Sunday School | David - 2 Samuel 3

Alright. Let's do it. You guys, it's been a while. My name's Tim and I used to lead a Sunday school class here, but we've taken the last few weeks off and we're back at it. Does anybody have any memory whatsoever of what we've been doing for months and months? The life of David. Very good. And what? Just first Samuel. First Samuel. Nice job. First Samuel, also into the Psalms. However, a few weeks ago, we transitioned from first Samuel to second Samuel. I think, Bob, you were probably there the last time that we were in first Samuel. We did chapter 30 at the end, and then we started into two Samuel, and then I did one week in it, but then we had like what did we do? We did a bunch of weird stuff. We had an ordination. We had a party for Will. I was somewhere. Easter. I mean, all kinds of things going on.

So, the last time I was with you, you guys remember, last time we were together, it was two Samuel two. What happened? Can anybody load into memory the most recent event in the life of David? I will confess to you, I had to look it up. I have no idea. So what was it? Saul's People and David's People. That's a great answer. Okay? And I gave you this little alliterative game. Do you remember this? How to keep it straight? Remember it was DJ and the vowels? Does this have any memory?

What does DJ and the vowels mean when it comes to making sense of this cast of characters? What's DJ? It's David and Joab. Okay, very good. So David, who is king of Judah, and his military guy is Joab. Okay, so DJs. You get David, Joab, and Judah over here. And then the vowels is admittedly more vague. Less helpful. You're limited to A, E, I, O, U. Sometimes Y. Ishbosheth. Who is Ishbosheth? The current ruler. Not for Saul. Yeah. So he's one of Saul's sons and therefore has perhaps a legitimate claim to the throne. And so he's leading over Israel. Remember, the nation has kind of already begun to split. There are fractures here. So David and Judah are the southern guys.

So Ishbosheth is on Israel's side, and then he also has a military guy whose name starts with a vowel. Abner. You guys are brilliant, okay? So we've got David with Judah and Joab, and Ishbosheth over Israel with Abner, and something gross happened. What was it? There was a yucky death. Do you remember this? Abner. That's right. Abner, who's the Ishbosheth guy, the Israel guy, and essentially the bad guy, kills the brother of Joab with what? The butt of a spear. Goes right through him because the dude was just running so fast. So that whole thing goes down, you're like, Man, there's gonna be just war between the house of Judah and Israel. But somehow, Abner is able to calm Joab down in a scene that's very reminiscent of Abigail. Do you remember this? Abigail? They're going to be in a big fight, and Joab kind of calms it down like Abigail, who had also once come to David and say, Hey, listen, the blood doesn't need to be shed. And then things get better. Right? And there's now kind of less tension there, but everything is leaning in chapter two to the ascension of David and the descension of Ishbosheth. We've got the cast of characters. And that's where we left off. Groovy? You ready for the next phase?

Chapter Three: Complications and Complications

This is also going to be weird. I think there's no way to make it less weird, so we're just going to make it more weird. We're in chapter three. One of the things that's complicated about narrative is it just doesn't tell you. It doesn't tell you what's right and wrong. Sometimes it'll say, "And the Lord was displeased." But usually it's like, this stuff just happens. So we're going to watch some stuff that as we watch these things happen, it leaves us with a sense of, like, was this okay? Because this seems—was this okay? What happened here? We're just going to get into all the strange stuff. And I will tell you on the front end, we may disagree about this because the narrative does not make explicit what was right, what was wrong, how does this all work. And I like disagreement. That's fine. Let's just have an honest conversation about it, but let's just be charitable as we do and acknowledge the text isn't that tidy. And whether or not David is in the right or in the wrong, we could debate.

