40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 2 Samuel 20:2-26 (Episode 284)

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

Amasa first. Joab plans to tear down a city to find Sheba but is convinced to do otherwise by a wise woman from Abel. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen. 1517 Podcast Network Regional Event in Las Vegas 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out the events page and make sure you sign up for that Here We Still Stand Las Vegas event, which is coming up real soon, October 15th and 16th. We're going to be talking about Assurance in Christ.

Chad and I will both be there along with a whole bunch of other people. It's only $65 to come to the two-day event. Includes your lunch on Saturday. It's going to be a good time. Definitely, if you're in the Vegas area or within driving distance to Las Vegas, you definitely should come hang out with us. We'd love to see you there. Chad, we are in 2 Samuel chapter 20.

We ended with David coming back to Jerusalem, and people are excited, but Israel is kind of split now because two tribes have sort of claimed David as more theirs than other tribes, or at least that's the perception. And David's got a coup on his hands for the second time in a very short amount of time where a man has said, you know what? Fine. You guys can have David. We don't need we don't need that. Everyone go to their tents. Just leave this guy. Yes. David can't catch a break. I mean, no sooner does the coup of Absalom get taken care of before this worthless guy, as he's called here, the son of Baaliel, by the name of Sheba, the son of Bichri of Benjaminite, decides that he's going to try.

Absalom didn't do so well, so Sheba, he thinks that he's going to be able to take care of this. So we have one more division. And as we'll see, things don't go so well for him. Things don't go so well also for David's replacement of Joab that we have met before, a guy named Amasa, another one of David's family members. So this chapter is almost as if implicitly, I don't really say this explicitly, but it's almost implicitly as if this is like the last punctuation, the last exclamation point, rather, to Joab's rise in power. It's like he's basically the de facto king. Even though David's still the king, Joab is the one who securely holds the reins of power. At least that's the impression that we get as we especially get to the end of this chapter.

So what happens? Well, we're told, like you said, that this guy makes a proclamation. Shavuot makes a proclamation. We don't have anything to do with David. We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. Every man to his tents, O Israel. So they go their way, and David goes his. David's got some personal matters to take care of before he takes care of this particular new revolt.

And that is he's got to figure out what to do with the ten concubines he left behind when he fled Jerusalem. So it says, verse 3, he came to his house in Jerusalem. So he finally gets home after being driven out by Absalom. Absalom's revolt is squashed. David comes back. and if you remember a couple chapters back whenever that was david had left behind 10 of his concubines i don't know if we're ever told how many he actually had but presumably more than 10 so he left leaves behind a tithe of his concubines as it were to uh take care of the house

well when of course he fled the city absalom took these 10 concubines up onto the the roof for the palace, set up a tent, had intercourse with them as a way of politically demonstrating in this overtly sexual sort of way that he was the new guy. He was the new king. So these 10 concubines have now been defiled. I'm not sure exactly what terminology to use there, but David puts them in a house under guard, provides for them, but it says he did not go into them. That is, he did not have sexual relations with them. And they were shut up until the day of their death. And the Hebrew here is kind of like in living widowhood. So living in there, living as if in widowhood. So in other words, they were treated as if because of what

Absalom did to them, that was the death of their marriage to David, I suppose would be the way that This is being explained. So David provides for them, but they are one more victim of this ongoing devolving of David's kingdom. These poor women who are living as widows for the rest of their life. Yeah, you have to wonder. I mean, it definitely seems that that is a casualty of Absalom's coup. then again i don't know how great it is to be a concubine and and maybe uh just all if you're being provided for and you're all living in a house together that might not be all that worse than just being sort of a sex slave of the king i don't know i guess it just depends on uh what you want out of life but it wasn't as though these women were going to go get married to

someone else at some point that's not how concubines worked right right right it's not like they were just kind of given their freedom papers, as it were, and say, oh, go find yourself a husband and start a family. So they were, yeah, I mean, of course, we don't have any way to know. Was this actually better for them in the long run? What was it like to be the concubine of David? Maybe they're happier being in this living widowhood, so they don't have to worry about him anymore.

