Week 83, Day 3: The Census
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 23:1-25
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
We are told at the beginning of this chapter that the anger of God burned against Israel. We are not told why this was or if this was against anyone specifically in Israel. But the wording of the passage leads me to conclude that David was incited in some way to make the decision to take the census. What was wrong with taking a census of the people? God had always promised Israel that He would fight for them and deliver them from all enemies. So why would there be a need to number the people unless it is just for some reason of pride. “Look at how my nation has grown”. “Israel is now so powereful that we have 1 million fighting men”. Man would want to know such things as a source of boasting and confidence in himself. Israel needed to have confidence in God.
Question: Why do you think God waited until after the census was taken to punish Israel? Why not just stop the census before it was completed?
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Week 83, Day 2: A song of salvation
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 22:1-51
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
David sang a song to the Lord praising Him for delivering him from his enemies. I often enjoy reading these because they give us an additional glimpse at the mindset of certain people. Speaches, prayers, and songs often open up a window for us to look in and see who this person was. David was a man of great faith. Here he acknowledges and thanks God for being his rock and fortress. Such pronouncements also enable us to see how David describes things in his own words. He calls God the horn of my salvation. This is certainly not a phrase that we would use regularly today. So we get a glimpse of terminology they used but most importantly we see how much David praised God for the good He had done. David says that God recompensed him according to the cleanness of his hands and according to his righteousness. God delivered David from the hands of mightier foes because David was a righteous man who served God faithfully.
Question: If you were to write you own “song of praise” to God, what would it center around and what would it say? This might be a good exercise for all of us to try. Put into writting your praise for God. And then compare this to the kind of things David had to say.
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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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Week 82, Day 5: The end of Sheba
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 20:1-26
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
When David came back to reclaim his right to be king a man of Benjamin had led a rebellion opposing him. This man did not last long after that point. David recognized that if Sheba was not killed quickly then he would do much damage to David’s reign. So he sent his men after three days time to go pursue Sheba. Sheba’s rebellion must not of had a very strong following because when David’s men come, Sheba is killed by the people of the town. This instance makes me think of when David was in Keilah in 1 Sam 23. David had just delivered this city from the hand of the Philistines and Saul finds out that David is there. Saul is coming to attack David while he is in the city. David inquires of God whether the people of the city will deliver him over to Saul and the Lord says yes. David, even with his mighty men with him was not going to be able to hide in the city he had delivered. So Sheba may have had some following but when faced with a seige the people quickly turned him over to them.
Question: How do you think David should handle when Joab did to Amasa?
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Week 82, Day 4: David brought back
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 19:1-43
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
After Absalom is killed David mourns for his son. This could be understandable to greive the loss of your son but this son had just tried to kill you. David’s reaction is not good. He disheartened his men and made them feel so low that they came back into the city as if they had been the ones to lose the battle. David’s reaction puts him in danger of driving people away from him. Joab, the commander of his army, is the one who comes to rebuke him. This seems to reflect the close relationshihp that Joab had with David and yet their relationship is not all good. Joab is the one who had killed his son. It would also seem that word must have gotten back to David who killed Absalom because David states that he is going to appoint Amasa as the new commander of his army.
We also have a glimpse at conflict between the norther tribes of Israel and with Judah. This is the brewing of trouble to come later for Rehoboam.
Question: What does David’s reaction to Absalom’s death reflect about some parents?
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Week 82, Day 3: Absalom is killed
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 18:1-33
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
We are not told how many men Absalom had in his army verses how many men David had in his. Absalom’s army is defeated and flees before David’s. We are told that the forest where they fought devoured more men than did the sword. This is interesting to me because I wonder what about the forest killed the men. Wild beast had been sent against God’s enemies before and will be in the future. Perhaps something abou the terrain inside the forest was so dangerous as well. 20,000 fell of Absalom’s army. So this was a pretty large battle.
We had been told in chapter 14 about Absalom’s hair. He cut his hair once a year because it had grown so much as to be heavy on him. This information now bears more in our understanding for we see Absalom getting caught in a tree. I can imagine him riding quickly to try to escape the slaughter and going through a thick part of the forest. And then he finds himself in a most embarrasing situation. Here is the man who was trying to be king, stuck in a tree by his hair. I have wondered at times whether Absalom didn’t carry some kind of weapon to try and cut himself free. But this situation becomes his doom as Joab kills him there.
