Pulling Our Harps Out of the Trees

The last thing we need to do before we wrap up this portion of biblical history is swing back and grab what many people refer to as the “Wisdom Literature.” The Psalms, the Proverbs, the Song of Songs and the book of Ecclesiastes are usually attributed (on some level; it’s hotly debated) to David and Solomon. So before we get too far past them, we ought to talk about their contributions to the literature that surrounds (and infuses) the story.

The Psalms, quite simply put, are songs. They are poetic pieces that are meant to be put to music and sung by the assembly of God’s people. There are some similarities to the Psalms and our modern understanding of “worship music,” and there are some differences. These were the cultural language of the day. There were songs that were sung on the annual pilgrimages to the Temple for the feasts. There were songs that were sung for those liturgical assemblies, as well. But the Psalms were also a part of daily culture for God’s people. They were the songs that you would sing out in the fields or around the house. The songs you would sing “in the car” as you traveled. They weren’t as neatly divided into “church music” as much of our modern experience would teach us.

I will readily admit (yet again) that David is not the strongest part of my theology, and this would also be true of the Psalms. I know people who resonate deeply with the Psalms. They have a mind (and a heart) that is more in tune (no pun intended) with the poetic perspective of life. I appreciate their appreciation for the songs of history as seen in the Psalms. I know people who authentically weep at what the Psalms are able to communicate artistically. So, it should be said that I’m not the person who is going to write the best piece on the Psalms.

Having said that, there are a couple of observations that I make through the Psalms:

First, there seems to be a Psalm for every emotion and a space in the Psalms for every expression to God. There are Psalms that celebrate God and praise Him for His might and goodness. There are Psalms that remember our history and the story of where we come from. There are Psalms that express our anger at injustice and cry out for God to act and bring vengeance. There are Psalms that encourage us to gather and join our voices in true community. And there are songs that help us lament.

This seems to be missing in the musical expression of our faith today. Not too long ago, worship music was bent towards our consumerism and individualism. Every song seemed to be of “I” and “me” and “my.” The music solely expressed my personal experience with God and was void of the community of God’s people raising their voices together. While this has been changing over the last decade, there still seems to be one kind of worship song — the PRAISE song.

But where do we create spaces to express anger or sorrow? Where are those songs? One of the things that the Psalms teach us is that God can take it; God can handle all of your raw emotion. In fact, He seems to welcome your authentic heart. He wants to experience life with you and feel those feelings with you. I have often sat in the back of a worship space and watched a family, who recently went through a loss, struggle to find the space to worship God TRULY in their present moment and condition. And for them, such a song would be a slow and dark dirge that would grant them the space to FEEL the pain and work through the grief. We simply wouldn’t know what to do with that kind of musical space in our culture.

Second, the importance of music in our communal walk with God is unmeasurable. One has to sing. I don’t mean that literally, but the heart has to find a place to sing. As you find yourself stuck in the cycle of struggle and redemption, there are dark moments when one of the few things you hold on to is song — not doctrinal statements, not theological explanations, not service projects, but the “close-your-eyes-and-breathe-in-the-moment” kind of music. Some of the most meaningful moments of worship in my own life, to this day, have been gatherings where I never opened my mouth and no music came from my physical being. Yet, as I stood there surrounded by God’s people, all lifting up their voices in song, I was reminded of what we believe to be most true. It was the music that brought me hope.

Because sometimes, people go to church and you will sing for them. Because they don’t have the strength to sing. But as they sit next to you, they will hold on to that last shred of hope that says, “If they can keep on singing, I guess I will make it.”

That same couple that I’ve watched from the back of the worship center? They still come to church and as they recover from their grief, they continue to join us in song and put their faith in God and His goodness and His good story. And as I watch them on some Sundays, I start to cry — because they give me hope. If they can go through what they went through and still sing songs of praise with their eyes closed and their hands raised — I think I’m going to be all right.

