But Shammah took his stand in the middle of the field. He defended it and struck the Philistines down, and the LORD brought about a great victory. – 2 Samuel 23:12

Today's Scripture Reading (September 30, 2022): 2 Samuel 23

In 1812, with a peace treaty with Britain in his pocket, Napoleon decided to invade Russia. It wasn't one of his best decisions. The Russians knew they didn't have a chance to win against Napoleon by directly confronting his army in combat. Instead, they retreated, burning the earth as they withdrew from an area. That meant that the Russian military left nothing behind that could be used by the French to support their army as they advanced into Russian territory. Everything the French soldiers would need to survive as they ventured further and further away from France had to be brought in through the supply lines from home, which would slow the army's advance into enemy territory. To supplement their burning strategy, the Russians used light cavalry to attack the fringes of the French military indirectly in what we would likely call Guerilla warfare today.

But the tactic didn't just hurt the French but also any Russians living in the area. They would have to be evacuated as well because if the strategy was to work, there was nothing that could be left after the Russian Army retreated on which even the local Russians could live. If anything were left, Napoleon's army would have taken it. It wasn't a popular strategy, even from the point of view of the local Russian peasants, but it was a strategy that worked. The Russians retreated for three months before Napoleon decided to leave Russian territory. And by that time, Russian winter was setting in, making Napoleon's retreat from Russia even harder than his advance.

One of David's mighty men was Shammah, the son of Agee. And Shammah's claim to fame was that he was part of a fighting force that met the Philistines in battle, a battle that apparently took place at harvest time when the field was full of lentils. Israel's army retreated from the battle, but unlike the retreat of the Russians during their fight with Napoleon, this did not appear to be a strategic retreat. As they left, they had to know that the Philistines would take the lentils. They could have burned the field to ensure the prize didn't fall into Philistine hands. But instead, Shammah decided to stay and defend the field. I might not be sure of the wisdom of the decision, but it might reflect the importance of the field as a form of nutrition for the people living in the area.

Whether it was a wise decision or not, God honored Shammah's decision, and Shammah defeated the Philistines among the lentils. Shammah may have provided the courage, but the writer of Samuel is clear that it was God who provided the victory. And maybe that is a lesson that we all need to learn. If we are willing to give our courage in front of those who oppose God in this world, then God just might provide the victory for which we are looking.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 108

David sang to the LORD the words of this song when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. – 2 Samuel 22:1

Today's Scripture Reading (September 29, 2022): 2 Samuel 22

Freddy Mercury said in a 1981 interview that he wrote "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" while he was in the bathtub, apparently with a guitar, but it is probably safer not to ask how he got the instrument into the tub, in about ten minutes. The song just seemed to come to him. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" was a tribute to Mercury's musical heroes, Elvis Presley and Sir Cliff Richard. Sometimes songs are like that; they just seem to emerge from our imaginations. We give birth to the creative elements fully formed, and all we seem to have to do is listen to our muse and write down what we hear. (Sometimes blog posts can come the same way, although admittedly, I wish they came that way a little more often.) It can be an amazing process.

But songs don't always come to us that way. Sometimes, the creations of our imaginations can take a long time to be brought to life in our world. Mercury may have written "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" in just a few minutes, but it took him more than six years to write "Bohemian Rhapsody." Mercury began writing "Rhapsody" in the late 1960s, but it wasn't recorded until August 24, 1975. And even in 1975, as the band prepared to record the song, there was still a mystery surrounding the piece; even as the recording date approached, the song remained largely in Freddy Mercury's imagination. After years of imagining the song, it was finally recorded and became one of Queen's greatest hits.

Admittedly, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a much more complex song than "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," but that doesn't completely explain why one was written in ten minutes while the other took years to be made into a reality. And, for a while during the in-between phase, parts of Bohemian Rhapsody became known to the band as "The Cowboy Song."