Who knows? But whatever was happening with them personally, emotionally, this is the situation that they find themselves in for the rest of their lives. Either way, David is treating them. The one thing that is unpleasant is obviously to be treated as sort of defiled and damaged goods because of what somebody else has done. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the reason they're in the situation they're in is because, yes, because of Absalom, true,

but you trace it back even farther, it's because of David. It's because of everything we've talked about up to this point. So after that happens, verse 4, we're told the king said to Amasa. Amasa, as we've heard before, is the replacement for Joab. He's the new general. David was not happy with Joab for a whole number of reasons, most recently because he's the one who took care of Absalom, killed him, contrary to David's command.

So Amasa is his replacement. Amasa is the cousin to Joab. I mean, this is all a family thing, of course. He's related to David. He's one of David's nephews. The king says to him, we got to act quickly. Call a man of Judah together to me within three days and be here yourself. Because, of course, we have this now, this other revolution going on.

So Amasa leaves. He goes out to summon Judah. But he was delayed, and we're not told why. Was he just not in a hurry? Did something happen? We're not told. All we're told is he delayed beyond the set time that had been appointed him. So he didn't show up within three days.

David's getting worried. So David decides he's going to move to plan B. So David says to Abishai, Abishai being the brother of Joab, the guy who's always wanting to chop people's heads off, that guy, that Abishai, the one whose first move was always violence. He says to Abishai, now Shabbat, the son of Bichri, will do us more harm than Absalom. In other words, because Amas is delayed for some reason, he's just going to grow in his power. Turns out David's completely mistaken.

This guy can't get anybody to follow him, but David doesn't know that. So David says, we got to do things. So Abishai, because Amas is delayed, take your Lord's servants and pursue him, lest he get himself to fortified cities and escape from us? Kind of an interesting question here. He says, take your Lord's servants and pursue him. Now, presumably, David is making a self-reference there. In other words, take my servants and pursue them.

But the very next verse says, and there went out after him Joab's men, the Carathites and the Pelathites and all the mighty men. so we get the impression that the lord here is actually not even david it's joab joab who is been demoted the soldiers are still considered to be his soldiers and not amasa soldiers yeah this uh this seems like it is backing up joab's or the credibility of joab's threat of look uh you better get your stuff together or i'm gonna be out of here and i'm taking everyone with me uh this is sort of letting you know that that's a that's a that's a threat with some

some actual uh weight behind it that joab does possess such an ability this is not an empty threat that's good this could happen very easily so that's what they do they uh like the karathites and the palathites we've heard about before these are uh foreigners who work for david kind of his inner inner circle inner guard and they along with joab's men all the mighty men they go out they went out from jerusalem to pursue shabbat the son of bickery and next we have the meeting of meeting of joab with his replacement with amas says when they were at the great stone that is in gibeon amasa came to meet so we don't know where amas has been he was out gathering the men of Israel. He was deluded, and so now we have Abishai along with Joab. They've gathered this

army. They're going out, and somehow they meet up in this place called Gibeon, which we have encountered multiple times before. And then we have this detailed description of what Joab is wearing, and the reason we're given this detailed description is because of what he's about to do. Things are a little fuzzy as to how this all went down. I'll give you one explanation, which seems to make sense after we read through it. Let me read through it first. So this is verse 8. Now Joab was wearing a soldier's garment,

and over it was a belt with a sword in its sheath fastened on his thigh, and as he went forward, it fell out. And Joab said to Amasa, Is it well with you, my brother? And Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. But Amasa did not observe the sword that was in Joab's hand. So Joab struck him with it in the stomach and spilled his entrails to the ground without striking a second blow, and he died. This, of course, is the second time that Joab has acted with deception to take out a rival.

