Day 10- 2 Samuel 22-24, 1 Kings 1-21

Wandering Disciple

Things just keep getting juicier.

2 Samuel 22 begins with a gorgeous song David wrote in praise of the Lord. In that song are some of the most famous verses in 2 Samuel.

"My God, my Rock, in Him will I take refuge; my Shield and the Horn of my salvation; my Stronghold and my Refuge, my Savior-You save me from violence.

I call on the Lord, Who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.

In my distress I called upon the Lord; I cried to my God, and He heard my voice from His temple; my cry came into His ears. ....

He sent from above, He took me; He drew me out of great waters.

He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me.

They came upon me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth into a large place; He delivered me because He delighted in me."

Anything God does for us is because of His love. I find it heartbreaking how often I talk to atheists who say they would never serve a hateful God who punishes humanity. But a loving parent punishes a child they love. Always.

And my very favorite for the end of the chapter "No, I will buy it of you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God of that which costs me nothing."

Kings begins with David being quite an old man with all his myriad of wives and countless servants, for some reason he Needed a young virgin to cook for him and cuddle with him to keep him warm. Must be a cultural thing. Okayy... moving on.

The problem with multiple wives and loads of half siblings, they end up hating each other. While David's dying, another one of his buck-wild children tries to take the throne away from David before his body is even cold. Solomon's mother and the prophet to the king put a stop to the coup just in time, and Solomon later has his brother killed.

David ends with giving his son the new king a list of grievances he has with some unruly people from his past who need to be dealt with. And tells Solomon things will Only go well for him and his kingdom if he serves God alone.

Well, great. The first thing Solomon goes out and does is marry a foreign idolater and makes an alliance with Egypt, one of the places Israelites were strictly charged with staying away from.

He does one of his most famous acts. God comes to Solomon in a dream and asks him what he wants. And Solomon asks for wisdom so he can rule his people better. God grants his request and Much More. Then in one of his most famous rulings between two women fighting over a baby, both claiming it's theirs. He orders the baby to be cut in half and each half be given to each woman, to sniff out who the real mother is, the one obviously against the baby being cut in two.

Solomon begins work on the temple for the Lord to store the ark of His Presence, and builds a palace for himself, among a few other things. He lives in vast luxury, and if he hadn't screwed up with one bad marriage, he decides to marry 700 more, with other princesses and 300 concubines. And then he figures it would be a great idea to become an idolater and worship his wive's gods, too. It ends Very badly and starts a cascade of vile bloodshed, division of the kingdom, and almost all of what Solomon built being utterly destroyed in one or two generations.

Lots of horrible, short-lived kings except one, Asa. He wasn't perfect, but he was the best they got.

Enters Elijah, one of my favorite characters of all time, except after he butchers the idol worshipers, and outruns the king's chariot over twenty miles, and goes and whines and has a little pity party because he's made an enemy of the evil king Ahab. And God basically fires him after the greatest success of his entire career. Go get your replacement, Elijah, you're done...

Ahab and Jezebel do the exceedingly-evil stuff, and Elijah scolds them for it saying dogs will eat their blood and says you're pretty much done for.