David sang a song to the Lord that had apparently been composed during the early days of his reign. It was a song that emerged from his youthful battles and struggles against Saul. These events were now almost forty years in the past. The song appears here out of both time and place. But the song is also an excellent summation of David's life and all the struggles God had brought him through.

Or, maybe, it is a song that David began to write in his youth; it reflected his struggle with Saul and other struggles of his youth. But it is also a song that could not have been finished until he was older; until time brought the maturity and experience that allowed David to sum up his life. At that moment, David finished a song he had sung in a different form during the days of his youth, but that now he had been able to complete in its fullness.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 23

But Abishai son of Zeruiah came to David’s rescue; he struck the Philistine down and killed him. Then David’s men swore to him, saying, “Never again will you go out with us to battle, so that the lamp of Israel will not be extinguished.” – 2 Samuel 21:17

Today's Scripture Reading (September 28, 2022): 2 Samuel 21

I am getting old. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t always feel like it. To be honest, some days, I get up and feel like I am half my age. But then I try to do something that would not have been a problem in my youth and find out that it is beyond my ability. And I wonder where the time went. I know I am not as strong as I once was. I was never fast, but I have slowed down even more. I am not as flexible as I once was. Sometimes my mind thinks I can still play on the defensive line of an American Football Game, but my body knows the truth. Those days are long behind me.

David went out to fight the Philistines with his army. It is likely that he still felt the sharp pain of that time when he didn’t go to war with his army and instead found himself in trouble with Bathsheba. After that time, David accompanied his men when they went into battle. And this fight is no different.

But the problem is that David is getting older. The King is now seventy, and his death is not that far in the future, probably less than a year. He may believe he is a young warrior who can fight with his troops, but his body would disagree. Luckily for David, Abishai is there to save his King when he finds himself in trouble.

As far as his men are concerned, David has become a liability in the field. His value is now a symbol of the nation. No one wants to be responsible for allowing the King to die in battle. They believe David has become the light by which the country has been guided. And to lose that light would be to plunge the nation into deep darkness. And so, he is asked, in future battles, to stay home. Let the younger soldiers have their time to shine as David once had. It is a hard request for any of us to hear, and it might have been even harder on David, who had made his reputation on the battlefield. John Trapp (1601-1669), an English Anglican Bible Commentator, argues that the body will not drown in water as long as the head stays above the waves. It is only when the head sinks below the waves that the body finds itself in trouble, and death draws near. David was the head of the nation, and the army of Israel could not imagine an Israel where he was not the head. They would survive without him, but they didn’t want to hasten that moment any quicker than it needed to come.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 22

So all the men of Israel deserted David to follow Sheba son of Bikri. But the men of Judah stayed by their king all the way from the Jordan to Jerusalem. – 2 Samuel 20:2

Today's Scripture Reading (September 27, 2022): 2 Samuel 20

The old proverb says that “Politics makes strange bedfellows.” The idea is that politics can bring us together on certain issues when we seem to agree on little else. I recently talked with a gentleman concerned about the convergence of religions. In his view, there was a move to make us all one. It doesn’t matter if you are Buddhist, Hindu, or Christian; he believed the time was coming when we would all worship together under a single banner. He seemed to be equally concerned that the day would come when the barrier between Catholic and Protestant believers would be erased.

To be honest, I do not see the movement to the extent that my scared acquaintance seems to understand it. Some of our beliefs make significant differences between the religions of the world. The Christian insistence that Jesus is the only way to heaven is one of those barriers. Jesus himself taught us, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6).  There are, and I suspect always will be, substantial differences between us, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t come together on certain issues as well. Issues like justice and world hunger should be issues that we can join together on regardless of our religious affiliation.

But the reverse is also true. Politics may have the ability to bring us together, but it also presents us with the probability that it will tear us apart. There are, and likely always will be, things on which we agree and disagree. I recently tried to meet with a couple of denominational leaders with whom I had significant disagreements. Despite being not only from the same religion (Christianity), we were also from the same denomination or group of believers. But these leaders decided not to meet with me because our beliefs were too divergent; in fact, they argued that there was nothing on which we agreed. I was conversing with a friend, lamenting my failure with these denominational colleagues, when he exclaimed, “you mean they don’t believe that Jesus is Lord.” My friend’s words brought a smile to my lips.