He did this with Abner way back early in 2 Samuel, Abner being the head of the northern armies. He had been the head, of course, of Saul's army. So he took out Abner in this revenge killing because Abner had killed Joab's brother. And he did that basically by pretending as if he was at peace with him, took him aside, killed him, does the same thing now to Amasa. So it seems we have this description, you know, what he's wearing, where his sword is, what happened. So I'm following the lead here of Josephus' explanation of this, as a lot of commentators do. Josephus was a first century Jewish historian who wrote this summary of the Old Testament called the Antiquities of the Jews. and when Josephus retells this story and kind of paraphrases what was happening he suggests this is what happened he says that Joab was walking forward to meet Amasa and he

had his sword hung in such a way that it fell out meaning fell to the ground about the time that he got there to greet and kiss Amasa and what he did is he sort of bent down to pick it up and At the same time, he took his cousin by the beard, which I guess is what they did back then when they were going to greet someone, took him by the beard, kissed him, holding his beard with one hand. With the other hand, he grabbed his sword and thrust it upward into Amas's belly, cut him open. His guts literally spilled out on the ground, and he didn't even die immediately, as we'll

see in just a minute. the the guys just laying there bleeding out on on the ground so a pretty gruesome event needless to say but also uh kind of consistent with joe's personality as we have seen multiple times he's not afraid of taking somebody out that stands in his way or that he that is a threat or that he perceives to be a threat yeah i mean obviously uh joab is past the point of caring what david thinks he doesn't think that david's gonna make good decisions for himself and so uh joe i was just gonna do what needs to be done uh job doesn't there's i think there's probably two things going on here uh job's not exactly excited about being replaced uh i'm sure there's ego involved i mean

Yeah, I was going to say ego has to be involved in this motivation. Yeah, I'm sure he doesn't like that. He just whooped this guy. He's not happy about that, I'm sure. And I don't think that Joab doesn't trust this guy. And Joab, if anybody is sort of for Israel in the story, I do think it's Joab that says, I'll do something that's going to get me maybe in hot water,

in big trouble, because having this guy be the commander of the army is a terrible idea. I can't trust this guy. He was just the general of a coup trying to take things over. So David's out of his mind. He didn't think it straight, so I'm just going to put an end to this right now. I think both of those things can be true at once, where Joab's got a bruised ego, but he also knows that this is a really dumb idea.

The strange thing about this whole incident is, if memory serves me correctly, it never comes up i know it never comes up in this context like when he gets back and uh is gets back to jerusalem and joab's the guy in charge david never says hey oh what happened to amasa why'd you do that and how are you now back in charge which is it which is indicative of the fact that david has basically lost power to joab and the job is sort of the de facto king at this point because david can't david has no recourse against him he realizes that he's lost complete control of his of the general that he tried to replace yeah so i guess david at this point just kind of resigns himself to the fact that he's going to have to deal

this guy to live with joe abner's really nothing he can do about it yeah unless he had you know some advisor tell him uh actually that was that was the right call and it's best that it happened that way because if you had executed him you might have had some people upset you know i mean he was leading to some part of the army if joab did it you can sort of say that you know there's two generals having it out and you know what what am i going to do but yeah i think that i'm sure david can can think that in hindsight and be like well i guess this i guess in the long run this is better that joab did it than me i certainly don't think that that's how david planned it i don't think david was like i'll switch joab out and joab because unless david's just real i mean think

unless he's playing that 4d chess and like and is trying to get it done that way so he doesn't have to have this guy's blood on his hands i don't think that's what it is i think he was angry at joab you demoted him and maybe he thought that maybe he thought this was a possibility but either way i think that david the thing david really wanted to achieve was to poke it was to poke joab and that poke resulted in Joab poking this dude. Yes. Right. In a major sort of way.

