Month: May 2010

Reference links:

2 Samuel 2:12-3:39 John 13:1-30 Psalm 119:1-16 Proverbs 15:29-30

Overview of the Books of Samuel Overview of the Gospel of John Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

Today we read about the trouble between Israel, ruled by Ishbosheth son of Saul, and Judah, ruled by David. It starts as follows:

Then Abner [leader of Ishboshet’s troops] suggested to Joab [leader of David’s troops], “Let’s have a few of our warriors fight hand to hand here in front of us.”

“All right,” Joab agreed. So twelve men were chosen to fight from each side—twelve men of Benjamin representing Ishbosheth son of Saul, and twelve representing David. Each one grabbed his opponent by the hair and thrust his sword into the other’s side so that all of them died. So this place at Gibeon has been known ever since as the Field of Swords.

A fierce battle followed that day, and Abner and the men of Israel were defeated by the forces of David.

Either Abner and Joab were looking to start a war or they were stupid. I mean really, who thinks it is a good idea to engage your enemy just for fun? Who can’t see that such a thing will lead to trouble.

The fighting continues, and it becomes quite personal. However, that’s all boring. Much more interesting is the comment, almost a side comment, on David’s family at this point:

These are the sons who were born to David in Hebron:
The oldest was Amnon, whose mother was Ahinoam from Jezreel.
The second was Daniel, whose mother was Abigail, the widow of Nabal from Carmel.
The third was Absalom, whose mother was Maacah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur.
The fourth was Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith.
The fifth was Shephatiah, whose mother was Abital.
The sixth was Ithream, whose mother was Eglah, David’s wife.

When did David have time to pick up four more wives? And why did he feel the need for so many. In addition to all these wives, he demands the return of Michal, Saul’s daughter. I feel kind of sorry for her. Although her emotions on being returned to David are never mentioned, the emotions of the husband she is taken away from seem sincerely sad,

So Ishbosheth took Michal away from her husband, Palti son of Laish. Palti followed along behind her as far as Bahurim, weeping as he went. Then Abner told him, “Go back home!” So Palti returned.

It seems unlikely that most of these women could have been much more than spoils of war and raiding (David only ruled from Hebron for seven and a half years). It is not even clear that he considers all of them wives. I must say that I am not completely fond of this situation.

New Testament

Wow, the Jesus in John is actually taking some action! He washes his disciples feet.

So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.

Given that Jesus took off his robe, I wonder what was traditionally worn under one.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today we start what is a psalm made up of many smaller psalms. Today’s reading has psalms for aleph and beth, and the note says we get one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. That should be fun! I feel like I am missing a lot by reading it in English though. In Hebrew, according to my footnote, each of the verses within each stanza starts with the letter for that stanza. In English, it just starts with whatever.

Reference links:

2 Samuel 1:1-2:11 John 12:20-50 Psalm 118:19-29 Proverbs 15:27-28

Overview of the Books of Samuel Overview of the Gospel of John Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

We start 2 Samuel today, but it’s not really any different than 1 Samuel, so no new overview.

David learns of Saul’s death from a lying Amalekite, or, at least, he seems like he is lying compared to the previous account of Saul’s death. This may be another case of different narratives smooshing together.

“How do you know Saul and Jonathan are dead?” David demanded of the young man.

The man answered, “I happened to be on Mount Gilboa, and there was Saul leaning on his spear with the enemy chariots and charioteers closing in on him. When he turned and saw me, he cried out for me to come to him. ‘How can I help?’ I asked him.

“He responded, ‘Who are you?’

“‘I am an Amalekite,’ I told him.

“Then he begged me, ‘Come over here and put me out of my misery, for I am in terrible pain and want to die.’

“So I killed him,” the Amalekite told David, “for I knew he couldn’t live. Then I took his crown and his armband, and I have brought them here to you, my lord.”

David has the Amalekite killed for killing Saul and mourns Saul’s death.

The rest of today’s reading sets up what I am sure are going to be exciting times ahead. David is recognized as king by some folks, but other folks recognize Saul’s son, Ishbosheth, as king.

New Testament

I think I may have just about given up on commenting on the Gospel of John. How can John’s Jesus say so little in so many words? I will be happy when we are done with this gospel.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s psalm (actually, a continuation of yesterday’s psalm) apparently is the source of some familiar lines that I never knew were from the same place:

The stone that the builders rejected
has now become the cornerstone.

