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 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 93 2 Samuel 1-3

            Sorry for the frequent delays.  Once I get caught up again I’m going to try to get a week or two ahead so I have some buffer space again.

            Samuel was so awesome that he got two books, even though he’s dead for the second one.

            In second Samuel, David learns about the death of Saul from a guy who says he helped Saul kill himself.  He’s an Amalekite, which is a strike against him already, then David and his men mourn deeply for Saul and execute the Amalekite messenger for having killed God’s anointed.  I think that’s kind of a technicality, but it wouldn’t be the most obtuse interpretation of God’s will we’ve seen so far.

            When the Lord tells David that it’s a good time to return to Israel, he goes into Hebron and explains that he is now the king of Israel.  The tribe of Judah is on board, but no one else is buying it.  The rest of Israel is following Saul’s son Ish-Bosheth propped up by Saul’s general Abner.  Just as one would expect, things go pretty well for David and the tribe of Judah, but not so hot for Israel.  David starts having lots of sons and stuff, but Ish-Bosheth winds up losing the support of Abner over some accusations regarding one of Saul’s concubines.  Abner actually went to join David over the quarrel, but David sent him away.  Once David’s general heard about what happened though, he had Abner brought back again and killed him, believing the whole thing to be a ploy and that Abner was a spy.

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.

Day 87 I Samuel 13-14

            Saul was king for 42 years.  During that time the Philistines were a big problem.  Fearing an Israelite rebellion, they barred any Israelite from becoming a blacksmith so they had no weapons.  Anyone who wanted to get their metal tools sharpened had to have it done by philistines out of town.  With God on their side though, it doesn’t matter much what they have for weapons so Saul went to war anyway.

            They had things set up so Samuel would come in and petition God for victory before the battle, but he was late so Saul gave an offering in his place.  When Samuel arrived, he was angry at Saul for doing that and told him that his line could have ruled forever, but now it was going to end with him.  As far as punishments go for offering improper sacrifices though, saul seems like he got of kind of easy.  The last people to screw up the burnt offering were killed with fire from God on the spot.

            The battle looks bleak.  Saul’s army is outnumbered, but his son Jonathan crept around to a Philistine outpost and killed about 20 men, throwing the Philistines into a panic.  They ran away, and Saul was going to pursue them, but some divinations revealed that Jonathan was a little bit cursed, so they shouldn’t go.  His faith was exemplary and he hadn’t broken any commands, but Saul had made some vow on behalf of the rest of the army saying that cursed is anyone who eats before they win the fight.  Jonathan hadn’t heard that vow so he ate some honey off the ground on the walk back.  So, the Philistines live to fight another day.

Day 86 I Samuel 9-12

            There was a Benjaminite kid named Saul who was a full head taller than everyone else.  He goes out one day looking for ome sheep that have wandered off and eventually finds his way to Samuel, who old him his sheep had already been found and also, he will be made king of Israel soon.

           

            When the time comes to choose a king,  all of Israel meets and Samuel starts drawing lots, which was not a random thing, but a way of telling what God wanted.  I think it would be frowned upon in most Christian churches today, but that was the way they made a lot of decisions back then.  Sure enough, Samuel drew Saul’s lot and he was made king.

            Everybody went home pretty unimpressed that the crown should go to kind of a backwater little clan, but not long after a town was attacked by ammonites and Saul led an army and defeated them though and everyone loved him.  That seems to be about the quickest way to impress the Israelites, raising an army and winning a battle.

            Once Saul is accepted as king, a bunch of his followers want to find those guys from before who made snarky comments about Saul being king and kill them as an example and a tribute to Saul, but he denies them because this is a good day in which the Lord has saved Israel.

            Samuel chews everyone out one last time for having a king, but tells them to just do the best they can to follow the Law still anyway.  I think it’s really interesting that God chose Saul as king, or that he chose anyone as king really.  We’ve seen that God has no trouble killing His people and unleashing terrible plagues among them when they act against Him, but I guess wanting a human king isn’t really a sin per se because God never told them not to do it, it’s just kind of stupid because God is in charge of the entire universe so they’re just adding another level of middle management to their own nation.

Day 85 I Samuel 4-6

            God punishes Eli’s sons and the rest of Israel by letting the Philistines win an important battle against them.  After the first defeat, the ark of the covenant is brought out, but God isn’t with Israel so Eli’s two sons are killed and the ark taken by the Philistines.  When Eli heard about this, he fell over and died too.  Samuel had gained quite a reputation by now though as someone with a direct line to God, so he was in a prime position to move in politically.

