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 68 Deuteronomy 32- 34

            I’m just going to get this out of the way now because it’s going to come up a lot later on.  I can’t make heads nor tails of pretty much any kind of poetry.  I know that’s a sweeping generalizations, but it’s especially true for poetry that was written in a very different time or culture than mine, or that’s been translated from another language.  I tell you this now because I’m sifting through the song of Moses which he recites to the whole assembly of the twelve tribes of Israel right before he dies.  This is his concluding argument, so you know it’s important, but it’s kind of obtuse in the way it’s worded.  So, I’m doing the best I can, but you may be better off reading it for yourself.

            This is going to come up again in the book of Psalms.

            Moses says that God is perfect and amazing and created everything, but all of you (Israelites) are going to screw up this good thing you’ve got going and God is going to absolutely ream you for it.  Like no punishment or plague we’ve seen so far, God is going to destroy everything you love and spread you to the wind.

            This is going to happen.  God already knows it even.  You’re going to fail at this one thing that the Lord has told you to do.  But eventually, once all this hardship knocks some sense into you and you come back to the Lord, then He’ll take you back and things will be good again.

            After his speech, Moses gives each tribe a blessing, just like Jacob gave each son a blessing.  Ephraim and Manasseh have to share one.  They’re all mostly about prosperity and the accumulation of more land, which is odd because I thought that land ownership was permanent, but it’s still a nice sentiment.

            Finally, Moses climbs to the top of a mountain as God instructs him, sees all the lands promised to them from the time of Abraham, and dies.  The people grieve for 30 days, then Joshua is filled with wisdom and takes control of the camp to prepare for the invasion of the promised land.