One of the most tragic stories in the Scriptures will come as the people of God are being carted off to Babylon. They exclaim that “by the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept … we threw our harps into the trees.” The tragedy is that they believed there was nothing left to sing about — no reason to pull out a Psalm.

Sometimes I look to my left and watch the family in the back row use sign language to lift up songs of praise to the heavens. In those moments, I’m reminded of how big songs are in the life of God’s people.

And we realize within that music how big God is in the life of His people.

And we pull our harps down out of the trees.

And we sing.

Because we have to keep on singing, in order to trust the story.

NAAMAN: Go in Peace

** This post was heavily influenced by a teaching that was given by Rob Bell at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI.

The next few blog posts will frustrate me because I feel caught in the tension of pulling ourselves off track onto a various number of rabbit trails. Yet, it must be done; it would be foolishness to skip so much of the Text. Just know that at some point, we will be pausing to review the larger (as we’ve referred to it before, the “10,000 foot view”) narrative arc of the story God is telling. The guts that we find “in the midst” of this period of history are incredibly important. While they will often feel as if they are disjointed and disconnected tales from the larger narrative, if you look closely, you’ll see they are intricate stories to larger drama that’s unfolding.

Nevertheless, the next one of my favorite stories of this period of history is the story of Naaman, found in 2 Kings 5. The chapter/story begins with the following verse:

Now Naaman was the commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the LORD had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.

Now there is actually a lot we could unpack with that short verse, but the first stop I’d like to make is with this phrase: “He was a great man.”

It’s not a bad translation necessarily, but it somewhat fails to capture what the Hebrew communicates. Naaman is said to be an ish gadowl.  In the Hebrew, the word ish simply means “man”, but the word gadowl is a word that refers to the weight and significance of object (not literal weight). This man, this ish, is incredibly significant. He has a certain cultural “heaviness” about his presence. When he walks into the room, everybody “feels” it. He is a weighty, heavy, important man.

Naaman is an ish gadowl.

And this important, significant man has leprosy.

Now, leprosy doesn’t necessarily mean what we think it means. The word does not refer to the actual disease of leprosy itself. The word is used to describe any contagious skin disease that would make one ceremonially unclean. At different points in history, even a case of severe acne would cause one to be declared “a leper”. However, whatever it is that plagues Naaman is making his job, his position, and his role very difficult. We’re told that he has tried multiple action plans from his home land, to no avail. He is not able to find healing. However, this land of Aram has heard about the “God of Israel” who can heal leprosy, and so Naaman is persuaded to find healing from a foreign God.

So, this foreigner — this ish gadowl — travels to Israel and shows up at the house of the man of God. The prophet happens to be Elijah’s successor, Elisha. Before one reads about Elisha’s response, they have to understand the kind of entourage that would travel with a person like Naaman. Naaman travels into foreign lands with great pomp and circumstance. His armies and calvary and his right-hand men travel with the parade of trumpeters and messengers. The Text will call them “his horses and chariots”.

After all, Naaman is an ish gadowl.

After appearing at Elisha’s door, Naaman isn’t even graced with Elisha’s presence. Elisha is unimpressed by the status and prestige of this ish gadowl at his door. He sends a simple servant to Naaman and his entourage with a simple message: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times… you will be cleansed.”

Naaman is enraged that he would come all this way and be told to wash in the Jordan. The reader needs to understand that the Jordan, 10 months out of the year, is one of the most unimpressive rivers in the Middle East. It resembles more of a dirty creek than it would a “river” in our North American books. Naaman is from the land of great and majestic rivers like the Tigris and the Euphrates. Great and beautiful rivers that flow from the hands of their gods.

And he is told to go and wash seven times in the dirty creek out back.

