2 Samuel & 1 Kings

Speaker 1 00:00:15 Welcome to the weekly deep dive podcast on the add- education network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly, come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd here in the studio with my friend and this shows producer, Nate Piper. Speaker 2 00:00:35 What's up Speaker 1 00:00:36 Nate. Speaker 2 00:00:37 Hey buddy. Speaker 1 00:00:37 Hey, it's it's good to be back in the studio recording another episode. Speaker 2 00:00:41 You've been a traveling man again, dude. Are you all right? Staying busy. Oh, Speaker 1 00:00:45 This <laugh>, this, this last little bit was pretty intense doing well doing well. Speaker 2 00:00:51 How was it though? You feeling alright? Speaker 1 00:00:52 I'm feeling great. We, we finally, so for those of you who were listening to doctor and covenants last year, I said that we were going to do a family trip to Missouri in June and we did it. We pulled it off. Sweet. Speaker 2 00:01:07 Did the kids have fun? Speaker 1 00:01:08 The kids had a blast. We, we watched like a record number of red box movies driving across Speaker 2 00:01:14 The country. Yes you did. Speaker 1 00:01:16 We, it, we, it was pretty good. We went to winter quarters and then we went over into independence and then we went to far west Hans mill, Adam on Diam, and then we skipped over to nav and did Carthage and then took a day off to Lego land Speaker 2 00:01:36 <laugh> Speaker 1 00:01:40 And, Speaker 2 00:01:40 And then random, but okay. Speaker 1 00:01:41 And some KC barbecue. Speaker 2 00:01:43 Oh man. Barbecue in Kansas city is amazing. Speaker 1 00:01:48 I, I know I was a little disappointed, not in the quality of the barbecue, just in the fact that Vic's Casey barbecue was Speaker 2 00:01:54 Closed. Oh no. Speaker 1 00:01:57 I, I, I wanted to take my family there. The guy's awesome. A good restaurant, but they're only open Wednesday to Saturday. So I, we went there Tuesday. Didn't plan that. Right. Anyhow. That's that's my, my latest, Speaker 2 00:02:10 Glad you made it back safely. Thanks for letting me teach your Institute class. Speaker 1 00:02:14 Thanks for teaching it. Speaker 2 00:02:15 Yeah, I'm glad we were able to, uh, keep, keep this ball rolling. Speaker 1 00:02:19 Yeah. So we're, we're talking about David and Solomon today and, and I'm telling you, we've been, we've been going through this. I know I've said this before, like break neck Speaker 2 00:02:34 Speeds, sadly. Speaker 1 00:02:36 And there is so much that we're trying to rope in. That's kind of getting left at the wayside here and there. Uh, before we dive into this, Nate, is there anything from last week maybe you wanna to, to, to regurgitate tidy up or, or, or pulled into, or should we just see where this Speaker 2 00:02:54 Goes? I mean, it's funny you mention that because most of this week has been me thinking, oh man, we really gotta put this in. We've been getting amazing feedback. There was some amazing feedback, even in the Institute class, uh, we've had some amazing feedback from some of our listeners and there was, there's so much that I wanted to put in, but as we were even just kind of talking about it before we started recording, there is so much that I'm like, oh, we can't just do another podcast on last week's stuff, but we have talked about this and we have heard you, and we have heard some of the feedback saying that there would be interest from, um, at least a good chunk of our listeners. If we were gonna be doing some kind of supplemental, I we've done, we've done a couple episodes right. Speaker 2 00:03:42 In the past, we've, we've done a couple supplemental episodes, but we ha but they've usually just been, um, kind of, uh, sporadic here or there we are. We are going to start taking this a little bit more seriously because there's so many amazing things to be learning in the stuff that we're skipping over that I think we're gonna start doing regular supplemental bonus episodes. And I think for the stuff that I really wanted to talk about this week, I think we just save it for, and, and we record something in a few days and put it out. Speaker 1 00:04:18 Fair enough. I like the sound of it. Speaker 2 00:04:21 If you have anything specifically that you would like to recommend or have us talk about though, please always email it us. Um, hi, weekly, deep dive.com. Speaker 1 00:04:31 Yes, Speaker 2 00:04:31 Sir. All right. Let's get into it. Speaker 1 00:04:33 Okay. I, I am going to dip my toes in a little bit to the end of last week, so, Speaker 2 00:04:38 Okay. Let's Speaker 1 00:04:38 Do it just to give us a little bit of context, uh, with David and Saul, because we're, we're talking about the transition here from Saul's reign to David's reign. Then I know last week we kind of ended with David and Goliath and we didn't really get into a whole lot of how this is going to finish up, end up. So I, I feel like we need just a little bit of context. Okay. Let's do, before we, we go too far. Interesting enough, David, when, when he has his falling out with Saul, he, he he's gotta go somewhere. He's kind of exiled out of Israel. Saul's seeking his life. And, and to me, one of the most fascinating things is where he goes. He, he shows up at the Philistines doorstep in the city of Gath. Right of right. And, and if you don't remember, the city of Gath is the city of Goliath. Speaker 2 00:05:33 Oh man. Speaker 1 00:05:34 And, and he's kind of hoping like maybe they won't recognize me. Here's, here's the guy that slew Goliath, their champion. And he's coming mind you with Goliath sword strapped to his side. Speaker 2 00:05:49 Oh my gosh. Speaker 1 00:05:51 Thinking maybe they Speaker 2 00:05:52 Will, this is super subtle. Speaker 1 00:05:54 Maybe they won't recognize me. This is almost as subtle as a Ben die when he says, he's, he's coming back into the city with, with the disguise. And, and he starts off his speech saying, I a Ben die. Like it's not, not very subtle at all. Right. And of course they recognize David and it starts to not go well for him. And, uh, he has to pretend insanity to, to kind of, to kind of get his way out of town and, and, and work his way to some other refugee cities. And, and, and he takes with them an army of about 600 loyal people to him. Uh, if you don't know, going through some of these stories, David was kind of the war hero and, and the, the song was going, you know, Saul in his thousands, but David and his 10 thousands. And, and it's almost kind of like a military coup this transfer of power from Saul to David. Speaker 1 00:06:49 But David has his mighty man that are going with him that are loyal to him that have fought by his side. And eventually he does end up going back to the capital city of the Philistines and, and negotiating, uh, a truce with the king of the Philistines where they give him the city of ZLA. And, and that's where he stages his guys. And the Philistines are asking him to go to battle with the Israelites. And so David is actually using this opportunity to go to battle with the Ialla kites and, and kind of stirring up all sorts of trouble with the Ialla kites and, and going to battle and winning all these wars for them. And then telling the Philistines that he's fighting the Israelites, kind of doing a little deception, trying to gain favor with the Philistines. And, and I, I, to kind of speed this up a little bit, as we're getting to the end of this, the king of the Philistines asks David. Speaker 1 00:07:46 He trusts him so much. Now at this point that he asks David to bring his mighty men, his 600 with him to go fight Israel itself. So now we're gonna have a showdown between Israel and the, and the Philistines and the Philistines are, are gonna go to war with him. And now you're gonna see David and Saul on opposite ends of the pitch going to battle with each other. But all of the other Philistine commanders are nervous having David in the rear guard that he's gonna turn against him and start laying them. And so they kick David out and say, don't, don't, don't join us in this battle. David's coming back to the land of Z log, but the Ialla kites, uh, whom he had been waging war with when they saw that he had left to go fight with the, the Philistines came and sacked the city and took all of their wives and, and their, their families. Speaker 1 00:08:39 And so David's kind of got his handfuls going to fight with the Amal kits. The reason I bring this up, Saul, Samuel has died, and he knows that the Philistines are coming to wage war with him. He's, he's terrified. And he's trying to get inspiration from God. Like, what is, is, is going to be the outcome. What do we need to do? And so he is offering up his sacrifices. He's, he's asking God, and the heavens are closed. He's not getting any answers. God won't respond. So he, he tracks down a witch and he had cast out all of the witches previously with Samuel, but he finds one and, and he asks her to help him get this divine inspiration, which is kind of interesting that you're turning to the store story to try to find it, but this witch of end indoor and, and I think it's cool. You got Endor wrapped into this whole story. Anyhow, this, this, let me just read this one verse. As I, as we're setting the stage, she conjures up Samuel. So she's, she sees this vision and she doesn't realize this is king solve because he comes disguise. And when this, when this vision is conjured up, she realizes who she's talking to. And she's terrified cuz she feels like she he's, she's been trapped and he's going to kill him. Excuse me, he's going to kill her. Speaker 1 00:10:14 Sorry. As I'm flipping through these pages, trying to get to where I am. Okay. This is uh, first Samuel chapter 28 and let's see, verse 12. And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with the loud voice and the woman spa the Saul saying, why has thou deceive me for thou art Saul? And the king said unto her, be not afraid for what sauce thou. This is where it gets interesting. And the woman said unto Saul, I saw Elohim ascending out of the earth. So