2 Samuel 5

[0:00] Well, good morning. And please turn to 2 Samuel chapter 5. We're going to just cover the one chapter today.! I had originally intended to do 2, 5 and 6. Then I got to thinking, I might be a bit tight actually.

[0:17] And then I realised that even just one chapter might be a bit tricky. So we'll do chapter 6 next week. Now I thought I would take a moment to just do a bit of a longer introduction, partly because I know there's some new faces who may not have been with us through the whole of our series, but also just to get our heads back in the game, let's say.

[0:38] So, in the beginning, no. So, a family of 70 or so went down to Egypt, 12 brothers, who became the 12 tribes.

[0:54] God birthed a nation there in Egypt, and then he brought them out of Egypt in this exodus that we know. And those 12 tribes remained distinctive, distinct groups, as God intended, the 12 tribes.

[1:11] And God gave them just laws, great and just laws that set them apart from other nations. And God gave these laws expressly so that the other nations would go, wow, your laws are really sensible.

[1:29] And there were laws that indicated in due course that God was going to appoint a king. And there were laws that always ultimately pointed forward to the king, Jesus Christ.

[1:41] But the law always said there's a king coming. God gave them the land, the land of Canaan, of course, and it became the land of Israel. And it was given to them by God himself.

[1:54] And it remains theirs in totality to this very day. Now, we've studied through the book of Judges. We saw the sad story of how they lived in the land without a king to guide them, but also without acknowledging the king, which was God.

[2:13] And we saw how they went through this cycle of sin and repentance, and then they'd be delivered by a judge, and then they just fell back into sin again. And the last judge was named Samuel.

[2:26] The last of the judges and the first of the prophets. And he ushered in this new period, the time of the kings. And he, as we've read in 1 Samuel, he anointed the first king, King Saul.

[2:41] Saul was appointed by God, but he was the best that man can get, if you like. The best of men, to quote. He was the best of men.

[2:54] He was tall, he was handsome, he was brave, and he was ineffective, and he was disobedient. And his disobedience led to God rejecting him and saying, I'm going to raise up another who is going to be better than you, Byrne.

[3:10] And he's going to be a man after my own heart. And that is David. And we saw Samuel go to Bethlehem and anoint David, the son of Jesse, early on, I think it was somewhere around chapter 17, I want to say.

[3:24] But David has still not been anointed king over all of Israel, and we finally see it today in our chapter. So it's been a long time coming. Now initially, Saul loved David.

[3:36] David was awesome. He's brave and he's powerful, but he's also sensitive and poetic and musical. And so Saul gave him his daughter, Michal, as a wife.

[3:49] But we've read this sad and somewhat enigmatic story of how when David was anointed, the Holy Spirit was taken from Saul and replaced by this harmful spirit.

[4:01] And that spirit was not forcing Saul, but I guess encouraging him, pushing him to violent madness and relentless persecution towards David.

[4:14] And David chose to flee. You know, David was powerful. David had multiple opportunities to remove Saul. Hey, God said I'm going to be king. Let's just get rid of him.

[4:25] But he never does, and in fact he rebukes his own men when they suggest it. Instead, David keeps away, waiting for God to fulfill what he has promised. And we've seen David actually amazingly spend some time with the enemies of Saul, namely the Philistines.

[4:44] Who were they? The Philistines. They were a seafaring people. You can actually trace the Philistines back to the Aegean Sea and the island of Crete.

[4:56] Seems to be originally where they came. But they came across to the Promised Land and they occupied the region roughly Gaza today. And you'll see it listed as Philistia on many ancient maps of the time.

[5:10] And the similarity of the name Philistine with Palestine is no accident. In fact, it was the Emperor Hadrian, I believe, if my research is good, who, after the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 AD, to dig the Jews in the ribs a bit, he renamed Provincia Judah, the province of Judah, to Provincia Palestina, to mock the Jews and to name them after their enemies, the Philistines.

[5:39] And so for actually most of post-Christ history, a Palestinian was a resident of Palestine, and it would have mostly been a Jew. Interesting, isn't it?

[5:50] So there is no biological link at all between today's Palestinians and the Philistines of David's day, just in case anyone was wondering. So that's the Philistines. And so they are the enemies of Israel.

[6:03] So when we ended 1 Samuel, and we saw the Philistines defeat Saul. They defeated Saul. They killed him, and they killed his three most prominent sons and heirs.

[6:16] And we began 2 Samuel with David lamenting Saul. And David's lamenting his enemy? Yeah, he did. He lamented Saul. He lamented Jonathan, his great friend, because this was the king whom God had anointed.

