2 Samuel 22:1-3 - David sang to the Lord

22:1

We now get a song that essentially covers God’s involvement in David’s life, and David’s experience of the Lord. This song is almost (but not quite) identical to Psalm 18. Note that David sang to the Lord, there was a personal relationship between David and the Lord, and this very clearly comes out in the Psalms of David. It is also worth noting that David makes the emphasis on the Lord having “delivered him from the hand of all his enemies”. We all face difficulties in life, indeed life can seem to be one difficulty after another! Normal Biblical experience is one of experiencing the Lord delivering us from a series of difficulties! Note also that it is through this that we develop an ever closer relationship with the Lord. One final point on this verse, note that David never saw Saul as his enemy. He knew full well that Saul caused him many problems, and much danger. But David always saw Saul as “the Lord’s anointed”, and David knew that God had delivered him “from the hand of Saul”.

22:2,3

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer ...” When facing trouble David looked to the Lord. Sadly, this was not often the case with the nation of Israel as a whole. A key failing of the nation was that when faced with danger they would turn to other nations or to idols for help, and this never ended well. David sought the Lord, and saw the Lord as his refuge, his rock.  And the dangers that David faced were real physical dangers.

Mark 7:11-13 - You nullify the word of God

7:11

So how did they set the commandment aside? They had a system of “Corban”, which was a vow. So if someone had vowed to give some money to God, but then it transpired that the money was needed to help their parents, the rabbis did not allow them to be released from the vow, and the money could be used to help their parents. Now look at this more closely. The Law did have rules on the seriousness of vows, and “devoted to God” sounds like a good thing, indeed is a good thing, but the rabbis ruling set aside the fifth commandment. Today a similar situation arises with regard to sexuality, especially homosexuality. Proponents in the church of allowing, even blessing, homosexual relationships, cite many good virtues, such as loving people, being compassionate etc, in favour of their position. But they are then clearly riding roughshod over the Bible’ clear teaching on marriage.

7:12,13

So the rabbis actually stopped people from obeying the fifth commandment. They nullified the word of God. This is also a demonstration that rules alone can never enable us to please God, we need to have the heart of God as well. The Corban example was only one example among many, the practices of the religious leaders were littered with many such cases.

2 Samuel 21:15-22 - They fell at the hands of David and his men

21:15

We now see further evidence of decline in David. We see this in two ways. First there is war between the Philistines and Israel, and then there is the physical decline in David. David no longer has the authority that he once had. We see this in all sorts of human rulers,  there is almost always a decline in authority and competence in their closing years. David went to fight with his men, but became exhausted.

21:16,17

The situation was so bad that David was in danger of being killed. Abishai, a son of Zeruiah, as was Joab, came to David’s rescue. The sons of Zeruiah were both a thorn in David’s side, and a source of salvation. God sometimes uses people we get on well with to help us, and that is great. But at other times He uses people who we find it difficult to get on with to help us. We need to have a gracious attitude. David’s men greatly respected him and saw him as the “light of Israel”, so they insisted that he no longer went out to battle.

21:18-22

We then get a brief record of four other battles with David no longer on “active service”. In each of these the Philistines were defeated, and a particular man is named in defeating the Philistines. Also it is highlighted that the brother of Goliath is defeated. While David is now failing, we see the value of his having attracted loyalty and admiration from men. While he was in his prime they admired David. Now he was weakening, they were able to do the work that he once did, winning battles. There is a key lesson in leadership here. We must act honourably and earn the respect and loyalty of people while we are at the peak of our abilities. We are then in a position to let others do the work as we get older, and we must be prepared to let go, rather than doggedly holding on, pretending we are as able as we always were.

Mark 7:9,10 - You set aside the commands of God

7:9

Having made the general accusation that they set aside God’s commandments for human traditions, Jesus now gives them a specific example of how they do this.  What they do is elevate one of their own traditions, a rule that they have made up, above the clear commandment of God. This is something that we are all in danger of doing, whatever denomination or branch of the church we are in.

7:10

Jesus now names the commandment that they set aside, and it is the fifth commandment, instructing us to honour our father and mother (Ex 20:12; Deut 5:16), and then reminding them of the command that anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death (Ex 21:17; Lev 20:9), this meant that one should take care of parents in their old age. It is also significant that Jesus says “Moses said”. The Pharisees liked to claim that they observed the Law of Moses, clearly they did not.

2 Samuel 21:7-14 - They were put to death

21:7-9

While he was happy to hand over seven descendents of Saul, David did spare Mephibosheth because of the promise he had made to Jonathan. The Gibeonites killed the seven men whom David did hand over. Their bodies were exposed on a hill before the Lord. We are given a fairly precise time for when the seven were killed. There is little that is glorious about the closing days of David’s reign. 

21:10-14

We now see why the harvest was mentioned. Since it was harvest time the birds were about looking for pickings, and would have scavenged on the dead bodies, given the chance. However, Rizpah took sackcloth to protect the bodies from birds or wild animals. Once again, we find a woman bringing a little dignity to an otherwise very bad situation. Her actions seem to have pricked David’s conscience. So he goes to collect the bones of Saul and Jonathan from Jabesh Gilead. Their bones had been lost in a previous defeat, and nothing had since been done to rectify the situation. Now this was put right. The bones of Saul and Jonathan and the seven were given a proper burial. “After that, God answered prayer on behalf of the land.” This could be taken as implying that God approved of all David’s actions, or it could be taken as God overlooking the evil way in which the situation had been addressed.

Mark 7:6-8 - Isaiah was right

7:6,7

Jesus responds by quoting from Is 29:13. It is the Septuagint, the Greek translation or LXX, that is given here. The Greek translation was the commonly used version. There God, throughIsaiah, says that the people honoured God with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him. And so their worship was in vain, they were merely following human rules, rather than following God. Jesus bluntly calls the Pharisees hypocrites.

7:8

The Pharisees had swapped the commands of God for the traditions of men. Note that Jesus does not beat about the bush, but goes right to the heart of the matter. We need to understand that the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees is not a debate between two equal parties, but between God and man. As the church we can be too accommodating when “debating” with the world. Now we do need to be careful, as we are sinful men and women, and can sometimes be wrong. However, when it comes to the person of Jesus Christ, and the word of God, matters are not up for debate.

2 Samuel 21:4-6 - What do you want me to do?

21:4

Again there is another key difference. The Gibeonites do not want money! Indeed they say that they have no right to demand silver or gold. Given what they end up asking for, the statement “nor do we have the right to put anyone in Israel to death” seems a little out of place, unless it means that they needed David to agree to them putting people to death. David asks what they want then?

21:5,6

They ask for seven of Saul’s descendants to be handed over to be killed. This is where the major problems arise. It is not the death penalty itself that is the key issue. There are many Christians who see the death penalty as simply wrong. I don’t think the matter is that simple. In saying that we won’t have the death penalty, it can be argued that we are devaluing the lives that have been taken. Clearly the matter is way more complicated, but this latter point should, at least, be borne in mind. The major problem here is that in agreeing to their demand David is acting in direct contravention of Deut 24:16, “nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers”. It should be noted that it does not say here that God approved of David’s actions, nor, having discovered the root problem, did Davd inquire of the Lord as to how to deal with it.