BibleProject - Saul the Anti-Anointed – Anointed E3
Episode Date: March 27, 2023Israel’s first anointed king, Saul, consistently makes choices that put him in conflict with God and the responsibilities God has entrusted to him. This turns Saul into the first anti-anointed one�...�or put another way, the first antichrist. In this episode, Tim and Jon explore the theme of anointing in the stories of Israel’s first two kings, Saul and David.View more resources on our website →Timestamps Part one (00:00-13:01)Part two (13:01-28:45)Part three (28:45-47:05)Part four (47:05-1:08:21)Referenced ResourcesThe Serpent in Samuel: A Messianic Motif, Brian A. VerrettInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience our entire library of resources in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS“Never Felt the Same” by Sleepy Fish“Excellent” by Propaganda“Evening Flight” by Sam StewartShow produced by Cooper Peltz with Associate Producer Lindsey Ponder, Lead Editor Dan Gummel, and Editors Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza. Mixed by Tyler Bailey. Podcast annotations for the BibleProject app by Hannah Woo.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.
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Here's the episode.
We're tracing the theme of the anointed.
Anointing is a practice of smearing oil on people and sometimes places.
It's a symbol, marking a person or an area
as a place where heaven and earth unite. Today, we're talking about the anointing of Israel's
first kings, Saul and then King David. And here's what's surprising. King Saul, the first
anointed king, becomes the first anti-Christ in the Bible. The Greek word Christ is the Greek word for anointed one.
So the anti-Christ means the anti-anointed one.
What's interesting is the first anointed king in Israel's history
actually becomes the biggest obstacle
to the anointed king that God wants to raise up.
It is David, his replacement.
So Saul becomes the first anti-anointed.
Saul has given an opportunity to lead Israel
as the anointed,
but he fails to trust in God's word.
So God picks David instead.
David is anointed privately, and he spends years waiting
for his public anointing.
And this begins an important idea within the theme
of the anointed.
But the anointed one must trust in God's word patiently,
even when it leads to suffering. You have an anointed one must trust in God's word patiently, even when it leads to suffering.
You have an anointed one who's given everything they need to succeed,
but there are moments that are going to need to trust and trust God's wisdom,
and in Saul's case he does it first, and then he stops. But now here's David,
and he, not only succeeds, where Adam and he failed, because Saul did that too.
But now, David is succeeding where Saul failed, test after test.
In fact, Saul becomes the test.
And David refuses to exalt himself to the public place of God's anointed one.
And remember, God's anointed one is supposed to crush the snake.
So if Saul has become a snake, should David kill him?
In other words, what do you do with the snake if the snake is your brother?
Portrait of the anointed one takes a big step forward in the story of David.
Whatever it's going to look like to stop on the snake,
sometimes it's as simple as Goliath.
You know, kill the bad guy.
But what if the bad guy is the anointed one, Saul, your brother?
What then?
So, the true victory of God's real anointed one is to sit patiently and wait through suffering,
even suffering that comes from your own brothers, and allow God to elevate you to the place of rule, and to trust that God
will bring about the downfall of your persecutors.
Today Tim Mackey and I explore the theme of the anointed in the story of Israel's first
kings, Solon David.
I'm John Collins, you're listening to Bible Project Podcast.
Thanks for joining us.
Here we go.
Hey Tim. Hey John. us. Here we go.
Hey Tim. Hey John. Hi. Hi. Hello. Hello. And welcome to another conversation.
I get to have with you. Yeah. Yeah. 100. There's been hundreds of hours. Yeah. And I simultaneously have learned so much and probably should know 10 times as much as I actually do with the amount of hours.
Yeah, right.
The number of pure minutes we have logged.
No, I'll go back and look at series we've done with notes from previous podcast series and it's like,
oh, wow, so none of that's in my head right now.
I have to look at the notes and then it uploads. Yeah. falls out your ears. Yeah, that's okay. You try to cram it in, keep it in.
We're talking about the theme of the Inuitid. The Inuitid, yes. So this has been great. We've
been talking about that there's a ritual in which in the Testament, we came upon it where these early for centric Christians were smearing oil on each other and praying for each other.