[6:31] And it was sad. It was sad that Israel had been defeated by the enemies. And we've read David being received and anointed as king over Judah, Judah being one of those 12 tribes that I mentioned.

[6:44] And he reigned out of a place called Hebron, or Hebron in English. And meanwhile, the last remaining son of Saul, named Ish-bosheth, is appointed the king of Israel.

[6:58] And then last time we read how David remained content just to wait for God to deal with it. God has said, I'm going to be king over all Israel. I'm going to wait. Seven years pass.

[7:09] And when two men assassinate Ish-bosheth, thinking that they can curry favor with David, David's like, he was furious, and he puts them to death as well. And that takes us up to today.

[7:21] So, there we go. So, just one chapter today, chapter 5. And it does cover a bunch of stuff. We're going to see David being anointed king over all of Israel.

[7:33] We're going to see the capture of Jerusalem. Something that took 500 years from Joshua until now. Really held out. And then we'll see the significant battle.

[7:44] Actually, two battles between the Philistines and the Jews who aren't too impressed by this new upstart king who's taken over in Israel. Now, as we go through, one thing that you should know if you study this as well is that there's a very valuable parallel passage in 1 Chronicles, chapter 11 through 13.

[8:04] What we see there in particular is a lot more names recorded. Who were the men who came to David in Hebron and said, come be king?

[8:16] There they are in Chronicles. Who were his mighty men? How big was his army? It's all there in 1 Chronicles. So, if you're studying after this, it's well worth a read. Although you will find the narrative is in a different order.

[8:28] So don't let that trip you up. Good. I think we're ready to read. But let me just have a word of prayer. I realise I have omitted to do so. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to study your words.

[8:41] Lord, it's awesome. It's just awesome to read this history. And it's awesome to hear from you, Lord. So we pray that you would open our hearts and our minds to what you have to say. Speak through me, Lord.

[8:51] I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, well, we are... We've come as far as verse 1. So, reading from 2 Samuel 5, verse 1.

[9:05] Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, Behold, we are your bone and your flesh. Previously, when Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and in.

[9:18] And the Lord said to you, you will shepherd my people Israel and you will be a leader over Israel. So all the elders of Israel came to the king in Hebron.

[9:29] And King David made a covenant with them before the Lord in Hebron. Then they anointed David king over Israel. David was 30 years old when he became king and he reigned for 40 years.

[9:41] At Hebron, he reigned over Judah for 7 years and 6 months. And in Jerusalem, he reigned for 33 years over all Israel and Judah. Now, you may remember last time in chapter 3, we read of Abner.

[10:00] Abner was... He was initially of the house of Saul and he was the one who installed Yisbrosheth. But when there was a bit of an argument, he defected to David.

[10:16] And he said, he acknowledged that the Lord has sworn David will be king. And then he went around and he influenced many of the elders of Israel. If you remember this from 2 Samuel 3, 17 and 18, it says that Abner had a consultation with the elders of Israel saying, in times past, you were seeking for David to be king over you.

[10:38] Now they'll do it. For the Lord has spoken regarding David saying, by the hand of my son of David, I will save my people Israel from the hand of the Philistines and from the hand of all their enemies.

[10:50] So that was the influence of Abner. And now we see Israel acknowledging that saying, yes, we knew this was right. We knew this was what the Lord had said.

[11:01] We knew that David is going to be our shepherd and leader. And actually in Chronicles, 1 Chronicles 11, 3, it says they anointed him in accordance with the word of the Lord through Samuel.

[11:16] So you can see this is a moment of national repentance, of turning away from the wrong path and to the right path, which is that God has said, this man is king.

[11:27] And they're making it right. Now let's look at the text. Look what they say. And they said to David, they said that David led out and brought in.

[11:39] Now that is military language. It's saying that David went out to war ahead of the army. He led them out and then he brought them back in, which means he came back successfully.

[11:51] So he was going out ahead. He was brave. He was not sending them out. He led them out. And then he brought them back in. Successful military leader. And then look at that interesting phrase.

[12:02] The Lord said to you, you shall shepherd my people. Now, we know that David was literally a shepherd when he was called into service.

[12:15] And he was, we've seen him portrayed as very, very diligent, very capable, able to defend his sheep from the lion and the bear, taking care to leave them protected when he goes off to fight Goliath.

[12:29] And we've also seen Psalm 23, we sang Psalm 23, where David says, the Lord is my shepherd. Where he's borrowing the same language to say, this is my God.