Naaman is fit to be tied and decides to head home, disgusted with the treatment he’s received. But again, Naaman is persuaded to at least give the prophet’s instructions a shot — they have traveled all this way. So, Naaman follows instructions and indeed finds healing in the God of Israel. Transformed both externally and internally, he returns to Elisha and has one of the most perplexing conversations in the record of 2 Kings:

Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”

The prophet answered, “As surely as the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will not accept a thing.” And even though Naaman urged him, he refused.

“If you will not,” said Naaman, “please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord.

First of all, we often miss the gravity of Naaman’s initial claim. Naaman lives in a world that has never heard of monotheism (belief in one god) outside of the nation of Israel. For them, there is a huge list of acceptable gods, all battling for dominance in the world. This epic, heavenly battle rages on and the positions of gods are constantly changing. This is his reference point of the normal status-quo. For him to claim that there is “no God in all the world except in Israel” is a stunning leap of understanding and faith.

Second, Naaman asks Elisha for a bunch of dirt? Not only does Naaman have an initial belief of pluralism that is being overturned in his consciousness, but his understanding of these gods is also geographical. Those gods are linked to certain pieces of real estate. If he intends to worship the God of Israel, in his understanding, he has to have a piece of Israelite earth, because YHVH is connected to the ground.

Naaman doesn’t have a proper understanding of basic theology. He’s going to need a little bit of education. Please understand this. Naaman is entering this conversation about a new God completely blind. He knows NOTHING of where to begin. And to make matters worse, the story doesn’t even end there! Watch what Naaman says next:

"But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.”

Naaman's job requires his worship in the temple of a false god! He is asking Elisha to plead to God to have mercy on him when he does this.

Now, what is Elisha’s proper response here?

I know what I’ve been taught growing up:
Hey, Naaman. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
Turn or burn, heaven or hell, Naaman.
Choose ye this day whom you will serve, Naaman.

At the very least, this poor guy needs some basic education. Maybe we need to pull him aside for a few intensive Bible courses and sign him up for “Biblical Worldview 101” before we send him home. He has no community, no church, no temple to YHVH, no education. He’s armed with nothing but his story and a mess back home.

But isn’t that the way life is? We often like to talk about life as if it’s clear-cut, black and white. But it isn’t that easy. Many of us have family situations and job placements that make simple, daily decisions messy and complicated.

Elisha’s response?
“Go in peace.”

Which is the Middle Eastern equivalent to: “That’s ok. You’ll figure it out. You’ve got a long walk home.”


Unbelievable. If I would have put that “master plan of evangelism” on a Bible college assignment, I would have gotten some special attention before they gave me a degree.

Go in peace?

Apparently, it’s ok for life to be a sticky mess. And apparently, the most important piece of education you could be armed with is a personal experience and story of transformation.

So take your story back home to your job that makes things complicated. Take your story and tell people about the dirty creek that you washed in and the God that doesn’t care about ish gadowl credentials or appearances or mighty rivers — but is in the business of healing. Tell them about the God that puts the world back together and is infusing the sacred into the common.

Tell them your story as you wade through the mess. And invite them to join you in trusting it.

The Fire and Passion of Elijah

The last four posts will really describe the story that will run its course through the rest of the history described in Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. It’s this painful lust for empire — and everything that comes with it — that will drive the Israelites into captivity. While we’ll need to build more of a case around my argument by using the prophets, it would be unfair to skip through the rest of the history of the divided kingdom without mentioning anything else about it.

We left off as Rehoboam was being petitioned not to be as harsh as his father Solomon had been on the people. Rehoboam will, after rejecting the advice of his elders and accepting the “wisdom” of his peers, respond by telling the people that if they didn’t like the reign of his father, they hadn’t seen anything yet. “My finger is as thick as my father’s waist,” he said. “He scourged you with whips, I will scourge you will scorpions.”

