Bible Study

Nursing his resentment, and preparing rebellion, Absolom, plays the part of the archetypical politician, and panders to public opinion:

2 Samuel 15:3 Absalom would say, "See, your claims are good and right; but there is no one deputed by the king to hear you."

He even stoops to "kissing babies":

2 Samuel 15:5 Whenever people came near to do obeisance to him, he would put out his hand and take hold of them, and kiss them.

Absolom put his plan into effect from Hebron and himself declared as king. Hebron, of course, was the center of his family's power; the very place where David was first declared king (c.f., 2 Sam 2:1-11). The difference in the two stories, however, is this: "David inquired of the LORD" (2 Sam 2:1), but Absolom inquired of the political advisor: 2 Samuel 15:12 Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's counselor, from his city Giloh."

So, David decides to withdraw from Jerusalem, rather than fight. Why? Does he believe that the cause is militarily too difficult? or is he unwilling to fight against his own son? or is waiting for a sign from God concerning what God's decision is concerning the kingship?

The latter is suggested by:

2 Samuel 15:25-26 Then the king said to Zadok, "Carry the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the LORD, he will bring me back and let me see both it and the place where it stays. 26 But if he says, 'I take no pleasure in you,' here I am, let him do to me what seems good to him."

This is the measure of David's greatness. This whole episode of Tamar's rape by Amnon, Amnon's murder by Absolom, and now Absolom's rebellion are the fruit of David's sin. David is not morally admirable. treatment of Micah is further evidence. But where David shines in brilliance is in his acceptance of God's judgment -- personally and even more so in the matter of God's authority to annoint the ruler of Israel. David was not willing to raise his hand against Saul, and now he is willing to be deposed from his throne. The choice, and the action, must be God's.

This is not to be confused with indecision or unwillingness to act forcibly when needed. David's whole history shows that he was a "mighty man." He, like Absolom (who was his father's son!), was a canny political manueverer, and used his own friend Hushai the Archite (v. 32) to as a spy to "defeat for me the counsel of Ahithophel." (Samuel 15:34 )

However, as to the fundamental question of whether he was to rule in the "kingdom of God," David defered to God. God, in the end, must be the divine warrior, and no-one, not even David, can fight in his place.

In the middle of this confrontation between Joab and David over the fate of Absalom, this unamed "woman of Tekoa" is recruited by Joab to trick David into showing mercy to his son. The device is similar to the way Nathan tricked David into conodemning himself in the matter of Uriah. But in verse 14, it seems to me that the woman goes off script, or at any rate, she says something personal and profound.

2 Samuel 14:14 We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up. But God will not take away a life; he will devise plans so as not to keep an outcast banished forever from his presence.

Matthew Henry comments, "This was poor reasoning, and would serve against the punishment of any murderer" and perhaps that is the reason that, instinctively, I liked it. She is saying that life is lived forward, never backward. This is a condition of our mortality. What is done cannot be undone. Punishment cannot change the past, but God is always in the business of looking for some manner of redemption.

We cannot change the past, but we do not need to be trapped by it. Tthe injustice or oppression we have expreienced or that we have imposed on others is water spilled on the ground. The woman of Tekoa tells us that we have to accept that: our attempts to change the past through vengeance are fruitless. God is about something better: creating a new future.

So, here is Gospel, on the lips of the nameless woman of Tekoa: God is doing something new.

For the last four months I've been looking at this chapter about the rape by Amon of his beautiful half-sister Tamar and found myself unable to post. It has taken me a long time to figure out why I was so stuck. There is plenty to say, of course.

This act is the begining of the working out of the judgment that Nathan uttered against David in the previous chapter. Amon, of course, could have acted with restraint and honor, but didn't. Just as David, his father, could have acted with restraint and honor in the matter of Bathsheba, but didn't. The fact that this rape and incest was God's judgment on David's house didn't make it inevitable, for, I suppose God would have found some other way to bring violence and exposure to him.

Nevertheless, Amon showed the same character weakness as his father. In this, he was aided and abetted by his cousin,

2 Samuel 13:3-5 Jonadab son of Shimeah, David's brother. Jonadab was a very shrewd man. 4 He asked Amnon, "Why do you, the king's son, look so haggard morning after morning? Won't you tell me?" Amnon said to him, "I'm in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister."

5 "Go to bed and pretend to be ill," Jonadab said. "When your father comes to see you, say to him, 'I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand.'"

In his "shrewdness," Jonadab shows the same fruit of luxurious disregard to the virtue of the limitation of power that the courtiers who befriend Solomon's son show when they urge him to deny justice, increase oppression, and push the nation into civil war. This is the voice of power that sees only the possibility of fulfilling every desire and never sees that possibility of fulfillment does not justify any means.