            Meanwhile, the Philistines were jazzed about having captured the God of the Israelites and took the ark to live with a giant statue of their god, Dagon.  When they came back the next morning, the statue of Dagon was on its belly on the ground in front of the ark of the covenant.  This happened a couple more times, along with some nasty curses and stuff.  Everyone started getting bad tumors.

            They moved the ark to another city, but then that city started having problems too.  Finally they decided that the ark was more trouble than it was worth and they needed to give it back.

            Once the ark was back in Israel’s hands, Samuel got everyone to worship the Lord properly again without trying to mix in a bunch of foreign gods and idols, and then organized an army to meet the Philistines, who had still been steadily soaking up more and more of Israel’s land.

            When Samuel prayed for God to help them in the battle, there was so much thunder and noise that the Philistines were routed before the battle even started.  Samuel’s army just waded through and killed them all.

            After such a high-profile victory, of course Samuel was the people’s choice for a leader.  For years he did laps around Israel mediating and teaching.  They wanted him to give them a king too, but he balked at that.  God was supposed to be the king, that was what was to set them apart from other people, what made them set apart for God.  The Israelites specifically wanted a king to make them more like the other nations around them though, and finally Samuel gave into their demands for a king.

            God told him first to explain to the people that a king would roll in and take all their best stuff for himself and his court and require taxes and tribute and service and all this material stuff on top of what was to be set aside for God.  Samuel di his best to convince them that they didn’t want a king, but the people had made up their big, loud, communal mind and they would not be swayed.

            Samuel told God about their demands for a king and He said to give them one.

            I have a friend who’s an anarchist as well as a Christian.  Well, he might not identify himself as an anarchist, but he’s sympathetic to their cause.  I don’t agree with him all the time in his interpretations of scripture, but I feel like the last couple books have really promoted an anarchistic political system.  Obviously there are clans and priests and all these official sounding social artifacts, but in practice, the way things work is that a need arises and then God drops in a judge with the skills needed to resolve the situation.  If there’s a battle that needs to be fought, God calls up a good general and tells him to build an army.  If there’s a whole bunch of Philistines that are going to need to be put in their place, God releases a super-human psychopath to terrorize them.  If there had been some great need to build a relationship with the Latin tribes in Italy, God would have called a judge who was really into the shipping industry or something.

            Now contrast that system with America today.  If there’s a battle to be fought, we have a standing military already prepared to keep us safe.  If there’s a famine or a natural disaster, we have federal programs already set up to deal with them, the national guard, FEMA, and so on.  This reminds me of another facet of the arguments made in Steven Levitt’s Ishmael which I mentioned several times back in Genesis.  Levitt opines through the titular character that it’s ridiculous to insist upon such a high degree of personal control over the world as we exercise in our culture.

            On a personal level, Jesus talked about how we shouldn’t spend all of our energy worrying about where our clothes or shelter or even our next meal are going to come from because those things are under God’s control.  When we spend all our energy trying to bring them under our own control, it’s disrespectful and only serves to show our own ignorance, but I’m getting ahead of myself now.

            I’m interested to see how this king thing works out.

day 84 I Samuel 1-3

            It looks like things are getting back into more of a narrative format now.  The lists of rules from Leviticus and Numbers were kind of tedious and the disjointed stories from Joshua and Judges were just confusing.  I miss being able to stick with a character for a while and watch their relationship with God evolve.  I've got a good feeling about his next group of chapters.

            Samuel is a boy born to a lady who was barren.  She prayed to God and said that if she had a son, she would dedicate him to the Lord for his entire life.  Eli, the priest Samuel got himself volunteered to serve under, had a couple sons also working under him.  His sons were, basically, jerks who didn’t respect God.  They abused the sacrifice system to get the best parts of meat for themselves.  God hated this kind of thing.  He probably still does.

            At this time prophets and miracles were rare, but God told Samuel that He was going to punish Eli’s family for what his sons were doing.  Eli is at fault for their sins both because he is both their father and their priest-boss and there’s a precedent back in Leviticus for a higher-ranking Levite also being held accountable for any screw-ups happening lower in his chain of command.  He’s very supportive of Samuel’s vision and even seems accepting when Samuel explains that God is going to take vengeance upon Eli and his family.