Question: Was Joab right by disobeying the king and going ahead and killing Absalom?
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Week 82, Day 2: God overthrows Absalom’s counsel
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 17:1-29
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
David’s hastily made plans enacted when he was fleeing Jerusalem have now begun to bear fruit. David had told one of his counselors named Hushai to remain behind in Jerusalem. This man was in a position to be able to thwart the good advice from Absalom’s counselor. We are told that this was the work of the Lord (vs. 14). Here we have a glimpse that God is working to help David even in the midst of punishing David. God caused evil to come against David from within his own household as the prophet Nathan had told him. God was limiting what calamity was befalling David. Clearly God was keeping David from being killed. From David’s standpoint he would not have known to what extent this punishment would go or how long things would last. But God was good to David and allowed him to return later.
Question: When we are beset by hardships, what attitude should we have regarding our outlook and devotion to God?
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Week 82, Day 1: David’s flight
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 16:1-23
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
As David is fleeing before Absalom he is met by a couple different people. One of them was from the house of Saul. He verbally and physically attacked the caravan as it traveled along the road. He slung curses at David calling him a man of bloodshed. He claimed that God was repaying the bloodshed David had inflicted on the house of Saul. But the only bloodshed that David had directly inflicted on Saul’s household was to slay the seven sons of Saul as punishment for Saul’s attack against the Gibeonites and that had not happened yet. This also was not an act of vengence by David but justice for wrongs done by Saul. So either Shimei is just blaming David for all the calamity that befell Saul’s household since David is now king or perhaps he is blaming him for Ish-bosheth’s death. Either way it is an unfounded claim of wrong doing against David. And yet David feels so low because he is being driven out and punished for his sin with Bathsheba. He wonders if God wants this man to curse him. Notice how this man doesn’t just meet David and say something to him about how he deserves this, he follows him down the road hurling stones and continuing to rant at David. I believe that we see an amazing amount of restraint by David when he does not punish this man upon his return to be king.
Question: How should we react when someone is cursing us or assaulting us? What can our response show others?
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Week 82, Day 5: Absalom takes over
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 15:1-37
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
Absalom has displayed that he is a calculating man. It was two years before he executed his plan to kill Amnon. Now it has been four years since he returned and he has slowly been turning the hearts of the people to him. He stole away the hearts of the people and made his coup strong. In an instance David is forced to flee for his life. It is impressive to think that a son would seek to slay his own father. Perhaps it was David’s lack of guidance and control in his own house. He had not done anything apparently about Amnon’s wicked actions and now he seems to have left Absalom to stew on things for years. How sad that a man so dedicated to God (David) could handle his own house so poorly. Sadly it is something that has been repeated many times over the years.
David’s plight though is a direct result of his sin with Bathsheba. Let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that sin will not cost us anything. No matter how “small” the sin may appear or how enticing the action is (David commited adultery secretly – not many knew about it) we need to remember that our sin is before God and we will have to answer for our actions. Sin will find us out and we can be forgiven by God’s great mercy, but there are often unavoidable consequences that follow sin.
Question: How well did David handle things as he was fleeing? Do you think he could have done anything differently?
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Week 82, Day 4: Joab’s plan
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 14:1-33
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
Joab recognized that David longed for his son Absalom and so he devises a plan to get David to bring back Absalom. Joab doesn’t just go and talk to David. For some reason he sets about getting this elaborate plan together on how to move David emotionally to see the need to bring Absalom back. I wonder if this plan was enacted because Joab knew David so well that he understood that David would not bring him back without a special kind of nudge. The widow’s story appears to be designed to pull at David’s heart strings and get him to think with his emotions. But David perceives that something else is going on with the widow’s story and is able to guess that Joab is behind it. We will see times later where Joab appears to speak very frankly with David. For example, when David mourns for the loss of his son Absalom after the rebellion was put down. Joab confronts David about his weeping and rebukes him for not showing thanks towards his fighting men. This was a bold step for Joab to do and appears to show how close a relationship he shared with David to be able to approach him in such ways.
So many times people will do like Joab and try to use emotions to get someone to act in a certain manner. In this case I am not sure why Joab took it upon himself to spur David to action. Why was Joab worried about it? Perhaps it was simply that he wanted to see David happy and not sitting around missing his son.
Question: How can acting out of emotions be a bad thing? What problems can result from just following our emotions?
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