You're like, that's kind of weird.
Praying for God's healing power to transform somebody and heal them. Well, yeah, and so praying for healing is that's its own thing. Yeah, and it's a beautiful thing
But then the practice of putting oil on someone. Yeah, where'd that come from? So we start tracing that whole idea
And it brought us back to in the Hebrew Bible
The ritual of using oil, but it was very specific
Not for just healing people or just kind of like having prayer sessions
It was to select someone
and annoy them, meaning to commission them, appoint them as a representative for everyone
else. You're marking them as like a gateway between heaven and earth, a guide, a mediator, someone who's feet are on the ground, but who can then
like bring the divine down to us.
Yeah, and key for that was looking at not just the people who get oil poured on them in the
Hebrew Bible, but also the places that get anointed or smeared with oil. And there were two that
we looked at because they are the two of which is the
rock that Jacob pours oil on where he had a vision that heaven and earth are connected
in that spot. And then the tavernacle with the tent and everything in the tent and
around it got the super special oil smeared or poured on it. And it marked that as a
heaven on earth place, a garden of Eden, spot where God's
presence overlaps with Earth.
Yeah, so more abstract than even just a person, it's just marking a place as a portal.
Yeah, to heaven.
A portal between heaven and Earth, and that can be a walking, talking, bridge between heaven
and Earth in the form of a prophet or a priest or a king.
Mm-hmm.
There's the three people associated with anointing
in the Hebrew Bible, or it can be a place that's a place of a sacred space. In Jacob's
case, it's a place called, he names Bethel, House of God, and he calls it the Gate of Heaven.
But then the tabernacle is portable. So you can take that anywhere. And as long as Yahweh's glory is inhabiting it,
as it tours through the wilderness,
any place can become a heaven on earth portal
based on where Yahweh wants to set up a camp.
Yeah.
So you showed us how Moses gave a very specific ingredients
a recipe for some anointing oil.
And it kind of makes you wonder like,
how was their imagination shaped in such
that they were like, you know what we need to use?
Oil.
Yeah, yeah.
You know what a really marked this place
is a heaven and earth spot?
Yeah, smear some oil.
Oil.
And not just any oil.
Oil, oil.
Yeah, it was fragrant.
Oil was Cassia and Mer and fragrant cane and et cetera.
We explored the logic of that.
So you brought us back to Genesis 2.
Yeah.
And we looked at the symbols and the meaning behind God taking land and watering it, forming
man, forming the garden.
And so there's, you know, the water of. And so there's the water of life,
being instrumental for the creation of life.
But then there was one more ingredient for humans,
and that was God's breath breathing into the mud, the clay.
And so we just talked about the beauty of this image
of the spirit combined with water to create life,
water of life and spirit.
And what better object lesson, I suppose?
What better item to represent that than oil?
Because it's the life of a plant,
the water of a plant, with all the life in it,
the oils and the leaf fragrances.
With life of the plant with all the life in it, the oils and the leaf fragrances. With life of the plant.
Yeah, it's compressed down and to like maximized.
Yeah.
And as a way to think about what does it look like when spirit and water come together,
it's kind of a cool image for that.
Yeah, that's right.
In other words, in the Garden of Eden, God provides the water from the ground that irrigates
the dirt, one, so that the form of the ground that irrigates the dirt.
One, so that the form of the human can be made out of the mud,
and then so that the plants can grow up.
So water of life is key for the growth of life.
But for human life, you need more than just the earthly source.
The water, watering the dirt, you need a heavenly source. and that's what the spirit or the breath is from God.
And so water giving life and the spirit bringing life to humans become joint images.
And that's foundational because that pairing or that analogy between water and breath or spirit from God, is fundamental to how the biblical poets
in the Psalms and the prophets,
and the New Testament all talk about the spirit as liquid,
liquid life.
Which is actually kind of a weird way to think about the spirit
because the spirit is breath or wind.
Right, yeah.
And so why would you start talking about wind or breath
with the metaphor of liquid?
Liquid, yeah.