she saw a God, an Elohim, a God ascending out of the earth. And, and in, in, in the English it says God's. But the Hebrew word here is Elohim. I saw a God ascending out of the earth and he said unto her, what form is he of? And she said an old man cometh up. And he is covered with a mantle and Saul perceived that it was Samuel. Speaker 1 00:11:15 And he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed himself. She saw a God rising up from the desk of the earth. And, and, and that's interesting to me that here in the Bible, you're referring to dead people who lived here, who are rising up as Elohim as God's. And, and I know in, in our religion, we, we believe that God wants us to come to him to be like him. And we get a lot of flack for this idea that we are children of God. That can be like, God, but right here, the witch and Saul are looking at this saying, I saw a God rising from the dust and it was Samuel, an old man. Like he, he is a God, it it's I, for what it's worth. I, I find it kind of interesting that they refer to him like that. Anyway. Samuel's like, what are you doing? Disturbing my piece. I'll tell you what's gonna happen. You're going to lose. The Philistines are going to destroy you. I'm sorry. So now the Philistines go to battle. It does not go well. They slay Jonathan and, and Jonathan is a super awesome hero. And I know we haven't talked about him. So Nate, as we're talking about some of this content, maybe we throw into a bonus episode. I think we need to give Donna, uh, Jonathan A. Good nod. Speaker 2 00:12:35 Jonathan was awesome. Speaker 1 00:12:38 Yes. Speaker 2 00:12:39 It's a bummer that we kind of, he hasn't kind of made it into the, the stories in like the cultural stories like David or he is like David and Shadrock Meach and a Bendigo and you know, all of those awesome other awesome, you know, Daniel and the lions, Dan, like there's so many really great, awesome characters. Jonathan was just solid. I feel like. And it's, he kind of has a, a tragic storyline with, you know, his dad being crazy. Speaker 1 00:13:11 He was kind of crazy. Should we, should we give him a quick nod or, or save it? Yeah, Speaker 2 00:13:15 Let's give him a quick nod, man. Speaker 1 00:13:16 Okay. So Jonathan, one of the most impressive stories about, obviously he, we haven't talked about this, but I'm sure you've read this. Him and David are very close and, and Jonathan's a, apparently a very good Archer. The signals kind of communicate back and forth. And, and David even says when Jonathan dies that the love he had for Jonathan was even greater than that than, than the love for a woman. And so some people look at it and say, oh, David and Jonathan, maybe they were, maybe they were homosexual. Maybe not. But I think here it is just a very solid relationship that got along really well. But Jonathan, when David leaves, he, he kind of becomes this, this hero that, that feels that place for Saul and, and he's earning a lot of the victories for Saul. Saul is not so much out there in the forefront, winning all the wars. He's more of a commander and, and, and using these generals, which Speaker 2 00:14:13 Is interesting, cuz does this even give us a little bit of insight into the downfall of Saul, one of the first major battles Jonathan goes and wins the battle. Yeah. And then Saul's like, yeah, baby. I won the battle and everybody's like, look at Saul, Saul won the battle. And you're like, uh, Jonathan went and won that battle. What is, is, is, was this almost the first taste of you getting glory for something you totally didn't do by yourself? Or is, was this, was this, that, that first taste of glory. And is this where the pride that eventually led to his ultimate downfall? Could this, could this have been the seeds right? Where the actual person out there that's, that's amazing in doing a great job. Isn't the one getting the credit for it. Speaker 1 00:15:07 And, and I loved what you mentioned last week by the sweat of your brow, right? This idea that maybe Saul is not putting in the work, but he's taking a lot of credit for all the work that other people are doing underneath them. Speaker 2 00:15:20 Yes. Just some thoughts. Pardon me, just wonders if that's, if that's maybe an, an interesting insight into the beginning of the end of Saul, Speaker 1 00:15:31 It's it, it, it very well could be. I mean, this guy, one thing after another, until it leads to insanity and, and poor Jonathan, because of it. And, and so maybe the, the culminating thing here with Jonathan, maybe his last great adventure, he is all alone with this armor bearer. And, and he has to climb this, this mountain stronghold to get to where the Philistines are. And it's very cool because they say that he has to pass through two rocks and they name the two rocks. And the names are very similar to what you see with the two pillars of the temple. And so I look at Jonathan and as he's passing through this pass and going through these two pillars on this, on this very hard trail and, and thinking of this as temple imagery, as you're passing between these two pillars into the, the temple on this covenant path, and then when you get inside the temple, you've got Cher them in a flaming store, guiding the guarding the way to this, the tree of life, right? Speaker 1 00:16:37 He's gonna clear this, this path and, and come across the whole armed army. That's, that's preventing him from achieving his objective. You also see it similar to the covenant that God established with Israel. When he makes six of the tribes stand on one mountain and six of the tribes, stand on the other and having Israel pass through the valley in between, as they shout out the blessings and the cursings that established this covenant. So I see Jonathan's soul journey down this, this path is this covenant path passing through these pillars, passing through this valley, climbing up. And as he's getting to the top, he's talking to his armor bear and he says, we need to make sure we're doing what God wants us to do. Here's what we're going to do to make sure we know it's God's will. And not just ours. If the people say we're gonna come destroy you and they come to get us, then we'll know that it's not God's will, we'll get outta here and, and try to save ourselves. Speaker 1 00:17:40 But if they say, Hey, we've got something for you. Why don't you come here? And we'll give it to you kind of in a mocking sort of way, like come here and we're, we're, we'll, we'll clean your clock. Then we'll know that God is going to deliver them in our hands. And, and that's a, that's a bold thing. He gets to the top. He's climbing. It says on his hands and knees, because it's so steep as he clears the way and they see him, they shout out, Hey, why don't you come over here? We've, we've, we've got something for you. And Jonathan says, that's our sign. And just runs in and slays like 20 in the first swing here. And, and all of a sudden there's chaos in the camp and everyone's confused and they start slaying each other. Then this and this young man, single handedly destroys all of the Philistines in the stronghold and delivers it up for Israel. So I, I don't know that stories get more heroic than, than this. Speaker 2 00:18:36 Should he have been the king in all in, in most circumstances? Absolutely. Speaker 1 00:18:41 Uh, he was next in line. He was supposed to be the king. Had he not fallen in battle? That would've been interesting to see how David would've handled that situation because of his love and respect for Jonathan. Yep. Very likely. He would've been the next king and, and the, Speaker 2 00:18:58 And would've been if by all accounts, a great king. Speaker 1 00:19:02 Yes. And, and very similar to David in, in his zeal for doing the what's right. And his courage. And he even spoke his mind contrary to, to Saul, uh, when, when Saul orders all the people to fast to deliver them from the Philistines. And Saul's like, what are you doing? If we had strength we could have been, Saul's kind of doing all sorts of his own little crazy. And, and, and it, it actually leads to him sentencing Jonathan, to death, Speaker 2 00:19:31 To death. That's right. Speaker 1 00:19:32 For dipping a stick and a little bit of honey on the way when he didn't know, he didn't hear that they were supposed to be faster, Speaker 2 00:19:38 Be doing this dumb fast, by the way, too. Like not, not necessarily even a sanctioned, you know what I mean? But by the way, a fast with a bizarre covenant that, and if anybody here eat anything, they should die. Speaker 1 00:19:51 I, you know what this reminds me Speaker 2 00:19:52 Of tell me Speaker 1 00:19:53 If I can take this back to my mission in Mexico. Some, some zone later had this wonderful idea that we're going to give a little bit more to the Lord and sacrifice our PDay to him by working all PDay too. And then that by consecrating and sacrificing, or, or fasting, if you will, this, this, this offering by giving up our PDay, we're gonna be all the more blessed. And to me, Speaker 2 00:20:21 I mean, you said no, right? Speaker 1 00:20:23 Oh, it was, we, we all had to do it for a Speaker 2 00:20:27 While. Come on. You said no, right. Speaker 1 00:20:30 I, Speaker 2 00:20:30 I am. I just the only like rogue dude in this entire world, like, if anybody were to have said that I would've been like, okay, cool, man. Well, I'm gonna go play basketball now. And I guess you can call the mission president. Like, Speaker 1 00:20:41 How else do you get your laundry done? How else do you get? That's what I mean? Like, and, and, and it reminds me in the, in the book of Mormon, when they say it's not needful that, what do they say? You can't run faster than you have strength. You see that there, you see in doctor in covenants and there's gotta be order and all things. There's a reason why we have it the way we do. Speaker 2 00:20:59 There's a reason that on the seventh day, God rested. Speaker 1 00:21:02 Yes. And when, so when, when about how long, when, when, when Saul and and time of war starts, all of a sudden imposing these