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1 Kings 4-7

Finally, Israel experiences peace and prosperity. The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore; they ate, they drank and they were happy.  – 1 Kings 4:20 NIV

With the wisdom that he had received from God, Solomon appointed officials to rule over the various aspects of the kingdom.  He also assigned governors over twelve districts to supply his provisions which consisted of :  thirty cors of fine flour and sixty cors of meal,  ten head of stall-fed cattle, twenty of pasture-fed cattle and a hundred sheep and goats, as well as deer, gazelles, roebucks and choice fowl.  For he ruled over all the kingdoms west of the River, from Tiphsah to Gaza, and had peace on all sides.  During Solomon’s lifetime Judah and Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, lived in safety, each man under his own vine and fig tree. – 1 Kings 4:22-25 NIV

With Israel at peace, Solomon could do the one thing David was not able to do, build a temple for the Lord God.  David, Solomon’s father was a man of war and not allowed to build the temple. Solomon’s reign was one of peace.  This peace, coupled with ample harvests enabled Solomon buy the finest cedar and pine from Lebanon, and to hire carriers, stone cutters and craftsmen to build the temple and its furnishings.  Solomon’s Temple was a magnificent structure.  Nothing has been built like it since.

Solomon’s fame and wisdom spread to all the surrounding nations.  He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered a thousand and five.  – 1 Kings 4:32 NIV

Among them is the following in Psalm 127
A song of ascents. Of Solomon.
Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.

Solomon was building God’s temple.  God was building his nation and ‘they lived in safety, each man under his own vine and fig tree.’

2 Samuel 13-15

The end result of having many wives is many children and that is what happened to David.  They all had the same father and were always jockeying for position and that is where the trouble began.  It started with the love sick Amnon who wanted Tamar, his half sister and the sister of Absalom another of David’s sons.  When Amnon forced himself on Tamar it disgraced her and disgusted Absalom.  Absalom took Tamar and her shame into his house and plotted his revenge.  He succeeded in killing Amnon and causing all of David’s other sons to flee back to their father while Absalom fled from the king’s reach.  And the spirit of the king longed to go to Absalom, for he was consoled concerning Amnon’s death. – 2 Sam 13:39 NIV

David mourned for his son Ammon and for the lost relationship with Absalom, but there was no repairing that breach until Joab sent a woman in disguise to trick David into changing his mind about Absalom.  She told him:  “When the king says this, does he not convict himself, for the king has not brought back his banished son?  Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.” – 2 Sam. 14:13-14 NIV

That was enough to convince David to let Absalom return to Jerusalem where he lived there two years without seeing David.  Joab finally convinced David to see his son, but the divide could not be breached.  The handsome Absalom, admired by all of Israel for his looks, his chariot and horses with fifty men running ahead of him to lead the way,  began to secretly woo the people away from loyalty to David until finally David fled with all of his family and officials.  By now David is older, and all the people who cheered him on in his victorious youth wept as they saw him marching out with his family in a procession that included those who remained loyal to him and the Levites who brought the Ark of the Covenant along.  “Take the Ark of God back into the city“, David said.  “If I find favor in the LORD’s eyes, he will bring me back and let me see it and his dwelling place again.  But if he says, ‘I am not pleased with you,’ then I am ready; let him do to me whatever seems good to him.”  – 2 Sam 15:25 NIV

On that long, sad, journey was David thinking that God had banished him as he had banished Absalom?  When he sent the Ark back, did he think he was saying goodbye to God’s presence forever?

2 Samuel 11-12

In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war.  With those words the story of David’s greatest failure begins.  The problem with being King is that someone has to stay behind and make sure everything is running smoothly and watch over the home front while the brave men go off to war.  David was accustomed to going off to war.  He had been fighting battles since he was only a boy.  What he was not used to was inactivity, so while the men were off doing what he longed to do, David was bored.  He spent his days pacing around the gardens on the roof of his palace and one evening, when he could not sleep, he saw a beautiful woman in her own garden below, bathing in the moonlight.  ‘She’s awake, too’, he thought, so he sent someone to see if she would like to keep him company, since he had so few companions left. 
What do you do when the King asks you to come over for a drink?  It was difficult to refuse.  When Bathsheba found David more attractive than she had imagined, you can guess the rest of the story.  Something that may have started out innocent in both of their minds now has unintended consequences.  But everyone is still out of town.  They may be able to cover their tracks.  Bathsheba tells Davis that he doesn’t know her husband and how honorable he is.  But David is confident in his power of persuasion.  It is Bathsheba who is right about Uriah.  Unlike David, he is too honorable to sleep with his wife when all the rest of his comrades are out fighting the enemy.  So plan B and Uriah is killed defending the throne and kingdom of David.
David can avoid his conscience and pretend that Uriah was just another casualty of the wars, and that he had pity on his widow and took her in, but God has seen the entire sordid affair and sends Nathan with a scathing rebuke. “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.  Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'”This is what the LORD says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.  You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’ “  – 2 Sam. 12:7-12

God would have given David almost anything, but he wanted the one thing he could not have, that old knowledge thing back in the garden again.  David wanted to know Bathsheba, and in doing so, the connection to God’s protection was severed.

