves, Elisha heals a well that was poisoning the area and then summons some bears to eat a bunch of kids who were making fun of him so he’s clearly got no shortage of magic powers.

            King Joram of Israel and King Joshaphat  of Judah team up and attack the king of Moab after he refuses to pay a big tribute to Joram.  The Moabite king feels safe ignoring Israel on account of Ahab no longer being around to enforce their agreement.  They ask Elisha about how the battle’s going to go and he kind of leads them on, asking are they sure they don’t want to ask some other prophets?  When they insist on hearing what Elisha has to say, they win the battle easily.

            The theme I see here is that, yes, even foreign prophets may be able to predict what’s going to happen once in a while, I mean, honestly, I can predict what’s going to happen once in a while if I know enough about what’s going on, but when God gets involved, He can actually change what’s going to happen.  Knowing the future is great and all, but it’s not quite as powerful as controlling the future.

Day 108 1 Kings 21-22

            King Ahab found a vineyard he liked near his palace and tried to buy it for a vegetable garden.  The owner refused to sell it though because it was part of his ancestral plot of land handed down from the origins of Israel.  Jezebel had him killed so Ahab could have it anyway.  Elijah gets dispatched to meet him as he goes to take possession of the vineyard and tells him some scary stuff about how he and Jezebel are both going to be eaten by dogs.  What he says is so jarring that Ahab repents all his evil and pretty much just languishes around his palace sulking.

            He must legitimately be sorry (or at least scared) though because God is moved by his repentance and agrees not to destroy his line until his son’s time.  His son is no better than he’s been, so God kills them all.

            This book ends with an odd little story about the king of Israel and Jehoshephat, the king of Judah, teaming up to take some important land back from Aram.  The section headings all say this is talking about Ahab, but the text itself keeps referring to the king in the story only as “the king of Israel.”  Either way, all of the king of Israel’s prophets keep telling him about what a great idea it is to attack Aram, but Jehoshephat insists on asking a true prophet of God.  The only good one they have there is named Macaiah, but the king of Israel doesn’t like him because he only says bad things about him all the time.

            When they bring him out, he tries to fall in line with the other prophets and fawn over how great this victory is going to be, but the kings see through his ruse and coax the truth out of him that he’s had visions of a total defeat and the death of the king of Israel.  He gets thrown in prison and mistreated until the king returns safely, but of course the king does not return safely, he’s killed in battle and his blood licked up by dogs.

            Maybe we’ll hear more about what happened to Macaiah in second Kings. For right now, I guess we just assume that he eventually died in a horrible Israelite prison :(

Day 107 1 Kings 18-20

            God told Elijah to go meet with Ahab.  Elijah sent a message that he would be on Mt. Carmel and that Ahab should bring all the priests of Baal and Ashera and the whole nation of Israel out to watch what was going to happen.  Once there, he challenged all the priests of Baal and Ashera to light on fire a sacrifice that they had prepared.

            They prayed and chanted and cut themselves for half the day before Elijah finally prepared his own sacrifice and set it up on a little altar that he repaired with some stones.  Even after pouring a ton of water over his sacrifice, Elijah prayed to God and fire rained down from the sky and consumed his offering.  Now that the crowd was won over, Elijah told them to grab all the priests of Baal and Ashera and kill them.

            Elijah then told Ahab to hitch up his chariot so he could get home before the rains started.  This is during a huge drought without a cloud in the sky, so that’s quite a warning.  Then, just to make sure he’s got everyone’s attention, Elijah ran all the way back to the nearest city ahead of Ahab’s chariot.

            Once she found out what happened, Jezebel sent a message to Elijah that she was going to have him killed for what he had done to all her favorite prophets, so Elijah ran away.  After wandering the wilderness in despair for a long time, God spoke to him and told him to anoint new kings of Aram and Israel and a new prophet to succeed him.  Among the three of them, they’re supposed to kill pretty much everyone in Israel except 7000 men who have never worshipped an idol.

