Today’s Scripture Reading (March 6, 2016): 1 Chronicles 14
During a recent Republican debate, one of the facilitators, this time from “Telemundo,” asked Donald Trump about possible plans to build a wall along the U.S. Canadian border (and yes, I have been bothered by this one and I am holding onto it.) Trump responded that the problem, at least one that could be fixed by a wall, was along the Southern Border and not the Northern one. What I heard from the Telemundo reporter was a belief that somehow the Mexican and Canadian borders were equally dangerous. But I began to imagine a United States surrounded by “really high Trump walls” – maybe walls without a gate; a United States that is walled off from the rest of the world.
The Republican Party seems to be spending a lot of time talking about building walls. And they are not the only ones. Reports keep surfacing about more figurative walls being built around the European nations as well. Maybe it is just the threat of terror, but the truth is that none of these walls are going to be built cheaply, and I am not talking about a bill that Mexico is supposedly going to pay. The estimated cost of the figurative walls in Europe, which will cost very little to build, runs into the billions of dollars both to maintain and in the loss of trade and tourism. This is the real cost of national wall building. Can you imagine nations that are simply content to do with what they have rather than chase trade to give their people a better quality of life? Maybe the United States is ready to close its borders and withdraw within herself, but I really don’t think so.
Hiram I of Tyre was an incredibly important ruler in the ancient world or, at the very least, important for Tyre. Tyre existed as a city state within the influence of another city-state, Sidon. Today both cities are in southern Lebanon. But under the influence of Hiram I, Tyre left the orbit of Sidon. It began to take control of its own destiny. And part of the reality of that process was that Tyre began to build a relationship between itself and Israel. Tyre began to tear down the figurative walls between the city-state and the nation to the south. But maybe more importantly, Tyre’s relationship with Israel meant that a trade route was opened up between Tyre and the markets in Egypt and beyond. The move was ingenious.
Often we comment about David’s ability to build alliances and we point to Hiram I of Tyre as an example, but in this case, the genius really went both ways. And the result of the wall being removed between Tyre and Israel was that both the nation and the city-state became extremely wealthy. It was evidently something that Hiram and David both dreamt of in the days when David was building his palace. And it continued as Hiram also supported the building of the Temple of Solomon. The materials traded with Israel was a small price to pay for the friendship and protection of Israel and the wealth that the two nations would be able to take from the world – all because they decided to remove walls instead of building them.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 6
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