But, yeah, I do think it definitely shows you that. I mean, you're going to see it right here. I mean, they're going to, the people are going to say, like, hey, if you're with David, you're with Joab, basically saying that Joab is the one who you know is committed to David to israel joab's the one you can trust uh he's the yeah they basically say yeah if you're if you're with if you're for joab you're for david yep if you're david if you're you're for you're for joab regardless of what david says regardless of what david says this is what we know to be true

we have a we have consistent behavior on the part of joab that proves that he's just the guy who's willing to do the uh uh the tough things and i'm not defending his actions But from his perspective, he is not hesitant whatsoever to do whatever needs to be done, which in his perspective is best for Israel, including, of course, killing this guy that the king himself has, murdering this guy that the king has appointed. So Joab and Abishai, picking up here with verse 10, Joab and Abishai, his brother, pursued Sheba, the son of Bichri. So they took out Amasa, and now they're going to get on with the business at hand. One of Joab's young men took his stand by Amasa, that is the dying Amasa, and said, whoever favors Joab and whoever is for David, let him follow Joab, which of course is what we were just referring to.

So if you're on Joab's side, that means you're on David's side. If you're on David's side, you're on Joab's side. Then we had this just terrible image in verse 12. Amasa is on the highway, on this road, wallowing in his blood, which is what I was referring to earlier when i said he didn't die immediately the poor guy is just bleeding out there dying right there in front of everybody and people come by they see him they stop they're just you kind of get the impression that people are just in a state of shock that this just happened they're passing by this this gruesome scene and it's kind of like a train wreck that we you know we can't turn away

from they're stopping they're they're looking at this no doubt wondering what in the world is going on yeah it makes you think that this this line that you have that that joab stabs him and it says he died without without a second you know stab is not like joab was such precision like killed him right then what it's telling you is that he died without a second stab is in other words joab was not going to put this guy out of his misery he stabbed him once and left him this wasn't yeah he eviscerated him yeah yeah this wasn't because like he died immediately so there was no need joe was just like i'm just gonna let you lay i'm gonna make an example out of you that's what was happening yeah this was a this was a message it was unmistakable in its uh in

its message mess with me this is what happens so uh the young guy the the young man who had made this announcement he saw all the people stopping so he he grabs amasa basically drags him out into the field throws a gun over him i guess just so people will stop stopping to to see this this scene and then when that happened everybody basically moves on to go after joab as in his pursuit of Sheba. So he's taken out his rival, and we find out pretty soon that he's actually going to accomplish his mission. Now, Sheba, the guy who staged this revolution, he goes to all the tribes of Israel, kind of moving north is the direction we're going here. And I'm assuming that as he did, he's trying to gather support for his revolution and does a terrible job of it.

He goes all the way up north, northern Galilee, to a place called Abel of Beth-Ma'akah. So this is a northern Galilee town. Goes up there, and it says all the Bichrites assembled and followed him in. He's the son of Bichri, and so the Bichrites are like I would refer to as the birds, my family, or the prices, your family. The only people he's got following him are his immediate clan or family, the other Bichrites. We're never told that he had this great following, so he wasn't some sort of charismatic military leader who really could stir up the people to revolt against David. I'm sure at this point, they're like, you know what?

We've had enough revolting against David. We just went through this with Absalom. Didn't end well. We're not going to follow you. So he just got his family. and they go up to this place, Abel of Beth-Ma'akah and Joab and his army, they besiege the place so they're trapped inside this city

said they go so far as to cast a mound against the city and it stood against the rampart and they were battering the wall to throw it down so they evidently had been there a while they're behind the walls, they can't get in the walls the Bikrites at least were numerous enough to where they were able to make sure the city either willingly or unwillingly were on their side in this particular revolution and they're

battering the wall trying to take it down and as this is happening i kind of get the impression that you know bang bang they're trying to get the wall down about that time a woman's voice cries out verse 16 a wise woman called from the city this is not the first wise woman that we have met And as we talked earlier about the wise woman from Tekoa, this is probably, just guessing, but I'm guessing this is probably a semi-official title that's given to these women. It's not just, oh, I knew this smart woman. Like this was a, we might say like a sage, like the sage of a city, except this was a female sage. She was the wise woman from the city.