            A little later the current king of Aram starts stirring up trouble in Israel.  He captures Samaria and demands Ahab give him treasure and his best wives and servants.  Ahab agrees to this, but then refuses when the king of Aram further demands that he and his men get permission to loot the homes of Ahab’s officials.  It’s pretty clear at this point that he’s just trying to pick a fight.

            Ahab’s in luck though because God hates Aram at this time even more than He hates him, so a prophet comes to tell Ahab that God’s going to hand Aram’s army over to him.  They beat Aram once, but the aramian advisors think that they only lost because the God of Israel is a god of the hills, so they can win if they go back next year and fight the same fight again, but in the plains this time.  They were mistaken however, even though they had a way bigger army than Israel, they get routed in the next battle too.  Rumor has it that kings in Israel are open to negotiation though so they try to reason with Ahab, which works just fine actually.  Ahab lets them go after a treaty is formed with Aram.

            If you’ve been following along this far, you know that God hates treaties.  When God hands an army over to you in battle, it’s because he wants that army to not be an army anymore.  You’re supposed to destroy them and eat their children and kick their puppies.  So that same prophet confronts Ahab again on his ride home and tells him that God is going to take his life in exchange for the king of Aram’s life, which rightfully belongs to God.

            Ahab sulks back to his castle.

Day 106 1 Kings 15-17

            Rehoboam’s son Abijah takes over Judah and there is a lot of tension along the border with Israel.  Abijah committed all the same sins his father and grandfather had before him, but God didn’t strike him down because of how great David was.  The family finally turns itself around after Abijah is succeeded by Asa, who does follow the Lord.  He tears down almost all of the totems and shrines and puts all the treasure back in the temple that his forbearers had spread around Judah.  He sends most of that treasure to a foreign king though to try to reestablish a treaty that David had created back in the day.  With the foreign king backing Judah now in stead of Israel, Israel is forced to back off a little and quit skirmishing along the border.

            These kings and the Israelite kings up north did a lot more than what’s covered in this book, but apparently all their other adventures were recorded in other books that we don’t have.

            In Israel, Jeroboam’s son rules for a little while, but then Basha, the son of the very same prophet who told Jeroboam he and his family would be killed, kills Jeroboam and his family.  Of course, Basha committed all the same sins as Jeroboam once he became king.  This scene pretty much just repeats itself for a few generations until finally Ahab becomes king of Israel and sins more than any of the kings before him.  He actually served another God and put a shrine to it in the temple.

            Ahab’s rebellion was met with an equal and opposite series of acts by a prophet named Elijah.  Elijah decreed that there would be no rain in Israel except on his word, and then he promptly ran away and hid from a nation of angry and hungry farmers and shepherds.  God took care of Elijah on the banks of a small stream in the wilderness for a while, and then sent him to live with a foreign widow once his stream dried up.

Day 105 1 Kings 12-14

            When Rehoboam goes to be crowned king of Israel the people ask him to reduce their workload.  Solomon used a lot of forced labor for his ambitious building projects and everyone was hoping that Rehoboam would ease off on them now that everything was built and Solomon was dead.  Rehoboam ignored the requests of his people and the advice of his advisors opting in stead to listen to his buddies who told him to snub the people and give them even more work.  For this the people drove him out of Jerusalem and killed the guy he had in charge of the forced labor program.

            Only the tribe of Judah stayed loyal to Rehoboam.  He was going to mount an offensive to take back the rest of Israel by force, but God told a nearby prophet that this was His doing, and they should just let it be.  That must have been pretty disappointing for Rehoboam to hear.

            I wonder what the tribe of Levi does here.  They still seem to have priests in Judah so I don’t imagine all the Levites just ran away when the tribes finally split for good.  I guess Levites are exempt from military sevice anyway so it probably doesn’t much matter where their political loyalties lie.

