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 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 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.

Day 95 2 Samuel 8-12

            David conquered pretty much everyone around and collected treasures and keepsakes from his victories, including his former friends the Ammonites following a social gaffe that they tried to war their way out of by hiring an army of Aramean mercenaries from across the Euphrates.  He didn’t make that same mistake that Gideon did and display them as memorials of his own awesomeness. David dedicated all his trophies to the Lord, and everything was good for everybody under his rule.

            His sons became priests somehow.  The first Priests were related to Aaron who was a Levite.  It sounded like all priests were to be from Aaron’s family, but maybe that line was broken or they lost track of it.  It was a long time before this.  Samuel seems to represent a break in the line of priests since he was adopted and all the priests he studied under were killed.  Still, David was from the tribe of Judah.  I would think priest would have to at least be from the tribe of Levi.  Maybe that was one of the perks of being the king’s son.

            In between conquests, David tracked down that last descendant of Saul’s, a lame grandson named Mephibosheth.  He was Jonathan’s son so this gave David a great way to honor his promise to Jonathan that he wouldn’t wipe out the whole line of Saul.  He set Mephibosheth up with all of the lands that had belonged to Saul and put some servants to work on the land to keep Mephibosheth rich and fed and invited him to eat at his own table with his family any time.

Day 94 2 Samuel 4-7

            When he heard that Abner was dead, Ish-Bosheth lost heart.  Then a couple guys came into his house one day and killed him.  They brought the head to David in kind of the same way a cat might leave a starling on your porch but David did not seem very grateful.

            “When I heard news of Saul’s death I killed the man who told me.”  He exclaimed at them.  “How much more angry then do you think I am about your sneaking in and killing an innocent man in his own home?”

            So David had those guys killed too.

            With Saul’s whole family dead though, (except some grandson who was disabled and too young to do anything) all the other tribes came around and followed David.  He ruled for 33 years after that.  He conquered Jerusalem and built a fortress next to it they called the City of David.  It’s still there, you can go on little walking tours of it.  He also defeated the Philistines and made Jerusalem the capital, bringing the ark of the covenant to live there.

            On the way, the oxen stumbled and a priest reached out to steady the ark, but no one was allowed to approach it or touch it, so God killed him.  After that incident, David decided to store the ark at someone else’s house.

            God promises David that He will establish a house for His people and they won’t be oppressed by wicked people any more.  He will establish his kingdom with David’s descendant.  Most Christians who are aware of this prophecy assume this is talking about Jesus.

Day 92 I Samuel 28-31

            Now that Samuel’s dead, the Philistines are going to come square off against Saul and his army.  Achish, the king where David’s staying, makes David his personal bodyguard for life.

            Without Samuel to talk to God for him, Saul is really nervous about this fight.  Even though he had expelled all the media from the land, he sets his men to work finding one for him.  That’s medium like someone who talks to the dead that he’s looking for, not like music and movies.

            They find a medium on the forest moon of Endor, I mean in the town of Endor, and she summons Samuel for Saul to question.  Samuel says that Saul is an idiot for even asking, and his nation will be taken from him and given to David.

            Once Achish meets up with the other Philistine leaders, they all kind of flip out about David and his men being there.  They insist that Achish send them back home because they might turn on them in the battle.  It’s a good thing they did too because David returned home just in time to find the whole place plundered and burned to the ground.  Some Amalikite raiders had come through and taken all the goods and the women.  Fortunately they left an ephod, which David was able to use to consult with the Lord.  God told him to pursue the raiders and they got all of their gold and livestock and wives and other valuables back.  They also killed all but a couple hundred of the Amalekites.

            Meanwhile, back at the war, Israel was losing badly.  Saul’s three sons were all killed and on that same day Saul jumped on his own sword when his armor-bearer refused to kill him.  He was hoping to escape the abuse of the Philistines when they caught him.  Once they found his body they took it back to Beth Shan and hung it on a wall.  Some soldiers mounted an expedition to go retrieve it later on, but, more importantly, the Philistines occupied a big chunk of Israel now.

Day 91 I Samuel 25-27

            David petitioned a wealthy Calebite to give his men some supplies, citing the good treatment this guy had received from David’s men at some earlier time.  The Calebite tells David’s men to get lost.  Several things all happen after that in rapid succession.

            First, The Calebite’s wife, Abigail, heard about what had happened, correctly surmised that David was going to swoop in and wipe them all out, and started frantically scrambling to collect bread and oil to run out and give to his army.  Next, David’s messenger’s return with the news from the wealthy Calebite and David immediately rounds up four hundred men to go stomp on this guy.  Abigail and David end up meeting partway, but not until after David had just sworn something along the lines of “May God deal with me however harshly He sees fit if even one male is left of his by morning.”  Of course then Abigail shows up and smooths everything over and it would be pretty ridiculous for David to go wipe out Abigail’s family after that.  It seems for a moment like David has really put his foot in his mout.  He’s sworn this oath to God, but he did it in ignorance, and now there’s no way for him to do what’s right and still uphold his word to God.  Remember what happened to Saul’s army after Saul’s son Jonathan broke that stupid vow that he didn’t even know about.  He just ate some honey off the ground after Saul had sworn that no one would eat anything, and God allowed the Philistine army to escape annihilation at the hands of Israel because of it.

