Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: 1 Chronicles 11-12, Song of Songs 6-8 and Augustine's Treatise on the Profit of Believing 4

1 Chronicles 11 –David becomes the king of all of Israel. The elders come to Hebron and David makes a covenant with them. They march to Jerusalem (Jebus), but are told they will not be permitted to come there (11:5). 

David tells his men the one who attacks the Jebusites first will be commander, so Joab, son of David’s sister, Zeruiah, does it. David establishes himself in the city.

        

David’s warriors include Jashobeam, leader of “the Three—the mightiest warriors among David’s men” (11:11). Eleazar and Shammah [not mentioned here] are the other two. The Three are the ones who take Bethlehem for David and permit him to drink from the well there.  They get him the water, but he pours it out “to the Lord” saying he cannot drink it because these brave warriors got it at the risk of their lives (11:18).

        

Abishai, Joab’s brother becomes chief of the Thirty. The braves deeds of some of the Thirty are recounted—Benaiah “killed a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen” (11:22), along with a “an Egyptian warrior who was 7 ½ feet tall and whose spear was as thick as a weaver’s beam” (11:23). Benaiah is put in charge of David’s bodyguard. Asahel, another brother of Joab, Elhanan, Shammoth, Helez, Ira, and others are named.

1 Chronicles 12 – Those who came to David at Ziglag to help him in his struggle against Saul were archers and men from Saul’s clan who could “sling stones with their left hand as well as their right” (12:2).

Gadites also join David. “They were expert with both shield and spear, as fierce as lions and as swift as deer on the mountains” (12:8).

Another man is named as chief of the Thirty -- Amasai, not Abisha as in 11:20. Some “men from Manasseh defected from the Israelite army and joined David when he set out with the Philistines to fight against Saul” (12:19). “Day after day more men joined David until he had a great army, like the army of God” (12:22).

The number of divisions from each clan is given: Judah—6,800 troops; Simeonites—7,100; Levites—4,600 (Jehoida, leader of the house of Aaron with 3,700 and Zadok, a young warrior); Benjaminites—3,000 most of whom had remained loyal to Saul up to this time (12:29); Ephramites—20,800; Manassites—18,000; Issacharites, 200 of them “who had understanding of the times, and knew what Israel ought to do” (12:32); Zebulun—50,000; Naphtali—1,000 commanders plus 37,000; Danites—28,600; Asher—40,000; Reubenites, Gadites and half-tribe from Gilead—120,000.

All these came to Hebron to see David crowned king. “They feasted and drank with David for three days” (12:39).

Song of Songs 6 – So where did He go, the Chorus asks again. And the Bride responds that He has gone “down to his garden” (6:2). And she repeats, “I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine. He pastures his flock among the lilies” (6:3). He praises her every feature.

Song of Songs 7 - Again, the Bridegroom compares his Beloved to many lovely things. It is clear that the Beloved in this poem is not just a spouse for there are many wives and concubines permitted to this King. But the Bride here is unique – the love the Bridegroom has for her is special.

I often think about the image of the believer as “Bride” of our Creator/Sustainer/Savior. Certainly there are billions of believers throughout history and so there is a way in which the relationship between God and his Lovers is like a polygamous marriage, but every Bride (male or female) is also so uniquely special to God, that the relationship we have with Him is the very model of what we seek in Monogamy – it is a mystery.

“I am my Beloved’s, and his desire is for me” (7:10).

Song of Songs 8 – “Ah, why are you not my brother, nursed at my mother’s breast!” (8:1) The note seems to say that the disappointment is that the Beloved Bridegroom is still not the Egyptian-style lover, the brother. Is this some kind of yearning for a human-faced God? “

Set me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm. For love is strong as Death, jealousy relentless as Sheol” (8:5-6).

Augustine (354-439)

On the Profit or Benefit of Believing

4 - For you well know that the Manichees move the unlearned by finding fault with the Catholic Faith, and chiefly by rending in pieces and tearing the Old Testament: and they are utterly ignorant, how far these things are to be taken, and how drawn out they descend with profit into the veins and marrows of souls as yet as it were but able to cry.

Those professing Mani’s teachings take advantage of people who are unschooled by criticizing the Catholic faith by attacking the Old Testament. They do not understand how deep these readings go or understand how they can help those souls who are struggling to find their way to a better place.

And because there are in them certain things which are some slight offense to minds ignorant and careless of themselves, (and there are very many such,) they admit of being accused in a popular way: but defended in a popular way they cannot be, by any great number of persons, by reason of the mysteries that are contained in them.

Just because the OT contains certain things which can be offensive to some who are not well-schooled, they contain mysteries.

But the few, who know how to do this – understand how to interpret the stories -, do not love public and much talked of controversies and disputes: and on this account are very little known, save to such as are most earnest in seeking them out. Concerning then this rashness of the Manichees, whereby they find fault with the Old Testament and the Catholic Faith, listen, I entreat you, to the considerations which move me. But I desire and hope that you will receive them in the same spirit in which I say them. For God, unto Whom are known the secrets of my conscience knows, that in this discourse I am doing nothing of evil craft; but, as I think it should be received, for the sake of proving the truth, for which one thing we have now long ago determined to live; and with incredible anxiety, lest it may have been most easy for me to err with you, but most difficult, to use no harder term, to hold the right way with you.