It's like clearly not liquid.
Yeah, totally. It's like clearly not liquid. Yeah, totally.
It's like fundamentally not liquid.
Yeah, that's right.
But metaphorically, there are ways of thinking about each other.
The effects of water are like and compared to the effects of the spirit in the Garden
of Eden story.
And so that connection in that story provides the foundation for why the spirit is described as liquid.
The spirit will be poured on you. You could be filled with the spirit. These are liquid metaphors.
That's right. So the association of water and spirit as like images. And then what better liquid to symbolize that life-giving, energizing spirit that fills a place on earth with the heavenly presence of God.
What better?
Liquid then.
Coolade.
Contrary delight.
Have you ever had a country delight?
No, he's got me two times.
I do remember country delight.
What was that?
I was like a lemonade type of what was country to life?
Yeah, it was what it was not a spirit.
It was like two water and sugar drinks from my childhood.
Whoa, thank you for that.
That was impeccable timing.
Sorry, oil, oil, oil, oil.
Oil. And vegetable oil. I mean, sort of. Sorry, oil. Oil. Oil. Oil.
And vegetable oil.
I mean, sort of, olive oil.
Yeah, that's right.
We're not talking about like petroleum.
That's right.
Yeah, olive oil, which is, you know, olives are the seed of the olive tree.
So the seed is the life.
And out of you squeeze that life seed of the olive tree and outcomes this dense liquid that man does so many good things.
So olive oil becomes a liquid symbol of the water of life which in Genesis 2 set on analogy to the
life giving heaven conveying presence of spirit. And when it's used in the Hebrew Bible,
daying presence of spirit. And when it's used in Hebrew Bible,
it's for people being set apart to like lead
in some way as an ambassador.
A, what's the word you'd want to use?
Oh, representative.
Represented, yeah.
Yeah, in image.
Use the language of Genesis one.
All right.
So what we're going to do, go on today,
and the next few episodes is there's one particular group of people within the storyline of the Hebrew Bible.
They get called the anointed ones, and that are associated with the energizing power of the Spirit.
And those are the kings, Israel's kings, and then specifically the kings that are David and Solomon, and then the kings from the line of David. So what we're gonna focus on right now
is actually the rivalry between the first anointed king,
Saul, and then we're gonna see how he becomes
the anti-annoyed, the anti-Christ.
Oh, remember that-
Oh yeah, anointed means Christ.
Yeah, anointed, the Greek word Christ
is the Greek word for anointed one.
So the anti-Christ means the anti-anointed one.
And what's interesting is the first anointed king in Israel's history actually becomes the biggest obstacle
to the anointed king that God wants to raise up that is David, his replacement.
So Saul becomes the first anti-anointed.
And that's what we'll talk about right now, shall we?
Let's do it. So, quick backstory from the Torah, Moses anoints the tabernacle in the high priest, and
the first person called the anointed one in Israel is actually
the High Priest of Israel, Aaron, his brother.
And so that's true throughout the Torah.
Aaron is the anointed one.
He represents all the people before God.
Once Moses dies, and Aaron dies, Aaron's sons start becoming the High Priest, but the
leadership of Israel moves on to the shoulders of a guy named Joshua.
And the Torah concludes in the last chapter
Deuteronomy by telling us that the spirit, God's spirit,
that was empowering Moses, passed on and entered into Joshua.
This is in Deuteronomy 34.
So Joshua, he's like the heaven-honored person.
He's empowered by God's heavenly spirit.
But, you know, there's no story about him being anointed.
He's not called the anointed one.
It's just, as far as, you know, the priests
or the anointed ones, but they're not ever called that
in the book of Joshua.
Once you get into the book of Judges, after that,
Joshua dies, and leader after leader, God raises up.
And what we're all told is that God's spirit
will come upon and empower these different leaders
for a time period.
It's like Gideon or Jeff the Sampson.
These are the judges.
Yeah, the judges.
Yeah, that's right.
And so none of them are anointed.
None of them are called king, but they are leaders that got empowers for a time and a place.
Are any filled with the spirit?