I'm going to come down on the side that I think he's in the wrong and that what we're beginning to see here is what the author wants to do—show us the underlying things that are going to shipwreck his life. David's our guide. David is the template of the Messiah. He's going to do so many things well. He's a man after God's own heart. But we know, if you know the end of the story, the wheels are coming off this thing, and David is not the Messiah. He's the template for the Messiah. He's the forerunner for the Messiah, but he can't keep his own promise. And one of the things that's going to consume David's life is his relationships with women. He's just bad at the whole woman thing. Lust and anger—these things are going to wreck him. And I think the author is planting seeds in here.

However, there is another view that says, "No, no, no, you don't understand. He was functioning properly in these circumstances, and there's more going on than your 2021—or what year is it now? 2022—sense of jurisprudence, your 2022 America sense of what ought to be." And so there's a debate. We can have the debate. That's fine. But it's just kind of weird, icky stuff.

Ready? Let's go. Second Samuel chapter three, verse one:

The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker. Sons were born to David in Hebron. His firstborn was Amnon, the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel. His second, Kiliab—I'm going to just fake the names because you don't know either—Kiliab son of Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel; the third, Absalom son of Macha daughter of Pthalmah king of Geshur; the fourth, Adonijah the son of Hageth; the fifth, Shephathea the son of Abateel; and the sixth, Ithriam son of David's wife, Eglah. These were born to David in Hebron. — 2 Samuel 3:1-5

Whatever else you want to say about having six wives, they didn't have pretty names.

During the war between the house of Saul and the house of David, Abner had been strengthening his own position in the house of Saul. Remember the vowels. Abner's on Ishbosheth's side. Now Saul had a concubine named Rizpah daughter of Aa. And Ishbosheth said to Abner, "Why do you sleep with my father's concubine?" Abner was very angry because of what Ishbosheth said, and he answered, "Am I a dog's head on Judah's side? This very day I am loyal to the house of your father Saul and his family and friends. I haven't handed you over to David, yet now you accuse me of an offense involving this woman. May God deal with Abner, be it ever so severely, if I do not do for David what the Lord promised him on oath and transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul, and establish David's throne over Israel and Judah from Dan to Beersheba." And Ishbosheth did not dare to say another word to Abner because he was afraid of him. — 2 Samuel 3:6-11

Then Abner sent messengers on his behalf to say to David, "Whose land is it? Make an agreement with me, and I will help you bring all Israel over to you." "Good," said David, "I will make an agreement with you. But I demand one thing of you: do not come into my presence unless you bring Michael, daughter of Saul, when you come to see me." And then David sent messengers to Ishbosheth son of Saul, demanding, "Give me my wife Michael, whom I betrothed to myself for the price of a hundred Philistine foreskins." And so Ishbosheth gave orders and had her taken away from her husband Paltiel, son of Laish. Her husband, however, went with her, weeping behind her all the way to Baharim. And then Abner said, "Go back home." So he went back. — 2 Samuel 3:12-16

It's yucky, right? Can we agree that everything that's happening here is just crummy?

How many wives in verses two to five? Two. All right, so what's up with that? Seventh. And he wants a seventh. We'll get to her in a minute. Four and zero. Yeah. Is this okay? Is he allowed to have six wives? You're allowed to come down either side. There's genuine ambiguity on this.

So what do you think? John? Two things, king forbidden. Be a little bit louder. He's not supposed to multiply horses. Yep. He's not supposed to multiply wives. There's actually a third as well. We'll take a look at this. This is one of our data points. Go to Deuteronomy 17. These are the rules given about kings. And David is at least busting—well, we'll see. We'll see what you think because, again, there's ambiguity to this. Solomon is going to just royally break all of these in a way that the narrator of his life is going to make really clear.

When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settle in it, and you say, "Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us," be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite. — Deuteronomy 17:14-15

Requirements for the King's Conduct

The king must not acquire a great number of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord your God has told you, you're not to go back that way again. And he must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray, and he must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.

So not too many horses, not too many wives, not too much gold. What's the definition of many? That's the problem. It's six. It's not 50. But it's six. It's not one. So what does many mean? You allowed three? A few. A few? Six is within many? Okay.