It was not necessary for Jonadab and Amon to act as they did. They failed to exercise their freedom to choose well, and instead lived out the family system started by David's rape of Bathsheba (the power inequality between king and lover makes that seducation rape) and before that by his disregard for the personhood of his first wife and lover, Micah. Amon's revulsion against Tamar after he rapes her is a reflection of his revulsion over himself.

So, there is plenty to say. But what has stopped me so long from posting, is, I think, that I hate that Tamar suffers like this and that the Bible sees it as fulfilling Nathan's prophecy of judgment against David. I hate that God didn't take his vengeance out against David. Why should the children suffer for the sins of the parent?

But then, it occurs to me that very often that is in fact what happens. Our sins affect the whole community, and the innocent do suffer -- not only those who are directly involved but those who feel the indirect ripples of our wrongful actions. So, I cry out to God, "Where is the justice?" It is not in this story -- even if there is an evil logic and vengeance (or, if you will, karma).

This is a story of both judgment and unmerited grace. In the course of the confrontation between God and David, David recognizes that he deserves to die for the crime he has committed. God does judge David, but the punishment is not strictly "just" in the human sense -- the illegitimate child is killed, but David lives and is given a new child, one whom God loves. Grace overwhelms judgment, because of the humility of David. But even so, the promise of the everlasting kingdom which God had given to David is not modified: it will be a kingdom that suffers from the sword – because, as the prophet Nathan explains:

2 Samuel 12:9 You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, ... of the Ammonites.

This section really opens with the concluding verse of the previous chapter:

NAU 2 Samuel 11:27b But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the LORD.

This judgment of "evil" (ra) is the moral judgment reserved to God: "the fruit of the knowledge of good (tob) and evil (ra)." Here, we see God unveiled in his role of judge, about to visit the law of retribution against David, who has just established himself as the greatest king of the nation of God at its greatest extent.

NAU 2 Samuel 12:1 Then the LORD sent Nathan to David.

Nathan had the unenviable task of speaking truth to power. In our modern context there is a guarantee (if fragile) of freedom of speech but this was a different situation entirely. Nathan wisely starts by indirection, appealing to David's sense of justice. In Quaker terms, he seeks "the witness of God within." He tells a moving story of a poor man, oppressed by a ruthless rich man. David is incensed, and says:

2 Samuel 12:5 "As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die"

2 Samuel 12:7 Nathan said to David, "You are the man!

This is surely one of the most dramatic moments is Scripture when, through his prophet Nathan, God reasserts his sovereignty over Israel. To do this, he does not demand David’s life, but God does decree that David’s kingdom will suffer publicly the very injuries that he inflicted on Uriah in secret.

2 Samuel 12:11-12 Thus says the LORD: 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 For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun."

This judgment is played out over the next chapters. The JBS note reads:

"The punishments correspond to David's sins: Because he put Uriah to the sword, the sword will never depart from his house (alluding to the violent deaths of Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah in the following chs), and because he took Uriah's wife, his wives will be taken by another man (Absalom)."

David shows his greatness in immediately admitting his guilt:

2 Samuel 12:13 David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD."

Nathan said to David, "Now the LORD has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child that is born to you shall die."

The unnamed son of David and Bathseba is killed by the Lord. David is not free to enjoy the fruit of his sin. In fact, the child bears the punishment for David’s sin; he is David’s Jesus. The episode concludes with David consoling Bathseba and he "lay with her"; and they had another child, whom they named Solomon.

The story of David and Bathsheba teach us many things, but among them are:

1. Even the greatest ruler (even the greatest super-power) is subject to God’s judgment.

2. There is a symmetry to God’s justice: sexual sin begets sexual humiliation; violence begets violence. Jesus’ teaching applies to emperors as well as the rest of us: NRS Matthew 26:52 "all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Empire and militarism bear within themselves the seed of their own destruction.

3. Humility begets grace. David’s willingness to humble himself and accept God’s judgment, enables God to show him grace and continue to work with him.

Here the unrighteousness of David, the king, is compared with the righteousness of Uriah, the common soldier. At issue is sexuality in an era of military expansionsim. Note the opening phrase of the chapter:

2 Samuel 11:1a In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle,

It was “the time of going out,” in the Greek, the kairos (time) of "exodus." This was not a liberating exodus, accomplished by the mighty hand of God against the imperial army of Pharoah while the faithful have but to wait and see what God will do. Rather this was time of the establishment of David's empire by human effort:

1b David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

But this chapter is not concerned with war. Rather we are asked to look at the moral character that is formed in such times when rulers send ordinary people to foreign lands for conquest:

2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. 3 David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, "This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite." 4 So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her.

She became pregnant. The story is familiar. David wanted to get out of the complication by making it appear that Bathsheba was pregnant by her husband rather than him, so he sent for Uriah, expecting that he would take the occasion of being back home to have sex with his wife. Here is where the excruciating irony of the story takes hold, for Uriah (the Hittite) operates with the old fashioned morality of the common believer, in brilliant contrast to the luxury-tainted hedonism of David (the Jew). David can't quite understand what is going on, so he asks Uriah he didn’t go in to his wife:

2 Samuel 11:11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths;1 and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing."