This is the day the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Reference links:

1 Samuel 29:1-31:13 John 11:54-12:19 Psalm 118:1-18 Proverbs 15:24-25

Overview of the Books of Samuel Overview of the Gospel of John Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

King Achish of Gath reluctantly tells David to go home because the other Philistine rulers fear David and his men might turn on them. They are probably right.

David returns home to find out that his town has been raided. How’s it feel to be the other side of the raid? At least the raiders removed the people from the city before burning it to the ground. They are more civilized than David and his band. David, of course, chases after the men and slaughters most of them, winning back all the people that were captured as well as a nice stash of livestock as well.

Saul’s sons die in battle. He is injured and kills himself when his armor bearer refuses to kill him.

New Testament

Jesus is going into Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. That means we are getting near to the end of his life. This is kind of surprising considering how little Jesus as presented in John has done beyond blathering about how he is great and people who do not believe in him are terrible.

We also see that the author of John really did not like Judas. None of the gospel authors presented Judas in a good light, but the author of John goes out of his way to present him in a negative light.

But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages.[c] It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some for himself.

Why not throw in a “P.S. he likes to kick puppies.” while we’re at it.

Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, and this supposedly fulfills some prophecy. Let’s accept for the moment that the event happened as described and that the passage quoted was meant as a prophecy. Still, how many people rode into Jerusalem each day? How many of them were on donkeys? I am guessing enough to make this so-called prophecy hopelessly imprecise.

Psalms and Proverbs

Nothing of particular note.

 jReference links:

1 Samuel 26:1-28:25 John 11:1-53 Psalm 117:1-2 Proverbs 15:22-23

Overview of the Books of Samuel Overview of the Gospel of John Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

David spares Saul again, and Saul asks David to come back home. David does not accept the offer and instead goes to King Achish of Gath to escape Saul’s persecutions. I notice that David does not fear King Achish as much now that he has a band of 600 warriors supporting him. David says something during his exchange with Saul that shows that the God David followed was still very much a local tribal diety:

Must I die on foreign soil, far from the presence of the Lord?

God’s presence resided in the Promised Land. To be away from that place was to be away from God’s presence. It was not until later, until the Israelites were exiled from the promised land, that the Israelites really developed the idea of an omnipresent God.

David spends his time completely destroying cities and lying to King Achish about who he was killing.

David and his men spent their time raiding the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites—people who had lived near Shur, toward the land of Egypt, since ancient times. David did not leave one person alive in the villages he attacked. He took the sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys, camels, and clothing before returning home to see King Achish.

“Where did you make your raid today?” Achish would ask.

And David would reply, “Against the south of Judah, the Jerahmeelites, and the Kenites.”

No one was left alive to come to Gath and tell where he had really been. This happened again and again while he was living among the Philistines.

At this point, David is nothing more than a murderous mercenary (and a liar). I wonder if the historical leader who King David was based on was, in fact, a murderous mercenary, and this story was made up to explain how he was really carrying out God’s will.

We also get an entertaining story about how Saul freaks himself out after he asks a medium to bring up Samuel’s ghost. Samuel did not appreciate it.

New Testament

Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus is the brother of Mary and Martha. Traditionally, this Mary and Martha are considered to be the same Mary and Martha mentioned in Luke. However, it is worth noting that in Luke’s story, Lazarus does not appear at all.

One interesting aspect of this story that I had not heard about before is that Jesus is angry, although I am not quite sure at what. When he sees people mourning Lazarus’ death, he gets angry, and he continues to be angry as he goes to the tomb. Is he angry over their lack of faith (even though he has not told them what he is going to do)? Is he angry over the accusations that he should have saved Lazarus (even though his anger is reported before the accusations)? Is he angry that Lazarus was buried, causing him the inconvenience of going to the tomb? I don’t know!

Also, the high priest Caiaphas is said to prophesy that Jesus would die. His comment led to the other priests plotting Jesus’ death (making cause and effect very murky here).

Psalms and Proverbs

Like, shortest psalm evar!

Praise the Lord, all you nations.
Praise him, all you people of the earth.
For he loves us with unfailing love;
the Lord’s faithfulness endures forever.
Praise the Lord!

It’s like the opening and closing of the last N psalms were squished together without all the middle stuff.

Plans go wrong for lack of advice;
many advisers bring success.

I wonder what the not insignificant overlap between Christians and people who rant against President Obama’s “czars” think about proverbs like this one.