Now here's the thing. Andy is going to hear it later, but he might be right, actually. Many is not clear. Do you know how many Solomon gets up to? 7,000. If you include the concubines, it's around 1,000. That might be many. That might be many. It's like, good night. Yeah. How does that impact how much money you should keep? Right? Okay. You think one wife is going to help you with the other because she's going to spend all your money? Is that what you're saying? They are going to spend? Yeah. And he doesn't have the horses, so he's killing it on the horse thing, so that's good. Six. Right? It's not honestly all that clear.

Narrative Clues About Polygamy

Let's keep going with this topic. What is your data? What would make you think, no, he's okay, or absolutely not? Kelly?

Kelly: The author doesn't comment on the rightness or wrongness of him having multiple wives, but he does go on to include a lot of disastrous stories that come of it.

That's a really important point. The way that narrators work—they rarely tell you, "This was right, this was wrong." They simply say, "This is what they did and this is how it played out." And over and over, who are the polygamists that you can just rattle off in the Bible? Everybody, basically. So it's massively common. Who's the first? Earlier than that, the very first polygamy starts early, early, early. It's Lamech.

Genesis 4:19—Lamech married two women. One named Adah, the other Zillah, and Adah gave birth to Jabal, and he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock.

And then it says in verse 23:

Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, listen to me. Wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times."

Is this meant to raise Lamech in our estimation? He's just a violent man, and it's curious that he's not only boasting about his violence and his inclination to murder people that look at him wrong, but he's saying it to his wives. Does that not seem threatening? If your husband said to you, "Listen to me. I've killed a man for..."

So the very first time we see polygamy show up, it's not in a sense of, "Isn't that guy the best?" We don't get that sense. As it plays out, Kelly, not only with David but with everybody, it's constantly like a train wreck. With Jacob, it's a disaster. Just over and over again, we get this implication of: Yeah, I mean, you might be allowed to do this, but it's probably going to go badly for you and for those around you. That's one line of evidence here. What else do you guys consider when you look at this?

Tom: The next line in Deuteronomy says, "or their heart may be led astray." If you go to Solomon, God didn't seem to be upset with the number that he had. It was the fact that they led him to alien gods more so than that he had all those wives.

That's right. And you see it—the text is explicit about Solomon. He has, I think it's 700 or 300, whatever—it's a million women—and their hearts absolutely lead him astray. He begins to worship their gods. And that is frankly something that can happen with one wife or one husband. Right? You don't need a thousand people. But that is what happens. That warning is appended there, for sure. Very much so.

What else? What other evidence would you consider?

Here's what's troubling. The text goes on, and in some places it tells you that you may not boil a baby goat in its mother's milk, in case you were planning on doing that. Okay? But it never gets around to saying, "You can't have two wives." Isn't that odd? That it never explicitly says that—with something that seems to be very, very common? This troubles me. Am I the only person that's bothered by this? This is weird.

Zach: How does the Ten Commandments say, "You shall not commit adultery?" Yeah. Okay. So great—so, okay, this is an excellent question. So is, in fact, the taking of a second wife itself fundamentally an act of adultery?

Right? Is that kind of the implication? Okay. It could be. But the problem is it's literally never clarified. It never says that that's the case. So maybe. We have to live in this wretched maybeness about all of this. But the adultery text could. What else? Other data that you would go to on either side of this? As we're just trying to make sense of it all.

Yeah. Genesis 2:24:

A man shall leave his father and join his wife, and they shall become one flesh. — Genesis 2:24

So if he takes another wife, flesh with her as well, and then are the two wives also one flesh with each other? Okay. Great. Yes. And so there's some logistical difficulties. Right? Right? If nothing else. And you could absolutely make the case that the pattern, the normative pattern, here's what you ought to go do, is one man, one wife. Right? So that seems to be the norm. And then as things begin to deviate from that, if it doesn't get pulled back in, well, was God obligated to clarify that or not? It's just weird. But you definitely don't see a norm that's not the normative pattern that's laid out. And the meaning of marriage, what it's meant to portray, seems to be very complicated by that. So good. All right? Anything else? Make it worse?