            While Rehoboam may not have been as bright as his father, down in Israel Jeroboam was proving that he wasn’t a great king either.  Not satisfied that God had given him the throne of Israel, he started getting paranoid about losing it.  He worried that people would go through the cycle of holy days and celebrations and they would remember that David’s line is God’s line of kings.  Then they would rebel against him and try to reinstate Rehoboam.  To prevent this, he set p a bunch of local altars and shrines and some new holidays to distract people from interacting with anyone from Judah or from going to Jerusalem.  It seems like kind of a lame plan, but it seemed to work, and Israel plunged into idolatry as it seemed inclined to do at the slightest provocation.  The ancient Israelites are developing a habit of being led astray by empty religious pageantry and showy approximations of the kind of worship God actually gave them.

            Oh, that reminds me.  Happy Easter everyone.

            Anyway, Jeroboam is not glorifying God and a prophet comes down from Judah to tell him as much.   That prophet actually got kind of screwed in this story.  On his way back home to Judah he was met by another, older prophet who I guess maybe thought he was doing this guy a favor by telling him that and angel of the Lord had told him to bring the foreign prophet home with him and feed him.  This, if it were true, would have overridden the earlier command that he not eat or drink anything until he was back home.

            As soon as the foreign prophet ate though, the older prophet actually did prophesy that since he had broken God’s command, and eaten in Israel, he would be punished and not buried with his people.  After what I’m sure was a very awkward goodbye, he started back home again and was killed by a lion.  So it’s not a good enough excuse to claim to have been misled I guess.  When it comes to what God tells you to do, don’t trust anybody.

            Jeroboam’s son gets sick and dies.  The prophet Ahijah, who first told Rehoboam that he would get to be king, tells his wife that God is super-pissed about all the ashera poles and shrines to foreign Gods and that Israel is going to be cast out of this good land and scattered beyond the Euphrates river.  Also, Jeroboam’s family is going to be completely destroyed.  This must be the fulfillment of the prophecy from Deuteronomy about how God new that the Israelites were going to screw up so bad that God was going to unleash horrible curses upon them until they straightened out.

            Those curses were pretty awful so the next couple of books might get pretty rocky.

Day 104 1 Kings 10-11

            Solomon was a major celebrity among the rulers of the world for his wisdom.  Kings from all over paid him tribute and Israel was very wealthy.  Eventually though, he took a bunch of wives from nations that Israelites aren’t supposed to interbreed with and they perverted his faith and got him to worship their gods and build altars to them around Jerusalem and the city of David.  God told him that this slip up was going to cost him the kingdom, but, because of his father David’s faith, He would wait until after Solomon died to take the kingdom away from his family.

            God lifted up a couple people to irritate Solomon, one of whom served as Solomon’s official.  Jeroboam rebelled against Solomon and the prophet Ahijah told him that God would give him 10 tribes to rule over, but one would still be left for David’s line.

            Solomon died and was succeeded by his son Rehoboam, but I have a feeling there’s going to be some changes soon.

Day 103 1 Kings 8-9

            Solomon built the temple and his palace with forced labor from the remnants of the groups of non-Israelites in the land.  When he dedicated the temple, God approved of it and filled it with his cloud-form body with such power that the priests couldn’t even do their work.

            Solomon prayed with all the elders of Israel at the temple dedication, mostly about forgiving them for their sins because no one ever lived completely without sin, and about hearing the prayers of both Israelites and of foreigners so that they would also see how great God is.  The Lord responds similarly to the way He spoke with Moses just before his death, promising great things for Solomon and his people as long as they don’t stray away from Him, but horrible curses if they screw up.  In fact, here’s an excerpt from the beginning of chapter 9:

            “Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. ⁸ This temple will become a heap of rubble. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ ⁹ People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why the LORD brought all this disaster on them.”

Day 102 1 Kings 6-7

            Solomon made a temple over the course of the next four years.  It was built with cedar and bronze and fancy stones, but all of the actual stone work had to be done at the quarry so no iron tools were used to work the stone at the temple.  This sort of thing has been mentioned in passing a couple times now.  It kind of seems like God has a problem with iron tools.