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
The phrase is the spirit of God came upon Gideon, right before he's about to go into
battle or something like that, and then it'll empower them.
But it's always temporary and for a period of time.
So when you step into the book of Samuel, the people don't have a king, but they want
one.
And so they approach the judge, the prophetic ruling leader of the tribes at the time.
And that's the guy named Samuel.
It's more of a prophet figure and that's a whole story.
We explored some of those dynamics in our first born part cast series on the first born.
Yeah, yeah.
Hand is kid.
Yeah, hand is son.
So I think what I want to talk about for this moment is just to start our story right now with Saul being
anointed to become king. That people ask for a king and God leads this guy Saul from the tribe of
Benjamin to meet Samuel and God says to Samuel, he's the guy. So in 1 Samuel 9 verse 16, this is
what God says to Samuel, this time tomorrow, I'm going to send you a man from the land of Benjamin, you must anoint him as the leader over my
people Israel.
And then in chapter 10, verse 1, when they finally meet and they've had a few conversations,
Samuel took a flask of oil and he poured it over his head, kissing him, saying, has not
Yahweh anointed you as leader over his inheritance?
So, that's Saul being anointed.
Just later, like a few sentences later,
what we're told is, as Saul turned a leaf,
Samuel, like he just got oil poured on his head,
maybe it made his hair shiny and he kinda like,
massage it in.
You're filling in the gaps here?
Give it, yeah.
Okay.
But give it some volume.
They all had long hairbrats then, right?
At least in.
Did they?
I mean religious media they do.
So what we're told is he was walking away
and he's on his way to a place named Givia,
which means high place.
And he meets this group of prophets.
And the spirit of God rushed upon Saul, and he started prophesying along with this band of prophets.
You skipped the verse. What's that? He turned his shoulder to the part. God changed his heart.
God changed his heart. Yeah. You skipped that on purpose. Well, it's just because it's a rabbit hole. Okay.
Yeah, okay, I skipped it, but God turned his heart over. Yeah, it's an interesting theme. The heart of Saul is fickle and it keeps flipping back and forth.
The his is Saul's heart or is God's own heart? This is God change, Saul's heart.
Okay. Yeah. There's something similar with Saul's heart that's on analogy with the heart
of Pharaoh in the Exodus scroll. But that's a whole thing in the Saul story. Okay. We don't
have time to get into. The point is that right after his anointing, the heavenly power and presence
of the Spirit fills his mind and heart and body, such that he actually begins hearing
the words of God and speaking them to others, prophesying.
Yeah.
With the procession of prophets, how many prophets do you need to make a procession?
It's a good question.
Maybe just three, four, I don't know.
How many prophets were around, like on a given day, in a given place in Israel?
Here's shaking your head.
No information about these things.
Well, okay.
Well, there's a procession of them.
Yep, there's a procession.
So notice, anointing with oil is coordinated with the spirit.
With the spirit.
The spirit of God coming upon Him.
Okay.
So just like in Genesis, chapter 2, the water, the liquid, the God provides to saturate the ground, to prepare it, to become a vessel for the
heavenly spirit, to fill the ground and appoint the royal priestly human, who will be God's representative.
That's all Genesis 2. All those images are being associated here with the liquid poured to appoint him
as king and then the spirit coming to empower him to do so.
Okay, so now Saul is set up as a new, like a new Adam, a new human.
The next story, this is so great man.
Now, there was a guy named Snake.
First thing I'm going to do is to chapter 11, first one.
Now Nakhash, that's literally Snake. First thing I mean, the Hash chapter 11 is what I'm reading here.
Now, Nakhash, that's literally snake.
Nakhash, the Ammonite, went up.
That's not like a word that sounds like snake, that's snake.
It's a guy named snake in Hebrew.
In Hebrew.
Nakhash, our translations don't translate his name,
which I guess it's fine to name,
but it's the word snake.
It's the exact word in Genesis 3.
Yeah. name, but it's the word snake. It's the exact word in Genesis 3. So this guy named snake,
who's from the Ammonites, he came up and camped against this town in Israel, Yavish Gilad.