Just the cultural stuff. It's thousands of years ago. It's kingdom building. I mean, just if you look at it from a secular standpoint, in the very beginning, probably it made sense to have more than one wife just to populate the world. Just to make a lot of babies? Most of the early deaths were going to be from guys at war, and there's always a surplus of women, and you have to keep the population going.

If polygamy was permitted, I think that's probably the reason because there's no question in a warring society, you're going to be killing a lot more men than women. For whatever reason, men and women are born at very nearly identical rates, and then the men are dying. And so it makes sense. Many men were dying. So is one thing that could have been polygamy could be permissible because, absent that, there's going to be women that are just unprovided for.

Can I just throw out the concept that in the garden God didn't make Adam do what? That's right. That's very much what you were saying. The normative pattern, the original thing is that. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, and a couple more?

I was thinking that in terms of the commandment not to marry outside of Israel, which is very strong for everyone, and a lot of these marriages are both for David and for the other kings coming in were political marriages. And then you take their daughter, and then you make, you know, a bigger arrangement not to kill each other. But I would be surprised if those thousand or whatever were all from Israel.

Yes. Okay. So many things are wise in there. And we're going to see the political dimension of this really with wife number seven, right? She's coming in a minute. We'll see the political stuff come up there. That's a big deal. And you're right, the foreign entanglements was a bad thing. There. So could both be a political alliance, and this has been going on like the King of France would marry off his kid to the daughter of the King of England or something, right? I don't know how those worked. But there's all the time that these alliances get formed. So that's part of the thing. But it comes with it some really negative consequences for sure. Okay.

And that's very much what was said. And it makes total sense to why you gotta come up with some kind of a solution one way or another. So for sure.

If we take marriage, human marriage to be an image of the great marriage. Okay. Yeah. You know, the great marriage is one husband, one wife, but the bride consists of, like, billions of people, and that's many by any standard. Right. Okay. And so it is fuzzy there too because Jesus has one bride. Right? We are the collective one bride, and so this is a very strong argument for monogamy. And you're like, well, but there's a lot of them. Right? And so you get that exact weirdness. I'm going to come down on that Jesus has one. We are never described as brides of Christ. He has a bride, the church. But we could be forgiven for being like, but this seems like there's a lot of people, you know? So, yeah.

You talked about how the multiple wives may have led to the negative consequences of the story. Yeah. What does it say about the ultimate consequence after death? Because we presumed David to be, like you said, the template of the Messiah, so we would assume that he's not only for sure in heaven, but one of the best of us. So yes.

So is David saved? Is he forgiven? And the answer to that, we know beyond a shadow of doubt, is yes. Because David, like us, is not saved by his own righteousness, but by the righteousness of another. In fact, we get some of the most beautiful language that the New Testament uses. It's borrowing from David, who was like:

Surely I was sinful at birth. Before you and you only have I sinned. Blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin the Lord does not hold against him.

And so David's reflections on his own badness are enshrined into Scripture both in the Old Testament and the New Testament to give hope to the rest of us that also are like, well, if we really played the highlight reel, I'd have no position to be here. And we don't. But we never thought that we were saved by our own holiness, but by his holiness credited to us and received by faith. So that's true. However bad, however wrong David is in these things, he still lives in the same sea of grace that we do.

The Question of Polygamy

I'll give you a couple more data points, then we'll move on. The things that trouble me about this are the things that make me think that it might not have been wrong. A couple things are that listen to what God says. This is 2 Samuel chapter 12. We'll get here in a few weeks, but just listen to this. When I came across this, I'm like, what are you saying? This is when Nathan rebukes David for the whole Bathsheba thing, which was clearly bad, clearly wrong. Nathan says to David, after he tells the story about the man with a ewe lamb who steals the sheep, he busts David and says:

You are the man. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul, and I gave your master's house to you and your master's wives, plural, into your arms.