            Solomon also builds a palace, but that takes 13 years.

Day 101 1 Kings 3-5

             God asks Solomon what he wants and Solomon asks for wisdom.  God is pleased with him for asking for something more selfless than long life or wealth or military conquest, so he gives him wisdom plus all those other things he didn’t ask for.  Solomon quickly becomes famous for his wisdom all through Israel and beyond.  People come from all over the world to hear him adjudicate disputes among his people.  One such dispute is that famous story of Solomon threatening to cut a baby in half when he hears two women fighting over it.  The baby’s true mother would rather see it given to the other woman than killed.

            Solomon also gets the ball rolling on building a proper temple for God.  He contracts with the king of Tyre because he says those people are the best at collecting lumber and he needs them to get this job done right.  The king of Tyre blushes and gives Solomon a good deal on the labor, trading his men for Israelite grain and oil.

            There’s a story of Benjamin Franklin turning a rival into a friend in the continental congress by borrowing a rare book from him.  He said that if he had just acted friendly and said nice things to the man, it would have come off as insincere and they would have gotten along even worse.  By getting the man to do him a favor though, it made the man basically justify to himself that Franklin must be someone worth doing a favor for, so he must be an okay guy.  I think Solomon’s probably wise enough to run that game on the king of Tyre.

            The workers from Israel and from Tyre collect lumber from the city of Byblos.  The Middle East isn’t really known for its lush forests these days, but there used to be some good places for harvesting wood.  Byblos was a big place for getting wood, so they had a lot of wood by-products around all the time like sawdust and stuff.  Eventually someone decided to see what he could do with wood pulp and invented paper.  There’s not a lot of paper left over from back then because it wasn’t nearly as tough as the flattened, woven reed mats called papyrus that the Egyptians used, so they didn’t hold up as well over the last couple thousand years.  These sheets also didn’t travel very well.  They would basically fall apart if you looked at them the wrong way.  The only advantage they had over papyrus was that they were much thinner and could more easily be collected into sheaves.  In Byblos, they started affixing these sheaves together and the resulting invention was named after the town.  In Latin, they called it a biblius, which we translate into English as something like book or library.  It is also where we get the word bible.

Day 100 1 Kings 1-2

            David is really old now and one of his sons, Adonijah start setting himself up as the new king.  Once he hears about what’s happening though, David quickly makes his other son Solomon king before Adonijah gets back to Jerusalem.  That goes pretty well, with Adonijah stepping down and immediately recognizing his younger brother’s rule.  All he asks is that Solomon not kill him and Solomon says that he will be just fine as long as he’s a helpful part of the kingdom and doesn’t try to do sneaky political stuff.

            David dies around this time, but he gives Solomon some peculiar advise.  David’s rule was marked by astounding forgiveness and grace.  Every time something aweful happened, as soon as they got it sorted out, David’s men would want to go kill everyone who had stood against them and David would say something like “No way, we’ve won.  This is a time for celebration.” And let everyone go about their business for the most part.  Apparently he’s been taking good notes though because now he tells Solomon to start off his kingship by killing a bunch of these guys that David spared before.  All those times he swore not to kill somebody, he just filed it away so he could have his successor kill them decades later, which is kind of like what a sociopath would do.  David’s really old and near death now though so maybe he’s just getting jaded.

            Amidst Solomon having all these guys killed, Adonijah shows up again trying to marry the concubine assigned to keep David warm at night.  That’s not a euphemism, she was just supposed to lay down with him and keep the bed warm because he was too frail to keep himself warm anymore.  They never had sex so it isn’t taboo for David’s son to marry her, just a little bit weird.

            Solomon sees this as a political move though, which it probably was to be fair, and has Adonijah killed.

            This seems like a rocky start to Solomon’s rule, but I guess everyone knows he means business now.