Not a very likable political platform to run on. Not surprisingly, the people rebel against Rehoboam and follow another upstart leader, Jeroboam. Jeroboam returns from Egypt to seize the opportunity to reign and the kingdom is split in two, with the northern kingdom becoming “Israel” and the southern kingdom becoming “Judah.” Jeroboam will not seize the opportunity to reign in righteousness and obedience, however. He immediately sets up an alternate place of worship, a decision that is based on political fear of the southern kingdom influencing his people if they were to continue worshipping in Jerusalem. He sets up some golden calves and leads the people of the northern kingdom into idolatry. Jeroboam is succeeded by his son Nadab, who is followed Baasha, Elah, Zimri, and finally, Omri.

Omri is the most well documented king in extra-biblical history and was known (outside of the Bible) for being shrewd and ruthless. He attempted to reign by demonstrating his power and then establishing treaties with the countries around him. The plan worked for a time and Omri established an intimate relationship with the Phoenicians. After his death, the kingdom was passed into the hands of Ahab and the Israel/Phoenicia partnership was solidified through the marriage of Ahab to Phoenicia’s high priestess (of Asherah worship) named Jezebel. Through this marriage, Jezebel brings into Israel the full force of Phoenician Baal and Asherah worship. (The short version of this would be to go back and review the nature of the Amorite paganism, as the worship of the Phoenicians was simply an evolved version of child sacrifice and shrine prostitution.)

Onto the scene bursts the prophet Elijah, of whom we know very little background other than that he comes from Tishbe in the north. Elijah is known throughout biblical history to have been a prophet filled with fire and passion. Fire just happened to be Elijah’s prop of choice and is always seen popping up in Elijah’s ministry. Obviously, Elijah’s contest with the Baal prophets on Mt. Carmel will be tested with fire. When he is under attack from the army general from Israel, Elijah will call down fire from heaven to consume the advancing attackers. Elijah is a man of the flames!

So, this fiery prophet approaches Ahab about his sin and tells him that it’s not going to rain until he (Elijah) says so. Jewish tradition holds that God did not tell Elijah to tell Ahab this and was not particularly happy about Elijah’s passionate response. This hits many Christians sideways, yet a closer inspection of the Text will show many, many hints that support the Jewish position. God never speaks to Elijah with instructions about holding back the rain. And again, we see Elijah as a man of fiery passion; in the Jewish world, we call this chutzpah.

And what kind of chutzpah does Elijah have? How does he dare make such a bold prediction about the rain?

Because it’s in the Text. Give Deuteronomy 11:16–18 a read.

Elijah knows what God said in His book; Elijah binds God to His word. And God honors the move, but it appears that He may not be too pleased about that. Elijah will have to go and live in a cave and be fed by ravens. Now, any person of the Old Testament will tell you that ravens in the Scripture symbolize the scavenger, meaning that Elijah is being fed with food from somebody else’s table. As if to say, “Elijah, I’m going to honor your prophetic statement, but please realize that innocent people are going hungry because of the lack of rain. I’m going to feed you with those hungry people’s food.”

Elijah will then spend time at a widow’s house (in Phoenicia, by the way) and God will sustain them with a starvation-ration's worth of miraculous biscuits (about two biscuits each day). Could this be another message to Elijah? Finally, God DOES speak to Elijah, and His first words are, “Enough! Go tell Ahab that it’s going to rain!”

But he doesn’t tell Elijah HOW to tell Ahab. And so Elijah stages one of the greatest contests of Israelite history. Many of us are familiar with the context on Mt. Carmel. Elijah says that the Baal prophets are to set up a bull to sacrifice on the mountain and cry out to Baal. Elijah will set up an identical sacrifice and cry out to YHVH. Whichever sacrifice God responds to will indicate the victor. What we often do not realize is that Elijah is stacking the deck in Baal’s favor. He chooses Baal’s animal (the bull) to be sacrificed at Baal’s altar (there’s already an altar to Baal on Carmel) and is crying out for Baal’s weapon (lightning/“fire from heaven”). He’s giving Baal home court advantage.