The Lord gave David multiple wives. If you tell me that the Lord gave you multiple wives, I'm not going to believe you. Okay? Just save it. Just stop. Okay? I'm not going to believe you. But this says, "The Lord gave his master's wives into his arms."

I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.

Then he says:

You struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword and took his wife to be your own.

And I think with that, he's legitimized. And this comes back to the adultery question. Like, Bathsheba legitimately became his wife. God affirms that she was a wife. That's a real thing. She attained the status of wife.

Killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.

And then it goes on:

This is what the Lord says, 'Out of your own household I'm going bring calamity upon you. I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you.' So once again, the Lord is giving a plurality of wives, and he will lie with your wives, plural, in broad daylight.

So the Lord is implicated in that, and that's weird, and I don't like that. But then the other thing, the final thing is, if there's any book in the Old Testament on marriage, what is it? Song of Songs. Who wrote it? Song of Songs. Okay. So he's got this line in here, which I don't recommend you ever write in a card. He says:

Sixty queens there may be and eighty concubines and virgins beyond number. But my dove, my perfect one, is unique, the only daughter of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her.

He's saying to his wife, "Yeah, I mean, there's like 150 more, but you're my favorite." Like, holy moly, I don't recommend that. Okay?

Now, on the other side, when we finally get to the New Testament, the elder rules are explicit in their forbidding of polygamy. Right? For elders, in 1 Timothy 3:

The overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach.

And in Titus 1:

An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.

That's your quick survey on polygamy in the Bible.

It would be very difficult to travel into a culture where polygamy existed as your missionary and to show them from the Scriptures that they're wrong. It would be hard. There's just not a lot of text to do it. They can't be elders. Is he wrong? Was it wrong to have this something? Maybe you work from there. But that's, I think, what we do. When we look at David, is he right? Is he wrong? Was it wrong to have the six?

I don't know, Andy. You don't think that's many? No. Just a few? Alright. Wait, what did you say? Six is half a dozen. So what is many? 23. 23. Alright. Good luck with that. I hope that works out for you. How many husbands is too many? One. Okay. Alright, that's just curious. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Alright, fair enough.

Oh boy. Let's keep going. Alright, so anyway, things go badly. Ish Bosheth loses Abner. Abner's been faithful to him, he's been loyal to him, and then finally, again, over some kind of a sexual impropriety, and we don't know the details, he's going to lose him. Did Abner sleep with this concubine? I don't know. We don't know. He says, "How dare you accuse me of that?" If somebody is accused of sexual impropriety and they say, "How dare you accuse me of that?" Did they do it? I mean, I don't know. We don't know. I'm not even sure the author knows. He doesn't say. But denial does not mean you didn't, and accusation doesn't mean you did. And this is an old, old, old story that continues to this day.

What is it? Average damnation. Well, does he explicitly deny it, or does he just get mad at the accusation? I don't think he ever says, "Am I wrong?" He's—hang on, I can't find it. Where is it? Abner was angry. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Zach. Definitely circled around. Yeah. Abner was angry. "I've been loyal to you. Now you accuse me of this." He never says he didn't. I don't know. Maybe he didn't. I don't have any idea. But whatever it is, it tears the relationship. The author doesn't get into the particulars. They don't think he really cares. He's just trying to explain to us, "How does Ishbosheth lose Abner?" Because Abner's now going to deliver David over.

It's interesting. You have the first movement, he's got six wives, and that's weird. And then you've got somebody maybe sleeping with somebody that they shouldn't be, and that's weird. And then we're going have this wife thing. And it's just like, man, we live in this—whether it's in the pre, post, or mid Me Too—we are really bad at managing this. Like, for centuries and centuries, this is hard stuff for us to manage. And I think that the author wants us just to see it was hard for David too. And we're going see it. It's going to come later, but he's having a rough go at this.