And there are parallels between here and the wise woman from Tekoa that we talked about several chapters ago, the one that Joab hired or convinced to go to David with this made-up story about one son killing another son, and now the community wants to take revenge against the living son, the one who committed the crime, and she presents this whole parable, this whole fiction to David as the way of getting David to agree to bring Absalom back to Jerusalem. So if you recall that whole story back then, that was the wise woman from Titicola. So she, in her story, was basically getting David to agree to stop the bloodshed. Well, same thing's going to happen here with this wise woman.

She also is going to step, as it were, between the two armies, between the soldiers and say, hey, can we stop the bloodshed? I got a better idea. So here's what she says. Listen, listen, tell Joab, come here that I may speak to you. She kind of interrupts the battering ram and the soldiers hear this woman crying out, stop. So call Joab. He comes up. Verse 17, the woman says are you joab he says yes i am she said to him listen to the words of your servant and if we were of course we're reading this in english we're reading this and he what are they uh almost a poetic quality to a lot of the words that she says you kind of get the impression that she is being very theatrical in her in her in her speech almost poetic in her

speech, kind of almost like chanting it, we might say. She says, listen to the words of your servant. And he says, all right, I'm listening. Then she said, they used to say in former times, let them but ask counsel at Abel. Abel, of course, is the city that she's in. So back in the former days, our town was known for the place you went if you wanted to seek counsel. You know what, you got an issue, you got a problem, you need some resolution, you need some wise words. Everybody would say, oh, well, then you need to go to Abel. You need to go to that place because that place is full of wisdom. And then she goes on. And so they settled a matter. So in other words, if there was a complicated issue or some sort of controversy, whatever it might be,

in former days, you went to my city, she's saying. We were the place people went. In other words, listen Joab you're dealing here not just with another city but you're dealing with a city that has a good past a lot of wise people here she describes herself she says I am one of those who are peaceable and faithful in Israel we're I am one of those shalom kind of people I'm one of those fidelity kind of people in Israel we're not we're not seeking to take over from from David she kind of turns the table she says okay this is who i am i am peaceable and faithful then she says you on the other hand you seek to destroy literally it's a a city and a mother it's translated in the esv as you seek to destroy a city that is a mother in israel this is of course

we actually still have this kind of language so a city and a mother meaning a mother city of course This is where we get our word metropolis, metropolis, so a mother city. We still, of course, use that particular kind of language. In fact, in the Septuagint, the Greek translation, it is rendered here as metropolis. So you had back in Israel, you would have kind of these what were thought of as principal cities or mother cities. And then what we refer to as the suburbs were called the daughters. That's why you have, for instance, the language in Zechariah, rejoice, daughter of Jerusalem. So the daughter cities were the villages or what we would call the suburbs, the outlying areas around the city.

Those were the daughters because you had the city as the mother. So to Joab, she says, look, you're trying to destroy a metropolis here. You're destroying a mother city. You're committing kind of national matricide in doing this. why will you swallow up the heritage of the lord joab says far be it from me far be it that i should swallow up or destroy that's not what i'm here for it's not true then he this is kind of strange like he waits until this moment to tell what they're all about he says a man of the hill country of ephraim called sheva the son of bickery has lifted up his hand against king david give up

him alone and i will withdraw from the city that's all we need this one guy we're even going to let all the other big rights go but you deliver this one guy to us and we're all good we'll walk away and the the woman's statement is is uh is extremely memorable memorable she says the woman said to joab behold his head shall be thrown to you over the wall yeah this is this tells me okay first of all she's she's just saying like keep looking up here and see what comes over the top of this wall here in a little bit uh also i mean that's that statement i mean lets you know that i mean this woman has got to be a woman of a pretty big influence she is a leader no doubt She doesn't say we're going to talk about this.

Yeah. We'll get back with you in a few minutes. Yeah. Let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me huddle up with my, with the leaders of this. She just, no, none of that. Just you keep looking up and I'm going to toss his head over, over the wall to you. Yeah.