[12:42] He, he is my shepherd. But this is the first time you've seen the news of a king in Israel who never was Saul called shepherd.

[12:54] The verb means to tend, feed or protect. So when they say that David would shepherd, it means to tend, feed or protect. Now, I should ensure that you have the right mental picture.

[13:10] What does a shepherd do? What does a shepherd look like? An ancient shepherd doesn't drive sheep, doesn't drive them from behind, he leads them from the front. A shepherd, he takes his flock to pasture, he protects them from wolves or whatever other threats there may be.

[13:26] So, they are saying, you've always been more of a king than Saul ever was. And we've commented on that as we went, even when David was on the run.

[13:37] Even when David was on the run from Saul, he saved Kyla from the Philistines in 1 Samuel 23. We've seen that. David has always been acting as this protector leader.

[13:51] And so the Lord has called you to be our provider. We also read that David was 30 years of age when he became king.

[14:03] I don't think that's an accident. There were various priestly roles that would be performed by men from the age of 30. And it was traditionally the age at which a scribe would be considered ready to teach.

[14:19] Jesus himself was described as being about 30 when he began his ministry in Luke 3. So again, you see David as somewhat of a foreshadowing.

[14:29] But all this got me to thinking what do we need in a leader? What do we need in a leader? We see David displaying both the might and the capability of a warrior but also the grace and the dependable provision of a shepherd.

[14:52] And we've seen him demonstrate both those giftings, those skills and the calling of God. And when the church is looking for leadership and we have the letters of 1 Timothy we have Titus we have passages that give us this clear guidance on what we should look for.

[15:14] And they are character guidelines. And they're guidelines that require time to be demonstrated. Those letters don't say that they require this or that academic qualification or credential.

[15:27] it speaks much more and in fact exclusively to the testimony of a good character. And that's why I think churches that install very young men in their early twenties as pastors and elders how have they possibly validated the character of these men?

[15:48] The very title of elder suggests some years of life experience are required. and the only thing that Timothy says or Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 3.6 is that there should be a new convert.

[16:03] And Timothy himself we know was a young man so there's no hard and fast rule here but we do need as a church to appoint men who have demonstrated that character that mix of confidence and gentleness that mix of capability and calling from God.

[16:25] And ultimately of course our leader is our shepherd Jesus Christ. Jesus is the fierce and military leader who will come ultimately and rule the nations with a roll of iron and yet he has the grace and sensitivity to receive children and the downcast and the lowly.

[16:44] He is the one who goes ahead into harm's way and even willingly to his death. Jesus himself of course claimed the designation good shepherd and I thought it was worth our time just to read this and remind ourselves what Jesus said.

[17:00] In John 10 verse 11 he said I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd who is not the owner of the sheep sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees and the wolf snatches them and scatters the flock.

[17:22] He flees because he is a hired hand and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd and I know my own and my own know me just as the father knows me and I know the father and I lay down my life for the sheep and I have other sheep that are not of this fold and I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice and they will become one flock with one shepherd for this reason the father loves me and because I lay down my life so that I may take it back.

[17:58] No one has taken it away from me but I lay it down on my own. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it back. This commandment I received from my father. That is our Lord and Saviour, our good shepherd.

[18:13] Awesome. we are moving on to verse 6 back in 2nd Samuel 5. Now the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, and they said to David, you shall not come in here, but even those who are blind and those who limp will turn you away, thinking David cannot enter here.

[18:39] Nevertheless, David captured the strong board of Zion, that is the city of David. And David said on that day, whoever strikes the Jebusites is to reach those who live and those who are blind, who are hated by David's soul through the water tunnel.

[18:56] For this reason they say people who are blind and people who limp shall not come into the house. So David lived in the strong hold and called it the city of David. And David built all around from the middle and inward.

[19:11] David became greater and greater and the Lord God of armies was with him. Okay, well, we've got a lot to cover there. Jerusalem, one of the most historic sites in Israel.

[19:29] In case you don't know where it is, it's situated right on the border of Benjamin and Judah. Now you may remember that Saul was of the tribe of Benjamin and David is of the tribe of Judah.

[19:43] So it made a lot of strategic sense to go there, almost like neutral ground, if you like. And that may well have been one of reasons David went to take it.

[19:53] But it is also a fantastic natural stronghold or fortress. The city of Jerusalem has several names in scripture.