Okay, this isn't a rival nation. The Ammonites are. The Ammonites, they're, you know, distant siblings
of the Israelites. These are one of the sons of Lot and his daughters from that
Oh, is it night of drunk sex in the cave at the end of Genesis 19?
Come the Ammonites come the Moabites and the Ammonites. Oh, okay. Yep. So Nakhash the Ammonite so
Are they also in the Genesis 10 table nations? No, they come into existence after the Sodom and Gamora story
Okay, yeah, yeah know they come into existence after the Sodom and Gomorrah story. Yeah. Yeah.
So this guy named Snake, who's from one of the rival sibling tribes of Israel, made war
on this Israelite town.
And the people of Yavish say to Snake, make a treaty with us and we'll serve you.
And Nakhash, the snake, the Ammonite said, mm, on this condition, I will make a treaty with you all
by gouging out your right eyes.
So I will disgrace you within all of Israel.
Okay.
So this is the surrender terms.
Yeah.
I'll let you surrender.
Yeah.
Either I'm gonna kill you,
but you gotta make yourself.
Overall, let you surrender.
So Nakhash, the gouder of the eye.
Recall that in the Genesis story, blindness and sight, our key images associated with
what the snake's role.
Oh, your eyes will be open.
The snake says, no, on the day you eat of it, you won't die.
Your eyes will be opened, and you will become Elohim or become like Elohim. And on the day they eat of it,
their eyes are opened and what they see it is that they're naked. So he's essentially saying
that they are blind and that he has the key for their eyes to be opened. Now here's a guy named
Snape. Want to blind him.
Saying I'm going to blind their eyes. Yeah. Okay. This is there great examples.
These are all little Eden very creative. Hyperlinks to the Eden story.
Okay. So if Saul is like a new Adam, right, appointed through liquid and
spirit. Yeah. And now there's a snake in the garden. Yeah. Yeah. What are we going to do?
So just then Saul was skipping down to verse five was coming in from the field behind the cattle.
And he said, boy, why is everybody crying today? What's the matter with everybody? He didn't see
the snake out there, camped up against the city. So the people told him about all the words
from the men of Yavastra from the city.
And the spirit of God rushed upon Saul
when he heard these words, and he became angry.
So you've got a guy named Snake,
and he said, I want to bring public shame on all of Israel.
That's what he said, by gouging out the eyes. And when
Saul hears these words of disgrace spoken over the people of God, Israel, he hears it, he gets angry,
the spirit of God comes upon him. So he mustered all the people at Bezek. The Israelites were 300,000. The men of Judah were 30,000.
Ten to one.
Yep. Notice the repetition of the number three,
whole whole three here. And he said to the messengers who had come,
this is what you should tell. The men of Yavish Giliad tomorrow,
deliverance will come for you when the sun is hot.
So at the height of the day, will be your rescue. And so the
messengers went and they told and the men of Yavish rejoiced. So the men of
Yavish turn and send messengers to snake and they say, you know tomorrow, could
you wait till tomorrow? Can we do the I think tomorrow? So look, so yeah, well come at you tomorrow and you can do to us whatever is good in your eyes
Hmm, that's right from the Eden Eden story. Yeah, it's good in your eyes
So the next day Saul put together all the soldiers in how many divisions?
Three three divisions. This is part of how the motif of the test or the ordeal
Yeah, three symbolizes a test This is part of how the motif of the test or the ordeal.
Three symbolizes a test.
Yeah, often when you're getting to...
The ordeal, I like that.
The ordeal.
In other words, the belly of the whale.
This is how the Hebrew Bible melody works.
So later biblical narratives are designed in order,
often to be patterned after the order of the early chapters of Genesis.
And so you've had a new Adam established in the garden, a snake appears, and that snake,
the appearance of the snake, creates a test or a choice for God's appointed one.
Right. And three represents the test.
And oftentimes, things, the number three, or patterns of three,
sometimes forty, or sometimes forty. Yeah or patterns of three. Sometimes 40 or sometimes 40, yeah, the threat.