Yeah. You, you definitely have the impression that she's kind of the queen of the city. We might say she's the, she's the one whose word is going to be followed. in fact uh in the in in the english translation here it makes it kind of sound like it's a future event behold his his head shall be thrown over over the wall the uh the hebrew is using uses a participle here so it's almost kind of like his head is uh is just about to be thrown over the wall or is going over going over the wall in other words like you said keep watching because pretty soon. The guy you're looking for, at least part of them, is going to be coming toward you.

So the woman went to all the people in her wisdom, and that's what they did. They cut off the head of Sheba, the son of Bichri, and threw it out to Joab. So he blew the trumpet, and they dispersed from the city, every man to his home, and Joab returned to the king, returned to Jerusalem to to the king. So she gave them what they were looking for. And this is one more. We've seen many of these over the course of our episodes. This is one more instance of this, what I've sometimes called the gospel of the head crushing, where the enemies of God's people have their head crushed, or in this case, cut off. We've seen many instances of this over Joshua and Judges and Samuel, where these are small little windows, if you will, into that bigger story that begins

Genesis 3.15, where God, through his son, will crush the head of the enemy of the people. And so we have many instances like Goliath, for instance, where his head is cut off, struck by stone and cut off. We saw it earlier in the book of Judges as well, where these enemies lose their heads literally or have their heads crushed as a way of continuing this gospel narrative of as it unfolds toward uh toward the christ that's what happens here with with sheva as well and you know it works joab is true to his word and they leave the city everybody goes back home and joab returns to jerusalem to the king rebellion has been squashed once more yeah i mean what you have here is another instance of a woman

saving a bunch of people at the very least saving a city I mean there's no doubt that more people are going to die if Joab goes through with just busting down the walls of the city also the city is going to be at least damaged and

her and her wisdom stops all that it kind of seems that what you have is Joab who you know is a smart guy obviously a really good general but he just killed his you know his rival he's chasing down this guy uh i can't imagine that joe is is a very happy man right at this point so you got to imagine that joe ab is a is pretty irritated he's an angry guy and he's come up on this city the gates are locked and uh in typical dude fashion he's just

gonna bust the whole thing down fine and find this guy and uh that all gets prevented because this woman's like okay what exactly do you need so let's see if we can do something else leave it leave it to a wise woman to solve this to solve this whole dilemma in a much easier and better way yeah yeah yeah you're exactly right the guys are up the guys are like what are we gonna do we're just gonna tear the wall down build a battering ram and the woman's like i got another option here it's real it's a lot easier a lot less bloodshed not nearly as many people get killed we can have it happen quite easily and quite readily and of course joab joab listens to her yeah yeah and of course joab doesn't know how many people this guy has like assembled he doesn't know

if he's convinced a bunch of people to go with him uh he doesn't know any of that and hasn't taken the time to find out and so uh he's got to have someone inform him like hey look there's no there's not really anyone in here that's that loyal to this guy i mean that's certainly not they're gonna they're not gonna give up the city for him yeah not even evidently his his own family was that supportive or protective of him because there doesn't seem to be much of a fight no they hand over him and that takes that takes care of the rebellion just like it was in the case of absalom and i was thinking earlier of just like in the case of abimelech back in the book of judges a woman threw a millstone down and crushed the head of Abimelech in that case, and here a woman

once more saves the day. Just like, I also come to think of it, you know, you think of earlier when David was upset, and he was going to go kill all, Nabal and all his men, and Abigail, she stopped that. We have many instances of this when a woman steps forward in order to avert a a disaster these these wise women and it's a i think it's all part of this kind of this this grand narrative to which you alluded to earlier where you know through a woman god brings about deliverance in this case deliverance for for the city so job goes back we're not told of any kind of conversation he had with david not told of any repercussions with regard to his actions toward Amasa, it's never brought up. We have a summary at the end of this chapter, it's verses 23 through