            This is the 100^th passage which means I’m almost a third of the way through the Bible.  I had no idea what a commitment writing this was going to be, but I’m glad to have some accountability at least.  I don’t think I ever would have made it through Numbers if I didn’t feel obligated to post something about it online.  I’m feeling very thankful for those four or five guys in India, Russia and Washington who are regularly reading my entries.  Thanks guys.

Day 99 2 Samuel 22-24

            David sings the praises of the Lord, calling Him his fortress and singing of how God protected him and destroyed his enemies.  The song is presented as the last words of David, but David goes on to do other things afterword, so maybe David just wanted to make sure to get his legacy written down before it was too late.

            The best of David’s fighting men were also mentioned honorably and some of their exploits told so they would not be forgotten either.

            David takes a census of all the fighting men in Israel and Judah (which are different enough to warrant separate mentioning now I guess) at God’s behest, but after it’s done, David goes to the Lord apologizing and begging mercy for what he’s done.  I have no idea what David is supposed to have done wrong in this passage, but it warrants a plague from God.  He goes pretty easy on them all told, he let David chose from among famine, military conquest, or sickness.  David chooses the disease, but then is guilt-stricken when people start dying for his own sin and he runs off to build an altar and pray to God.

            Another thing that I don’t understand in this passage is David’s burnt offering.  It’s been the case so far that only priests can make burnt offering, and maybe prophets once in a while.  Being king is pretty clearly a political position and does not give you any special rights with God.  When Saul tried to make a burnt offering because Samuel was running late that time, God and Samuel were both furious with him for it.  Maybe when it says David made a burnt offering it actually means that David just prayed and had his priests make a burnt offering.  It’s a pretty minor point today I suppose, since we don’t make these offerings anymore and anyone can petition God personally, but people have died over this before in the old testament.

Day 98 2 Samuel 19-21

            David mourns the loss of his son, but his army is disheartened by his sadness.  One of his generals chews him out for it, telling him it’s obvious to the men that David would rather all of them had died and they’d lost the battle.  He told David he loves those who hate him and hates those who love him, and that if he doesn’t go out and act thankful and happy in front of the men, he’s not going to have any men left by morning.

            Obviously there’s a whole lot of “Oh, I knew you were going to come back the whole time my lord.  I always said you were the true king of Israel, of course” on David’s trip back to Jerusalem.  Escorting him back through the land, the armies of Judea and the combined armies of the rest of Israel are practically fighting over who gets to carry David’s tent poles for him.  Even Mephibosheth shows up again, claiming that his servant had lied and that he wanted to come out and meet David to support him earlier but his wicked servant stopped him.  David, gentle soul that he is, accepts pretty much everyone back into the fold and stops his men from killing those suspected of disloyalty.  He didn’t restore all of Mephibosheth’s lands, which he had given to his servant before, but he splits them and lets each keep half.

            There was one guy that David had to kill.  A man named Sheba was stirring up trouble and trying to incite rebellion.  David said that this guy would be even more trouble than Absolom had been and ordered his men to chase him down.  He holed up in a city, but when David’s army laid siege to them they quickly killed Sheba and threw his head out to David’s men.

            There was a famine for three years, so David asked the Lord about it and He said that it was because of the way that Saul had tried to wipe out the Gibeonites, who were descended from the Ammorites, whom the Israelites had sworn to spare back when they had first arrived.  David went to make amends with them, and they were cool about it.  They said they didn’t want riches or land or war or anything, they said they would call it even if they were given seven males from Saul’s line to kill.  David didn’t send Meshibopheth because of his oath to Jonathan, but he found seven other descendents of Saul’s and sent them.

            Israel fought some more wars with the Philistines.  David got old and can’t go fight with the men anymore.

Day 97 2 Samuel 16-18

            David had some meaningful encounters on his flight from Jerusalem.  He ran into a servant of Mephibosheth’s bringing mounts and provisions for them.  Mephibosheth was the knob-footed grandson of Saul’s, the only remaining male in that line, who David had given some good lands and an honorable position at court.  Mephibosheth himself had gone up to Jerusalem thinking that the people were going to give him back his grandfather’s throne, but his servant had brought out some supplies for David as he passed by.  David declared that all that had belonged to Mephibosheth now belonged to this servant.