weird restrictions to try to consecrate and make the people, holy, he, he's not doing it in the right frame of mind for the right reasons. God's not answering his contest, his prayers, his offerings, it's, he's, he's kind of closed things out. And then anyways, and neither here nor there, but he's, he's lost. Luckily, the Speaker 2 00:21:29 People saved Jonathan though. Luckily the people were like, yeah, we're not gonna kill this dude. We like this dude. Speaker 1 00:21:34 <laugh>. And they do. But unfortunately in that war where the Philistines are gonna go against Saul and the witch of Endor prophesized, their downfall, they, they lose. Jonathan is slain. Saul is, yeah. Saul is running away and, and they're gaining on him. And, and if I remember, I, I believe he's even injured and he doesn't want to be humiliated. And, and what's the right word for this desecrated or his body to be molested. He, by the enemy, when the enemy overruns him, he's the king. So he asks his armor, bear to slay him and his armor bears like, no, are you kidding me? I, I can't kill the king of Israel. I'm sworn to protect you. I, I'm not gonna break my oath. And I, I can't kill the Lord's anointed. No, I'm not going to do it. So Saul falls on his own sword. Speaker 1 00:22:32 The armor bear falls on his own sword. And then when the Philistines show up, they abuse him anyways, even though he is dead. So what he was so afraid of happening happens anyways, they chop his head off. They chop his hands off and then they take Saul's body and Jonathan's body. And they hang him up across from Gilead, which by the way, this is the city where they had said, we'll make a covenant with you. If, if you take all of your eyes, your, your, your right eyes and pluck them out. And they went back to Saul and saw United all of Israel to defeat them and save them. And now they're mocking them by putting the bodies of SA and Jonathan hanging them up in front, across from this city of Gilead. And, and so they, they get brave and they go to Aven Jonathan's SA and recover the bodies and bring them back so that they can be buried. And, and this is kind of gonna be the transfer of power, where, where we're gonna see David kind of step up. Speaker 1 00:23:40 Saul has, has another son that hasn't died yet. His name in the, in the Bible, it says is ish Boche, which is not true. Ish is the Hebrew word for man Boche is the Hebrew for shame. So Saul did not name his son, man of shame. He named him ish Baal, which means man of Baal to, to give you an idea of the fall of Saul, where he went and where he ended up. Jonathan is Jehovah has given Jehovah naan, meaning to give. And, and so you start with Jehovah and then in the end, your younger son, now you're naming him Baal. You're, you're worshiping a different God, a different Lord, and you're crying. You're you're, you're, you're going a different way. Speaker 1 00:24:33 Ish. Baal is supposed to be the next king. Abner's kind of his chief of the army. One of, one of the Ialla kites who David is, is fighting. Remember David's army got pulled off from the Philistines because of the doubt they have to go back. They find the Ialla kites have ravaged their towns. They catch up with the Ialla kites, that it kind of an interesting story. They find an Egyptian servant along the way, who was abused and kind of beat up. He's been laying on the road for three days and his, the, the Malachi's abandoned him. And you almost kind of get this, this, this parable of the Samaritan as David comes in and sees him. And even though he's in a hurry to catch up to the Mala kits, he takes him in and binds his wounds and, and takes care of him, makes sure he's healed. Speaker 1 00:25:21 And the Egyptian and return says, I'll guide you to the camp and, and help you figure this out. They catch up and they recover all of their possessions. They're moving so fast that only 400 of the men of their mighty men can even keep up 200, have to get left behind. They, they recover it, but they're fighting the Amal kits. They defeat them. They bring everything back to ZLA and then an Amal kit from the battlefield of the Philistines comes running up to David with the King's crown and bracelet saying, Hey, Saul was wounded on the battlefield. He asked me to kill him. So I SL him, took the crown and the bracelets and brought them to you because you should be the next king of Israel. He he's doing this to try to find favor in David's eyes. He knew that Saul and David were enemies. Speaker 1 00:26:11 So slang, Saul, and taking the crown and bringing it to him, he thought would make him happy. David, how many times did David have an opportunity to kill Saul, but held back? Because it was the Lord's anointed. And so he's looking at him and says, how could you not, not be hesitant to, to raise up a hand against the Lord's anointed, even though Saul had killed himself, this guy, if he's lying and taking credit for something he didn't do, he's still bragging about killing the Lord's anointed. David executes him and has him put to death. Anyhow, I'm sorry. I I'm. I'm going into all sorts of stories. I'll try to, I'll try to get us where we need to go. So Jonathan was dope though. Jonathan was awesome. David comes back to Israel. Judah anos him as king, but the rest of Israel chooses Saul's son ish Boche, which was really ish Baal, who the later the biblical writers were ashamed that their king would name him after Baal. Speaker 1 00:27:12 So they changed it to shame the shame of instead of ball. Anyhow, David has his captain of his mighty man. In fact, it's, it's really cool. As you're reading and through these stories, David has a whole host of heroes and David's heroes. They talk about their feets and how many men they slew with the spirit and how cool they were and how fast they are. And just like, these are the first special forces of the Bible. If you will. I guess they're not the first special forces. Abraham had his elite crew that kind of went in and, and took care of business when he freed the Kings asada and Gamar, but this is another section where you get this kind of these, these elite troops kind of stories, these cool little things that are in there. If you wanna read about it, Joe AB was the captain of, of this Abner was the captain for ish. Speaker 1 00:28:00 Boche Joe Abin, Abner sit down kind of chat with each other. Doesn't go, well, their men engaged and they slate each other. And there a lot of fighting happening. Joe A's brother is chasing Abner. Abner's telling him, Hey, look, man, go chase. Somebody else, go fight somebody else. I don't want to answer to your brother. If I have to kill you to defend myself. But his brother's super fast and, and persistent stubborn. He's not gonna give up. He's he's catching up to Abner to where Abner thrust the back part of his spear into his brother and kills him as he's chasing him. So it creates this rift between Abner and Joe AB the reason why this is important. <laugh> if you're still listening, um, Abner ends up sleeping with one of Saul's concubines and, and this is something we've, I'm sure we've talked about. If not, you should be, you should realize this in, in the old Testament times, if you're sleeping with the King's wife, you are taking on the King's power, the King's throne, it's, it's a play for the throne and ish. Speaker 1 00:29:12 Bo's like, how could you do this to me? What were you thinking? And Abner's like, look, really David is the anointed. David should be the one, David. It, it, it, it should all be back to David let's, let's go I'll, I'll try to go make this agreement and figure this out. He settles things with be ish Bo. Yet he comes to David. He meets with him and, and I'm not gonna get into all the details of this, but he goes to make peace. David accepts the terms. Abner is going to bring all of Israel to come in and support David as king and Joe AB asks what's going on. David explains how this is going to work. And Joe AB sneaks out and kills Abner, even though Abner is relinquishing and bringing all of Israel to David, he kills Abner. And then you've got two of the servants for each Boche on Saul's camp. Speaker 1 00:30:10 Saul's side of the deal that seeing this kind of change of power and that David is going to be on the rise and that Saul's house is falling and they want position and power in this new kingdom and this new favor with the king, they slay ish Boche and they come back and bring the news to David, hoping again, kind of like this Alite did for an reward. Like we killed him. We want to acknowledge you as king and to serve you. And this is our offering, what we did. And Dave was like, how, how in the world are you that ignorant? Did you not know what I did to the Alite that slew Saul? And now what should I do to the ones that slew Saul's son that didn't have regard or respect for him? And he slew them as well, had them executed. Speaker 1 00:31:02 But the interesting thing is he does not execute Joe AB. He plays favorites here, Joe AB slew Abner, and David says, you slew a righteous man. You should never have done that, but he refuses to carry out justice. And, and he says, the wickedness will be upon you. I'm not taking any part of this, but still he's not carrying out the justice to Joe AB. And because he fails to meet out justice to Joe AB it's something that's gonna come back to bite him later on in this story, as Joe a continues to, to be this, this assassin, this character that, that continues to kind of, uh, I don't know how you do classify this, uh, NA a loose cannon, a rogue who's loose Speaker 2 00:31:55 Cannon, Speaker 1 00:31:55 Baby loose cannon, who who's, who's gonna keep doing what he wants to do. And, and it's gonna work to, to, Speaker 2 00:32:05 He's gonna pay the price later. Speaker 1 00:32:07 He's gonna pay the price. That's probably the best way to put Speaker 2 00:32:09 This. So we've kind of talked a little bit about the down, the, the beginnings of the downfall of Saul, which is this some of the beginnings of the downfalls of David. Speaker 1 00:32:19 I, I, I wonder, I