            David doesn’t even seem to register this problem though, and merrily goes back to his camp with Abigail’s supplies.

            As always, God has David’s back on this one though.  When Abigail returns to her husband, he is very drunk and the news of what had happened that day stopped his heart.  Vow fulfilled, David sends word that he would like to take Abigail as his wife.  She accepts.

            David has another encounter with Saul, much like the last one.  Saul catches wind of David’s camp and takes an army to go catch him.  David sneaks in with a couple other guys during the night and steals Saul’s water jug and his spear from right next to his head as he’s asleep.  His men try to get David to kill Saul, but he’s still not okay with killing ‘God’s anointed’ so he just leaves and then comes back in the morning to tell Saul about how he could have killed him again, but didn’t.  Saul again admits David’s superiority in all things and then leaves.

            At this point, it’s pretty clear that Saul’s not going to stop being a problem any time soon to David goes to live among the Philistines.  King Achish gave him and his men a small town to call their own an they spent the next year and four months raiding the country side from there.  They would go into a town and be sure to kill everyone in it before looting all their goods and animals.  That way, when the king asked where they had gone raiding, David could lie to him and say they went out into the Negev somewhere.  David told Achish that he was going into Israel a lot to raid the towns there, which he was pretty happy with.  He figured that with David stirring up all this trouble among the Israelites, they would all hate him forever and he would have to stay and be a loyal subject forever.

  Oh, also, Samuel died.

Day 90 I Samuel 21-24

            David and his men run from Saul through Israel and a lot of different foreign places, and Saul pursued them.  Finally in some mountains, Saul went to relieve himself in a cave and he just happened to enter one that David and his men were hiding in.  David was able to get so close to Saul that he clipped off a bit of Saul’s robe.  His men urged him to kill Saul as this was the fulfillment of God’s promise to deliver him to David, but he refused and actually felt kind of guilty for taking that bit of his robe.

            Once Saul turned to leave the cave, David revealed himself and explained that he was not Saul’s enemy and basically that he could have easily killed Saul but chose not to.  Saul was moved by David’s speech and realized that God was with David and that he would be king.  He asked David to swear not to wipe out his whole family and then he leaves.  David and his men still went up to the stronghold in the mountains though.

Day 89 I Samuel 18-20

            Saul is starting to get concerned about David’s growing popularity.  Everyone knows that David is getting these great military victories all the time and everyone except Saul seems to realize that it’s because God is with him.  Saul reacts mostly by yelling at people and throwing his spear at David a couple times.

            David went to seek refuge with Samuel for a while and when Saul sent men after him, they ended up prophesying with Samuel there in stead.  Twice more Saul sent men, but each time they kept getting caught up in the spirit of the lord and prophesying.  Finally Saul came himself.  He saw what was going on and started prophesying.

            I feel like they mean something different when they say prophesy than I mean when I say prophesy.

            All this time David has cultivated an extremely close relationship with Saul’s son Jonathan.  Like, it kind of sounds like they’re sleeping together, close.  They set up a very Hardy Boys scheme to prove that Saul is out to kill David because Jonathan is having trouble believing it.  Their plan works and Jonathan is convinced, but not before Saul throws a spear at him and calls him a “son of a perverse and rebellious woman.”

            In the end, David and Jonathan part ways with an oath that there be friendship between their families forever.

Day 88 I Samuel 15-17

            God decides it’s time to make good on that curse He laid down back in I think Exodus about how He would wipe out the Amalekites for interfering with the Israelite’s flight from Egypt.  He tells Saul to wipe out every man, woman, child, goat and cow among the Amalekites.

            Saul goes down south to Amalek and sets an ambush.  He tells the Kenites to go take a walk because they’ve been good to the Israelites and he doesn’t want them to accidently get vanquished as well.  After they leave, Saul slaughters all the Amalekites.  Well, almost all of them.  He takes the Amalekite king prisoner and sets aside a few of the choicest of their livestock to sacrifice to the Lord, but that hardly counts.

            Well, actually, it turns out that it counts a whole lot.  God is so incensed at Saul’s impertinance, and his fundamental misunderstanding of how to make the Lord happy, that He tells Samuel that He’s done with Saul.  He is withdrawing Saul’s divine mandate.

            God tells Samuel to go up to Bethlehem to anoint a new king form the sons of Jesse.  Saul is beset by demons though and no longer connected to God at all so Samuel has to hide his intentions to keep Saul from killing him.  He goes up to Bethlehem and anoints David as Israel’s new king.

            Unfortunately, being anointed king doesn’t automatically give David any super-powers or an army, so Saul’s still running the country for now.  Saul’s attendants suggest that maybe he’ll get some relief from this whole evil spirit thing if he listens to some nice music, and you’ll never guess who just so happens to be a great musician.  Yes, David is brought in to sooth Saul’s episodes.  Saul feels much better and keeps David around as his armor bearer.

            Shortly after this, Saul completely loses all memory of David, because when a giant Philistine starts causing trouble in the battle field and David shows up and kills him, Saul shows no sign of recognition.

            Obviously, the philistine’s name was Goliath, by the way, and David showed up that day simply to deliver some grain to his older brothers who were following Saul.  When Goliath issued a challenge to all of Israel to come and fight him one on one, no one would respond except David, who was confident that the Lord would see him through it.