Reference links:

1 Samuel 24:1-25:44 John 10:22-42 Psalm 116:1-19 Proverbs 15:20-21

Overview of the Books of Samuel Overview of the Gospel of John Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

Business trip + sore throat = another brief post.

Two things struck me in today’s reading today.

Very little was said about Samuel’s death.

Now Samuel died, and all Israel gathered for his funeral. They buried him at his house in Ramah.

I was surprised that such an important figure did not have a more thoroughly described death. I suppose that we did not hear much about the deaths of most of the judges either, but I kind of expected Samuel to give a long death speech like Moses or Joshua.

I like to imagine that when the text says that “all Israel gathered for his funeral” it means that David and Saul were able to temporarily put aside their mutual distrust and come together to mourn the death of the man who had changed both their lives.

The other thing that strikes me as interesting in today’s reading is the juxtaposition of David refusing to kill Saul with his desire to kill Nabal. David refuses to kill Saul when Saul hunts David, but he swears to kill Nabal and his men over an insult and refused aid. The juxtaposition of these two stories makes it clear that David was not uniformly merciful. In fact, it almost seems like David’s attitudes toward the two men are based on their status. The way that Saul has treated David is much worse than the way Nabal has treated him, but Saul, the king, is spared and Nabal nearly is not.

Also of note, Nabal dies naturally so David marries Abigail. He also marries Ahinoam from Jezreel.

New Testament

Jesus goes on about how he will give eternal life and how he and God are one. The people nearly stone him and try to arrest him. He escapes. John’s Jesus is only slightly more interesting than watching paint dry (and way less interesting than watching water boil).

Psalms and Proverbs

Nothing of particular interest today.

Reference links:

1 Samuel 22:1-23:29 John 10:1-21 Psalm 115:1-18 Proverbs 15:18-19

Overview of the Books of Samuel Overview of the Gospel of John Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

Not feeling terribly inspired today.

Saul continues to degrade and David continues to grow in strength.

David starts a band of outlaw warriors. Saul justifies his desire to kill David by convincing himself that David is conspiring against him.  Doeg and Saul are jerks for murdering a Ahimelech, his fellow priests, and their families for helping David (even though Ahimelech did not even know David was fleeing Saul). David continues to hide from Saul.

New Testament

Jesus talks about how he is the shepherd who cares for his sheep. All who came before him were thieves and robbers who tried to deceive the sheep. He is such a good shepherd that he will voluntarily give his life for his sheep.

Psalms and Proverbs

The first lines of today’s psalm are insightful:

Not to us, O Lord, not to us,
but to your name goes all the glory
for your unfailing love and faithfulness.

Even though I do not believe in God, I do see people (myself not included) giving too much credit to themselves when so much of their success is due to the kindness of others and circumstance.

Reference links:

1 Samuel 20:1-21:15 John 9:1-41 Psalm 113:1-114:8 Proverbs 15:15-17

Overview of the Books of Samuel Overview of the Gospel of John Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

When I first read today’s reading I was confused over David’s confusion. How could he not see that he was a threat to the king? The people love him, he has acheived great military success, and he is married to the king’s daughter. On top of that, Saul annointed him as Israel’s future king. But then I went back and looked the the text where Saul annointed David [May 14], and I realized that it is far from clear that David and his family did know why Samuel was annointed him. Samuel never explicitly tells David that he will be king.

Given that, David’s confusion is, perhaps, justifiable. As bad as David’s position is, I feel even worse for Jonathan.  Today’s reading really highlights the difficulty of his position. He is the son of the king and next in line for the throne, but he does not really seem to want it. He has a deep friendship with David, but his father wants David killed.

Jonathan feels like he has his father’s confidence (“He always tells me everything he’s going to do, even the little things.”), but he later learns that his own confidence in his father is misplaced.

Saul boiled with rage at Jonathan. “You stupid son of a whore!” he swore at him. “Do you think I don’t know that you want him to be king in your place, shaming yourself and your mother? As long as that son of Jesse is alive, you’ll never be king. Now go and get him so I can kill him!”

“But why should he be put to death?” Jonathan asked his father. “What has he
done?” Then Saul hurled his spear at Jonathan, intending to kill him. So at last Jonathan realized that his father was really determined to kill David.

I can’t imagine how Jonathan would feel after having his father attempt to kill
him and after learning that his father really, truly wants to kill someone he
cares for deeply.

Of course, Jonathan helps David to escape which leads to a couple episodes that
I find entertaining. First, David acquires Goliath’s sword. Given that Goliath
was a giant, I imagine that he had a large sword, so David is now walking around
with a giant sword slung across his back like some RPG character.