[20:05] The earliest name that we see for it is Salem. Jerusalem and you may remember that's where Abraham met an enigmatic figure called Melchizedek. A fascinating study that we don't have time to get into today.

[20:19] It's also known as Jebus, or Jebus if you want to get closer to the Hebrew, but Jebus in our English. And the locals are called the Jebusites, which we've seen in our text today.

[20:32] So it would have been called, I believe it would have been called Jebus at this time, but our writer of 2 Samuel was calling it Jerusalem. The Jebusites were one of the tribes of the Canaanites, whom God commanded to remove due to their sins.

[20:50] So they were subject to the commandments that God had issued to Joshua. And indeed Joshua went in one of his campaigns and the king of Jerusalem, I think it's written there, but the king of this city, Jebus was destroyed.

[21:08] But then it needed capturing again by the time we get to Judges 1, and it seems that the Benjaminites didn't follow through. They didn't follow through and take the city. And actually, even with that second capturing in Judges chapter 1, they still didn't take the city properly.

[21:25] And we read that the Benjaminites lived with the Genesites. And what we infer is that in the following years, the Jebusites managed to push the Benjaminites back out again completely, to the point that they could say, you ain't getting back in here, you Jews.

[21:44] Now, I said it was very defensible. I've got something resembling a topographic map here. if I overlaid a city of modern Jerusalem, it would be huge and fair to hopefully.

[21:56] But actually, we think of ancient cities, they are funny, they are funny, but we can see these values, the people are valid, and that value, yeah. I was keen.

[22:09] Thank you, though. And everything I was all about with these very natural defences. and if I show you this reconstruction here, which is again from the Common Bible, you can see the walls that the Jebusites directed around it and the sheer slopes that made it basically impossible.

[22:30] Very, very challenging to take. And another thing that's amazing is, well, we actually see it in our text, but there was a water tunnel that's alluded to in the text, and it's around us.

[22:45] here, the Goethe and the Peepham Spring, and it allowed the people of Jebus to get fresh water from the spring without ever leaving the city walls, and it made it basically siege-proof.

[23:01] They could get all of the water that they needed, which they could then use to drink and obviously to produce food as required within the city limits. So very, very difficult to take.

[23:15] Now a number of these network tunnels, this network of water tunnels have been excavated. One in particular is known as Warren's Shaft, which is named after the gentleman who found it.

[23:29] His name was Warren. And it does, I think I even read that one of his men was able to scale it and demonstrated that indeed it was possible to enter the city by scaling this shaft.

[23:47] Now that is one possible interpretation of what we've just read, that when David says go on up. But it's by no means certain. I did note that the parallel passage in 1 Chronicles, the Greek translation, the Septuagint translation of this text in 2 Samuel, and the historian Josephus, none of those three sources have any reference to it as water shaft.

[24:13] The text in Hebrew uses a word, I think memory says it, Sipor, and it's difficult to translate. So could be, maybe, who knows.

[24:25] But they all agree that there was this challenge. 1 Chronicles 11 and verse 6 says this, Now David had said, whoever is first to kill a genocide shall be chief and commander.

[24:38] So David laid down the challenge. Whoever was first, get it done. And Joab, we've read about Joab already, haven't we? Joab, the son of Zeruiah, went up first, possibly up the shaft, and he became chief.

[24:54] Now if you read the account of the historian Josephus, just as a reminder, he wrote very early, just probably a generation after Christ, so a very long time ago, 1900 years or so.

[25:06] So his he had access to historical data that is no longer available to us. And he said that the way David took the city, well they took the lower, I'm sorry, the lower city, the city, which would have been like a castle keep, that was a bit more challenging, and that was the thing about which he issued this church.

[25:32] Anyway, who knows, all very interesting. So the Bible said there in verse 8, note that verse, the blind and the lame are hated by David's soul.

[25:45] And I wonder how comfortable you are with that. The blind and the lame are hated by David's soul. Now you know me, I always dig a little bit when I see something like this.

[25:56] So the Septuagint Greek translation actually flips this around and interprets the Hebrew like this, that it is the blind and the lame who hates David. And they interpreted it, the text is saying that there is hatred for this new king coming from the inhabitants who are epitomized by the blind and the lame.

[26:18] And then you have, wonderfully, the Dead Sea Scrolls have an almost complete chapter here. And that read different again to the Masoretic text, and it said this, but something along these lines too, right?

[26:34] The blind and the lame are the hatred of David's soul, which is putting it in a more passive sense, and it could be interpreted either way. So how do we understand it?

