40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 2 Samuel 7:18-8:8 (Episode 266)

Episode Date: May 10, 2021

David sits before God and this is important. Asking God to keep His promises is a great way to pray. And David just keeps on winning. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network Christ and the Christian Conference 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. Now, there's two events that you need to know about. One, coming up very soon, by the time this releases, the very next weekend, you can come and hang out at the A Life Lived in Christ Conference,

which is in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. This is a one-day event, and we will be talking about the life lived in Christ, Christ and the Christian. If you're in Minneapolis, if you're in Fargo, if you're anywhere within driving distance, you can register for that event. It's only $20, and you receive a copy of Gretchen Ronovic's new book, Ragged, with your registration. So you want to do that, there's a link in the show notes, or you can go to the website. Also, now I don't know if you guys know this at this time, but the general conference,

Here We Still Stand, that we always do in San Diego, has once again been canceled this year because we cannot get the affirmation that we need to be able to pull off an event like that down in San Diego at that resort. And so because of that, and because we don't want to do that event sort of scaled back and have to do it in a way that we don't want to do it, we've decided to cancel it. But some good news, we are on the same weekend doing a two day regional event similar to what we did in Northwest Arkansas in Las Vegas. So October 15th and 16th, we will be in Las Vegas doing a two-day regional event. That event's only $65 to sign up for. It's two days. Chad will be there. I'll be there. Scott Keith, Gretchen Ronovic, Flame, Stephen Paulson,

Michael Berg. We got a bunch of breakouts. It's going to be a great time. So make sure that you get registered for that, especially if you were thinking about going to San Diego or maybe you Where are you registered for San Diego? Vegas and San Diego aren't that far apart. The difference is we're doing this at Faith Community Lutheran Church in Las Vegas. It's a great campus there. They've got a great brand new facility. It's going to be a really good time.

So link in the show notes or go over to the website and register for the regional event in Las Vegas in October. We'd love to see you there. All right, Chad. the prophet nathan got a word from jesus himself is what we uh we concluded last last episode to give to david about uh who is going to build who a house and uh so david thinks he's going to build god a house god sets him straight says uh when it comes to house building i'm going to be the one that's building you a house by house i mean from your seed i'm going to bring about someone in whom all my people will dwell.

So now we are getting to the point we left off right there. We're going to get to David's response to this news because David seemed pretty excited and convinced that this building a house for the Lord was a good idea. David's living in a nice fancy house. The Lord's living in a tent. David wants to remedy this.

Seems like a very pious ambition. So we'll see how he responds. Yeah, David seems overall just kind of not just pleased, but just overflowing with gratitude because of the redirection that happened. So God says, OK, you want to do this? Well, I've got something better for you. I'm going to build you this dynasty that is going to be fulfilled by your sons, your grandsons, and then ultimately fulfilled in the messianic seed to come. And so the way David reacts to this is he doesn't seem disappointed whatsoever. In fact, he just offers this prayer of overflowing thanksgiving to God for what he's promised, not just to David himself, but what he's promised to his house and to his dynasty that is going

to come after him. And there's some pretty amazing language in here. It's the rest of the chapter. It's verses 18 through 29. So it's one of the longer prayers that we have. And we'll unpack it bit by bit here. there's some very significant language that's also going to direct us back to Genesis chapter 15, which we've discussed before. So we'll explain that connection as well. Let's start out here

with this, the first two verses. So this is verse 18 and 19. So David, the king, went in and sat before the Lord and said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that you have brought me thus far. And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God. You have spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come. And, and I'm reading from the ESV at this point, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God. Or as the New American Standard has it, this is the custom of man, O Lord God. So I'll explain that Hebrew phrase in just a second. The first thing to mention, and I believe I alluded to this in our last episode, is the posture that David takes when he prays this prayer.

Actually, I covered this prayer in Sunday school this past Sunday. I filled in for the regular teachers for the middle school, and we actually looked at this particular prayer. And it was fascinating to realize that if you scan the entire Bible and look at all the times when people are praying and a description of the physical postures given at the time of their praying, this is the only time in the whole Bible where someone prays while sitting down. So we have examples of people kneeling to pray. In fact, Jesus himself in the Garden of Gethsemane is kneeling when he prays, take this cup from me, but not my will, but yours be done.