But I venture to anticipate that, in this hope, wherein I hope that you will hold with us the way of wisdom, He will not fail me, unto Whom I have been consecrated; Whom day and night I endeavor to gaze upon: and since, by reason of my sins, and by reason of past habit, having the eye of the mind wounded by strokes of feeble opinions, I know that I am without strength, I often entreat with tears, and as, after long blindness and darkness the eyes being hardly opened, and as yet, by frequent throbbing and turning away, refusing the light which yet they long after; specially if one endeavor to show to them the very sun; so it has now befallen me, who do not deny that there is a certain unspeakable and singular good of the soul, which the mind sees; and who with tears and groaning confess that I am not yet worthy of it. He will not then fail me, if I feign nothing, if I am led by duty, if I love truth, if I esteem friendship, if I fear much lest you be deceived.

He is just hoping that his friend will receive the reasoning he has come to with respect to these things and understand that he is a man who has consecrated his life to God, and he is hoping his friend will listen.

Daily Bible Reading: 2 Samuel 23 and Colossians 1

2 Samuel 23 – David’s last words—an oracle:

The spirit of the Lord speaks through me,

     his word in upon my tongue.

The God of Israel has spoken,

     the Rock of Israel has said to me:

One who rules over the people justly,

     ruling in the fear of God,

     is like the light of morning,

     like the sun rising on a cloudless morning,

     gleaming from the rain on the grassy land.

Is not my house like this with God?

For he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure. . .(23:2-5).

The names of some of David’s warriors are named along with their deeds against the Philistines.  A lot of this is repeated in 1 Chronicles 11. The writer celebrates “The Thirty” and “The Three”: Josheb-basshebeth, a Tachemonite, chief of the three; Eleazar, son of Dodo; and Shammah, son of Agee.  Among the Thirty, several are named: among them Abishai, Benaiah (in charge of David’s bodyguard); Asahel; Elhanan (also son of Dodo); Ittai (Benjaminite); and Uriah the Hittite (Bathsheba’s husband).

A few of the famous deeds done by “The Three” are recounted: forcing their way into a Philistine camp to get water for the king, water he would not drink because he felt he should offer it up to the Lord instead. Then a few particular men are celebrated: Joab’s brother Abishai, most famous among “The Thirty,” Benaiah, who killed “two great Moabite warriors” and killed a lion on a snowy day. Then all the names of The Thirty are listed. 

Introductory Information on Paul's Epistle to the Colossians: This letter, dated in the period from 61 to 63 AD along with the letters to the Ephesians and Philemon, was written while Paul was under arrest in Rome. Paul’s style has changed and his doctrine is more developed than in the “great letters”—Corinthians, Galatians and Romans (written in 57-58 AD). The occasion for the letter is Epaphras’ arrival from Colossae with news of the dangers presented by speculative notions widely current in Jewish circles of the day regarding the influence of celestial powers, speculations that challenged the supremacy of Christ.

Colossae is a town in Asia Minor east of Ephesus; the church at Colossae was not one started by Paul but was in an area Paul felt some responsibility for. Paul wrote the letter and gave it to Tychicus to deliver.  The dangers addressed gave Paul occasion to rethink things he had said in the earlier letters in a deeper way.

He always thought that believers participated in Christ’s life through faith. What he develops here is a concept of how Christ’s life and power impacted on the cosmos as a whole—as pleroma [fullness of divine powers]. “Three aspects of this broader view, which focusses (sic) on the function of Christ as Head, are: that the scope of salvation is seen to be cosmic; that Christ, into whom the Church has to structure itself, is this same victor who has triumphed over the whole cosmos; and finally that the concept of the future, eschatological, promise, as already realized, becomes very much more central. . .” (Jerusalem Bible, 262). While authorship of Colossians has been questioned, the weight of opinion is that it is Paul’s.

Colossians 1 – Paul greets the Colossians and commends them for the love they have and the fruit they have given forth from their faith.  He lets them know he prays for them always, asking “God to fill you with the knowledge of his will, with all the wisdom and understanding that his Spirit gives. Then you will be able to live as the Lord wants” (1: 9-10). God has “rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (1:13).

           

Paul gives us his description of the cosmic Christ: “Christ is the visible likeness of the invisible God. He is the first-born Son, superior to all created things. For through him God created everything in heaven and on earth, the seen and the unseen things, including spiritual powers, lords, rulers, and authorities. God created the whole universe through him and for him. Christ existed before all things, and in union with him all things have their proper place. He is the head of his body, the church; he is the source of the body’s life. He is the first-born Son, who was raised from death, in order that he alone might have the first place in all things. For it was by God’s own decision that the Son has in himself the full nature of God. Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son’s blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven” (1:15-20).

The Christ described here is every bit as divine as the Christ of John’s prologue.  But what is truly amazing is that this cosmic Christ still conforms—or is conceivable only in relation—to the framework given forth in Genesis 1.  God begets light—a divine light, indeed His own divine Light--the “logos” of the entire universe.  And through this Light all the subsequent creation comes to be—ordered, good, image of the unseen and unimaginable power of the Father.  As pinnacle and embodiment of this light, life and power, man is brought forth—man both male and female.  Christ is this Adam, but here Paul tells us He is also that first Light, indwelling divine power of the entire cosmos.  It is this Christ that is Head of the Church (and Peter is His visible sign).

Christ restores in us (in our faith, in our knowledge of these great mysteries and responsiveness to them) this sense of what our lives are, of what the universe is to God.  But we must “continue securely established and steadfast in the faith,” not wander off—into the old slavery or ignorance we were once in.  Christ’s “saints” have come to know “the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generation” past (1:26).  This mystery “is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (1:27). The work he is engaged in is the work of bringing believers to maturity in their faith (1: 28).