Israel’s history had been filled with division and unity. The nation began as a loose collection of tribes with no real national leader. Through the leadership of some judges, especially Samuel, they became a united nation. And then, they chose their first king, Saul. They were essentially unified throughout Saul’s reign, but after his death, Israel devolved into civil unrest once again. This time, the conflict between the followers of Saul and those of David. Finally, David united the nation.

But civil unrest emerged once again in the country during the rebellion of Absalom. Absalom’s rebellion lasted about four years, from 976 B.C.E until 972 B.C.E. Once Absalom died, the nation came back together again. The men of Judah and those from the northern tribes of Israel even argued over who loved David more.

Then the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, “We have ten shares in the king; so we have a greater claim on David than you have. Why then do you treat us with contempt? Weren’t we the first to speak of bringing back our king?”

But the men of Judah pressed their claims even more forcefully than the men of Israel (2 Samuel 19:43)

The next verse begins the saga of Sheba’s rebellion. And suddenly, all these men of Israel who had proclaimed their love and support for David were leaving him to support Sheba. And 972 B.C.E. began with the last days of Absalom's rebellion. Following the uprising, Israel united as a Kingdom for a short time, and the people proclaimed their love for David until Sheba came along and enticed the people with another idea that caused division one more time. And David was probably hoping the next year would be a little better.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 21

And say to Amasa, 'Are you not my own flesh and blood? May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if you are not the commander of my army for life in place of Joab.'" – 2 Samuel 19:13

Today's Scripture Reading (September 26, 2022): 2 Samuel 19

Sometimes, a national crisis can make us re-evaluate our priorities. And that was precisely what happened during the American Civil War. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, decided to ask Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, to be his running mate. The two men were the new leaders of the National Union Party. This short-lived political party was formed during the civil war, and it dreamed of a "united" United States after the terrible division that the nation had suffered during the war. Essentially, the new party was a merger of three political parties; the Republican Party, the Unionist Party, and the War Democratic Party. In reality, the National Union Party wasn't a new political party that had appeared on the American Stage; it was simply the Republican Party existing under a different name in the hope of attracting Democrats, border state voters, and Unionist voters. The name change was hoped to give the Republicans a wider voting base. It featured a lifelong Republican, Abraham Lincoln, and a lifelong Democratic, Andrew Johnson, on the national ticket for the 1864 presidential election. It is the only time in history that a Republican and a Democrat ran for President and Vice-president on the same ballot. After the dissolution of the National Union Party in 1868, Andrew Johnson returned to his Democratic roots. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, so he essentially never left the Republican Party. Crisis makes us do strange things.

The idea of the National Unionist Party may not be as wild as it seems. For the past few decades, a group of centralists from both parties has worked together to get things done within the wider political structure of the United States. I believe these centralist politicians exist in almost every political system, working hard to get things done. And maybe the hope of our divided system is if this centralist group can grow large enough to wrest control of governments away from the left and right extremes. Perhaps they could form a new National Union Party, allowing the centralists from seemingly opposite philosophies to agree to get things done.

David has won the war, but now David understands that he has to heal a nation. For Israel to heal, it needs to be brought back together; both those who follow David and those who had chosen to follow David's son, Absalom. And so, David does something remarkable. He decides to elevate Amasa to the position of commander of the army, the same officer that Amasa had occupied in Absalom's government. The hope was that in raising Amasa to Commander of the Army, that action would help to bring the nation back together, much like the election of Abraham Lincoln (Republican) and Andrew Johnson (Democrat) was hoped to put a broken United States back together again.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 20

Joab said, "I'm not going to wait like this for you." So he took three javelins in his hand and plunged them into Absalom's heart while Absalom was still alive in the oak tree. – 2 Samuel 18:14

Today's Scripture Reading (September 25, 2022): 2 Samuel 18

Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, one of the many unanswered questions is what happens to Prince Andrew. Andrew has recently become the embattled Prince, with his image nearly destroyed by his connection with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the accusation of sexual assault and battery by a woman who claimed to be seventeen at the time of the incident. In Scotland, a heckler was arrested for disturbing the peace when he yelled at Prince Andrew as he passed by following his mother's coffin, calling him a "sick old man."

