Sunday School | David - 2 Samuel 21

Introduction

The last time we were together, we were in 2 Samuel chapter 19, and we're skipping chapter 20 because there's almost no David in it. And so we're just skipping over 20. I want to get back to David's life, and we're gonna be in chapter 21. If you want to turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel 21, you can. However, we're not going to get there for a few minutes. We're going to actually begin in Joshua chapter nine. So you can go to either one.

But here's the thing. I think I may be misremembering something, but I think that 2 Samuel chapter 21 is the weirdest chapter in the David narrative. And by weirdest, I mean, what we're going to do today is I'm going to do my best to explain it to you, give you the background and the history so you understand the storyline. But some stuff is going to happen seemingly with the approval of God, seemingly, like, not even with his approval, but at his hand. And I can't resolve it for you. Okay? It's weird. It's good to see you. It's weird. It's gonna be weird as we talk about it, and then you're gonna leave and you're gonna be like, Man, Tim did a crummy job of making that all go away. Because I can't make it go away. It's just weird. Okay? But we're gonna take a look at it.

The Background of the Gibeonites

So what we're gonna do with is the Gibeonites. Does anybody have any sense of who the Gibeonites are? Do they exist in your brain under a category? Gibeonites, Gibeonites, Gibeonites. Who tricked their way into the promised land, into a covenant? Yeah. That's exactly right. Okay? That's exactly right. And so, and by the way, I'm gonna try to do— we continue to get feedback every week that I can't hear anybody when they're talking. And I know. Of course you can't. So I said, We can hear that, right? It's good. Make a joyful noise. Okay. So when you speak, speak as if there's people way over there that can't hear you. And then if I forget to repeat them, just wave at me. Come on, dummy. And I'll remember to repeat it so you guys can hear what's going on. Okay? So here's the deal. If you go back to Joshua chapter nine— well, first of all, what's Joshua? If you just randomly guessed what's happening in Joshua chapter nine, give me a stab in the dark. What's going on there? So entering the new Joshua is the record of the people of God, the Hebrews. I don't know if we're calling them the Israelites yet, but the descendants of Abraham, Jacob, and who am missing? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob— coming into the Promised Land. And when they come into the Promised Land, they wage war. Right? And this is all under Joshua. So Joshua has replaced Moses as leader. And everywhere they go, they have a battle and they win. And then they go to the next town, and they win, and they go to the next town, and they win there. And eventually, the word gets out that, man, these guys are just mopping up. They're just sweeping through and just taking over everything.

And so a group of people known as the Gibeonites catch wind of this and realize, man, we're next on the list. And so we have to do something. They're desperate, and they want to somehow make peace with the Hebrews so they won't be slaughtered by them, and so they come up with a plan. And their plan is this. Let's all get our oldest, nastiest shoes and put them on our feet. And let's find some old, moldy bread and put that in our bags. And then let's jog up to the Israelites and say, we just got here. We live, like, really far away. So far away, you wouldn't even possibly be concerned about us. We're very far away. We're so far away. Look, these shoes were brand new when we left, and this bread was fresh out of the oven when we left, but the shoes were worn out and the bread turned moldy. And anyway, we just wanted to drop by and say hi and say, hey, since we live so far away from each other and we couldn't possibly be ever being harm to one another, let's enter into a treaty such that you can't hurt us. And the Hebrews say, I mean, all right, since you're not from around here, what do we care? No problem. And it works. So they enter into this covenant with the Gibeonites, sometimes known as the Gibeonite deception, and then they realize, Wait a minute. You live right here. You liars. You tripped us. But in a way that doesn't make sense to me, honestly. This is the first thing where this gets weird, is it doesn't invalidate the contract. It doesn't invalidate the covenant. There are other instances of this in the Bible. Like, can you think of another place where people enter into an agreement and it's knowingly fraudulent and then the covenant stands? There's at least one other major instance where this happens. Jacob and Leah. This is one, the whole marriage thing. That's like, What are you doing? Then it's like, Hey, the marriage counts. You're stuck. Right? Where else? Jacob's blessings. Jacob's blessings. This one is the strangest one to me. Right? You know what I'm talking about? So Esau is hairy and Jacob is smooth skinned, and so Jacob, like, glues some hair on his arms and puts on his brother's clothes so he smells like his brother and goes in and his dad blesses him. Then when Esau shows up to get his place, like, Dude, sorry, it's already spent. It's gone. I gave it to Jacob. I would think that you'd be able to be like, Jacob, you scoundrel. Get back here. And then just revoke it. But his dad acts like, sorry, man. It's gone. It's gone. Right? You familiar with this? And that feels weird. It's that same kind of a vibe here with the Gibeonites. As soon as they and they realize very quickly that they've been duped, they were lied to, those are old shoes, you liar. But they're like, well, we have an eternal covenant with you, and we can't go to war against you. So they lock it in. And that's just what happens. So that's all Joshua chapter nine. Does that make sense so far? Okay. So you gotta know Joshua nine in the background. And by the way, when was this happening? Anybody have any sense of when Joshua would be? David's about January C. When would Joshua have been? Anybody know? About three hundred years ago. Yeah, that's about right. So we would say, generally speaking, if you had to mark the conquest of the land, we'd say it's about December. So it's been two fifty, three hundred years, and David is now coming into his kingship. So think about that. This is like we made the colonies, for crying out loud, made some covenant with, I don't know, Mexico or Canada or something because we thought that they were really much further away. And now, like two fifty years later, we're dealing with them. That's our context. Make sense? So that's number one.