Not only that, but even when David makes him drunk he still holds firm. David was not shamed by this into taking responsibility for his actions. Instead, he conspired with Joab, his nephew and the commander of his army, to have Uriah put in harms way, where he was, in due course, killed.

2 Samuel 11:26 When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. 27 When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.

There is judgment coming, but that is in the next chapter. Today, I wonder at the co-incidence of imperialism, luxury, and sexual immorality--embodied by David--and its contrast with the simplicity of Uriah who had the virtues of simplicity and integrity. We see the same moral confusion in the world’s sole super-power today.

The great war between Israel and Ammon and their Aramean mercenaries was occasioned by the great foolishness of Hanun, king of Ammon. What caused this folly? Fear. What did Hanun do? Launch a pre-emptive strike. What was the result? The humiliation of the enemy. How did Ammon’s enemy respond? With war: the very thing that the Ammonites had feared in the first place.

The United States has been acting with the foolishness of Hanun since the terrorist attacks of 2001.

Nahash, the king of Ammon died, and David sent envoys to convey his condolences to Hanun, the new king and Nahash's son. It was here that the evil slipped in:

2 Samuel 10:3 the princes of the Ammonites said to their lord Hanun, "Do you really think that David is honoring your father just because he has sent messengers with condolences to you? Has not David sent his envoys to you to search the city, to spy it out, and to overthrow it?"

I suppose, in the terms of the "national security state," that the suspicions were reasonable. A continuing theme throughout the biblical history is that policy that would, from a practical geo-political point of view, be considered reasonable is condemned as foolish or unfaithful. In this case, the foolishness is on the part of Hanun, and is simply reported without comment. I am adding the judgment on it.

The foolishness consists in this: not only does Hanun accept the suspicions of his advisors as fact, but he acts with an arrogant disregard for consequences. The story would be unbelievable, if it weren't for the fact that we are seeing it repeated almost daily.

2 Samuel 10:4 So Hanun seized David's envoys, shaved off half the beard of each, cut off their garments in the middle at their hips, and sent them away.

This was an act calculated to humiliate. The word "humiliation" is probably the word most frequently used by Palestinians to describe the actions of Israel in the occupied territories and by Iraqi civilians to describe the actions of the U.S. in their "liberated" but occupied country. What did Hanun think? That by humiliating the enemy he feared that that enemy would respond with reason and kindness?

NIV 2 Samuel 10:6 When the Ammonites realized that they had become a stench in David's nostrils, they hired twenty thousand Aramean foot soldiers from Beth Rehob and Zobah, as well as the king of Maacah with a thousand men, and also twelve thousand men from Tob.

Hanun and his advisors suddenly “realized” that their policy had backfired! Time to escalate. So they hired mercenaries. So far, the actual hostility was entirely one-sided -- only Ammon had acted, and its actions were entirely motivated by fear. But, predictably, Israel responded in kind, seeing that they were now faced with a genuine military threat. Ammon's fears were self-fulfilling:

2 Samuel 10:7 When David heard of it, he sent Joab and all the army with the warriors.

So the disastrous war began. This is the cycle of arrogance, fear, and escalation. It is too late to pray to God to deliver us from such foolishness. Perhaps we could still pray to be spared the consequences of it.

I complained of the lack of overflowing justice and righteousness in David's actions in the last chapter as David committed a variety of atrocities against his enemies, and in the following chapter we have the beginning to the story of David's sin with Basheba and her husband Urriah. So, what are we to make of this chapter, in which David does kindness to Mephibosheth, the lame son of Jonathan?

The cynic can see in it a ploy similar to David's treatment of his former wife Micah. In his attempt to cement his claim upon the throne of a re-united Israel, David brought Saul's daughter back into his home. Evidently, there was no love remaining between them; and she who had once loved David now openly expressed her contempt. Here, David brings Saul's grandson into his household. This means that he lives in Jerusalem, under David's eye, rather than at his ancestral home. This cynical view may be justified because of his ambiguous role during the rebellion of Absolom (2 Samuel 16 and 19).

There is, regardless of the truth of David's heart in regards to Mephibosheth, an lovely thing in what David says as he proposes to act favorably to him. Twice, he asked,

2 Samuel 9:1 "Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan's sake?"

but the second time, employing the poetic parallelism that is so familiar from David's psalms, he says:

2 Samuel 9:3 "Is there anyone remaining of the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God?"

And when he is finally able to address Mephibosheth, his first words are:

2 Samuel 9:7 "Do not be afraid, for I will show you kindness..."

In this, David's words reached deeper into the truth than perhaps even he knew. This is the kindness of God, that reaches to potential enemies with the words, "Do not be afraid."