So he makes this demand. Let's do a little bit of history lesson here, David's history. He says, "Let's see, find a new place." So we're at verse 13. Unpack this. David says:

I'll make an agreement with you, but one demand I demand one thing of you. Don't come into my presence unless you bring Michael, the daughter and maybe it's Michelle, I don't know—Michael, the daughter of Saul, when you come to see me.

Okay? What do you remember about her? She showed up several times and almost never in a good way. What's her story? Do you remember where we began to see her? Do you remember? She was a princess when the second oldest daughter of Saul. Good. And she fell in love with David, and eventually the christ was bunch of self esteem, and David delivered him and came back or not. That's right. That's right. So she is the daughter of Saul, and Saul sees that Michael likes David, and he's like, "Oh, perfect. Now my daughter will entrap him and be a snare to him." Right? Which is, can you imagine, as a father, like, "Oh, yeah, now my daughter's going to wreck that guy's life. Let's go." But that's what happens. Right? And so David doesn't want to marry her, then he does. He can see it. It's in fact, we'll survey through it. Go to 1 Samuel 18, verse 20:

Saul's daughter Michael was in love with David. When they told Saul about it, he was pleased. I'll give her to him. She'll be a snare to him. The hand of the Philistines will be against him.

David doesn't want to do it. And then he says, "You know, who am I to marry the king's daughter?" He says, "Go kill a bunch of Philistines and bring me their foreskins." And so he does, and that's weird. And then the attendants told David these things. He was pleased to become the king's son of the law. So David and his men, verse 22:

Went out and they killed 200 Philistines. And he brought their foreskins and presented the full number to the king, so that he might become the king's son-in-law. Then Saul gave his daughter to Michael in marriage.

Weird. Okay. Then, when things go on, in chapter 19, where Saul is trying to kill David—remember he was chucking spears? This is back in the spear era. In verse 11:

Saul sent men to David's house to watch it and to kill him in the morning.

But Michal, David's wife, warned him, "If you don't run for your life tonight, tomorrow you'll be killed." So she lets David down through a window. He flees and escapes. And Michal makes an idol, lays it in the bed. Why do you have an idol, Michal? And it's basically like a mannequin in the bed so that they don't know that David's gone. And then she lies to her father, and in verse 17 of chapter 19, Saul says to his daughter, "Why did you deceive me like this and send my enemy away?" And Michal says, "He said, let me get away. Why should I kill you?" So she lies again. She's just lying all over the place. So she's a liar. She's an idolater, but she is helping David, and so that's a little complicated.

And then, finally here, David's like, want her back. So as near as we can tell—oh, one more thing I skipped. When David flees and he's gone, he abandons her. This whole time that he's running around in the woods and hiding with Jonathan doing all this kind of stuff, his wife's not there. He seems to have abandoned her, and so her father marries her off again.

There's always acrimony in this relationship. Let me flip up to Second Samuel chapter six, that's when they're bringing the ark back.

When those who were carrying the ark had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. And David, wearing the linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might, basically in his underwear is what that means. And as the ark of the Lord was entering the city of Saul, Michal the daughter of Saul watched from the window. When she saw the king leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart. And when David returned home to bless his household, Michal came out. "How the king has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would." — 2 Samuel 6:13-15

There's just a lot of yuck, a lot of acrimony. Then David's like:

"It was before the Lord who chose me rather than your father's house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord's people, and I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor." — 2 Samuel 6:21

And the conclusion of that is verse 23:

And she had no children to the day of her death. — 2 Samuel 6:23

It's meant to be an indictment against her.

Michal is her father's daughter. Her father is Saul, just like Saul. She has kind of a quasi relationship with the Lord, but it's really not very about that. She was in love with David once upon a time, which probably means she thought he was cute. It's early, it's like a crush thing. But as things go on, she seems to come to despise him. She's lying. There's just all kinds of stuff. And in this final scene of him dancing, David does look good here. He is honoring the Lord, and he doesn't care about being ashamed before the public. But I think she has influenced him, and it's just part of the breakdown of David in these relationships.

