Monday,
1/30/12
David is
one of the Bible’s great heroes, and that being so, it confuses us when the Bible
seems to approve of his behaving in a sinful way. Like, he spoiled his children
rotten. Is that to be an example for us? No.
This
week we are reading from the Second Book of Samuel. It helps to know how these
stories were put together. After the death of David his Kingdom of Judea
carried on for almost four hundred years. Without printing, and certainly
without television, those people got their history and entertainment from storytellers.
Those men, unable to read or write, chanted long epic poems about past kings. They didn’t dare openly criticize royal
behavior, but they could relate the facts in such a way that the listeners
could see where their kings had gone wrong.
David’s
big sin was that he let his sons get away with murder. When his oldest, Annon,
raped his half sister, David was very angry about it; but he did not want to
alienate Annon by openly blaming him.
When his
son Absalom raised a rebellion against him, David, the doting father went
slinking away. When troops royal to the king put Absalom to death David mourned
for him as though he were part of the rebellion.
Without
openly speaking against King David the storytellers left it to our good sense
to see David was wrong for letting his sons get away with murder.
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