There's a double illusion you need to know about. First of all is that whole thing that happened back in Joshua chapter nine. And then the second thing is that apparently Saul broke that covenant. That we have some— I'm not Israelite, but the Israelites have a lasting covenant with the Gibeonites where they can't mess with them. But Saul does mess with them, and Saul goes to war and kills some of the Gibeonites because he's zealous for the people of God. Okay? This is what happens. Now, what's strange about that is there's no record of it anywhere in the Scriptures. There's simply a record of the record of it in the Scriptures. So what we're gonna pick it up here in 2 Samuel 21 is an allusion to the Gibeonites from Joshua nine and Saul fighting with the Gibeonites that we have no record of happening. And now, with those two things behind us, we can see what's actually going on in David's era. You got the map? Do you see it? Joshua nine in 1250. Gibeonites enter into this contract. Saul does something, you know, I don't know, 20 years ago or something, and now David's got to clean up the mess. Okay? So with all that in the back of your brain, we can take a look at the text. So— and I really do wish I could clean this thing up and domesticate it for you, but I can't. So here it is. Ready?

The Weirdness of 2 Samuel 21

Chapter 21, verse one. It says, During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years. So David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, 'It is on account of Saul and his blood stained house. It is because he put the Gibeonites to death.' Okay? That's everything I was just explaining to you. Saul did something to put the Gibeonites to death that he wasn't allowed to do, and God is unhappy about it. God is unhappy that Saul has done this thing, and so therefore he's going to starve the land of rain.

I don't know if you have an answer to this, but why now? Why, after everything we've gone through with David's reign, is the Lord, now we're gonna do something else? Zack, come on, man. Ask me questions later. Okay. I have no idea, Zack. Everything about this story is so bizarre. I don't know don't know why God is particularly mad. I don't know why he's particularly mad now. I don't know why his expression of that madness is a lack of rain for three years, and I really don't know why he's going to be appeased by what he's going to be appeased by. This is a whole thing. This would have been a better week to have signed a Bob Blacksmith. So I should have, but I just didn't time it right. Okay. So like I said, there's no record in Scripture at all Saul doing this, but he did do it because it says he did it. And the Lord— it's the Lord who says, It is on account of Saul and his blood stained house. It's because he put the Gibeonites to death. Now, I should tell you this: The reason that I'm making a big deal about that there's no record of it but that it's nevertheless is what happened is because some commentaries want to jump into this and try to help us off the hook a little bit by saying that David is going after the Gibeonites for a different reason, and this whole thing is kind of a pretense, and there's just more going on here that makes the whole thing more palatable. I don't think that's open to us. Because Scripture relates that the Lord explains that this is why this is happening. So we have to take this at face value. And some of the more appealing exit ramps from all of the strangeness of this, I just think they're close to us. Okay? No? Okay. So let's keep going.