When it says Michal, it often says "daughter of Saul," as if you need to be reminded that this is Saul's blood. Those tags are not just date—this is how narrative works. They'll just give you data, but it's like a hint: Do you see where I'm going with this? Do you remember who she is?

Why Does David Want Her Back?

So why does David want his wife back? First of all, what's his motive there? Not that he's lonely. Maybe he wants one a day. He's got six wives. What is going on?

He earned her. He did pay 100 Philistine foreskins for that. And when I pay 100 Philistine foreskins, I like to want it. Right? So he did buy her, but I think there's something specific that he's trying to accomplish here. She is the daughter of Saul, and by reclaiming her as his wife, he's legitimizing his claim over Israel. It's a way to become an heir. The whole thing was he was afraid to become an heir of the king because of the implications of that. So it is his ticket to being the son-in-law and to having agency over his claim to Israel.

So Michael is a political pawn in this game, and it's not that he loves her and misses her and wants his wife back. It doesn't seem like he was ever terribly fond of her in the first place. Simply that he's consolidating power. Right? Now whether you see that as God's manner of accomplishing his purposes, because he promised him all of the kingship, or David using a sketchy method, kind of like Abraham sleeping with Hagar, I'll leave that to you to chew up. This is what the narrator, I think, wants us to wrestle with.

Andy? Is there a significance that it's seven and not six? I mean, it's like a complete number for his variable? Certainly, it is true that seven is the number of completions, seven days in a week. Things happen in sets of seven. And so if so, then that would mean the author is suggesting that this was a good thing, and let's get seven. Maybe. I'm not sure. But sometimes numbers are just happenstance.

What about Michael's husband? What do you think we're supposed to think of him? Her other husband. Do you think the narrator wants you to read this?

Her husband, however, went with her, weeping behind her all the way to Bahurim. And then Abner said to him, 'Go back home.' So he went back. — 2 Samuel 3:16

I think it's a crummy thing. I think it's very much like David wants another ewe lamb, and so he takes somebody else's. You can read commentaries that will come down against me on this and say, no, David's consolidating the kingship and God gave him the kingdom. I think God can give him the kingdom without breaking this guy's heart. It's his wife. And I think it's abuse of power. I think it's abuse of authority. And I think it's the beginning of the cracks in the kingdom of David that are gonna widen and widen and widen.

So as we honor him, as we read his Psalms, as we recognize that he is the template, we also recognize, man, we need somebody better than this to lead the world and be our king, that's not gonna be abusive in the way that he treats people, that is not gonna disadvantage others for the good of himself. So I find this highly unadmirable as we go through it.

The Complexity of the Situation

Ellen brought up a good point. I've never seen in the Bible where a wife can have multiple husbands. So Saul gave her to somebody else. He hasn't got the right to give her to somebody else. She is David's wife. And so David is exercising that right to take his wife back. But the fallout is that her husband, her second husband, is deeply hurt because to me, it reads that he's in love with her. And he is deeply hurt, but there's nothing he can do.

This is what's between John. I don't know if Michael loved him or not, but he loved her. Yes, I think you're exactly right. And even as you're kind of crystallizing it a little bit in a way that reminds me, you know, every couple of years there'll be a story of an adoption. You see this not so much with husbands and wives, but with parents and children, where there's a baby, and the adoption goes here, and then the adoption breaks, and then you've got to take this two year old and rip her out of her family and then give her back to her lawful parents, but now everybody's broken hearted. You know these stories? These things will happen, and you're like, Holy moly, what are we to do? Two wrongs don't make it right, but she was really their kid, but now she thinks she's theirs. And this is that similar emotional vibe where at the end of the everything's horrible. Everything's just really yucky.

And there's a lot of times in the Scriptures where you'll see things and you're like, I don't know what the right answer is. But what I do know is that everything's a mess, and it's horrible and broken and terrible. That's true to life. Sometimes there are no clean, tidy solutions, and the world is just painful and broken.