mean, you see some of the weakness in Saul's character at the beginning. I think you see hints of it with David and how he tends to play favorites. Speaker 2 00:32:30 Like, I think people think that the downfall of David is simply he's. He has an uncontrollable vibe for women, but I think that more than that, I think that these are kind of little clues into the, the bigger picture of that. It's a lot more nuanced than, than he's a sex addict. Speaker 1 00:32:50 Well, and you look at Samuel had the same issue when his sons were being unrighteous, right? And Eli the same thing, the high priest who had two sons that were again, having these issues, that he, they, they gave him a pass. They should have been more strict, or they should have been adhering to the law, but they gave him a pass. And, and it makes me wonder, uh, it makes me wonder with David when you're talking about the same judgment that you judge out is the same judgment that you'll receive. And I wonder if sometimes he's not giving him a pass because of some things in David's life that are haunting him that maybe his weakness or sin is, is causing his inability to meet out justice, how it needs to be in his own household. Well, Speaker 2 00:33:39 That for sure happens later in his life. Speaker 1 00:33:41 Absolutely. With Abla and we'll, we'll get to that story today. That's a good question on, I, I think you do start to see a little bit of cracks in the foundation with David. Speaker 2 00:33:52 Let's keep going. Speaker 1 00:33:54 All right. David needs to capture well, David is going to capture Jerusalem, which is pretty important to, to the Bible as you well know, Jerusalem's a, a fairly important significant city before he does, though. He's going to bring the arc of the covenant back. And the arc of the covenant has been sitting at the same house. Now for 70 years, since the Philistines brought it back way back when, at the time, when the Lord smoked the Philistines with hemorroids. And so they put it on a new cart with the oxen so that they could take the wood from the cart and build a fire and sacrifice the oxen and, and try to make things right for, for taking the arc of the covenant to begin with. Speaker 1 00:34:45 So David is resitting the arc of the covenant into Israel. And it's interesting that it's stayed at this house for 70 years. It's not reconnected with the tabernacle. David is going to build a new tabernacle, a new house for the arc. That's like all of these things have fallen by the wayside under Saul's reign, religion, all of a sudden wasn't as important worshiping God wasn't as important. The arc of the covenant wasn't as important. It's like Israel really truly did replace their king with a human king and David wanting to fix this has the arc Broughton back to rotten, back to the, the center here to where the king is to, to the heart of Israel instead of the outskirts. So he goes and asks the king, sorry. He doesn't go and ask the king. He goes to the house where the, the, the arc of the covenant is, and the priest, there has two sons that are also Levis and they, they make arrangements to transport the arc. Speaker 1 00:35:50 And this is where we get the weird story. As, as they're along the way. One of the oxen that are pulling the cart that the arc of the covenant is in his foot slips is what it says. And when his foot slips, it causes the cart to start to tip or the arc to start to tip and za reaches his arm out to steady the arc, to keep it from tipping over. And God strikes him dead. Rest in peace, baby, what is going on here? Why, why is God striking UAH dead in, in the arc of the covenant and studying the arc. And, and we hear, we've heard the story and, and the, the excuses of studying the arc. I don't know if we fully understand the context of the story what's going on. So I wanna break this down a little bit. Speaker 1 00:36:42 Za was a Levi, and he was a Levi responsible for transporting the arc of the covenant. So he's acting in his capacity in his role that he's supposed to be acting in. However, they're not doing it right in numbers. We read that in order to transport the arc of the covenant, the Levis had to use staves, and they would run these, these poles, these staves into the little eyelets, the rings around the arc, so that they could carry it by touching the poles and not touching the arc. And it says, if the Levi were to touch the arc of the covenant, they would die instantly. So UAH should have known that touching the arc of the covenant would've killed him. That that's what the Israelite loss says. But more importantly, why is the arc of the covenant on a cart being pulled by oxen instead of za and his brother carrying the poles? Why are the Levis not transporting it by poles themselves? Speaker 1 00:37:57 The only time you see the arc being transported by oxen mind you is when the Philistines are returning it. They are using the method for transporting the arc that the Philistines used. So you see Israel here starting to adapt foreign behavior on how to treat their own God, how to reverence their own stuff. And I think the message here is kind of clear when you start to adapt the standards of the world around you, instead of God's standards in how you treat holy things or how you treat that, which is sacred special. You've, you've, you've corrupted yourselves. And if I were to say this, they say so many times that the word of God is like a two edge sword. And I like it. The, the two edge sword, I think on one edge, the ability to cut in, in a sense that to save where the other edge, the ability to cut more into to dam. Speaker 1 00:39:05 So if God tells you, like, in the instance of the young man and the new Testament who had a lot of possessions and says, what do I need to do next? Well, the word of God here is coming out like a two edge sword, sell everything that you have and come follow me. If he listens, the word of God is going to save him and exalt him. And if he doesn't now it's going to be used against him to dam him. This two edge sword can either save or, or, or condemn Christ is the, the foundation stone that you can either build upon, or the stumbling block that's going to destroy you. Speaker 2 00:39:46 I just wanna inject in, in your examples. Perfect too, is why wasn't the, why? Wasn't the young man able to do it. It was too hard. And then Jesus even says, this is how hard it is. I look at the story that we're talking about right now. Yes. It probably isn't as easy to like, carry this thing, right? Yes. To like actually haul it across. But that's the right way. That's not the lazy way. That's not the cheap way. That's the right way to do this. And there's a reason for it being that way, whether you understand it or not. Yes, it is the harder way. But that's what Christ requires of us is the harder way. Speaker 1 00:40:27 Yeah. How much easier is it to just have a couple ox and pulled a thing in a part with wheels, as opposed to you being the oxen that are carrying that thing on your shoulders. And, and I also wanna look at the story and say, if this is how the Philistines did it, and it looked like it works so much better, how many times do we justify what we're doing because of the world around us, or looking at the, the influence, maybe we're embarrassed or ashamed of what we do. Uh, almost like the large and spacious building a little bit. And Lehigh's dream. If you take that back into, into the book of Mormon, when you're reading about them, following the path, how many times to, to fit in, do we, do we talk differently or say things there, or maybe make fun of things that are sacred or not treat things right, because we're trying to adapt or fit into the world around us. Speaker 1 00:41:22 I, I think there's a lot of value in that. Cool. All right. So David is terrified by the power of the arc of the covenant and, and you know that the arc of the covenant led to Israel being destroyed by the Philistines when they took it out, unholy not being, I mean, the, the, the Levi's sons carrying the arc way back when were not in a good place to do it, the Philistines destroyed 'em. So it was like a curse to Israel. Then it was a curse to the Philistines when it gave him the hemorrhoids. So they bring it back and now Ooz is struck dead on the way. And David's like, uhoh is this thing still a curse? I'm not taking it to my house. I don't want to be cursed. So <laugh>, so he actually puts it in somebody else's house, which is kind of an interesting, an interesting move. Speaker 1 00:42:13 Like, Hey, this thing, this, this might be a bad deal. So I want you to hang onto it just in case it's a curse, but he puts it into a Levi's home. And the Levi is actually authorized to take care of the arc by his family lineage and the, and the priesthood. So at least he's got that, right? This guy's righteous because it says after some time David sees that it's blessed the man in his household. And because it's blessed him, he's like, oh, okay. It's not just this cursed object. Israel's not cursed. We just have to do things the right way. And you'll notice that when he moves it from the man's household, which about 12 miles outside of where David's gonna be moving it to that, he carries it. Now it's not on a cart being pulled. It's actually being carried by Levis the way it's supposed to. Speaker 1 00:43:04 So they, they learned their lesson. And as they're coming into town, there's a lot of singing. There's a lot of dancing. And David himself is down in front of the arc of the covenant, wearing an E FOD, which is a, a Levitical clothing for the, the Levis to wear dancing his little heart out and Miko, I would say his wife, but it's interesting cuz the Bible does not refer to her as his wife. In this instance, it refers to her as Saul's daughter. And, and so there's a little bit of a schism here. She's upset by, by David making a fool of himself out there. And, and when David comes in, she's like, how could you expose yourself to all of the maidens of Israel? And because it says David was wearing an E FOD and he, and he's exposed himself to all