So the king, that's David, verse two, summoned the Gibeonites, and he spoke to them. Now we're gonna get a little bit of background what I just explained to you. Now the Gibeonites were Israel, but they were survivors of the Amorites. The Israelites had sworn to spare them. That's back in Joshua nine. But Saul, in his zeal for Israel and Judah, tried to annihilate them. So David asked the Gibeonites, what shall I do for you? How shall I make amends so that you will bless the Lord's inheritance? Okay, so let's pause there, and let's come up with some suggestions. If you're a Gibeonite and there'd been this unlawful war against you, and someone says, Can we make amends? David says, Can we make amends? What would you suggest? Money. Money. Okay. Yeah, we like money. Money is great. Money. Give us some of this land. That's great. It's a good plan. What is it? Protection? Yeah, protection is great. Like, hey, so nobody's allowed to do this to us. No, I put a fence around us, send an armed guard. I like all of these ideas. Still laborers or woodcutters? Oh, yeah. See, this is why Bob should have led this. Once they figured out that they had deceived them, they honored the terms of the covenant, but they kind of made them like servants. They were woodcutters and water carriers, I think is the way it phrases it. Right? And so maybe they would say, Hey, lighten up on the wood load or something. Right? Do something to, like, give me some kind of a compensation. Right? Okay. None of those things come back. All right? So check it out. It says David says, verse three, What shall I do? How can I make amends so that you will bless the Lord's inheritance? The idea is that they have such a legitimate grievance against Israel that God is holding up rain for the people of God. Nobody gets any rain until we deal with this Gibeonite thing. Okay? So that's all pretty weird.

So verse four, the Gibeonites answered him, we have no right to demand silver or gold— Okay, cats. So that's off the table. From Saul or his family, nor do we have the right to put anyone in Israel to death. At which point you might think, uh-oh. So David says, what do you want me to do for you? And they answered the king, as for the man who destroyed us and plotted against us so that we have been decimated and have no place anywhere in Israel, who is that? Saul. Let seven of his male descendants be given to us to be killed and exposed before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul, the Lord's chosen one. And so the king says, I will give them to you.

Okay. So what? Can anybody help? I'm really, I'm not playing with you. I really don't know. Like, what do you do with that? Find seven of Saul's descendants. Is it David? Line them up. Is it? One of them. David's not a descendant of Saul. David's best friend Jonathan is a descendant of Saul. And Mephibosheth, who is Saul's son, is a descendant of Saul. But David is not. And so pick seven people. And by the way, this happened a while ago. He's not saying get the responsible parties. Get seven of Saul's descendants, line them up, and let us kill them. What? Okay. Laura Beth. Okay. So we're just throwing things out. This is truly just throwing out my— yeah. There's just something in the wording about when David says, you know, what can I do so that you may bless the heritage of the Lord? Like he's saying, it's something in the hearts of the Gibeonites that's causing the lack of rain. It's their bitterness. And I think if of the timing of it, it makes me think maybe that bitterness has just grown and grown to the point that the Lord is now punishing Israel because it's just it built over time. And so the only way they're gonna be appeased is through blood. I mean, that's just the way it is. Their bitterness is gonna be appeased through blood, which then causes their— I don't know how the Lord does this, but the lessening of their bitterness lessens his punishment on Israel. Yes. Okay. So this—there's I—I don't think this is a bad answer, at least not a bad start to try to get our heads around this because what there's some sense in which there really is woven into the very nature of the world that sin equals death, sin equals death, sin equals death. And this is a lesson that God pounds into the people of Israel, chiefly through the sacrificial system, that sin equals death, sin equals death, but it doesn't need to be your death. A substitute can die in your place. Okay? It doesn't trouble us so much when it's a sheep, but these human beings who are presumably not seemingly complicit in this thing are about to die, and it will appease them. I think the challenge is why does God honor their determination for appeasement? I would not expect that he would do that for me. There's plenty of people that I'd probably like to kill for being honest about it. Right? Take that off the tape. But, like, right? I mean, that's just a thing, but it's like, we don't— that doesn't generally tend to get honored. It's like, put that back down.