[26:47] Well, as we do, as we try to understand this, do keep in mind that these are completely hypothetical people, right? They are being used as a taunt. Even the blind and the lame can keep you guys out.

[27:00] And David's like, right, we're going to go and get those blind and lame. So they are hypothetical individuals being invoked as a taunt. My interpretation of this is that it's being used as what's known as a synecdoche.

[27:15] What's a synecdoche? It's a figure of speech where you are pulling a specific to mean a more general thing. An example of a synecdoche, if you said to somebody and you looked at their car and said, nice wheels, you don't mean the wheels specifically, you mean the whole of a car.

[27:32] That's an example of this synecdoche. And I think that's what's happening here is the blind and the lame become a picture for David to mean I want to take out all you guys, which of course he does.

[27:43] So he means my enemies. And it leads to this proverb that the blind and the lame may not enter the house. And of course, what that would then mean is that the enemies of David cannot enter the temple.

[27:56] So what? Well, what does the son of David think of the blind and lame? Far from hating them or far from casting them out, Jesus Christ, he went to them.

[28:12] And we read this recently in our studies in Matthew, but I thought I'm going to read this again. Matthew 21, from verse 12, we read this. Jesus entered the temple, the temple area, and he drove out all those who were selling and buying on the temple grounds.

[28:30] And he overturned the tables of the money changes and in the seats of those who were selling doves. And he said to them, it is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.

[28:44] And those who were blind and those who lived, sounds familiar, came to him in the temple area and he healed them. But when the chief priest and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he had done and the children who were shouting in the temple area, Hosanna, to the son of David, they became indignant.

[29:02] And they said to him, do you hear what these children are saying? And Jesus said to them, yes, have you never read the mouths of infants and nursing babies? You have prepared praise for yourself.

[29:14] And I love it because Jesus cleared out all of the able-bodied crooks and he welcomed in the blind and the lame. How long had this proverb that apparently was coined in these days, been a cause for those with those impairments to be excluded?

[29:32] And Jesus welcomed them in. He kicked out the able-bodied crooks, welcomed in. Amazing. No wonder the chief priests were indignant. Christians. And if only they had read Isaiah 35, where it declares that God will come opening the eyes of the blind, causing the lame to leap like deer, then maybe they would have known to expect it.

[29:55] But that's our Lord, that is our Lord, full of grace to the weak in the heart. And the excluded are now included. And Ephesians 2.13 says this, for now in Christ Jesus, you who were previously or previously were far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

[30:13] Amen. Love it. What else have we got here? Verse 9 says that David took the stronghold, which would have been that heap type thing at the top there, and he built from the millow and inward.

[30:30] Now the meaning of happy well, millow is just a transliterated word, and it means the filling. The filling. It's mentioned several times in the Bible, and it's never actually described.

[30:43] So you kind of have to scratch your head and go, what on earth is a millow? Well, the best guess that we have is it's something like this. It's a stone step structure, an artificial filling that was then constructed with stone like that as a defensive structure, upon which buildings can be built.

[31:07] Oh man, I had such a great time this morning, and I was like, I wish I found this earlier, learning about one Dr. Aylang Mazza, not Mazza, I should say, there she is, and I found, those references will be on the notes by the way, so please don't try and write them down.

[31:25] She, Dr. Mazza, one of her recent excavations in 2005, which I say now I realise it was 20 years ago, recent still, she found something that has been generically named the large stone structure.

[31:45] Really? The large stone structure. What's important about that building is that it predated David by a century or two, and then there's evidence from the contents therein that it was used by the Jewish monarchy for at least a few centuries after, and it was found on top of the Miro, and so the Miro is providing the foundations for this house.

[32:11] I will say, this lady is brilliant. One quote that I found from her that's in one of those links is this, she says, I work with the plywood in one hand and the tools of excavation in the other, that's what biblical archaeologists do.

[32:26] The Bible is the most important historical source. Brilliant. Amazing. And I was like, I wish I'd found this a while ago so I could have properly read those documents, but she died recently within the last ten years or so.

[32:41] There's a couple of really interesting eulogies that's worth reading, and this one was an interview with her about this and how she read from the Bible, from this very passage actually, this very chapter, where the palace of David would be.

[32:55] And on the basis of what the scripture said, she dug and she found what may indeed be that very structure. Anyway, that's all I have to get this morning.

[33:09] And then the summary is, verse ten, David became greater and greater, for the Lord God of armies was with him. Fantastic. David, a very active, a very practical king, but he succeeded not because of his skill or because of his wisdom, but because the Lord, Yahweh, the God of armies was with him.