the maidens of Israel. Speaker 1 00:44:02 Some people have in, in my estimation, incorrectly assumed that David was only wearing an E FOD dancing around naked, exposing himself to the women. And she was upset by how brazen he is, because it also talks about how these maidens are gonna be following for him and whatnot. I, I don't think that's the case here. When she's talking about him, uh, uncovering himself, she's talking about him, not acting as the king and, and you look at Saul's reign because they're, they're associating her with Saul. This is Saul's daughter. Saul had put the, the arc of the covenant. It left it in a far corner of Israel. It wasn't a part of their practice. He had left a lot of the religious rights and the religious ceremonies to the people to worship. And, and it wasn't a priority for him and his kingdom. The tabernacle has fallen and disarray. Speaker 1 00:44:58 You never hear of this being mentioned again, uh, ever since Eli dies and Saul becomes the king, all of this kind of falls to the wayside and it is kind of this, the king is above all of this. The king is more important than all of this. He shouldn't have to be participating in this. And now David is out like a commoner in front of the arc dancing, like, like just a normal person. He's not acting kingly. He's not acting as SA would've acted. He's not being this above all of this person. So she's looking at him and saying, not only are you defacing yourself as a commoner, but you're wearing an EFO. The Levitical clothing. David is not from the tribe of Levi. He is not a, a priest in the sense of a Levi. He's a priest in the sense that he's been anointed king and he can stand almost as a high priest, a different priesthood to, uh, to preside over his people. Speaker 1 00:45:55 But with the Levi clothing, remember Levis don't have an inheritance in Israel. They don't have land. So it's not just that. You're a commoner, you're a servant of the people Levi's were supposed to live among the 12 tribes and serve them and help them because they didn't have their own inheritance. So the king shouldn't be a commoner. Shouldn't be a servant. You have this interesting contrast between David and Saul. And I love this contrast. Saul was exalting himself above everything. He was too good for all of this. David was trying to rule by bringing himself below everything, by being the servant that was serving everybody else. And, and so I love this. I, I love this contrast in leadership. Speaker 1 00:46:52 I also think it's interesting. The parallels with Christ because you notice David starts raining when he's 30 years old, Christ is also gonna start his ministry when he's 30 years old and at the beginning of David's reign. So after this instance and, and he tells MCCA, look, I'm, I'm going to do what God wants me to do. And I am not embarrassed to make a fool of myself in front of God. I will humble myself. I will humiliate myself because God chose me over Saul and, and another, another connection with her and Saul and putting her down and saying, look, God has chosen to assault me, to exalt me. And therefore I will humble myself before him. And I will debase myself and make myself even more lowly. And you talk about how that's embarrassing in front of all these maidens, but I'll tell you what those maidens are going to like that. Speaker 1 00:47:51 And choose me to the point. I'm not even going to have kids with you. You're going to be irrelevant. I will inherit all of them instead, which, which kind of happens. She, she kind of drifts off, doesn't have any children through him and, and David ends up having all sorts of wives and concubines and whatnot. But going back to these comparisons, David sets his sights on Jerusalem to go to capture this the city, which is held by the JBO sites and the JBU sites say the lame and the blind are going to turn you away saying like we, because the Jerusalem is surrounded by cliffs on three sides, and it's hard to access. It's hard to conquer. It's hard to take over. And they're saying, we don't even need to send our army to go stop you. We can stop you with just our lame and our blind. Speaker 1 00:48:45 So David takes that and he says, okay, we'll take all the lame and the blind and cast him over the walls down off the cliff. And, and he's not just saying this sounds like a really cruel thing to say. David's not just referring to the lame and the blind. He's referring to all of Jerusalem being lame and blind. He's saying, if you, if you think the lame and the blind are going to stop me, then I will take all that are opposed and I will throw them out of the city. And so David's conquest of Jerusalem starts with this idea, this notion that he is going to rid Jerusalem of all the lame and the blind, take that back to Christ and his ministry as he comes in. And he is also ridding Jerusalem of the lame and the blind, but he's doing it by healing the blind by healing, the lame, not by slaying them. Speaker 1 00:49:39 And he's trying to convince them to teach them and to show them the higher way to cause the blind that they might see. And so it's interesting as you contrast this, David, yes. He's this humble shepherd. Uh, there's a lot of interesting similarities here. Uh, I <laugh> do you want, do you wanna chime in Nate? No, <laugh>, I'm, I'm gonna try to, as we were, as we were on the ride over here, we were talking about comparing and contrasting some, some Kings and, and you had some very fascinating comparisons. We've been talking about king Benjamin and king Noah. So I'm, I'm gonna try to remember all of the ones with, with Christ and David, as we talk about, I loved all the ones you were talking about in the Speaker 2 00:50:26 Car on way over, by the way, the only reason I'm not chime in is cuz you're doing great. Speaker 1 00:50:30 <laugh> I'm trying, I, I I'll try to, Speaker 2 00:50:34 You talked a lot about who, um, you talked a lot about David. Um, I'm trying to remember trying to save Jerusalem basically, but Christ coming and, or the Jews were expecting a leader to come in and a military leader to come in and rescue the Jews from the Romans. Speaker 1 00:50:53 Yeah. As they're looking for another David, a Messiah, someone from the line of David they're, they're expecting this conqueror to come in that, that cast all the lime, that the blame, the blame, the blind and the lame we'll get that right. Speaker 2 00:51:09 <laugh> the lime and the coconut Speaker 1 00:51:12 They're, they're looking for this conquering hero that came and, and conquered Jerusalem and Christ did come. And in a sense, conquer Jerusalem, but not in the way that they were expecting. As you see Christianity sweep the world. And then as you see the Romans shortly after his death in 79 ad, come in and destroy Jerusalem. I mean, Jerusalem was destroyed. The JBU sites in this case, were the Jews at Jerusalem, the ones that were lame and blind that didn't hear because Christ prophesized this of his death. When he says that there's going to be destruction and, and woe to the mom that is giving suck to the child when these days come. And when you hear this it's time to head to the Hills, all of the Christians fled into the mountains before the Romans came and, and not one of them were destroyed. It was the lame and the blind, the ones that refused to be healed that were destroyed by the Romans when they came in. So some interesting parallels that way, Speaker 2 00:52:15 The line that you said that that really clicked with me is that the Pharisees and sades thought that, that they were gonna be getting a conquering hero to come and rescue the people from the Romans, but Christ actually came and rescued the people from the Pharisees and the sades Speaker 1 00:52:31 Yeah. And, Speaker 2 00:52:33 And helped was to fate. Speaker 1 00:52:35 And, and we talked, you know, how both of them were shepherds mm-hmm <affirmative> David from a young age, had to flee was an exile because Saul was seeking his life Christ at a young age. His family had to relocate to Egypt to save him from herd who was seeking his life. And, and you have these outsiders that coming into Jerusalem, as, as conquerors, you look at Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, just, just kind of some interesting similarities as you, as you look at them as, as Kings. Speaker 2 00:53:08 Some of the things that we were talking about too, and that we'll maybe get into a little bit in our, our little bonus episode is that there's, there's a lot of really interesting parallels with where people start with where they end, right. Or, I mean, because we have, and we even kind of talked about it, like the patriarch, you know, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and how they're these really amazing, you know, we, we, we hold these three kind of back to back to back in really high regard, they were righteous. We saw how they treated the stranger. We saw how they, they were faithful. We saw there's just so many parallels with those three. And then you almost look at the first three Kings that we have with Saul, David and Solomon. And it's, it's three Kings that started out with so much potential and then went wayward like all three. And there's so many parallels between the reasons why all three went to, there's just a lot of really interesting parallels. But one of the things that we talked about a lot is that David had every opportunity to be the greatest king. He had every opportunity to do it, but unlike Christ, he let other things get in his way and distract him. Speaker 1 00:54:30 And you look at how, how good he was executing judgment. And in the case, he didn't hesitate to execute the ma Amal kit that slew, that, that claim to slay Saul or the ones that claim to slay ish, Boche he, he was a man that was very decisive. He, he, he took charge, but why then didn't he hold Joe AB accountable? Why then is he just some of the things where he let slide, you see, you see some of this weakness start to get, I, I don't know, start to fracture the character down the road. And it is interesting. And, and, and