Gary made a point. There's a second reason why we ought to give David a break here. When he gives an order to Abner and Ishbasheth, he's establishing a precedent that, you know, I give the orders and you do what I say. So he's making a power play. He's establishing the pecking order. Yes. There's no question. And David is coming—he's been waiting a long time to be king. Right? He's like the little lion king kid who's singing his song, You just can't wait to be king. Right? And it's true. And now he is going to be very politically shrewd. He's going to get a lot of things right. I'm not anti David. I mean, we've been extolling him for months. He's gonna get a lot of things right. And it might be even the consolidation of power is the right thing to do, but it strikes me as there's a loss of humanity in some of the decisions that he makes.

Alright, so now, we always play this game. I've only got a few minutes because Quig and Barb are both gone, so I've got a lot of jobs this morning. We're going to end this a little bit early because I've got to go suit up and do priestly things.

But how does this text point us to Christ? We're trying to develop that habit—how does this thing really reveal Jesus? What does this, good or bad, and we could go on both sides, how should this be framing the way that we're thinking about Messiah when he comes?

This is such an important question. We're going to pause for one minute at your tables because it's hard to answer in front of 200 people. So quick, circle up. Don't know—do you got anything? How does this thing point us to Christ? Give yourself sixty seconds, and then hear what you can report back.

Alright. You got brilliant ideas? Come on back in. What do you think? And as always, always, always, this is a skill we're just trying to develop, and you're allowed to get things wrong on the way to getting it right. Okay? So what do you think? As we peer into this text, if we accept the premise that all of Scripture is pointing us to Christ, what do we take from this? Just distill it down. Anybody at your table say something you thought was interesting, insightful? They're all offended if you don't speak because they thought it was interesting and insightful. Yeah, jump in.

Dawn, what do you got?

I thought it was interesting that David pursued somebody who didn't really love him.

Interesting. Yeah, that's a really good point. There's a pattern of pursuing the one that does not love you that he pursues. That's a really good insight, Don. Yeah, that happens here, and that is indicative of Jesus' life. That's beautiful. But he pursued it for something, right? So we can tell you what we get, right? Jesus always not only fulfills but overfills the pictures.

Josh?

I'll off of that and flip it to say, like, David seeks after a wife who he does not love to gain political power. Jesus gives up his power to seek out his bride who he does love.

Oh, we like that, right? Yeah, that was good. That was good. Anybody want to top that? That's good. That's real good.

Yeah, the Hebrews are always messing up. They just couldn't get it right. So it's part of that, but also it's a great need for Christ.

A new point is to our great need. Yeah. So Dan's saying, well, everybody's screwing up, but that's always happening. And so all of the badness, whenever you get to what we call the fallen condition focus, the badness and the brokenness in the text, all of that is like, well, that's why we need a savior. Because we see reflected in David's stuff and Ishbosheth and Abner, the mess, we're like, this is why the world needs an incredibly costly solution, because everything's just a train wreck.

Shima?

He overfills the whole thing. However, and it's true that he is the matchless king. But I would observe that he is not the one—there are many who dispute his kingship. Right? So we see that an ascension to a throne is generally a messy affair. What's uncommon in Jesus' ascension is how much of the mess falls upon himself. Right? But it's generally there's contention. John says that the kingdom of God advances forcefully and forceful men lay hold of it. There's just a sense of like, man, there's just gonna be travails and struggle and trial, and indeed there is.

When the king comes, he has already been enthroned as king, but not everyone has yet bent the knee. The day will come that every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. But right now, there is a battle being waged about who he is, and we shouldn't be shocked if templates are also a sloppy mess.

Okay? I gotta stop. Gotta roll. So next week, we'll finish up chapter three. I think we haven't finished chapter three yet. So we're gonna see more of David kind of consolidating power, and we'll take it from there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.