[33:28] Amen. Alright. Where have we come to? I think we've come as far as verse 11. Verse 11, then Hiram, king of Tyre, sent messages to David with cedar trees, carpenters and stonemasons and they built a house for David.

[33:47] And David realised that the Lord had appointed him as king over Israel and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel. Meanwhile, David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem after he came from Hebron and more sons and daughters were born to David.

[34:08] Now, these are the names of those who were born to him in Jerusalem. Shabuah, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon, Ipah, Elishua, Nefeg, Japhia, Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphate.

[34:20] Great. Thank you for those names. Okay, Hiram. Hiram, king of Tyre. Tyre is a coastal city.

[34:31] Tyre is in the world. That's in the tribal allotment, to the tribe of Asher. But as we note from the fact that there is a king in Tyre, clearly they have not taken that at least at this point.

[34:46] Again, it's another highly defensible city. Actually, it's a pair of cities, if you do a little bit of research. It is now one city, but it used to be one without an island city.

[35:00] The point is that this region of Tyre and the surrounding region of Lebanon was very renowned for exceptionally valuable cedar wood.

[35:11] Very tall trees, which are of course obviously good for crafting strong, long beams, but also a fragrant wood that is resistant to rot, so I am told.

[35:22] So very, very sought after, and so this would have been a very precious gift from King Hyrum. And so we see Hyrum seeking peace with David.

[35:34] Now, he's only mentioned briefly here, so we'll only mention him briefly now, but we will see Hyrum again, or possibly another son, also named Hyrum, is possibly Hyrum, son of Hyrum, who knows, but who will have dealings with David's son Solomon, where again Tyre, the king of Tyre, will provide cedar, which will ultimately be used for the temple.

[35:57] But what we're seeing here is Hyrum creating a strategic alliance with David that will benefit them both. And it would seem then, from what we've just read, that this is a key moment of realisation for David, when he thinks, God's done it, he's made me king, the other kings are coming to me to make alliances, this influential city, this rich city has come to me and said, hey, that's alive, amazing.

[36:29] And it's understated here, but I can imagine David just falling on his knees to praise God. You know, I was reminded, we'll actually study this in a couple of weeks' time, when David has this moment of realisation in chapter 7, verse 18, where David says, David the king came and sat before the Lord and said, who am I?

[36:50] Lord God, who are the members of my household that you brought me this are? So David realises, he has this moment of wow, God's done it. And then we read that he has six more sons by different women.

[37:08] Was it six? Maybe it was seven, I can't remember. first. And we've already spoken about David's polygamy and we won't speak to it again today other than to say it's wrong, it's wrong.

[37:19] Okay, done. But it's interesting to consider that in the context that it's found, this statement seems to be using it to show, look at the strength of David's household.

[37:35] Look at the strength, look at the number of heirs he has, look at the kings coming to him, look at the city that he's taken. And in the context it seems to be that the human author is using this to, at least it seems to me, that the human author is meaning to show the strength of David's house.

[37:57] But this strength, if we can call it that, is such a weakness. Because it's exactly through these sons that David's house is going to have some serious problems. Linda reminded me earlier this week that the king, the king had very specific instructions to write out the law.

[38:17] It says in Deuteronomy 17, 18 and following, it shall come about when he, the king, sits on the throne of his kingdom that he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the lividable priests.

[38:31] And it shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life so that he will learn to fear the Lord his God by carefully following all the words of this law and these statues so that his heart will not be haughty towards his countrymen and that he will not turn away from the common to the right or to the land so that he and his sons may live long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.

[38:56] And would that David had actually done that? When he became king he was supposed to write out his own Torah. And funnily enough just before this was the bit about not taking off wives.

[39:12] Maybe he had just done Genesis and Exodus by this point who knows. But what I haven't said actually is these sons aren't all born in flash. David and Solomon that's the wrong ways in the future.

[39:25] So this is a bit of a summary of what's coming. Most of those sons aren't particularly noteworthy. I'm sorry to say. Except for Nathan and Solomon.

[39:39] Of course we know that Solomon is the crown prince and he will be the one who will take the throne after David and he will be the one to build a temple and most importantly he will be the one through whom the messianic line will go according to Matthew.

[39:54] But of course in Luke's genealogy if you remember Luke 3 the messianic line goes through Nathan this son. What do we make of this? Well it's very interesting and it's a fascinating study for another time.