I love the comparison that you have with the three patriarchs when you compare Abraham, Isaac and Jacob versus the first three Kings, as we're talking about a new era in Israeli history, they ask for this king and you get Saul David and Solomon, and, and yeah, you start off with, with such righteousness and such promise. Speaker 1 00:55:31 And, and you end up with these fractured individuals that, that in the end, aren't able to de to, to deliver, to hold up. Whereas in with the patriarchs, it's almost the opposite. You start with these weak characters, that very humble circumstances that, that maybe flawed individuals that are trying to figure it out, that in the end, learn, learn faith and, and finish much stronger than where they start. It's kinda interesting. And, and maybe one last point on this, when we're talking about it is the idea that God wanted a nation of Kings and priests from the very beginning. That's what he said, a nation of Kings and priests. And up until the point where you have a king, everybody had the responsibility to go and fight. Everybody was a king to themself. Everybody was supposed to be a priest and, and had all of the power, flexibility, freedom within themselves, to be responsible, to be accountable, to do what they needed to do and not be dictated or controlled or commanded by someone else, which is why it was so frustrating for God. I think to see when they claim they want the king, they want to be like these neighboring countries. Speaker 1 00:56:50 It's a sad day for them. But we, we had this conversation that if God is willing to be their king and allow all of them to not be ruled over, but to be Kings unto themselves and to be free, why would they want to exchange that? Why would they want to give up their freedom for this sense of security? And, and I think where we came Nate on this discussion is this idea that God would only deliver them as long as they were being righteous. But what happened when they stopped being righteous? Now, all of a sudden they were vulnerable. They were weak and they didn't like that. They wanted security for the times when they weren't following God, they wanted that standing army, that protection, that king, to be able to help them regardless to how righteous unrighteous they were, this, this sense of security that would hopefully give them more stability. And they were exchanging some of that freedom for security that hopefully they could overcome the downfall. That is God not protecting them when they chose not to follow God. Speaker 2 00:58:00 I really appreciate the way you put that. Because as we talked about, they had a king, they had a king that protected them, and they had a king that promised that he would take upon himself, their shortcomings and cover them. Right. Uhhuh <affirmative> God was their king. Speaker 2 00:58:20 When they were going to Samuel saying, you know, we want a king, a lot of it like you, like they claimed was for physical security because of what you just said. They also kind of wanted to have somebody to send all the problems to, to, to carry the weight of the blame. We've even talked a little bit about, you know, when Saul was basically commanded to go kill every man, woman, child, baby animals, everything from the Amal kites, he wasn't able to do it because of the pressure from the people or whatever that was. But that's the nice thing, I guess, about having a king, right? Is that the, King's the one that's responsible for all that cuz the king commanded the army to do it. So the army goes and does what the king told him to do. And then the king takes the blame for that. And so having a physical king to kind of put all of that onto as well, I'm sure seemed very appealing, but they already had that. They already had that and, and I'm really glad you highlighted. They also just wanted to be able to do whatever they wanted to and still have those benefits. But as we've seen, you know, and as we know throughout the story, how that worked Speaker 1 00:59:27 Out and, and I also like to think of this as you want someone to preach to you, this idea that I don't have to be responsible for my own safety. I don't have to be responsible for my own salvation. I'm going to hire somebody to do that for me. I want somebody to be responsible for that. It's the, it's the preacher's fault. It's the King's fault. It's I, I can shift the liability and I don't have to be accountable instead of being a nation of Kings and priests where you're independent and you're responsible and you're accountable shift that somewhere else and make them responsible. And, and in the end, I think that falls more in line with, with Satan's offering from the beginning. Like I will go and save everybody. They don't have to worry about that. That don't give 'em agency. Don't let them be responsible, put it on me. Speaker 1 01:00:14 And I will save everybody as opposed to personal accountability. How can that ever work? And I mean, you have, you obviously have the discussion that it can work. If you have a righteous king and God is the righteous king, right? If you have a righteous king that enables and empowers his people to, to be free, to have that accountability who sets that example by working for themselves and not just putting it off. And I, I don't know, like when we have one of our kids babysit and then there's dishes to clean up and they're like, well, what should you do? And then they start forcing all the ones that they're babysitting to clean up the kitchen for them, because now they have their own little servants that can work for them so that they can have all the benefits of, I don't know, are we there to, to be served or to serve? Cause, cause I think that's, I think it all comes right back down to that, that by the sweat of your brow and this idea that we have to do the work and we have to do to not take the shortcut, if we're going to be like, God, it's a, it's a process there's there's chairman and a flaming sword guarding the way. We're gonna have to figure out how to overcome that if we're gonna reap those benefits. Speaker 2 01:01:33 But those benefits are specifically to become Kings and priests. Speaker 1 01:01:38 Yes. Speaker 2 01:01:39 And priestesses obviously killer. Speaker 1 01:01:42 Yeah. Sorry. That's Speaker 2 01:01:43 To, should we get to, uh, be Sheba? Speaker 1 01:01:48 I, I think so. I'm just, I'm just trying to mentally go through, we we've talked about studying the arc. We've talked about dancing in an E FOD. We've talked about parallels between Christ and David. And we've talked about taking Jerusalem. I, I think, uh, I think you're, I think you're right. I think we're be Sheba time. Speaker 2 01:02:11 Here we go. Speaker 1 01:02:14 So the, the come follow me lesson, I think starts this one chapter too late. If we back up one chapter just to get some context to the war that's going on in a neighboring nation, they, they, they had a death and David sends messengers as, as to bring his condolences to the nation to try to, to shore up some of these relationships and to be a good neighbor. When these messengers show up some of the advisors to the kingdom there and the neighboring nation say, they're not here to offer condolences. They're here to mock us. So they take the messengers and they shave off half of their beards, which is super humiliating to have half a beard. And, and in, in the, this area of the world, the beard ruled, I mean, you go down into Egypt and you see the carvings and any of the Egyptians, you'll see clean shaven with no facial hair. Speaker 1 01:03:15 And then you can tell the semis and the people from this region and the Canaanite very easily because they all have beards. So, so this was a kind of a, a big thing for them. Not only that, but they cut their clothes in the midsection so that their, um, back sides were exposed. So their, so their bottoms were hanging out, which is super humiliating. And these guys, they send them back. They're so embarrassed. They don't even go into the city to meet with David. David has to go out of the city to meet with them because they don't wanna walk through all of the Israelites with half a beard or their clean shaven to try to make up for half a beard missing and their, and their, their bottoms hanging out. David goes and meets with them. He's pretty upset with what happened. They are on his errand and now he has the responsibility to, to cover for them to, to make this right for them. Speaker 1 01:04:14 He sends them to another small city till their beards grow back so they can come back into town and not be humiliated. And now this takes us to the story of Beba because now is the time when the Kings go to war and not only are they going to war, but they have a nation to go to war with this nation has insulted them and they're going to go fight them. David was supposed to be there. Not only because this is the time when Kings went to war and he was supposed to go war with the neighboring king. But because these messengers were on his errand, he was personally responsible for their humiliation to make this right, to try to, to, to go to battle for them. And he finds himself staying home. That's weird for David while his army goes out, while his army goes out, he sends Joe AB out there with his army. Speaker 1 01:05:12 This is, this is not the David we're familiar with. This is not the David. That's gonna go fight Goliath. This is not the David that goes and gets the arc of the covenant and dances in front of it. This is not David, even at the end of his life, when he's out, fighting with giants that are about to kill him. And Joe AB has to step in and save his life and say, look, buddy, you're too old for this. We want you to be safe and stay home. This is very not David to shirk his responsibility and stay home. Why does he do it? And you see he's out there with the moon, looking at the rooftops of the houses around him. And he sees BA Sheba bathing on the rooftop. There's some significance to this too. The reason why she's bathing is, is for ritual purity. Speaker 1 01:06:02 She has