Of course, Baal is found to be sleeping on the job and the God of Israel will consume the sacrifice, the altar, the water, and the ground under the altar with fire. Elijah seizes and kills the prophets of Baal and then prays for rain. When God finally produces a rain cloud, Elijah sends word to Ahab and then runs a half-marathon ahead of the chariot to Jezreel.

Jezebel isn’t happy to hear about this contest and its results. She tells Elijah that he will be dead within 24 hours and nobody stands up for Elijah.

The whole contest didn’t work.

Nobody changed. Nobody repented.

And so Elijah goes out to the wilderness, lies under a rotem bush, and gives up. But God comes to Elijah and demands that he travel to Mt. Sinai (Horeb) to meet with Him. So Elijah goes to Sinai, and when he gets there God finds Elijah in a cave (have we heard this story before?) and brings fire on the mountain. Fire, but no God. Then an incredible wind, but no God. Then, a terrible earthquake, but no God.

But, then — a still, small voice.

The Jews teach that this gentle whisper is the same whisper exchanged by two lovers in bed with one another. It’s the intimate whisper of love between a husband and wife.

In the opinion of my teacher, God’s point is this: “Elijah, fire and force and power don’t work. It doesn’t change the human heart. Love does. Just go love them and teach them how to love others.”

In fact, it’s the people’s lust for power and force and fire that’s leading them to burn babies in the fires of the Baals. It’s their lust for security that’s causing them to visit the shrine prostitutes of Asherah.

But God invites His prophets to invite His people to trust the story.

And how do you convince an entire nation of adulterous idol-worshippers to trust the story? Not with legislation. Not with clever rules and loud shouts and “winning the culture wars.”

You convince people by showing them a better way. You convince them with love.

Always have. Always will.

And, apparently, God knew this all along. Imagine that.

The Story Behind the Story (part two)

This is the second part to a two-part blog post. To have an understanding of where we are at, you will want to go back and read this post to catch up.

The huge hint that clues us in is not only to notice what the Chronicler leaves out of his story, but what he puts in. There is a huge addition of material about the Temple. For the Chronicler, the story is — on some level — about the Temple of the LORD.

The author rearranges the events of David and Solomon’s life to make some big points. In the first story, David expresses his desire to build God a house in 2 Samuel 7. The plea seems almost insignificant and unnoticeable; this part of the story makes no grand splash in the greater picture. Yet, in the Chronicles version, it is this request that almost seems to serve as the hinge point of the David story. In 1 Chronicles 17, David asks God to build the temple and everything in the story seems to change. David will no longer seem to be concerned about kiddush haShem. Now, David seems to be bent on conquest and plans for building the Temple and supplies for the Temple.

And why did David ask to build the Temple anyway? Because he felt guilty about the kind of life he was living.

“Why should I live in a palace of cedar, while my LORD lives in a tent?”

God’s response: “I like my tent, thank you very much. When did I ever ask you (or anyone else) for a house?”

David is wrestling with the kind of person he’s becoming. He’s no longer the poor little shepherd boy, living out in the fields with his father’s sheep. He’s not just a raggedy ol’ kid marching down the hillside with his sling.

He’s a big, mighty king — living in a palace of cedar. And it makes him a little nervous.

And he becomes obsessed (with the best of intentions, I believe) with remedying the situation by building God a glorious house.

But it’s all starting to look a little more like empire and a little less like shalom.

This will get passed on to his son Solomon, who will take his father’s blueprints and exponentially increase the Temple’s grandeur. And Chronicles will waste no time in letting you know exactly where it stands on Solomon. In the very first chapter of 2 Chronicles, the author makes a point of including this paragraph:

Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. The king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue—the royal merchants purchased them from Kue at the current price. They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans.

And in the course of four verses, Solomon breaks every one of the commands of the king from Deuteronomy 17.