[40:10] Verse 17 Now when the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king of Israel all the Philistines went up to seek out David and when David heard about it he went down to the stronghold.

[40:23] Now the Philistines came and overran the valley of Rephaim so David inquired to the Lord saying shall I go up against the Philistines will you hand them over to me and the Lord said to David go up but I will certainly hand the Philistines over to you.

[40:39] Now we have a parallel passage for this again 1 Chronicles 14 and reading from verse 8 you can glean some additional information which I will allude to.

[40:51] So what do we see? The Philistines I've already introduced them to you. The invading foreigners who have established Philistia on the coast of the south west and they had some kind of peace around seven and a half years ago they bumped off Saul and then they seemed to have been content to go back to their land and just sort of chill.

[41:19] And you may also remember that David was alive to them at some time and it may be when David was king in the south and then the north was kind of in disarray under the weak Ish-bosheth that the Philistines were that's okay there's no need to take any risks.

[41:36] But now we see David consolidating power, taking these strong fortresses, allying with powerful kingdoms, there's a big threat brewing for the Philistines and so there comes war.

[41:51] Right up into the valley of Rephaim or translated the valley of the giants. Right on the doorstep with Jerusalem. Now as I said in Chronicles 11, 1 Chronicles 11 and 12 lists out all the men and if you add them up then you've got over 300,000 mighty men in David's army.

[42:13] They're described as ridiculously strong, like incredible Hulk style men. One of them, the chief among them single-handedly destroyed 300 men.

[42:26] And there's other exploits listed there. One of David's men killed one of those Goliath-like giants, one of those Rephaim stealing his spear and sticking him with it. So these are very, very formidable guys.

[42:40] Strong, strong army. One reading I had here, 1 Chronicles 12 that here, all these men, being men of war, who helped in battle formation, came to Hebron with a perfect heart to make David king over all Israel.

[43:02] And all the rest of Israel who were also of one mind to make David king. So all these men come of one mind to make David king. And they are powerful men, of perfect heart.

[43:15] So the verse is intended to show the strength of David's army and their heart towards him. But David doesn't look to the strength of his army.

[43:25] And I thought this was remarkable and noteworthy for David's character. He goes to the Lord. Lord, shall I go up against them?

[43:37] And the Lord indeed confirms it. And this is the wisdom of David. He knows this well enough. He knows exactly the same thing when he went up to Goliath.

[43:48] When he faced Goliath, this verse from 1 Samuel 17, 47, he had confidence because he knew the Lord and it was going to show that the Lord does not save by sword or by spear, for the battle is the Lord's.

[44:01] He will hand you over to us. And it's the same thing. David is thinking, I have a strong army, but I know the Lord does not save by sword or spear. So he goes to inquire of the Lord.

[44:15] One thing that's not clear in the text that the historian Josephus discovered is that this army of the Philistines also comprised warriors from Syria, Phoenicia, and many other nations.

[44:29] And when I read that, it sort of reminded me of when the nation of Israel was reformed recently in the last century, and immediately the Arab nations all came together to try and wipe them out.

[44:43] And it seems to be a very similar parallel is happening here. David is becoming king, consolidated power, the nation of Israel at last, and the surrounding nations don't want any of that.

[44:57] But what's going to happen? As if there's any doubt. Verse 20, 2 Samuel 5, the Lord confirmed it, so then David came to Baal and Haazim and defeated them there, and he said, the Lord has broken through my enemies before me, like a breakthrough of waters.

[45:16] Therefore, he named that place Baal and Haazim. And the Philistines abandoned their idols there, so David and his men carried them away. So, God has said it, David is victorious, and the battle is so remarkable and memorable that they named the place after it, Baal Haazim, which means, Baal, we know that often means the god, the pagan god, but actually it means owner or master, or even husband, actually.

[45:47] So, it's the master of Peretzin, which means breakthroughs. So, it means they've named the place, the master of breakthroughs, speaking of the Lord, breaking through the enemies.

[46:02] And that is our god, he is the master of breakthroughs, and so we are right to pray for breakthroughs in our lives, and in this version. So, the Philistines abandoned their gods there, and of course, that recalled, for me, the battle in 1 Samuel 4, where the Philistines defeated Israel, and they lost the ark of God.

[46:22] So, this is a reversal here. I wonder if the author putting that David carried them away is to give a bit of a poetic reversal. Now, what we learn from Chronicles 14, verse 12, is David took them away to burn them.

[46:38] They were burned. They were not kept anywhere. They were burned. Verse 22, so the Philistines come again, Josephus recording that for the second battle here, they mustered an army three times as large.