We have examples of people praying when they're basically on the ground, face down. That's a pretty common posture of prayer. But David is sitting. So just as at the beginning of the chapter, we read that it came about at this time when the king sat, Yashav, in his house. So now David the king goes in and he, Yashav, he sits before the Lord. And the best that I can make of this is that the posture itself is sort of the posture of enthronement, we might say. And so David's very posture in sitting like a king, and he is called a king here, seems to indicate that he is so, what might we say, he is so secure in his kingship because of the promise that God has given to him. Human king talking to the divine king, as it were. But anyway, this is the only

time where this happens in the Bible. This posture almost reminds me of at least a picture I get of how people end up interacting with jesus so when jesus is teaching and that sort of thing you you see crowds gather around and they'll sit like on the ground right um this happens uh when jesus you know is feeding the the five thousand or the four thousand and he'll he'll pray and people will gather around and said they'll be seated in groups uh and i can't help but think about uh you know mary and martha you know and where you have this just sort of sitting at the feet of jesus and this kind of thing so while in the old testament it seems that sitting before god is a very uncommon thing so you're either you know like you said you're either you know kneeling or

laying flat on your face or something like that uh it's almost like that this changes a little bit with the son of day when jesus is actually on the scene and you're getting to communicate with God in a different way. It's almost as if David is a step ahead of that, right? I mean, obviously the son of David is going to come from him, but he's sort of a step ahead of that whole thing. Yeah, that's a great way to view this. I mean, it really is. The posture itself is almost a prophecy, if you will. Yeah. That as people will sit before the son of David, so now David is sitting before that same son of David, that Christ who was to come and talking to him here, not standing not on his face not on his knees but sitting before him yeah and this is a it's

an interesting posture to take and comforting in a way too you know that's one of the comforting things about jesus is that you can just approach him in that way right you could i mean i think that that the mary and martha passage where i mean where she's just sitting at his feet while he's talking is so unlike what anyone would think you would do when hearing from god but it's exactly the sort of posture that Christ himself encourages in that text. This is the good portion. I'm not

taking away. This is the right thing. Yeah. I know we're going on with this, but at the same time, what you said reminds me of those beautiful scenes where people bring children or babies to Jesus, and he takes them in his arms.

That's an amazing image, that here is God himself in the flesh who not only welcomes people to come to him to sit at his feet or to be around him but he's he's holding a child or he's he's holding a baby this is god himself who's cradling this child and not just that but blessing the child at the same time so it's a it's such a uh a comforting image of a savior of a god who rather than wanting to keep distance from us actually wants to welcome us to himself and to embrace us as his own. Yeah, it's almost like you can have this posture towards God if you know who he really is. If you don't know who he really is, you come with

all this fear and trembling, but if you really know him, you don't. You don't have to do that. And it seems that David maybe knows God a little differently than a lot of people before him. Yeah, and the fact that he knows him, that he does this following all those verses we covered in the last episode, it's just, it's a perfect time for this to happen. Like if David had sat before the Lord at some other time and talked to him, okay, that would still communicate these truths we've been talking about, but that it follows this particular promise just underscores the fact that, okay, David realizes what God has just told him is huge because he's told him that from your own body on down the line will come this seed who is going to sit on your throne forever.

Okay, so he begins these first few verses. It's more or less verses 18 through 24 are various ways that David is acknowledging via thanks and praise all that God has done for him and for the people of Israel and for David's family. So he starts out by saying more or less, who am I? What's my house that you've done everything that you've done to this point? I mean, you brought me from the sheepfolds, from caring for the lambs to be the shepherd of your people Israel. My house was just, you know, a group of people that hardly anybody knew about outside the environment of Bethlehem. And yet now you've raised us up to the level that we are at now.