So, Faith, can you help? Yes. Yes. And I think—I think so the the story that that Faith is describing in the book of Judges, the guy makes this pledge. He's like, hey, get out, God. You've done so much good for me that I'm gonna kill the first thing that walks out my door. And his daughter walks out, and then he's like, Oh, man, I wish it wasn't you. I'm like, What'd you think was gonna walk out? A cow? Like, this is so weird, right? And then he does. And I think what helps us in the book of Judges is that God doesn't— He's not behind this. Judges is a train wreck. Everybody's making terrible decisions. But this seems to be under the— well, we didn't even watch it happen. It's gonna happen. We haven't gotten there yet. Under the blessing of God, which is just so super weird. Okay, there's another hand. Was it rocks? Yeah. Not to be—I don't want this to be intellectual laziness on my part, but what if part of this is not necessarily figuring out the nuances per se of the story, looking at intergenerational sin? The fact that there will be consequences to our actions in general. Right? And we know those consequences— yeah. In terms of generational sin. And that we would trust that through God's relationship with David and there— that David knew what needed to be done to appease these other individuals. And right, wrong, or otherwise, that was a sacrifice that had to be made to come to the, like Kelly said, to get to the end result. Yeah. So first of all, wasn't Roxanne loud and clear and lovely? That was just great. So well done. Okay? And yes, I think there's something there too, that there really is that we make decisions. You guys, you know this, you make decisions all the time that impact your children. Right? And your parents made decisions that impact you. And you may or may not like it, but it is just the way the universe works. So there's some aspect of that. And maybe we can say that it is better that seven die than that everybody dies because there's gonna be this famine and it's all being held up. Still feels kinda yucky, but yes, there's something in there, perhaps. Zach? I need some help resolving this. Okay. Seems like verse four and five is one of the largest hypocritical things I've ever seen so far, where they're giving an answer saying we have no right to put anyone in Israel to death, and then five, well, actually we do, and I want seven people to put them to death. Well, I think all that they're saying there is we don't have that right unless you give us that right. And then David's like, all right, deal. And you kind of feel like, David, did you hear their first option? Like, just give him some money, you know? But he doesn't. I don't know. Now, here's the thing. I'll give you one maybe weasley answer, but I don't know. But when they say they present these two parallel options, well, we don't have the right to ask for money, and we don't have the right to put anybody to death. And he's like, Okay, well, are you asking for? And they're like, The death option. And then David says, Sure. And I wonder, I do wonder if David is—David are both of those options legitimately before David, and David is the king, and David gets to choose? And if David had said, yeah, no deal on the death, but we'll give you a bag of gold, Would the Lord have blessed that as well? And I don't know if this is true, but could David have simply said, Okay, yeah, that's a bit much. No. We'll pay reparations, right, and we'll make these other changes. And God is allowing David to make his decisions. There must be an appeasement, and God is allowing this rather than that. Maybe that's true. Maybe that's not true. It's hard for me to make this solid. But it seemed like they presented two options. David could have gone with that, but he doesn't. And if not, it might be because David is—remember, who is gonna die now? What family is going to die? And this is where you put the whole thing. By rights, when David became king, he could have wiped out the entire family of Saul. But he didn't. So these are not just the people that tried to attack the Gibeonites. This is the family that was trying to kill Saul for all these generations. And when David becomes king, he's remarkably gracious to Saul's family, doesn't kill them, and in particular, for the sake of what one individual does he not go after Saul's family? The whole Mephibosheth thing. So I wonder if that has something to do with it. David sees this as an opportunity to clear out the oppositional family and to really secure his kingdom, and he's using this legitimate grievance as somewhat of a pretense to do what he had wanted to do. Might be true. I don't know, but that's possible. Kelly Sue. I just have a question. Promised land, he wants them gone. Doesn't just want them relocated, he wants them killed. That's true, but Saul's not a Canaanite, he's a Benjamite. Mean, that's—no, there was nothing about—I don't think. Don't— that's a good question and I would entirely, and David didn't, and now he's doing it. Is there any parallel? It's a great question. Kelly's okay. Asking, is it possible that David was under orders to wipe out Saul's line in any case, and this is just an opportunity to do that? It could be. I don't—I don't remember ever