This isn’t looking good for Solomon. And the whole story will show the greatness and grandeur of Solomon that comes at the expense of God’s kingdom project. As the first paragraph after Solomon’s death will have the people of Israel approaching his son, Rehoboam, begging for him to loosen the yoke of Solomon from around their necks. Because building an empire always comes at a price.

You see, the story isn’t just about your morality and obedience. The story that God is telling in this scripture is inviting us to see the story behind the story.

And we’ve seen this story before; it’s the same one God’s been trying to tell from the beginning.

We’ve seen it here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

We’ve seen it a lot. And God continues to invite us to trust that we’re okay and we don’t need more. He invites us to enter His rest and wait on every word. He invites us to sit in the shade and not worry too much about houses made of cedar — whether they are ours or His.

As one final thought, in case anybody continues to wrestle with whether they agree with my take on the story, I would invite you to wrestle with these two mirror passages.

The first one from 2 Samuel 24:

Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”
So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, “Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are.”
But Joab replied to the king, “May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?”
The king’s word, however, overruled Joab and the army commanders; so they left the presence of the king to enroll the fighting men of Israel.

And the other from 1 Chronicles 21:

Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are.”
But Joab replied, “May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lord’s subjects? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?”
The king’s word, however, overruled Joab; so Joab left and went throughout Israel and then came back to Jerusalem.

So was it Satan or the LORD who had David take the census?

And why does the Chronicler add a statement to Joab’s response?

Could it be that from the perspective of the first author, David did something that the LORD was not happy about (again, making this about David’s obedience/morality), but from the perspective of the Chronicler, it was the lust after empire — the lie of the serpent, the temptation not to trust the story — that actually led Israel as a nation (not just David as a man) into the sin that would lead them into captivity? It is clear in these passages that David is struggling with an obsession of empire — strength, might, security. I would also add that in the historical world, a census was almost without exception accompanied with a tax. You don’t suppose David is trying to acquire the recourses for an upcoming building project, do you?

Not that building projects are bad. They are not. David’s house of cedar is amoral. There’s nothing right or wrong about it.

The Temple of the LORD is amoral. Whether it’s a tent or a gold-plated temple doesn’t matter to God.

There’s nothing wrong with church buildings, church budgets, or institutions that have to pay the bills.

But there’s this horrible temptation to start to build empires and forget what it means to kiddush haShem.

And there’s the constant voice and persistent invitation to remember your days in a field, shepherding sheep; to remember the shade of a rotem bush in the desert; and never to forget that you were once slaves in Egypt.

If you don’t remember, you just might become Pharaoh yourself, gathering slaves from every corner of the earth to accomplish your will (1 Kings 5:13, 9:15, 21; 2 Chronicles 8:8).  And if that happened, God just might hear the cry of the oppressed and begin the work of rescuing His kids…

The Story Behind the Story (part one)

In order to fully understand this post, you will want to go back and read the last post, as its content will be essential to following the conversation you’ll find in this post.

So, keeping in mind the two different biblical sources we have for Davidic/Solomonic history, I want to take a look at how the two sources tell their history and what kinds of conclusions we can draw by noticing their differences. So first, let’s do a fly-by summary of what’s seen in the Samuel/Kings account.

SAMUEL/KINGS

After a seven chapter biography of Saul — his selection, his struggle, and his rejection — we are introduced to the shepherd boy David in the chapters that describe his anointing, his service of Saul, and the defeat of Goliath. Immediately following the Goliath story, Saul begins to deal with the jealously and ill-will he feels toward David. The remainder of 1 Samuel (over ten chapters) will outline the long and arduous pursuit of David by Saul, and the story goes to great lengths to display David’s humility, morality, and refusal to do anything that would not kiddush haShem.

