I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. – 2 Samuel 7:9

Today's Scripture Reading (July 9, 2025): 2 Samuel 7

Science fiction has long been attracted to talismans of power. If someone is exhibiting unusual or even impossible abilities, you can usually find a talisman somewhere that enables the behavior.  Of course, once you realize that the power has a source outside of the person you are fighting, your path is clear. Stop fighting the person and find and destroy the talisman. Once that happens, at least in science fiction, the evil person that you are fighting will fall easily. If only it were that easy in real life.

I genuinely believe that we have traditionally missed the point in God's refusal to allow David to build the Temple. I know that David and Nathan missed the point. The essential problem is that David wanted to construct a talisman of power for God —a place where God would physically reside. His idea seemed to be that because he lived in a house, God needed a home that He could live in, and, of course, that abode should be at least as beautiful as the king's palace. However, the overlooked reality is that God had no desire to reside in a house, regardless of how attractive that house might be. God went wherever Israel went. He did not need a talisman of any kind.

In the mind of God, David's son would build the Temple in which God would dwell. However, I don't think that God meant Solomon, the son who was responsible for constructing the First Temple in Jerusalem. The intended son of David that God was pointing to was Jesus. Jesus would build the Temple of God in the lives of those who dared to believe in him. It was a power and a talisman that could never be destroyed because God would be wherever his people lived.

However, David's misunderstanding had a profound impact on the beliefs of the Israelites. When Babylon came in and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E., essentially, what they were doing was destroying the talisman of power for the God of Israel. As a result of the destruction of the talisman, the people would lose any fight that they had within them – their power to resist would be gone. And, unfortunately, Israel bought into the process. Psalm 137, a Psalm that was written at the beginning of the Babylonian exile, contains this line; "How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land" (Psalm 137:4)? The question is essentially this: how can we praise the God of Israel while we are away from his Temple; while we are separated from God's talisman of his power? (There is no mention in the Psalm of the destruction of the Temple, so we assume the Psalm was written just before the Temple's demise in 586 B.C.E.) Of course, the answer is simple. You can sing the songs of the Lord while you are in a strange land because you can be sure that God is with you. He does not need a Temple. God refuses to be confined within a house of brick and mortar. However, David had missed that message, and so it appears that the rest of Israel missed it as well.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 8