seeing that. Bob, do you got anything about that? Well, it's almost contrary. I'm thinking back in '24 or '26 that Saul actually says to him, make a covenant with me not to kill my heirs. And David basically acquiesces almost it. Yeah. And he keeps that commitment through Mephibosheth. What about if God was actually the one that— I mean, he is orchestrating the famine. So what if he's actually allowing this to all take place for the very purpose of taking care of other— Yeah. And so what Bob is saying is that at the end of the day, it's not God orchestrating this. God's behind the famine. Like, whatever power the Gibeonites have, they have no power over the rain. Right? The Lord is behind this. And so God may have, for his own reasons that are not described here, and I think that's where I'm gonna have to come back into this and land that God has his purposes and he's gonna accomplish those purposes through human agency. People die all the time. Right? And God is— God is God. God can justly take life, and he does every single day. Right? Yeah, bro. Does the manner of death trouble you? They got hanged. They didn't have their beds cut off. They cursed because they were hung on a tree. Yeah. So we— well, okay. Mine says hanged, but I had a note that said we don't know exactly what that means. What verse is that? Killed and exposed in verse six, and then where they— yeah, in verse nine it says, He handed them over to the Gibeonites who killed and exposed them on a hill. You have hanged—is that in verse nine? Okay. Mine says killed and exposed on a hill. Read me your verse nine. Does it got hanged to it? And he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them. Okay. So the foot—Impaled? Yeah. So nobody knows how they were hanged by what? You assume hanged means by a rope with 13 cords, you know, 13 wraps. And I don't know that that method of death even exists. I don't think a guillotine—I mean, a gallows like that necessarily even existed. Maybe it did. Don't know. Becky, you know ancient death techniques? Articulate this well, but I think the comments everyone's making, little snippets of it, just keep pointing to the sacrifice that Christ made. Wealth wasn't enough. It had to be life. You know, if they were hung on a tree, that points to Christ. But just, you know, that if given the choice of how to redeem something, he chose life instead. Like you said, they could have given him wealth to appease them. Yeah. I believe. Yeah. And I, I love love love Christocentric takes on the scripture. Let's read it, how it points to Christ. And there's something I definitely think that you're right, that there's something about sin equals death, and death and the penalty must be paid. Yes. A thousand times yes. But it gets a little bit weird when it's not voluntary. Right? Jesus voluntarily dies. Okay. So many hands. So we'll do a couple more. And then there's more we want to look at. John, take a stab. Lily? Tommy? You guys can debate which of you gets to go. Okay? Yeah. So again, it might be impaled. It might be hung. It might be crucified for all I know. I mean, it's something in this space. It's rough. They die, and it's—it's bad. Okay. Tommie Lily. Who goes? Okay. It makes me think back to the Mosaic Law where it talks about the polluting of the land. Yeah. So I think that kind of points to, like, why is this going up now with the land if that's where you grow things from? You leave sin unaddressed, it fester and produces weeds and thorns that choke and all manner of brokenness in the earth. But also, it makes me think about, yeah, the concept of polluting the land and the whole thing with the priest, you know, atoning for sin is blood. So like, what else is going to turn the wrath of God ultimately? Yeah. Yeah. Which is just what Becky's saying, it is ultimately sin must be atoned. Right? So there it is. And so it it may also be that we have— there is a biblical principle that the one who sins will die. We do not hold children accountable for the sins of their fathers. So this feels at odds with that. And yet, there is nevertheless some sense in which we live under federal headship, that you've accepted because you had no choice the consequences of what your parents have done. Plenty of times. And so it is with your children. Okay? So it's all super weird, but let's keep it going because there's more to come. All right? So do you think God's gonna bless this? Is he gonna, on the basis of the death of these seven, bring the rain? He does. So here's what happens. Verse seven. Go back. The king spared Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan. Remember this? He's like, all right, can have seven, but you can't have this kid because of an oath before the Lord between David and Jonathan, son of Saul. But the king took Armoni and some other dude named Mephibosheth, two sons of Ai's daughter Rizpah, whom she had borne to Saul, together with the five sons of Saul's daughter, Merab, whom she had borne to Adriel, a bunch of people's names. He handed them over to the Gibeonites, who killed and exposed them on a hill before the Lord, and all seven of them fell together. They were put to death during the first days of the harvest, just as the barley harvest was beginning.