And as if that were not enough, and it would have been, as if that were not enough, David goes on to say, you have spoken of your servant's house for a great while to come. That could also be translated for the distant future. So that's important, by the way. Note that David realizes that God isn't just talking about a particular promise he's going to give to Solomon. Don't misunderstand this to mean, oh, this is God's promise to David about what's going to happen with his son Solomon building the temple, period. No, David makes explicit that he understands that what God has promised him is something for time to come, for the distant future, and not simply something that's going to be fulfilled within the next 40 years or 50 years. So he understands the everlasting import of what God promised him. And then after he says this, he has this strange Hebrew phrase.

It's Zot Torat Ha'adam, which literally would be, this is the Torah of the man. Now, this has been translated a number of different ways. I read a couple of those, such as New American Standard is, this is the custom of man. ESV has, this is instruction for mankind. Walter Kaiser, who's an Old Testament scholar, had a really unique proposal, which I like. He translated that word Torah as charter, and then ha'adam, which is like the Adam or the man, as humanity, which would be a very common translation. So he translated this as, this is the charter for humanity, which I think is pretty cool. So, David, if that's correct, what Kaiser has recommended, what he's saying, David is saying is, listen, God, you've done these great things for me, for my family, and you promised me this seed to come in the distant future, and this is going to be the charter for humanity.

In other words, you've kind of laid out in this promise to me your plan, your charter for humanity, not just me, not just my house, and not even just for Israel, but for all people everywhere of all time. So I've always liked that particular translation because it does kind of sum up the universal import of the promise that God gives to David. It's not just about his line, it's not just about his people, but it's about all humanity. This is the charter for humanity. Yeah, a charter is a destination. What's being said here is that this is where all of mankind is headed. Yeah. Yeah, all of mankind is headed for the redemption found in Christ.

Yeah, so I mean, that particular rendering of that Hebrew phrase, I think, is a good way to think about a summation of the promise that God just gave. And then he goes on to talk about, to praise God more for what he's done. What more can I say to you? You know your servant because of your promise and because of your own heart, you brought about all this greatness. Now, I think that's significant, too, because David is saying, listen, this had nothing to do with me. This is all, verse 21, because of your promise or literally for the sake of your word. And according to your own heart, you've done these things. So why did you choose me? Why did you elevate my house?

Why have you given me all these great promises? Well, it's not because I have somehow brought this all about it, not because I have earned your favor and you're responding to that. This is not a quid pro quo. This is not some kind of transactional response on the part of God where God is like, oh, you did this great thing, and therefore I will elevate your house. This is all because of God's word and because of God's own heart. Not because David has some heart after God, but because of God's own heart. That's a reason that he's doing what he's done and making these promises to David. And then he goes on to praise him.

You are great, O Lord God. There is no one like you. There is no God besides you. So here we have one of these affirmations of monotheism. There's one God. There's only one God. There's not a multiplicity of gods. So this is basically the Shema that we covered back in Deuteronomy.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. So this is that affirmation of monotheism, of one-godism, that we're going to hear reflected all through the rest of the Old Testament, But especially in the book of Isaiah, once we get there. Yeah, you might be able to take, for there is none like you. And if you just left it there and say, oh, David is saying that you're different from the other gods. There's other gods, but you're different than they are. Yeah, you're the greatest among all the others.

Yeah, but that's not what he's saying. When he says there is none like you, he is saying that man among men, among all that is, there is no one like you. and then lest you get to that confused with him comparing him to other gods he says and there is no god beside you so there's no man or any created thing like you and you are the only god so there obviously there's no other gods like you because there aren't any other ones right yeah so there's i mean this this is important because in this particular context just like today of course there is a belief, especially back then, the belief in the multiplicity of God. So that's what set Israel apart. So anytime there's any suggestion that Israel was

not monotheistic, go to verses like this, go to Isaiah, go to all over the place in the Old Testament where you have this affirmation of monotheism. And then David shifts focus a little bit in verse 23, where he moves away from a focus on him and his house and what God has done for for them to what he's done for all of Israel. He says in verse 23, who's like your people, Israel, the one nation on earth, whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people, whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods. So just like there's one God, so there's one Israel. And God did something for Israel that we don't hear any other God doing. He actually went into another