So with his 300,000 men and 30,000 soldiers of Judah
placed in three divisions, they went out
and they struck down the amonites at the heat of the day.
And it happened that the remainder were scattered
so that not even two of the snaky amonites remained together.
He ran out the snake.
Hmm.
Way to go, Saul.
All right.
Yeah, yeah.
So all the people came to Gilgal and they made Saul king before the Lord and Gilgal.
And they offered sacrifices and everybody rejoices.
This is the story that won him over, in a way.
Yeah. and everybody rejoices. This is the story that I want him over in a way.
Yeah, in other words, Saul has been privately anointed as king.
Okay.
And Samuel put him before the people,
and the people say that they want him,
and then this battle happens.
So it's his victory over a guy named Snake
that qualifies him in the eyes of the people to say,
we want you, we want this guy.
Yeah.
So this is the rise of Saul.
And it's, you know, just on the retelling that I just summarized,
you're like, yeah, I think we could God could work with this guy, you know,
he overcame, literally overcame.
This was a good hiring decision.
The snake totally.
Yeah.
Okay.
So what happens from here in Saul's story is the sequence from 1 Samuel 12-15, and
it's a series of failures of Saul, two major ones, and you'll just have to trust me, but
the language in all of these stories just goes right through the language of Genesis
1 through 11 again, except when he comes to each of those two or
deals or tests again, he fails both of them. And so in 1 Samuel 15, when he fails both of those tests, this is what he's told by Samuel,
the guy who annoyed at him. 1 Samuel chapter 15 verse 26, Samuel said to Saul,
You have rejected the word of Yahweh, and so Yahweh has rejected you as being king among Israel.
As Samuel turned to go, Saul seized the edge of his robe. So like Samuel was leaving, he's angry, And Saul grabs just the edge of the robe
and it tears off in his hand.
He like tears off a piece of the robe.
It's a vivid scene.
And Samuel turns around and he looks at his torn robe,
and this is what he says,
Yahweh has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, Saul,
and he's gonna give it to your neighbor,
one who has more tove than you.
More good than you.
It's very cinematic scene.
It is, yeah. It's pretty epic.
Saul grabs the robo, Mattair's, Samuel turns around and goes,
God's tearing the kingdom from you.
And cut.
Yeah, that's very scene.
More tove.
Or tove.
So that's the sequence that ends with first Samuel 15.
The next chapter is about
begins the descent of Saul and the rise of David.
So the anointed one
has shifted. Now he is no longer God's favorite anointed one
in God's eyes, but nobody else knows that other than
these two. And God's going to raise up a new anointed one. And as Saul is beginning his downfall,
David is beginning his rise. And the rest of the first Samuel story is going to be about
these parallel tracks of the true anointed and then the anti-anointed.
And just track the sequence of the story of David, we're going to do just now, like we're
going to do.
And it's been designed to imitate the rise of Saul.
David's rise is going to imitate Saul's rise to power.
And in really creative and clever ways.
So moving on to David, shall we?
This is the neighbor who is more toth than saw. So chapter 16 begins and God tells Samuel, I'm done with all, let's go to this guy's
house in the town named Bethlehem,
to guy named Jesse.
He's got all these sons.
And we've also explored the story of the selection of David earlier this year in the first born podcast series.
So I just wanted to go to the moment that when David walks into the room, Samuel takes the horn of oil
and he anoints him in the midst of his brothers and the spirit of the Lord
came powerfully upon David from that day forward. And you're like, oh, yeah, that's what happened
with Saul. That's exactly what happened with David in the exact same words. Oh, remember except
Samuel had a flask of oil. This is a horn. Now it's coming out of an empty rams horn.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's a better design choice.
Yep.
The next chapter is for Samuel 17, a pretty famous story about David versus a guy named
Goliath.
So, the Philistines are fighting the Israelites, and we're told that the Philistines are on
one side of a valley, Israelites on the other, and then there's this battle line in between them.
And what we're told is that every day, the biggest baddest warrior of the Philistines,
he's called in Hebrew, the Ish Baniam, the man of the in between.
Hello.
It gets translated as champion in our English translation.