            Later, someone else not directly related to Saul, but from the same clan, came out screaming and hurling curses and rocks at David and his officers.  One of them wanted to go kill him for it, but it sounds like David was feeling a little down and he waved them off, saying the Lord has told him to curse them, so let him be.

            Meanwhile, back in Jerusalem, Absolom rides back into the city and a wise and highly trusted advisor of David’s tells him to sleep with his dad’s concubines, which David had left in charge of the city as he fled.  This, the advisor said, would make everyone know that Absolom had made himself obnoxious in his father’s sight and would polarize Israel, making his followers stronger.

            Next, this advisor told Absolom to take a few thousand guys and go track down David.  Before he went though, he checked in with another official who stayed behind.  This guy said that David was way more experienced a fighter and he had good men with him so this plan would definitely not work.  He needed to collect all of Israel to go after David.  Absolom didn’t realize that this guy was still loyal to David though and he sent news to David as soon as he determined that Absolom was going to follow his advice.  That advisor went back to his hometown and hung himself when he found out that Absolom wasn’t going to follow his plan.

            The big battle came and, dispite David’s request that everyone be gentle with Absolom, one ofhis officers found him stuck in a tree and killed him.

            What happens next is kind of funny.  An eager young man who was there when Absolom was killed wanted really badly to go deliver the news to David.  His commander knew that David would not be happy when he heard it though.  After all, he reacted to news of the deaths of Saul and of Saul’s heir by having the people involved killed, so he told this man that he could take the news back some other time after a victory, but not this time.  Then he dispatched some nameless cushite to go tell David in stead.

            The eager man said he wanted to run behind the Cushite then.  He was just so excited, he really wanted to be involved with David getting this good news.  I can practically see his commander rolling his eyes at this and imploring him “Why do you want to go so badly?  You’re not going to get any kind of reward you know.”  But the man insisted still, so he let him go.  He ran so fast he overtook the Cushite back to the city, so he got to deliver the news to David first after all.  Fortunately David didn’t have him killed, he just started mourning the death of his son, while the man who delivered the news of his death stood awkwardly off to the side being confused.

Day 96 2 Samuel 13-15

            Two of David’s sons and one daughter get into a tense relationship.  One son, Amnon, falls in love with his sister and, after some scheming to get her alone, rapes her and then kicks her out of his home.  She’s devastated by what’s happened and runs away to live with the other brother, Absolom.  Absolom does some scheming of his own and murders Amnon for it later.

            Absolom went into exile after that, but he was tricky, and after a while he set up a series of events that got him back in David’s good graces.  He had an old widow approach the king and give him this story about one of her sons killing the other and got him to feel sympathetic for her and for her hypothetical son who was in danger of being killed by the village for revenge.  After David vowed by God to protect her remaining son (I really wish he would quit vowing things all the time, it’s going to come back on him eventually) someone else pointed out that this situation was just like Absolom’s.  David then allowed Absolom to come back to Jerusalem, but he was not allowed to see the king.

            After a couple years back in Jerusalem, Absolom hatched another plan and got invited back into David’s presence anyway.

            Once he was reestablished, Absolom got immediately to work on furthering his political ambitions.  Every time someone from Israel came to Jerusalem to petition the king for something or other, Absolom would meet them at the gate, listen sympathetically and say “Boy, that’s a legit case, it’s really too bad the king doesn’t have a representative you could talk to about that.  If I  were appointed judge, then I would totally help you out with that.  It’s too bad I’m not though.”

            After he’d made lots of friends, he invited a bunch of officials to come with him to Hebron, where he had all his agents celebrate and yell his name as he walked into the city.  Davids officials came home and reported that the people favored Absolom and David was so shaken up he fled Jerusalem, I guess under the assumption that Absolom was about to stage a coup.