country. He went into Egypt, and he brought them out. He redeemed them, and he did battle against their gods. So you have this twin focus in the Old Testament. You have an affirmation of the one God, and you also have an acknowledgement that the deities that are worshipped by the rest of the nations are not deities, but they're nothing but masks of evil forces. So anytime you hear the reference to gods in the old testament what you're hearing is not other gods but other uh other masks behind which evil forces are are at work say it's the same thing that paul affirms in his letter to the corinthians about how the people who offer sacrifices to the idols are offering sacrifices to the devils or to the demons okay then we'll pick it up with verse with verse uh 25

it's at this point he gets to his petition so up to this point he's basically just thanking god and praising him and in verse 25 he says now therefore or and now oh lord god confirm forever the word that you've spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house and do as you have spoken this is a pretty typical biblical prayer where you take what god has said and you ask him basically to confirm that word we see this all over the book all over the book of psalms as well. And for me anyway, it's a great model of prayer. So you're sort of quoting back to God what he's first said to you. So you're saying, Lord, you have done these things. You have promised these things. Now I'm praying that you will keep promising these things and keep doing these

things. So be the kind of God that you are, the God who sticks by his word, the God who fulfills what he has, what he's promised. And we have this language in verse 25. We've also encountered in three or four other places in the chapter of forever so again this isn't just for a limited time frame confirm it and keep on doing this particular promise for for your people i remember one time uh there was a guy uh was really going through a hard time and he's like yeah i'm really terrible at praying right now and you know and he was saying that he didn't feel as though like god was with him you know so i said well the the prayer for you then is just to pray you promised to never leave me or forsake me so don't there you go and this is how you do it right

so you you give god one of his promises back and you say so do that thing or in this case don't do that thing that you promise not to do right and this is what what david is doing is saying okay you said all this stuff so do it uh yeah like say amen to your own word yeah i mean you can kind of picture it like uh the relationship between a parent and especially younger children what are younger children always doing there if we don't live up to what we said we're going to do they'll say but you promised yeah right you know so maybe earlier in the day we're trying to shut them up we're like okay all right well listen we'll get ice cream later all right i'll take you to baskin robbins or wherever you get your ice cream we'll get some ice cream and the kids

are like oh yeah great great okay and so they're kind of pacified well then later on if you try and get out of that be like you're tired you just want to go home or whatever they're going to be like dad but you promised and of course when you say that what are you going to do yeah and they'll say make yourself out to be a liar and you don't even have to say the words i promise for them to say you promised all you have as a parent all you have to say is i will do this and they say you promise that's a promise to them and this and and this is something that's built in to children and their and their parents uh this is the same way that we are with god when god says this is what i will do that's a promise whether he says i promise or not if he says i'll

do it he has just made a promise so that is a great way to pray if you're whatever you're if you're feeling guilty and say god you have promised to forgive my sins you know if you're feeling alone god you promised to be with me if you're feeling whatever it might be simply quote god's word and ask him to do it because he is a god of god of his word yeah this is the biblical pattern of prayer yeah and it's and as david says like it's it's if he has said that he will do something then you are not asking him to do something that he does not desire to do as david says it is in your heart to do it right so i mean to hold god to his promises is just to hold god to that which he already desires to do so it's not it's not as though

You're inconveniencing him. This is what he desires to do. That's why he said it. Yeah, yeah. And he wants you to. That's another great thing. You know, he actually wants you to quote his word back to him. That's all that the Psalms are.

Keep in mind, the Psalms are God's words to us and become our words back to God. Just like the Lord's Prayer was the prayer that Jesus gave us that we then say back to him. So, of course, God wants us to cling to his word and to speak his word back to him, which is what David is doing here. He goes on to verse 26, And your name will be magnified forever, saying,

The Lord of hosts is God over Israel, and the house of your servant David will be established before you. Verse 27, For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servants, saying, I will build you a house. That's to say, I will build you a dynasty. Therefore, your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you.