Now, this gets more complex. This is also everything about this story is strange. Watch Rizpah. Okay? Rizpah is the mother of two of the seven dead Gibeonites. Okay? And she's going to be kind of the hero of this part of the story.

Verse 10. Rizpah, the daughter of Ai, took a sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock from the beginning of the harvest until the rain poured down from the heavens. Remember, it hasn't rained for three years. So she goes out and she camps by the dead bodies of her two sons, and she did not let the birds of the air touch them by day or the wild animals by night. Okay. What is she doing? Mourning. She is mourning. This is true. But why does she mourn in this way? Why does she set up a tent and hang out with these dead bodies of her kids? What's that? You will not see your holy—your holy one will not see corruption. Okay. So hang on. But why is she doing it? What's her purpose? What's her motive? She's honoring their bodies. Right? She doesn't want the—Otherwise, some wolf's gonna come in and tear off the femur, and somebody's gonna come, you know, do all these horrible things to the bodies. And so she's there. And so Lily is seeing, yeah, so we honor the bodies of the dead and Christ's bodies. It's all true. But right now, she's just going to honor their bodies. And I think, well, maybe you could bury them in a hole and go back to bed. But she stays there with them, and when David hears it, he's super impressed that he honors, an extreme degree, the bodies of these that he just ordered to be killed. Look at verse 11. When David was told what Rizpah, Saul's concubine, had done, he went and took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh Gilead. They had taken them secretly in the public square.

Verse 13. He brought the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from there, and the bones of those who had been killed and exposed were gathered up. And they buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the tomb of Saul's father, Kish, Azalea, and Benjamin. He did everything the king commanded. I think the clear implication is that he combines their bones. He honors Saul, which is always a strange thing. He honors Saul by burying his body. Believers in God, we've always honored our bodies because we believe in a resurrection. They believe in a resurrection. They honor their bones. He buries their bones, and he collects the bones of those that he had allowed to be killed as a compensation for the Gibeonites having been wronged and buries them with Saul, which is so countercultural again to us. We would think, well, I don't really care so much what you do about my body, I'd rather you care about my son's bodies. I would just rather you didn't kill them in the first place. And then the weirdest thing of all is at the end of verse 14. And after that, God answered prayer on behalf of the land. And everything's all better now, except it's so weird, and I don't get it at all. So that's what happens.

The Theories Behind the Weirdness

So we've come up with a handful of theories, a few things that might explain what's going on here. They suffered a real injustice, and you have to keep your word. Even though they entered the Gibeon— this whole thing started with the Gibeonites lying and deceiving. That covenant that was made was locked and secure, and there's no way out of it. That's weird. When Saul, who is not generally all that zealous for Israel, like, he's the one who didn't go to war. He was supposed to go to war, and he refused to go to war. When he corrects it, he overcorrects it, and he starts killing people he has no obligation or authority to kill. And that injury is so great that God withholds rain from the land for three years. Do you know how devastating that is? Can you imagine if in our world, like right here, if we didn't get rain for three years, it would be absolute, like, no rain. Three years is devastating. Right? And it is devastating. But they've got systems and irrigation. We can just steal all the water out of Colorado and pop it into them. Right? So it's a big, big deal. Three years of this. And then God is appeased because these old obligations are real obligations. Sin has to be paid for. Commitments must be honored. And then the story ends. And the author doesn't do anything to help you out of your discomfort. He doesn't even indicate that we would find it uncomfortable. Right? Terry? Does this—that is, is this something here that they—they were put to death in the first days of harvest at the beginning of the barley harvest? Is there some meaning to that, or is that only telling time? I think that's only telling time. And, of course, it doesn't tell me anything because I don't know when the barley harvest is. But I think it's just an indicator of the time. John, do you have an insight into that? So Jesus would have been crucified just before the law of the law. You're saying this would have been March, April, and perhaps so we have this want. It keeps bubbling up, like, Is this something about Jesus? God bless you, right? Because that's what we're trying to do. How do we learn to read the scriptures Christocentrically? That is the whole purpose of this conversation. And I wish that I could be like, Yeah, obvious and everything feels better. And it might be the right answer that their death is in some way typological—that is, the death of, and here's where it does work, perhaps, is if an innocent person dies to atone the sin that blesses the entire people, then we can see that. Right? And we can squint at that at least and be like, Okay. So an innocent person dies and the people are saved. I think we can get behind that. But the discomfort, of course, is that Jesus was voluntary. He wasn't—we didn't drag him out of the crowd and then throw him into it. And so, I don't know, you can take it that way you wanna go. But that's—that's the story. That's what happens. And my best job, my best attempt to faithfully prove before you accurately without playing games with you and then offer some suggestions. But I can't do any better than that.