been unclean, and now she is bathing to cleanse herself so that, so that she can become clean. Again, she's unclean most likely because this is the time of month for her. So as David's looking on the rooftops, trying to find women who are bathing, he's looking for a woman. Who's just come from that time of month. Who's not likely to be able to have a child. Is that, is that a good way of putting that? Does that make sense? Yep. So he thinks that by staying home and maybe he's already kind of figured this out and he knows what time she's on the roof. And it's corresponding with the time when the Kings go to battle. And, and he knows if he sends his army out with, with Ry her husband, he's going to be able to, to take advantage of this opportunity. Speaker 1 01:06:56 And no one will be the wiser because of the timing, because he is bathing to cleanse herself and should not be able to have a baby. But as we know, when the Bible miracles happen all the time and, and she becomes pregnant with a child now, David, who is trying to hide the sin in the first place by doing it at this time, tries to hide it again and asks for or R to come back from the war so that he can commend him for his efforts and give him kind of reward, have a night stay with his, with his wife. Speaker 2 01:07:34 He suggests as much, Hey man, how's the war going? Oh, interesting. Cool, man. Yeah. You know, you should, uh, you should have a nice meal sleep in your own bed with your wife. Like, I mean, it's like kind of bizarrely, like really? Why would you suggest this? But yes. Con continue. Yeah. Speaker 1 01:07:56 Yeah. And, and what's the, Speaker 2 01:07:57 The only reason I bring this up is because we talked about a little bit. I, I am of the belief that EIAH figures out what's going on before anything Speaker 1 01:08:07 Else. I mean, it is pretty suspicious to pull one man home, just to ask him how the war's going, a war, which he should have been Speaker 2 01:08:12 A part of say, instead of being out there by yourself to looking at Speaker 1 01:08:16 It, and why are you not going through the, the, the chain of command? Why isn't Joe AB coming home and reporting to you? Yes. Why, why is this, this guy coming back? And so what's his response, Nate, Speaker 2 01:08:29 The war is fine, but I'm not going home to sleep. I'm just gonna sleep out front. Because in my mind, I wish I, I have a feeling he would say, because this all seems a little suspicious, but his excuse was, I don't feel right about sleeping in a nice warm bed and having good food and being with my wife, if all of my men are out on the front line. Speaker 1 01:08:52 Yeah. And, and I think that response, he cuts pretty deep for David. Like how can I, Speaker 2 01:08:58 Cause he say, he's suggesting the same for him. Speaker 1 01:09:00 Yeah. How can I be in my bed? When all of Israel is camped on the ground, like I should be camping on the ground and I will continue to camp on Speaker 2 01:09:09 It was definit the ground. It was definitely a protest in one way or the other, or rebuke in one way or the other. For sure. Speaker 1 01:09:14 And, and you have David at home sleeping in his own bed, not only sleeping in his own bed, but potentially in this case, you could say sleeping in other people's beds in that sense. Yes. So yeah, a RT won't play ball and, and David's response, uh, becomes even more sickening because now he says, okay, he's gonna send Ry back to fight, but he sends a letter to Joe AB and, and here, here you have this Joe, a again, he sends a letter saying, I need you to send him to the hottest part of the battle and then withdraw the troops so that he's left to die. So he's, he's causing the death of this man. And, and they carry it out. And I see this like one Speaker 2 01:10:05 And in the most cowardly way too, by the way, in the most cowardly way, because honestly all said and done part of me would have respect. If Dave was like, look, here's the situation. Let's go battle it out. Speaker 1 01:10:20 Yeah. Speaker 2 01:10:21 I mean, at least look the man in the eye, cuz the thing is for me, like we talked about a little bit, the story is more, more complicated than simply he had a problem with his lust and his passion. And, and then it kind of got outta hand. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. He was a coward. And instead of voting his mistake, he tried to hide it, which made it worse. And then he tried to hide it, which made it worse. And then he tried to hide it, which made it worse. And then he tried to hide it. And then that was his salvation. What a coward look, the man in the eye is part of the reason why Uriah's awesome to me cuz there's part of me that thinks Yoh knew what was going on and was like, now I'm not gonna play this game. If you have something to say to me, say it to me, I'm not gonna let you, I'm not gonna let you though weasel out of this. You coward. And he did and was a coward Speaker 1 01:11:14 And IH dies fighting Speaker 2 01:11:16 Like a man Speaker 1 01:11:18 ROIC death <laugh> and, and I love, I love how you said that Nate, this idea that David first, he tries to cover his sin by picking someone strategically at a time where they it's not gonna get discovered. Speaker 2 01:11:35 That was a deliberate move. This wasn't a slip up. This wasn't accidental, which happens on some level. Right? Yeah. Like people get put in a situation where they let things go too far and you're like, oh, okay. Oh, I'm glad you brought this up because the sin in the first place was incredibly deliberate. This was, and, and in, in the church we kind of talk about this as if he just happened to be out on the roof for an evening stroll cuz he couldn't sleep and he just accidentally saw be Sheba. And then he just accidentally kind of couldn't take his eyes off it. And then things started turn around. No, no this freaking coward that was deliberate. And it wasn't just accidental. There's nothing. There's nothing that just kind of accidentally went too far. This isn't a story about be careful of how long you look cuz you never know, okay, that's a good lesson and that's a good thing to learn, but that's not what this story's about. Speaker 1 01:12:37 Well, David Speaker 2 01:12:38 Knew what he was doing. Speaker 1 01:12:39 That's a, and sometimes we gotta question our motives, like why, why are we pulling out our phone or doing what we're doing and looking what we're look like? Are, are we Speaker 2 01:12:47 Be honest? Speaker 1 01:12:49 Maybe it's not as accidental as, as we, we try to make it seem and, and as he's trying to cover himself and I love that you say that this idea of covering cuz that's Kahar cover is the same word as atonement, Yom Kippur day of atonement. And we talk about Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden and what do they do when they first mess up, go make fig leaves Speaker 2 01:13:16 For themselves Speaker 1 01:13:16 At, at, at the adversary suggestion, go see you're naked, make fig leaps and cover this and make this right. And, and it's woefully inadequate. This idea that we can atone for ourselves with these, with these, this, this sew together leaves fake covering as opposed to coats of skin, this, this more complete covering. So he, so he covers himself there. Then he, then he tries to cover himself by having a RS spend the night with her doesn't work. He's Speaker 2 01:13:49 Not gonna play games. I love it. Speaker 1 01:13:52 And, and so now he's left exposed. There's only one way to cover what we've done and it's not by trying to hide it. It's by being a man and facing what we've done and, and not letting it get worse and worse and worse to the point where I, I, it gets bad. Speaker 2 01:14:12 So I know we don't, and we don't really have time to get into this something I do actually though at some point, want to talk about is what Beth Shebas role and motive and kind of what her participation in this looks like, because it doesn't really get talked about. And I don't maybe, maybe it's maybe it's as innocent as that. That's why we don't talk about it. But it's hard for me to believe that it's, that it's a pure total innocence from her part too. But my, my, I guess my, my follow up question to what you're saying is what is the what's in theory, the worst that happens if he comes out and he's like, okay, she's pregnant and I blew it and we need to make this right. Like I, I, I I'm asking sincerely, I don't know the answer. What's like legal ramifications. What's the, like what's as the king, what's really the worst, worst case scenario. I mean, is he getting put to death? Is it just gonna make people upset? Cuz clearly he's had concubines and affairs and various things at this point. Anyways, I guess I'm just wondering like what's, what's he so afraid of in this one particular case that he's willing to murder somebody for it? Speaker 1 01:15:21 That's an interesting question because that actually puts David in a different light. If this comes out and, and, and punishment back then is a lot more harsh on the woman than it is on the man, but Sheba would've been put to death. And so if David has to choose what life is going to be saved, IHS or Babas, it's almost like he's executing IH to save Baba's life, Speaker 2 01:15:53 Which there's some amazing symbolism in there by the way of like the pure thing being sacrificed for the unclean thing. Speaker 1 01:16:00 And, and, and maybe that puts IH in another light being willing to go into the front line and give his life. He Speaker 2 01:16:09 Had to, he had to know at this point, right? Yeah. Like it was way suspicious, the whole thing. And then he is like, wait, I'm getting sent out on the front line. <laugh> oh wait, why is everybody else? Like Bailon with me out here? Speaker 1 01:16:20 Why didn't he bail with everyone else? Speaker 2 01:16:23 Maybe he knew. Speaker 1 01:16:25 And, and he was willing to give his life so that her life could be saved. Speaker 2 01:16:31 This story has a lot of layers to it. Speaker 1 01:16:34 And this is the line that Christ is going to come from Speaker 2 