26, a summary that is very similar to what we saw all the way back in 2 Samuel 8. So in chapter 8, David's kingdom has been solidified. He's unified all of Israel. And so in 2 Samuel 8, 15 through 18 we have a list similar to the list we're about to look at of the people who were put over various aspects of david's david's government and joab was on that list as were some of these other people we have some new names as well but the reason this is significant here is it's sort of a bookend so when david consolidated his empire back in chapter 8 we have a list of his officials now having almost lost his empire and having regained it after the the two revolutions or coups he's once more going to have this list of list of officials and in some ways this is usually

at least by by commentators on on the books of Samuel this is said to be kind of the the true end of the narrative. And then what we have in chapters 21, 22, 23, and 24, it's often referred to as an appendix, if you will, to the book. So this is sort of, if you think consecutively of David's reign, this is sort of the end. And then what we're going to see in the chapters as they're coming up, are some other stories and poetry that don't follow this sequentially, but were happening earlier in David's reign. And for some reason, they're included here at the end of the book. So you can kind of think, at least historically, that when we get to these,

we're going to jump from 2 Samuel 20 all the way to 1 Kings 1, where we will meet David when he's old and about to die. and you have this decision as to who is going to be his replacement. Before we get there, to wrap it up, who are his officials? We're told that, obviously, Joab was in command of the army, but it doesn't say, this is one difference between the earlier list and this list. In the earlier list, we're told that Joab was the commander of the army of Israel, 2 Samuel 8, 16. Now we're told he was command of all the army of Israel.

I think the inclusion of that word is just one more indication that he's the guy who really has the power here. And then we're told of some of the others. Benaniah was in command of the Karathites and the Pelathites, that special inner guard of David's. Adoram was in charge of the forced labor. Jehoshaphat was the recorder. Sheba was the scribe. It's usually translated there as secretary, but it's the word from which we get a sofer, better word for which we get our our later word scribe so the official record keeper we might say

zadok and abiathar were the priest of course we've we met them before and then we're introduced to a new guy named ira the gyrite was also david's priest not exactly what that entailed we don't know maybe he was like a uh a royal chaplain or something we don't we're not told anything else about him so a lot of it just kind of kind of speculation david's got a lot of sins to confess he's got to have like his own guy like all of israel has like two guys and then david's like i need also a third guy that's just for me probably so he would have kept david pretty he would have kept david pretty uh pretty occupied listening to his confessions yeah now one one thing missing from this list interestingly is uh is david so if you go back to second samuel chapter eight and

see the the symbolist that occurs there you read that uh so this is i'm reading from second samuel 8 15 so david reigned over all israel and david administered justice and righteousness for all his people and joab was over the army etc so you have the list there what's missing in this particular section of these officials is what we have earlier in 2 Samuel 8. There's no word here about David reigning over all Israel, administering justice and righteousness for all his people. And the fact that these lists are so similar to each other, but it's omitted in chapter 20, is one more sign that the guy that really held the reins of power was Joab. David was king, of course, but in some ways only in name only because Joab held so much power,

which was possibly the reason that when Solomon became king, then David told him that that problem needed to be dealt with. David was afraid of Joab's ongoing influence over his son. Yeah. And yeah, it's interesting how the rest of the book ends. It almost makes you think that, you know, back in the day when they're writing this stuff, they don't have a way to rearrange the chapters, you know? So if you've got some stuff that you felt like you left out or you wanted to include, and someone's like, hey, you know, you should include when this happened. Well, the only way to do it is you got to add it to the end unless you want to start writing over. Yeah, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened.

You know, maybe earlier there was a shorter version of the Samuel narrative. and then yeah things were things were added to that i mean we have plenty of other examples in scripture where that could have taken place too so you know it was completed but there were some other things that needed to be added that were significant for some reason and so they're like well you know we got more room on this scroll so let's let's keep adding these uh these others these others as well so we'll we'll get to one of those next time it's a it's a real strange story that takes us all the way back to the reign of Saul and something he did evidently that we're never told about and it had ongoing repercussions in the life of life of Israel so we're going to

have a famine or drought and we're going to have uh several of Saul's sons who are actually going to pay for something their own father so we'll try and explain all that when we get back the next time all right sounds good Chad I'll see you then all right we'll see you then We'll see you next time.