Week 83, Day 1: Gibeonites
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 21:1-22
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
We now come to a time where God is punishing Israel through a famine. This famine last three years before David inquires of God regarding why this is happening. Firstly, it should not have taken three years before David realized that something was amiss. In man’s eyes famines come but considering the promises God gave to Israel, they would have plentiful crops and their flocks would increase greatly. The normal illnesses and difficulties would not come upon them. The land they inherited was a land flowing with milk and honey and the Lord promised that they would have wonderful bounty in the land. This promise was contingent upon Israel’s obedience. IF they served God faithfully these kind of rich blessings would be given to them. What many miss today when speaking about Israel is how the blessings hinged upon their faithfulness. So here they have a famine in the land, why? It should not have taken three years before David realized that he needed to inquire of God regarding this.
The answer for why there is a famine centers around something that happened many years earlier. When Saul was king he had attacked the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites were the group of people who approached Israel when they first came into the promise land. They tricked the elders of Israel into entering into a covenant with them by dressing like they had come from a far away journey. Even though the covenant was made by trickery and they were indeed a tribe of the Canaanites who were to have been wiped out, Israel had still entered into a covenant before God that was to be honored. No king on a whim should cast aside such a vow made by Israel. So now Israel was suffering because of this wrong done and because it had never been corrected. This is interesting to see how God expected Israel to “make it right”. Justice demanded that the aggressor be punished for violating the covenant.
Question: What can we learn about how seriously God takes a covenant from this account? How should we then view our marriage vows?
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