So the reason I have courage, boldness, confidence to say these things back to you is because you have said these things first to me. And then to wrap up the prayer, this is 28 and 29. And now, O Lord God, you are God and your words are true and you have promised this good thing to your servant. Thou, therefore, may it please you to bless the house of your servant so that it may continue forever before you. For you, O Lord God, have spoken and with your blessing

shall the house of your servant be blessed forever so over and over we hear the language of forever i have them highlighted in my bible i'm looking at one two three four at least five in those last few verses then we have the language of the house over and over and over which is this dynasty that he has promised to david culminating in the son of david in the messiah and i forgot to mention this earlier, this connection back to Genesis 15. So it's kind of a cool phrase, a cool name or title that's used to refer to God throughout this particular prayer. It's translated in most translations as Lord God. Now in Hebrew, it's Adonai Yahweh. Yahweh, we're familiar with, that's a personal name of God. Adonai means something like Lord or Master. So we could translate all of these

as Master Yahweh, because you can't translate Adonai Yahweh as Lord, Lord, because that just sounds weird. So it's something like Master Yahweh, but usually rendered Lord God. Now the reason this is important, this particular title or name used for God, Adonai Yahweh, in these passages, is that up to this point in the scriptures, it's hardly ever been used. There's just a handful of occurrences where it's found, but two of those are in Genesis 15, our favorite lost episode chapter where God appears to Abraham and brings him outside and shows him the stars of heaven. And we have that smoking oven passing through the halves of the sacrificial animals. And what does God promise to Abraham there? He promises him a seed. He promises that he is going to confirm the oath

that he swore to him. And that particular language of Lord God, Adonai Yahweh, is used in Genesis 15. So it's a perfect fit with this particular chapter too. In Genesis 15, God promised Abram a seed. In 2 Samuel 7, God promises David a seed. This is the passing on of this messianic seed promise. And so that Abram refers to the Lord as Adonai Yahweh, and that David refers to him as Adonai Yahweh is a great dovetailing of these particular sections of Scripture. And that, I think, is about all that I have any way to say about the prayer. It's a great kind of back and forth. God speaks to David through Nathan, and then David speaks back to God in response. So the Word of God comes to him, and then he responds by turning that Word of God into a prayer. Yeah, I mean, I think the

only thing i would say is i love this that this part where david explains exactly why you can pray this way which he says uh you are god and your words are true you have promised this good thing to your servant so this is double thing where he says your words are true and you've promised so a promise from god once it's made is already guaranteed to be kept because god doesn't speak untrue words yeah there's no no farmer foundation for prayer than that yeah then i true. Your words are true. And so on that foundation, I will stand to speak to you. Yeah. I've said before that my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus doesn't lie. This is how this works.

Yeah. And when you think about it, I mean, there's some pretty bold, we might even say brazen prayers in the scriptures where people will stand. We saw these in the case of Moses, where people will stand in front of God and say some pretty audacious things. I mean, and make some and make some extremely bold demands of him. Well, really, I mean, we might even say take him to task for certain things. How in the world could anybody ever do that in front of the creator of heaven and earth? Well, quite simply because they are holding God to his promises. They're saying, listen, you tell us you don't lie,

and you have spoken this particular word, and therefore I'm going to hold you to it. I'm going to do exactly actually what you want me to do. I'm going to quote your words back to you so that on that basis, you can act on them and be faithful to what you, what you promised. I mean, it's really the, it's really the story of the cyber Phoenician woman who won't let Jesus go. Even, even the crumbs fall, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from, from their master's table.

So she catches Christ in his own words, as, as Luther says. about that story. Yeah, in that story, you have a woman who's like, come on now, I know you actually want to do this. Yeah, right. Somebody who understands the heart of God, that it's in his heart to do this. I know that this is actually what you're here to do. She's the only one in that particular situation who actually gets Jesus. At that point, his disciples don't. They're just like, just send her away, or give her what she wants and send her away. So she's really the only one who understands Jesus truly wants to do this. Oh, she knows Jesus way better than the disciples at that point. Yes, she does. Well, we got about 10 minutes left. Should we get into some of David's