The other amusing incident is that after David ends up in Gath (the home of
Goliath, definitely enemy territory) he acts like a madman to avoid negative
consequences.

David heard these comments and was very afraid of what King Achish
of Gath might do to him. So he pretended to be insane, scratching on doors and drooling down his beard.

New Testament

Jesus heals a blind man with mud. It is interesting that John chooses to have Jesus using a prop such as mud when the other gospels generally did not have Jesus use props in his miraculous healings.

Before the healing, Jesus and his disciples have a rather interesting little dialog.

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth.  “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parnents’ sins?”

“It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered.  “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.”

While I think that many people these days would consider both of the options proposed by the disciples to be unfair, I also suspect many people find Jesus’ reason comforting. A bad thing happened to this man for a reason; it happened to show the poewr of God. However, I am personally more comforted by the idea that bad things sometimes just happen sometimes than I am by the idea that God chooses to inflict suffering on certain people just to prove a point.

The rest of today’s reading is about the formerly blind man sharing his experience with others, including the Pharisees who get very ticked off at Jesus. Jesus goes on to tell the Pharisees that they are guilty because they do not acknowledge the source of his miraculous abilities.

Psalms and Proverbs

Two psalms today. I like some of the imagery. From the first,

He lifts the poor from the dust
and the needy from the garbage dump.

And from the second,

The mountains skipped like rams,
and hills like lambs!

Today’s proverbs contain some interesting observations on how inner attitude is
more important for happiness than our outer situation.

For the despondent, every day brings trouble;
for the happy heart, life is a continual feast.

A bowl of vegetables wiht someone you love
is better than steak with someone you hate.

Reference links:

1 Samuel 18:5-19:24 John 8:31-59 Psalm 112:1-10 Proverbs 15:12-14

Overview of the Books of Samuel Overview of the Gospel of John Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

Today we continue the story of David. That should not be too surprising because what we will be doing for awhile. The locus of attention has shifted from Saul to David.

David finds success in everything he does. This makes him beloved by the people and, eventually, hated by Saul. I find this line particularly interesting (emphasis mine),

David continued to succeed in everything he did, for the Lord was with him. When Saul recognized this, he became even more afraid of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David because he was so successful at leading his troops into battle.

Like today, people like leaders who can lead them successfully. Now, it does make sense that a leader who did not succeed at leading should be considered ill suited for the job. However, as I read this, I imagine the people loving David just because he is successful. They do not care whether or not God is with David or whether or not he has any personal integrity. Nor do they care that Saul is still king. They only care about following the person who can currently give them the most benefits. Reminds me of modern elections.

We also read today about how David marries the first of his many wives. After rejecting Saul’s daughter Merab because he felt he was not worthy of the hand of the king’s daughter, David won Michal by bringing to Saul the foreskins of 200 Philistines (twice as many as Saul required). Imagine carrying back a basket full of foreskins from a battle field. Eww! In any case, Saul had hoped David would be killed and so was rather disappointed.

The reading ends with Saul attempting to take David’s life a couple times and being saved by Saul’s own children. Both Jonathan, Saul’s son, and Michal, Saul’s daughter and David’s wife, warn David of Saul’s threats and help him escape. Now that’s family drama.

New Testament

Jesus continues to show he knows absolutely nothing about the art of persuasion. Even if it is true that the folks he is talking to

are the children of [their] father the devil, and [] love to do the evil things he does

it is not going to make anyone want to listen to him if he just bluntly says that. Even if it’s true that

you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

it is not true that you can force people to acknowledge the truth just by telling them, “it is true because I say so”.

On the other hand, these readings reveal a lot about why some Christians think that saying something along the lines of, “You’re a fool, and you’re going to hell” is an effective way to start a conversation with an atheist. Even if this was a legitimate way for Jesus to convince people (and I don’t think it was), it does not follow that this is a legitimate way for Jesus’ followers to engage people. Jesus, if he existed and was who he said he was, was in the privileged position of really knowing the Truth when he hurled insults at people. His followers, on the other hand, are not in this privileged position. They may think they know the mind of God, but when it comes down to it, they are just guessing. As such, they should be much much more cautious when making absolute pronouncements.

Psalms and Proverbs

Some good proverbs today.

A glad heart makes a happy face;
a broken heart crushes the spirit.

A wise person is hungry for knowledge,
while the fool feeds on trash.