Andrew's troubles have resulted in the Queen removing his "His Royal Highness" title and the Prince's military titles, yet his mother kept him employed as part of the family. Queen Elizabeth had a soft spot for her third-born child. It is a soft spot that his brothers and sister don't have. Rumors have argued that King Charles III and the rest of the family might cut off their disgraced brother and uncle. At Prince Philip's funeral, the Queen instructed none of the family to wear their military uniforms so Prince Andrew would not be embarrassed by being the only one in civilian clothes. It is an order that King Charles III would not repeat.

But cutting off Andrew might bring other unfortunate outcomes, such as Andrew writing a tell-all book to support his lifestyle. So, it might be smarter to pay Andrew to live out the rest of his life in obscurity, out of the public eye. Yet, it is fairly obvious that, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the protection Andrew had once enjoyed has been removed. And life will not be as easy as Andrew had enjoyed during the reign of his mother.

David had not been included in the party that was going out to chase Absalom. The excuse was that they needed to protect David because he was more valuable alive, even if that meant a thousand soldiers had to die. But that was just an excuse. The reality was that Joab didn't believe that David could do what needed to be done. And he was right. David had told his commanders to react gently when they found the King's son.

But that was not what Joab believed. Joab believed that David had been overly indulgent with all of his children, including Absalom. Absalom had been given many chances to prove that he was a good person. What Absalom had established was that he was a rapist, a murderer, and a traitor. So, Joab believed that what Absalom, and the nation, needed was justice, not mercy. And when Joab discovered Absalom in a vulnerable position, Joab was not afraid to take advantage of the moment and supply his kind of justice, even if the King had ordered him to be merciful. 

Today's Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 19

 

My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen on me. – Psalm 55:4

Today's Scripture Reading (September 24, 2022): Psalm 55

In my memory, it has only happened once, and that was decades ago. It was the night when I really wasn't sure that there was a tomorrow, a night when the only reality seemed to be the gun that was pointed in my direction. It was not a pleasant experience, but luckily it was a quick one, only lasting for a few minutes. And when the threat was over, I remember the aftereffects of an adrenaline overdose that continued to course through my body. I can only imagine what it would have been like if the experience had lasted a little longer or dragged on for a few days.

In his youth, David had written poetically about those moments.

Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me (Psalm 23:4).

Now, David seems to have lost the poetic aspect of "the darkest valley" or "the valley of the shadow of death." His heart literally hurts inside his chest. What was once a poetic description of the danger that the shepherd boy experienced on the sheep pasture has now been turned into a horror story where hope is a distant reality. Scottish Baptist minister Alexander McLaren (1826-1910) writes,

"He can do nothing but groan or moan. His heart 'writhes' in him. Like an avalanche, deadly terrors have fallen on him and crushed him. Fear and trembling have pierced into his inner being, and 'horror' (a rare word, which the LXX [Septuagint] here renders darkness) wraps him round or covers him, as a cloak does" (Alexander Maclaren).

A danger has hung around, and there seems to no longer be a future where the danger is absent. It is not a danger that comes and passes quickly. David had been a boy, emphatically believing God had a plan for him. He had been a young man on the run but still with a long future ahead of him, a future promised to him by that same God. But now, everything has been taken away, and David honestly isn't sure if this might be the end. If it was, he felt he would die in disgrace, and that was an outcome that David couldn't bear. Life had become an endless horror and a place filled with a darkness that caused David's heart to hurt.

Today's Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 18