victories? David's going to go out and do some fighting? Yeah, so I think I mentioned this at the beginning of last episode. Chapter 7 of 2 Samuel is sort of a rest in the story of David. It's like a big parenthesis where you have this focus upon this promise and this prayer. But everything that's in the scriptures isn't necessarily chronological. We've seen examples of this in the past where something will be out of order. I think we saw it at the end of those last couple chapters, maybe, of 1 Samuel, where things are not in chronological order. And I think that's probably what's going on with chapter 7. It's probably the setting of 2 Samuel 7 is probably after many of the events recorded in chapter 8,

but it's bracketed there because they want the focus to be on that. We're going to pick up with David's victories in chapter 8, and we'll see that all of these are hitting the points of the compass. There's some victories in the north, some in the south, some in the east, some in the west. So this chapter, which is relatively brief, it's what, 18 verses? is a description of how David begins to not only to conquer the immediate threats to his kingdom, but to create sort of a buffer around his kingdom so that he will be protected from incursions of other people that might threaten the kingdom. It starts out with a focus on the

West. So these are our familiar enemies, the Philistines. Chapter 8 starts out by saying that David defeated the Philistines and subdued them. And David took, it's either a place name or maybe chief city. The place name would be Methag Amah. Methag is bridal. And Amah, something like cubit. So it's kind of hard to translate, but some people translate that as David took the chief city out of the hand of the Philistines. But however you want to translate it, of course the philistines have been the threat for quite some time all the way back in in samson's day all the way through saul and now david and so david is going to it if not destroy them probably just to subdue them so they're no longer a threat and take control of one of their one of their

principal cities tell you what david's record against the philistines is astounding like he's he's like like never loses yeah i mean this is gonna be lost on a lot of people but when i think about david and the philistines so back in the 90s there was a great basketball team called the utah jazz carl malone john stockton a bunch of other players great would have won multiple championships i'm positive but there was also this guy named michael jordan that happened to be in the league at the same time as them and they could never defeat him they get all the way up and he would just win he just beat them every single time and without him in the picture they win lots of championships but as it is neither of those guys ever win a championship because

michael jordan exists like david is the michael jordan of the philist like to the philistines this is they they have to absolutely hate this guy this is possibly the first time in the history of interpretation that that analogy has been made. So consider it copyrighted. There you go. If you ever hear anyone say that David is Michael Jordan to the Philistines, then you know where it came from. It all started here. He's undefeated against the Philistines. So we got the West taken care of. Those are the long-standing enemies of the Israelites. Now what comes next? Now we're going to shift eastward to the moabites we're told that he defeated the moabites or moab and now we have a a very a very strange scene that's described for us here which uh i've checked number

of sources no one knows exactly what went down here except that some people died i'll read the esv he he defeated moab and he measured them with a line making them lie down on the ground two lines he measured to be put to death and one full line to be spared and the moabites became servants to david and brought tribute now to uh to segue off your michael jordan uh comment analogy there's a possibility that what's being described here is some sort of height measurement so like uh it's you know he's not made him lay down to the ground and so the tallest guys were the ones that got executed and the guys who weren't as tall the ones who were spared sort of a uh a dwindling of the the superior gene pool if you will to make them less of a threat

some people take it that direction others explained it in different sorts of ways who knows this would be very bad news for me that's just exactly what i was thinking i mean i i'm not a short guy i'm six one but uh i'm not i know we're close to you because you're six five yeah five yeah yeah so this would even though i would argue i would argue you'd be in trouble i would argue at that point i'd be like i'm tall but i'm not i'm not big is there's a difference so that i would point at chad big this guy is much more problem than me i'm just i'm just long that's different yeah well both of us uh by ancient height standards both of us would probably be in the grave we would far exceed the average height of guys this time so whatever happened there's a whole

lot of moabites that got put to death uh because of because of david so basically basically what they're doing here is they're they're getting rid of anyone who would uh potentially be a warrior or could put up a fight and they're keeping people who um who can become servants yeah yeah because i mean david is doing the same thing that any any ancient king would have done when he's kind establishing his his mini kingdom their goal and not just david's goal but almost any king's goal would not be to like to completely annihilate and decimate a population most of the time what they want to do is subjugate them and then make them into a vassal state so they have to basically pay you you know giving you a portion of their crops and maybe their servants and whatnot so that's