2 Samuel 8-10

David was a great warrior.  He defeated the Philistines, the Moabites, the Ammonites and the Edomites.  It says that “David reigned over all Israel, doing what was just and right for all his people.” – 2 Sam. 8:15 NIV

David was a wise king as well.  He didn’t try to do it all himself, but chose good men for top positions:  Joab, Jehoshaphat, Zadok, Ahimelech, Seraiah, Beniah and his sons all had their areas of responsibility.

And most importantly, David was a good, kind and loving king.  He sought out news of any survivors of Saul’s family, and when he was told of Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s crippled son, he restored his fortunes, provided servants to do the work for him and gave him a permanent seat at his table as if he were one of David’s own sons. 

Nahash, the king of the Ammonites died.  At some time or other, he had shown kindness towards David, so David sent condolences to his son.  Hanun, the kings son, was persuaded by his noblemen not trust David’s motives, so they shaved off the representatives beards and cut their robes so short that they were exposed, humiliating the entire delegation.

The Ammonites realized their mistake, but it was too late.  Even after hiring the Arameans to go with them against David, they were not successful.  David routed both the Ammonites and the Arameans.  They had not learned the lesson that Mephibosheth had, that at the core, David’s heart was good and forgiving.

2 Samuel 4-7

The Ark of the Covenant has been sitting at Abinadab’s house ever since the Philistines returned it to Israel.  Now, years later, David decides to transfer the Ark from Kirjath-jearim to Jerusalem. On the way, the Lord kills Uzzah when the oxen stumbled and he put his hand out and touched the ark. This frightened everyone, including David, so he left the Ark with Obed-Edom, the Gittite.  When the entire household of Obed-Edom was blessed during the three months the Ark sat at his house, David decided it was safe to retrieve it and bring it to Jerusalem. 

Had the Israelites made a god out of the ark, had they begun trusting in it for their security instead of in the true God of Israel? Did Uzzah put a hand out waiting for the ark to catch and support him? Did Obed-Edom recognize that the ark was not a god but merely the symbol for the true God? Did he fear the Lord and not the ark during those months that the ark sat in his yard? And did the Lord let the ark stay there until the children of Israel remembered again who the true God was?

When the ark was finally brought to Jerusalem, David sang, danced, and worshipped not the ark, but the Lord. Included in his song in 1 Chronicles 16, were these words: “For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He is also to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the people are idols: But the Lord made the heavens. Glory and honor are in His presence: Strength and gladness are in His place.” – 1 Chron. 16: 25-27 NIV

When David became concerned that the Ark of God was residing in a tent, and he decided to build a temple for God, he was told ‘no’.  ‘This is what the LORD says:  “Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in?  I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling.  Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” …”The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you.” ‘  – 2 Sam. 7:5-11 NIV

God was the God.  He was not a possession, he was not a fixed place.

2 Samuel 1-3

You would have thought that David would have been rejoicing and celebrating when he was told that Saul had been killed, but instead he tore his clothes and mourned and wept until evening.  David was mourning not just because he had lost his closest friend, Jonathan, but he mourned for Saul as well.  “Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights. How the mighty have fallen!  2 Sam. 1:19 NIV  He took the death of Saul and Jonathan so hard, that he killed the messenger who told him of Saul’s death. 

And when he was anointed King over Judah, it was his men more than David himself who pursued the rest of Israel and the house of Saul until it was wiped out and David was proclaimed king over all of Israel.  The men surrounding David were not as trusting as he was.  First they murdered Abner, the commander of Saul’s army and caused David to grieve.  Once more he put on sackcloth and ashes and walked behind Abner’s bier.  His grieving proved to be a consolation to the people of Israel, but it was not a political calculation on David’s part, he truly grieved for Abner.  Then the king said to his men, “Do you not realize that a prince and a great man has fallen in Israel this day? – 2 Sam. 3:38 NIV

Then, after the death of Abner, some others took it upon themselves to murder Saul’s remaining son, Ish-Bosheth.  When they brought the news of their revenge to David he rewarded them with the same reward he had given the messenger who brought the news of Saul’s death.  David, the young, but wise, thirty year old king, knew what his men did not.  He knew the heart of God.  It was as if he had been sitting with the crowd on the mountain as they listened to Jesus’ words.
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”  – Matt.5:43-44 NIV

1 Samuel 26-31

What an ignominious end for Saul…the first king of Israel.  The Philistines are gearing up to go against Israel and Saul can hear nothing from God.  Meanwhile, his enemy David has left Israel and settled in Ziklag in the Philistine’s territory with his wives, his troops and their families.  Saul has driven all of the mediums out of the land, so in desperation, he has to go to Endor in disguise to consult a medium.  Bring up Samuel he says, and she does.

Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?”
“I am in great distress,” Saul said. “The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has turned away from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what to do.”
Samuel said, “Why do you consult me, now that the LORD has turned away from you and become your enemy?  The LORD has done what he predicted through me. The LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors—to David.  Because you did not obey the LORD or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the LORD has done this to you today.  The LORD will hand over both Israel and you to the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The LORD will also hand over the army of Israel to the Philistines.”  – 1 Sam. 28:15-19 NIV

Meanwhile, the Philistines let David know they don’t trust him to go up against Israel and Saul.  When he returns to Ziklag he finds that everything, including wives, children and cattle, has been carted off by the Amalekites.  So while the Philistines go after Saul, David goes after the Amalekites and in doing so, does what God told Saul to do.   David is successful.  Saul is not.  God is with David,  With Saul he is not.

1 Sam 24-25

David had more than one chance to kill Saul as he was being pursued by him.  Once he found himself in the same cave with him and cut a piece of cloth from the hem of Saul’s garment as he slept.  Another time, he snuck into Saul’s camp with two of his men and stole Saul’s spear and water jug.  Both times David could have killed Saul and he was even encouraged by his men to do so.

There was at least one person in David’s life who understood what he was doing:  Abigail, the wife of the foolish Nabal.  David’s men had been camped around Nabal’s land, keeping it from being attacked, but when they went to Nabal to ask for provisions, he refused to give them anything.  But the beautiful and wise Abigail packed her donkey’s full of bread, roasted sheep, wine and cakes to take them to David and his men as her husband refused to do.

When she arrived, Abigail pleaded with David as one who knew his heart.  “Let no wrongdoing be found in you as long as you live. Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life, the life of my master will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the LORD your God. But the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling.  When the LORD has done for my master every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him leader over Israel,  my master will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself.” – 1 Sam 25:28-31 NIV

Perhaps Abigail also recognized that David was a man who knew the heart of God.  One who knew the justice and righteousness of God ‘s being.  One who sang in Psalm 103:

The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;

David’s actions echoed his words.  Was he tempted to seek vengeance?  Oh yes, but he did not treat Saul as he deserved, for he knew God did not treat him as he deserved to be treated.

1 Samuel 20-23

David’s life is beginning to turn around, and it is not for the better.  The people of Israel may still see David as a hero, but his life has become one of constantly looking over his shoulder.  He never knows where Saul may be lying in wait to kill him, he only knows that he is being pursued.  David also knows that anyone who risks his life to help him runs the risk of being killed as well.  That happens to the Priests of Nob who were guilty of nothing more than giving David some bread and the sword that belonged to Goliath before David killed him.

David’s only friend was the son of his enemy, Saul’s son Jonathan.  Jonathan saw David through eyes of love and adoration rather than through eyes of jealousy.  Jonathan knew that David was chosen by God and that one day David and his descendants would be the ones to rule Israel instead of anyone from his family.  All Jonathan asked of David was:  “But show me unfailing kindness like that of the LORD as long as I live, so that I may not be killed, and do not ever cut off your kindness from my family—not even when the LORD has cut off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth.”  – 1 Sam. 20:14-15 NIV

Jonathan saw what his father could not see, that God was on David’s side and that God would see his purpose through.  After David had escaped to Horesh in the Desert of Ziph to hide from Saul, Jonathan sought him out once more, as he had been doing from the early days of their friendship, ‘and helped him find strength in God.  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “My father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul knows this.”  – 1 Sam. 23:17

Even at the risk of danger to his own life, Jonathan was a faithful friend.  David could count on that and on God being by his side.    What more could he ask for?

1 Samuel 17-19

David faced more than one giant in his life.  The obvious one was the Philistine, Goliath who tormented the Israelites from his post in the enemy camp.  All of the Israelites were trembling in fear, and none of them would take Goliath up on his challenge to come and fight.  Only David, the shepherd boy, and part time harpist to soothe Saul’s nerves, saw Goliath clearly, and his response was one of indignation. “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” – 1 Sam 17:26 NIV

When David tells Saul that he is going to fight Goliath, Saul reminds him that he is only a boy.  David recounts how God helped him kill lions and bears in order to protect the sheep and tells Saul that, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”  – 1 Sam. 17:37 NIV

So Saul gives David his blessing and dresses David in the customary armour and helmet of the warriors.  But David, being only a boy, finding himself unable to walk around loaded down with armor, took it off and went to face the giant with only five stones and the armor of God.  The Israelites were victorious over the Philistines that day, but Saul had already forgotten David’s contribution.

When the women greeted the returning army with the refrain “Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands,” Saul became angry and the very next day the evil spirit, that was to continually haunt the relationship between Saul and David, made its presence known when Saul threw a spear at David while he was playing the harp.  David’s music was no longer soothing to Saul.  The evil spirit became another taunting, jealous, giant that would pursue David the rest of Saul’s life.