[46:54] So, I don't know how much time lapse there was between the first and the second, but enough for the Philistines to amass another army of significant size. Now, the Philistines came up once again and overran the valley of Rephaim.

[47:09] So, David inquired of the Lord, but he said, you shall not go directly up. So, go around behind them and come up at them in front of the back of shrubs. At least, that's how the NASB 2020 has it, back of shrubs.

[47:23] And it shall be when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the back of shrubs, then you shall act promptly, for then the Lord will have gone out before you to strike the army of the Philistines.

[47:36] Then David did so, just as the Lord commanded him, he struck and killed the Philistines from Geber as far as Gezer. And David is just so wise.

[47:47] Just because God said yes the first time, does not mean that God will say yes the second time. And David will never presume upon God. Always actively, mostly, actively seeks the will of God.

[48:02] Except for that one time. And God gives specific instructions. Barakah shrubs, older additions, we'll put balsam trees, some people, Jerome in his Vulgate put pear trees, mulberry tree would seem to be the most likely a native tree from the region that grows to around 15 metres.

[48:25] But what's the point? The point is that God gave specific instructions to go around and wait for this sign, the sound of marching in the tops of the trees.

[48:36] And I think that we should infer that that is an unexplainable sound, that is to say a supernatural sound, the sound of God's army going ahead to strike the army of the Philistines.

[48:50] God himself has gone out and in David's obedience he gets this comprehensive victory once again from Gibeon as far as Gezer, which is Gezer, so pushing them right back into the land of Philistia, which is kind of there.

[49:10] Could David have pushed them back further? Probably he could. One commentator I read suggested that David still had a soft spot for King Athleese, if you remember.

[49:23] Who knows? What we do know is that after this battle the Philistines are subdued. And we don't really read much about them again until much later on. It is a decisive victory.

[49:36] The Philistines are ruined until chapter 21. And David has many further battles but not with the Philistines, at least until David is a much much older man.

[49:49] How do we wrap this up before we go on into chapter 6? Well, look, we've reminded our souls that our great shepherd is Jesus Christ.

[50:03] We've talked about how he, unlike David, welcomes the poor and the downtrodden which is just a cause for hallelujah. But the thing that I was struck with as I pondered this was that David being crowned king is the fulfilment of a long wait.

[50:28] It's a long wait for him personally, something like 15 or maybe as many as 20 years since Samuel anointed him as king. And he is finally anointed king over Israel as Samuel prophesied.

[50:41] But it's also a bit of wait for the nation. Collectively, they've known that they should install him, but they've neglected to do so. And so I saw then a picture of patience.

[50:54] And I got to thinking that right now the son of David is being similarly patient. there are many, many prophecies still to be fulfilled about Jesus Christ.

[51:10] I'm sure we'll probably look at them when Tony takes us to chapter 7 in a couple of weeks time. But, you know, in Luke chapter 1 verse 32 to 33, the angel Gabriel goes to Mary and he says to her, speaking of the son to be born, he will be great and will be called son of the most high, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob, Israel, forever, and his kingdom will have no end.

[51:44] That's not happening yet. We've read the Gospels and at no point does Jesus sit down and reign over the house of Jacob. We could look to Isaiah chapter 9, we could look to Jeremiah 23, and as surely as Jesus came that first time, he will come again and he will fulfil his prophecies, he will sit on the throne.

[52:08] Absolutely. And he is being patient now for getting on for 2,000 years. And when he was about to ascend following his resurrection, the disciples came to him and they said, is this the time that you are restoring the kingdom to Israel and he says, you don't get to know.

[52:39] We're like, why? We don't get to know. He says to them, wait for my Holy Spirit and when he comes, concentrate on evangelism. And we are still in that era today, waiting with patience, being about the Lord's business until he comes to fulfil the prophecies and that reign of Jesus Christ upon the throne is fulfilled.

[53:04] And so James exhorts us like this, he says, therefore be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains, you too be patient, strengthen your hearts for the coming of the Lord is near.

[53:24] Amen. Lord, we do indeed choose to be patient. We thank you for the great and precious promises concerning our Lord and Saviour, who will come again and who will reign over the nation of Israel.

[53:36] Lord, I thank you for how you are so superior to David. David is awesome that you are far more awesome, Lord, you are great and awesome and powerful. We thank you, Lord, that you are a good shepherd and we can trust in you wholeheartedly.

[53:53] We praise your name. In Jesus' name Amen. Amen.