1 Samuel ends with Saul hopelessly taking his life and 2 Samuel will begin with David mourning the death of his enemy. The first nine chapters of 2 Samuel record how David solidifies his throne in Israel, yet we cannot move past this without making two points: 1) Everything David does in establishing his throne is completely void of self-indulgence. David’s actions will continue to kiddush haShem, and we’ll even have over three chapters dedicated to David establishing the seat of God in Jerusalem, bringing the Ark of the Covenant to rest in that place, and his subsequent prayers, praise, and celebration. 2) David’s “military approach” is so counter-intuitive, that it continues to throw David’s men off their hinges. David will continue to mourn the death of his enemies and slay HIS OWN MEN when they attempt to murder the king’s enemies on their own. The story reads as a completely wacky tragedy for those trying to learn how to live in an upside-down kingdom that brings shalom to chaos.

At this point, the story turns to David’s defeat of the Ammonites and the famous story of his relationship with Bathsheba. After the story of Bathsheba, David’s life will take a turn for the worse. His family becomes a heaping pile of dysfunction, his own children begin raping and killing each other, and Absalom will chase his father through the kingdom (echoes of Saul?) and David will run from a son who eventually dies at the hands of his leading general, who will pay for that protection with his life. David will count his fighting men — a move that will get him in trouble — and the book of 2 Samuel comes to an end.

The book of 1 Kings begins with the throne of Solomon being established and his many building projects. Queen Sheba visits Solomon in chapter 10, where we are told about Solomon’s incredible splendor. Now, while there are some possible hints that things aren’t as great as they appear in the preceding chapters, the first indication that the author of Kings give us in in the middle of chapter 10 where we are told that Sheba’s gift (probably a treaty tax of good faith) weighs 666 talents — a deliberate attempt by the author to tell us we’ve reached a turning point in the story. In fact, it’s going to be this long list of treaties that gets Solomon in trouble, as each treaty is signed by the marriage of Solomon to a daughter of the opposing king/queen. The very next chapter tells us about Solomon’s 700 wives and how they lead him astray to idolatry; it is at this point where Solomon’s kingdom falls apart.

So, if we were to step back and ask what the author is saying about this story, I think we would see a definite point. The Samuel/Kings agenda is to say that the Kingdom falls because of immorality. The definite, undeniable turning point in the David story is his sin with Bathsheba; it’s David’s immorality that leads to his downfall. In a very similar fashion, it is Solomon’s immorality that leads to his downfall and the definitive shift in his story, as well. His wives will lead him into idolatry. From the perspective of the first source, the problem is clear. These men have a problem holding true to God’s path (we haven’t mentioned “trusting the story” in a while, but it certainly fits here).

CHRONICLES

However, the story of Chronicles tells a completely different story, and it’s not because the author is trying to save space. Let’s look at the differences between the two sources.

After a lengthy section of genealogies, the Chronicler spends his time introducing you to the reign of David. There is no effort spent in trying to put David’s morality on display, only his pedigree. There’s no discussion about his exclusion of Saul or how he goes about his warfare. Even more surprising is the absolute exclusion of the Bathsheba debacle. The telling of Chronicles is void of a morality parade. For the author of Chronicles, David’s kingdom consisted of something other than a high moral ethic and it fell for a far broader reason than the moral failure of a leader.

Likewise, the story of Solomon is completely void of the mention of Solomon’s many wives and his subsequent idolatry. What is so striking about this for me (your experience might be different) is that throughout my life I have been taught about the moral (particularly, sexual) failures of these two men, yet another biblically-inspired author seems to be trying to convince us not to miss the bigger point.

The author of Samuel/Kings is not incorrect in the way he tells the story at all. All the observations he makes about the moral struggle are true and the agenda that drives the story is useful and compelling for the reader to become a particular kind of individual. But remember that the Chronicler is trying to write about history with a sense of hindsight and perspective; I feel as though he is trying to tell us that we may miss the forest for the trees if we aren’t careful. To put it another way, there is a story BEHIND the story.

 

 

And this post became so long, that I've split it into two parts.  Come back on Monday to find wrestle more with the story that may lie behind the history of the Old Testament.