So, Zach? Do you think there might be something to that—the beginning part of the story of the Gibeonites had its own merit and something that God wanted resolved, but also it could be so that it could set up an opportunity for David to have full closure with Saul's family and honoring those who came before him. I do, I do think that's true. And I'll take it in my evidence I guess is again maybe it's nothing but Take a stab by all means. At the very end of 14, it says, after it was basically after that, when David took Saul's and Jonathan's bones and brought them all together in an honorable way, did God answer the prayer? Yes. Okay. So good. So you're saying perhaps God's blessing that flows isn't merely out of the death of the Gibeonites, but is after the honoring of Saul's family and then bringing that to closure. Yeah. I like that. That's actually a good observation, that the blessing doesn't— it's not as soon as the Gibeonites are dead, but as soon as the bones are buried and everything is done and Saul is honored and they are honored, then he brings it to closure. Yeah. I think that's a really important observation. You continue to impress me with your ability to read the text. So yes, maybe. That's all I got. Except a few more completely weird things that need to happen unrelated to— Carlton? Did you say earlier that you weren't sure that David's killing of Saul's progeny was against the promise he had made earlier? Wasn't Saul asking that he did not completely wipe his name out of his father's house? It wasn't that he would not kill any of them. That's true. Not erase his name, his lineage, in totality. Yes. That's accurate. And and certainly Mephibosheth, and my guess would be more than just these seven, because they said choose seven descendants. The implication is that there are more than seven to choose from. So, yeah, he doesn't wipe out Saul's family, but this—maybe kind of puts a bow on that whole story.

The Ending and the Big Guys

Okay. So that's all weird, and that's the end of this movement. And now we have a little bit more weird stuff that's unrelated. You ready? The chapter ends like this. There's four little vignettes about great people that kill a bunch of really bad people. And now we feel better about these people dying than we do about the first half. So here's what happens. Once again, there was a battle between the Philistines and Israel. David went down with his men to fight against the Philistines. He became exhausted. Then some dude— and one of the descendants of Rapha, note that, R-a-p-h-a, Rapha, whose bronze spearhead weighed 300 shekels and who was armed with a new sword— said he would kill David. But this other guy shows up, and he kills the Philistine, and kills him, strikes him down and kills him.

David's men swore to him, saying, 'Never again will you go with us to battle, so the lamp of Israel will not be extinguished.' And there's some great military victory. Then, in the course of time, there was another battle, the Philistines at Gath. At that time, this other dude killed this other guy who was a descendant of Rapha. And then, in another battle with the Philistines at Gath, some other guy killed, check this out, Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver's rod. It doesn't say here that he's from Rapha, but it will at the postscript. And then, in verse 20, and still another battle which took place at Gath. There was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot—24 in all. What movie are you thinking of? Princess Bride. He also was descended from Rapha, and when he taunted Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shemeah, David's brother, killed him.

These four, including the one we didn't mention, were descendants of Rapha and Gath, and they fell at the hands of David and his men. What's the impression you get from that? I've five minutes. What's the impression you get from those rapid-fire stories? Anything? Lily? It's kind of ending how it started, sort of. I mean, is maybe before the end of David's life. He kind of starts out interesting. So you see kind of this book ending with this Goliath thing, this huge dude. So David's story begins with killing this massive, huge guy, and as we're winding down the story, you've got, like, four different stories of huge, big, massive dudes getting killed by David's people—that's the storyline. Some, by the way—and I think this is all a 10 percent teapot here—there is some suggestion that this Goliath story is the true story of Goliath and that the David and Goliath story is a lie, and this is some different person. I just think there's two guys named Goliath. I just don't think it's that complicated. There's two dudes named Goliath. Are you kidding me? There's two people named everything. It's not a big deal. But at the end of the story, we've got all these huge guys, and they're all getting killed. And what I want you to see is that the huge guy theme is a massive storyline in the Scriptures, and we tend to not know what to do with it. But they're all related. Do you know this? I'm gonna give you a real quick primer on the huge guy syndrome. And this is so odd. Go to Genesis six. It starts here. Genesis 6:4. We could make this weirder, but I'll keep it only minimally weird. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward, when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were heroes of old, men of renown