kind of what david is doing here he's he's keeping them in line and then also making them in some of them anyway pay him pay his nation uh a tribute every year which is what happens with the moabites and then we have in verse three a description of another uh nation to the north so david defeated a guy named had a dazer hadad azir would be the proper pronunciation of it hadad is is the name of an ancient deity, probably actually identical to Baal, the one that we've talked about a number of times. This, in fact, may be his proper name. We usually call him Baal or Baal, but that just actually is more of a title. It means lord or master. But Hadad was a storm god, and then the Azar part of his name means helper. So Hadad Azar means Hadad is my helper. This particular king

was king of a region known as Zobah. Zobah was to the north of Israel, and this guy was on his way to restore his power at the river Euphrates. And along the way, David takes him on, and he wipes him out. He takes from him 1,700 horsemen, 20,000 foot soldiers. And then we have this kind of gruesome detail that David hamstrung all the chariot horses, except for 100 of them, except for 100 chariots i'm not exactly sure why david did that because if you hamstring a horse the horse is going to die so why don't just kill the horse yeah yeah this is a this is a strange thing to do yeah that's a uh if you're an animal lover i'm sorry about this text that's that's pretty rough yeah that's pretty that's pretty rough actually that makes zero sense to me if

you're going to hamstring an animal just kill the animal because the animal's gone anyway but whatever the reason was that's what he did then some syrians came down from damascus which was in this general area damascus is is you remember is way north kind of north uh east of the sea of galilee so the syrians come down from damascus to give him help evidently they were allies of hadadazer and david struck them down to 22 000 of the syrians and in fact he gained so much control of this particular area that he put garrisons in aram of damascus and the syrians became servants to david and they brought tribute too and the lord gave victory to david wherever he went so this is a theological explanation thrown in here at the end of verse six but this wasn't

just david's ambitious kind of expansion of his empire he's actually expanding his lands to about the same boundaries that God had promised to Abraham back in Genesis. So David is fulfilling what God had promised to Abraham generations before. And then we're told another detail that he took the shields that could also be translated quivers. So shields are quivers of gold that were carried by the servants of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem. And he also took some cities and brought back some bronze from there as well. These shields or quivers probably were just decorative, almost kind of a showy kind of type deal

because you wouldn't have carried a golden shield into battle or golden quivers. These were probably just kind of showing off the wealth of the nation. So David would bring those back. He brings back the bronze. And we find out in Chronicles that a lot of these metals that David was collecting were used in the construction of the temple later on by Solomon, which is perfectly fitting with the way the tabernacle was built too remember the tabernacle was built by all of the gold and silver that they'd taken from the egyptians so god's always

taking as it were the spoils of war from the enemies of his people in order to construct from that his house he did with the tabernacle he does it he does it here with the temple so what david is doing is basically taking his his borders and we'll get to the other battles in the next episode, but he's taking his enemies to the west and to the east and to the north, and he is subjugating them. He's making them into vassal states so that they're going to be forced to pay tribute to Israel. And by doing this in all directions, he's creating this zone around Israel that's going to help to protect them from any foreign nations that might want to invade either egypt from the south or somebody coming in from from the north so david has a

promise he prays the prayer and at this point he's a warrior he's kind of setting everything up so that his kingdom is secure from external enemies now as we'll find out soon enough in a couple more chapters it's not it's not the external enemies that david has to worry about pretty much the rest of his life, all his enemies are internal. They're people within Israel, or most prominently, it's the person that he sees in the mirror. That is the internal enemy that it really is going to be David's undoing. Yeah, a lot of the other kings, you know, they're fighting with, well, throughout the history of Israel, you see lots of foreign powers coming and carting them away into captivity or all this kind of stuff.

This is not the case with David. David is, he wins battles on the outside, but there's lots of internal stuff that David has to deal with where he is not nearly as good a warrior as he is as fighting the external enemy. He's much better on the battlefield than at home. Yes, yes he is. So we'll get to more battles next week.

Make sure you register for the Vegas event. you can find a link in the show notes to go over the site and if you're in the minnesota area make sure you come out to the one day event out there chad i'll see you next week all right see you then