01:16:36 That's right. Speaker 1 01:16:38 Not this child, mind you, this child gets six and, and dies. Uh, the, the, the child of, of this, of this grave, sin doesn't survive. Speaker 2 01:16:49 But later, which even more, just adds more layers to the heaviness of the story, right? Speaker 1 01:16:54 Yeah. Which, which crushes David and this whole event, by the way, emasculates David, it, it crushes him from who he was. And, and you see this, by the way, in the role that the women play in his life, you talk about Beba, she is not, she does not mention how she feels, how she thinks she's not playing any kind of active role in any of this. Right? And, and you look at Milika earlier and David's wife, she's very vocal and she's very opinionated and, and she's is saying all sorts of things. And David is very vocal and opinionated with her and, and this relationship now, all of a sudden, it it's a little bit different. Now this is all on David, for whatever it's worth, you don't get to see what behi would thinks. You don't get to see how she responds or what she says. Speaker 1 01:17:50 Any of that, it's all hidden off limit. This is all on David for what it's worth in this story. And then he, he's still, he's still kind of powerful, but he's powerful in a way that he's making the wrong choices. And then at the very end, he's going to have, at the end of his life, he can't stay warm. He can't keep enough body heat. He's freezing all the time. And they bring him a new Conine to sleep with him, not to have sex, but just to keep him warm at night. And, and David's impotence is on highlight here because he can't have any relationship with her. He can't have any more kids. Now, all of a sudden you have a very weak king, a very impotent king, who can't even keep himself warm at night, who can't have children anymore to, to where you can kind of see this relationship played out of David in these different stages of these different wives throughout his, his life for what it's worth. Speaker 2 01:18:46 That's awesome. Uh, great content is always the David. I mean, so much of these stories are tragic. It's the, this, this whole, the, the three, the three Kings, right? The first three Kings is just tragedy after tragedy. Are we, are we supposed to be into Solomon yet or, Speaker 1 01:19:06 Yeah, Schlomo is next. And that's his name in Hebrew? Schlomo. Schlomo. Speaker 2 01:19:10 That's pretty dope. Um, oh wait, wait, are we talking about his rise and fall? Cuz we're totally out of time. Speaker 1 01:19:15 I, I know we've got so much more to talk about and you know, what, as tragic as it is with these Kings and their personal lives, this was Israel's greatest period. Never, never again, after Solomon will Israel have as much territory be as powerful or be as established as a nation. They have the greatest dominion with under David. They conquer more than they did under Joshua. When, when he brought them in the land, this is, this is the golden age of Israel. As flawed as these characters are individually. And every king after David will be compared to David and he walked in the ways of his father, David, or he was not as good as David David is the benchmark. He is Israel's hero despite everything. And, and it's interesting cuz David being bent with age, stands up in front of Israel and prophesize being filled with the spirit to them, even in his old age, despite everything that he's done, which is kind of interesting to me that, yeah, you you've you've sinned, Speaker 2 01:20:24 But maybe it wasn't about him though. Maybe it was about his anointing and the calling and the position that he stood in. It wasn't about him. It wasn't about David. At that point, it was about the Lord prophesying to the people. Speaker 1 01:20:38 Yeah. Speaker 2 01:20:40 Good stuff, Kevin. Speaker 1 01:20:41 And, and, and you have to, you have to include the story of Nathan in here. Speaker 2 01:20:45 Oh yeah, of course. We have to include the story of Nathan in here. Speaker 1 01:20:48 I'm sorry. It's super long guys. Speaker 2 01:20:50 No, that's all right. You know, you know, you know, I'm personally not letting this happen without, including the story of Nathan Speaker 1 01:20:55 Because Nathan comes to David and tells him the story of a guy that had a lot of sheep. Speaker 2 01:21:02 Why do you think he, why do you think by the way he, instead of just coming and rebuking him, he, he let he let David do this. Was it to really hammer home the lesson? Or was it cuz he was afraid of telling the king how it was both. Okay. Speaker 1 01:21:15 Yeah. I, I think you come in and criticize the king and it usually doesn't go very well for you. But, but I also think it's great insight into judgment. Like who judges us really at the, at the end of our lives, we're standing before God everything's laid out before us. I, I think we become our own best judges and, and maybe that's why it's measured to you just as you've measured it to everyone else because you, you see it. That's how you are. That's how you, you can't help, but look at your life and say, yeah, that's, that's how it's gonna be. Yeah. Speaker 2 01:21:48 Okay. Sorry. Give him, so he came in and gives him the story. Speaker 1 01:21:51 Yeah. The story of the sheep, the guy that had a lot of sheep and the guy that only had one sheep and how much he loved that sheep. I mean, uh, your heart breaks for the guy. When you talk about how he takes care of this sheep and, and makes sure the sheep is warm and, and sleeps at night and feeds him and all this and the guy that has a lots of Speaker 2 01:22:11 She, the rich guy, yeah. With a lot of sheep Speaker 1 01:22:13 Is envious of this one little sheep and steals it from him, robs the guy, you know? And he, he, he tells this whole story out and says, okay, king, this happened in your kingdom. What should be done? And, and David measures out his judgment. He doesn't hold back. Speaker 2 01:22:29 Doesn't he say, death? Speaker 1 01:22:31 Yeah. Take this guy and, and beat him and bind him and, and execute him. And, and then the, the most, I, I don't know, maybe some of the most powerful words in all of the scriptures thou aren't the man and David realizes that this was a story about him and, and the sheep. And it's, it's, it's powerful. This idea, the sheep being the bride. Right. All of his combines and wives, he had so many and heh just had this one wife, but Christ also being the good shepherd and the sheep kind of this bride imagery, the husband and the groom or the groom and the wife. It is just, I don't know. It's powerful. Speaker 2 01:23:15 David knew by the way, too. Right. When, when Nathan's like, you're okay, well you're that guy. Speaker 1 01:23:21 Yes. Speaker 2 01:23:21 Because then what do you say? Do you punish him for just letting you cast your own judgment? I mean, good job, Nathan. It's how you survived that whole thing by being really wise and smart. Speaker 1 01:23:35 So why didn't so why didn't David? Why didn't God take the kingdom away from David? Like he did Saul because Saul, he takes it away and gives it some Sauls from Benjamin and now he brings it. And, and by the way, so Samuel who was before Saul as a judge is Efram now to Benjamin now to Judah. Why, why doesn't he strip it and give it to a different tribe? Well, early on when David's like, Hey, all these, hi him is bringing all these Cedars of Lebanon, all this nice stuff is coming in to build me this house. How can I feel comfortable dwelling in a house when God dwells in a tent, I need to build a house for, for God. And, and this is Speaker 2 01:24:15 Definitely trying to make up for some Speaker 1 01:24:18 When, when well, this was before, Speaker 2 01:24:20 Oh, okay. This is before I'd be like, that would make sense if he's saying this later. Speaker 1 01:24:24 No. And, and as he's trying to establish this, God says, okay, for establishing my house and bringing this back center stage, right? Because the tabernacle was not where Saul was raining. It's off on the outside. It's disrepair. The, the arc of the Covenant's forgotten about David's bringing this all back in. He's going to build the temple. He's going to bring the arc of the covenant back into and bring Israel back to God. And God says, because of this, the kingdom, the, the rule will always be within your family. So this promise is made to him early on because of his desire to build the temple of God. And maybe just one more comparison between Christ and David, as we're talking about the temple here, you have David saying, I'll build the temple. And Christ says, no. After you die, your son will, will build the temple. Speaker 1 01:25:15 And so you have this temple connection with David. Well, Christ is destroying the temple after he dies, the temple is going to be destroyed. The, uh, the veil's going to be rent and then Rome's gonna come and not one stone will stand on another one of the things that they wanted to crucify Christ for was his prophecy of the destruction of the temple. So here you have one coming to build and the other coming to destroy. It's interesting how you compare these two. There's a lot of similarities, but there's also a lot of contrast, just like you have a fall and, and, and a rise and atonement from, from the fall. I just like some of the imagery with David and Christ. Awesome. Speaker 2 01:25:55 All right. We're way too. Out of time. What are we talking about next week? Oh, I mean, we'll probably talk a little Solomon. Speaker 1 01:26:00 We, we might, yeah. There's a lot of Solomon that, that we're missing out on with, with slowmo, with slowmo, baby. Yeah. And we'll get to it though. And the, the division of the kingdom and, and that kind of gets left out. It's not part of the come follow me, but we're definitely gonna be talking about what happens after Solomon dies and kind of pick up with, uh, the, the subsequent Kings and the divided kingdom, Israel and the north Judah in the south. If you don't understand what that is or how that means, or how the tribes split up tune in next next week. And we'll talk all about that. Perfect.