Daily Bible Reading: 2 Samuel 12 and Mark 11

2 Samuel 12 – The Lord sends his prophet, Nathan, to afflict David.  Don't you wish every "ruler" had an honest prophet to keep him on the straight and narrow! Nathan tells David a story—about two men in a city, a poor one and a rich one, one with many sheep and one with only one.  When a traveler comes to the rich man requiring hospitality, the rich man is loath to sacrifice even one sheep to feed the man; so he takes the poor man’s one lamb and uses it.  David becomes outraged at the injustice of the story and says, “the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity” (12:6).

           

Then Nathan tells David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more.  Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight?” (12:8-9)

He then imposes a penalty—“Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife . . .I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. . .” (12:10-13). David realizes his terrible sin and confesses it to Nathan.  The Lord forgives him, but the child born to David and Bathsheba shall die (12:14).

There is, of course, a lot to be taken from this great story.  David is not above the law of the Lord even though he is king, even though he rich and has many wives.  When it comes to the moral law, all men are equal before God.  Also, even though God’s forgiveness comes readily to David, the punishment for sin remains.  The little baby will die, showing us also that the consequences of sin pour over onto the most innocent when we transgress.  Is it God’s will?  It is God’s will for there to be a moral order, and it is in the nature of this order for the evil we do to spill over onto those who are nearest and dearest to us. The woes Nathan speaks of here will come to pass in 16:20 - three of David’s sons are murdered, two by their own brothers. Absalom takes over his father’s harem. The real repentance of David is revealed not here in this story, however, but in the psalm he wrote, number 51:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.  Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.  Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me

wisdom in my secret heart.  Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit with me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit (51:1-12).

David is inconsolable at the penalty exacted upon the innocent child.  He fasts and prays that God will spare him, but when he dies, David accepts it.  He and Bathsheba will have another son—Solomon.

           

Joab, meanwhile defeats the Ammonites at Rabbah and its king, Milcom.

Mark 11 – Approaching Jerusalem, at the Mt. of Olives, Jesus sends his disciples into town to get a donkey colt for him to ride into town on.  People lay their cloaks down on the ground before him and others leafy branches (palms?). He goes into the Temple and looks around.  Then they go to Bethany together. The next day they come back and Jesus sees a fig tree without fruit (it is not the season for the fruit), but Jesus curses it anyway (11:14).

In Jerusalem, at the Temple, he drives out money lenders (11:15) quoting something from scripture (Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11 combined). At this point we hear that the chief priests and scribes are out to kill him, but they fear the crowd. They pass the withered fig tree, and Jesus tells them anything they pray for will come to them if they do not doubt (11:22).  And he tells them to forgive if they want God to forgive them (11:25).

           

When they come into Jerusalem again, the leaders ask him “by what authority” he does the things he does.  He confounds them—knowing their fear of going against the crowd—where they think John the Baptist’s authority came from. They are afraid to say his power came from God because they never had respect for John and saying he had been sent by God would show them disrespectful of God. And they are afraid of saying that his power did NOT come from God because they fear all the people who followed John. They fudge it and say they don’t know. 

Daily Bible Study: 2 Samuel 7-9 and Mark 9

2 Samuel 7 – Having consolidated the kingdom and had a great house built for himself, David conceives the idea of building God a dwelling place too.  He asks his “in-house” prophet, Nathan about it, and at first Nathan says fine; but at night Nathan receives a definitive word from the Lord that this is not His will.  These wonderful passages follow:

“Are you the one to build me a house to live in?  I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle . . . .did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel. . .saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’ Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, . . And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more . . . Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. . .I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.  He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me” (7:5-16).

There is so much in this chapter.  First of all the Lord makes it plain that man is really not the one who can ever “make a house for the Lord to live in” on this earth.  God is the one who makes us places to dwell, who provides for us, who raises up leaders for us and makes them successful.  The promise to David and to his line, which is set forth here, is a promise that will endure.  It will endure on a human level—Solomon will build the Lord a dwelling place in one sense in the next generation.  But when the Davidic line dies out in a human way, He will also see to it that the line is reestablished in Christ.  He will be a son to the Lord God and the Lord will be His father. As a Catholic I also see in this promise, as in the promises to Eve, to Noah and the Abraham a “type” of the promise Peter was to receive at Christ’s side; and one reason why I do is because like in the gospel where Peter receives his commission and the promise that undergirds it, he also follows it with a slip into apostasy (see Matt. 16:18 and 22-23). Two chapters on, incurs God’s wrath for the sin he commits with Bathsheba. 

2 Samuel 8 – David subdues the Philistines and the Moabites, fights against King Hadadezer and his Aramean allies from Damascus. “The Lord gave victory to David wherever he went” (8:6). He brought valuable booty home. Other people paid tribute, people such as King Toi of Hamath.  He killed 18,000 Edomites and placed garrisons in Edom.  Among his own people, he “administered justice and equity to all his people” (8:15).

           

Joab was his commander; Jehoshaphat his recorder and Zadok, son of Ahitub and Ahimelech, son of Abiathar were priests. Seraiah was secretary.

2 Samuel 9 – David seeks out Jonathan’s living sons to show kindness to them.  Ziba, one of Saul’s servants tells David that only Mephibosheth (also called Meri-baal), a crippled son of Jonathan is left.  He was crippled when his nurse dropped him when the news came about the death of Saul and Jonathan at the hands of their enemies. Ziba is told to work for Mephibosheth to provide his food, but Mephibosheth will eat at David’s table.  Mephibosheth has a son as well, Mica.

Mark 9 – The scene is of Jesus’ transfiguration.  The reference to six days relates back to the OT (Exodus 24:16, where the cloud covers the mountain for six days with Moses on it and 34: 30 where Moses returns from the mountain with his face shining). Like Moses, Jesus takes his three main disciples with him and goes up a high mountain (9:2).  His clothes become “dazzling white,” and he talks with Moses and Elijah.  Like the people of Israel in the Moses story, they are terrified, and then they hear God’s voice saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him” (9:7). For the first time, he tells them the Son of Man will rise from the dead (9:9).  Elijah, Jesus explains, is to come first to “restore all things” and he has come.

           

They arrive where the disciples all are and again there is a huge crowd—the scribes are arguing with some of them.  One in the crowd tells him he came with his son who is suffering from seizures of some kind.  The disciples can’t help him, and Jesus tells them they are “faithless.”  As a seizure takes hold of the boy, Jesus asks the father how long it has affected him—it is a long time.  Jesus tells the man all things are possible “for one who believes” and the man says the famous words, “I believe; help my unbelief.” (9:24). Jesus exorcises the “unclean spirit,” but it knocks the boy out. (9:26) Jesus later tells his apostles that this kind of spirit “can come out only through prayer” (9:29).

They go through Galilee: again he warns them not to let others know and again he predicts his passion. On the way to Capernaum, his disciples argue about “who was the greatest”(9:34). He tells them the first must be the one who is servant of all—that they must welcome children too in his name as if they were he.

           

John worries because another person is “casting out demons in [Jesus’] name” (9:38). Jesus tells them not to stop him—“whoever is not against us is for us.” Then he returns to the theme of innocence or of children again warning his disciples never to put stumbling blocks in the way of simple people’s faith. This is a Pauline concern, one he speaks of in connection with the eating of foods sacrificed to idols.  And lastly in this chapter Jesus warns them not to let any  “part” of them, any one impulse or failing in one to be the cause of “stumbling” in one’s own walk; for “it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell” (9:46).