I don't know why man Man of the in between.
Yeah.
Because he's walking in between the battle lines.
Yeah.
He just like strolls out there to the in between the battle
lines.
Yeah.
So the man of the in between came out from the armies of
Philistines.
His name was Goliath.
Goliath.
His height was, well, depends on what ancient text you're reading. So that's whole rabbit. Rabbit hole. Whether he was well depends on what ancient texture reading.
Susshole rabbit.
Travel. Whether he was like 11 feet high or 7 feet high, there's textual variants in ancient
manuscripts.
Okay. I mean, that's quite a difference.
It is quite a difference, yeah. But we start focusing on the bronze helmet on his head
and the scatily armor that weighed 5,000 checkles of bronze, his bronze grooves, his bronze
javelin. The word bronze is spelled with the letters of the word snake. Nachas is snake,
Nachoshit is bronze and the armor is scaly. Okayush-cush-it, which is the same word used to describe animal, like reptile scales.
Okay.
And he grew up animal.
Yeah.
So he's being described as a big bronze snake.
Yeah.
Now, it's a wordplay.
It's a clever wordplay.
Right.
Okay.
But pay attention.
He would go out, verse 8, and shout at the ranks of Israel and say, why did you guys
even come out to draw drop in battle today?
Am I not the Philistine and arch you the servants of Saul? Choose a man. Let him come down to me.
If you can fight with me and kill me, we'll become your slaves. But if I prevail against him and
kill him, you will become our slaves. And again, the Philistine said, I publicly shame the
ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man that we might fight together. A public shaming. Yeah,
he is bringing public shame. It's trash talk. So some translations translate this, I taunt. The ranks of Israel, some translations say, I defy, but it's ch-ch-ch-r-eeth.
You're shaming someone. Basically, you're, that's what Bully's do, you know? It's like,
stand up for yourself, you know? So that's what he's doing. He's disgracing them.
And that is at the same phrase used or just same idea used by-
It's a different word from what Nakhash the Emanite did.
Okay.
But it's the same idea.
He wants to bring disgrace.
Yeah, disgrace over.
And when Saul heard these words of the Philistine, okay, stop right there.
So here's a big bronze snake he did of Israel's enemies, bringing public disgrace on Israel.
How did Saul respond last time this happened?
Yeah, he just took care of them. Yeah, he drove him out.
Yeah, the spirit of God came on him and he drove him out.
This time when Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine,
they were dismayed. They were greatly afraid. You're like, oh, okay.
Something's changed. His heart has changed.
You're like, oh, okay. So something's changed.
His heart has changed.
But then in the next paragraph, David appears on the scene.
His dad's like, hey, go visit your brothers on the front line, bring them some cheese and
oats and yummy things.
So David shows up with all these goodies.
And we're told in verse 22, he ran to the battle line.
And he entered in order to greet his brothers.
And as he was saying hi to his brothers, behold, the Ischbeneiom, the man of the inn between
the Philistine, was coming up just at that moment.
Imagine the timing.
And he spoke the same words, and David heard them.
And when all the men of Israel saw him, they fled and they were greatly aflayed.
But David, he spoke to the guys standing around him and he said,
You know, is the king said he's going to do anything for the man who will kill that
Philistine and take away this reproach from Israel?
Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should bring public shame
on the armies of the living God? You can see what's happening here. I think you probably
can.
Oh, well, I mean, just on a very literal level, he's asking, is there a bounty? And why
is it in the king? What's the king going to do about this?
Yeah, what, yeah. What's Saul doing? Yeah.
Is he going to do this. Yeah. What's Saul doing? Yeah. So, you're going to do anything?
Yeah.
So, what Saul did when he heard the words, is he's freaking out with his army, and they're
no one's going to go up to him.
So, you have two anointed ones in the story.
You have Saul.
That's right, because David's been anointed.
Yeah, he's been anointed privately.
But just he, just like, you know, nobody knows about it except a few.
So now you have two anointed ones, and Saul is responding the opposite way.
He did last time.
He encountered a snake.
And now David is responding more like Saul did back when Saul encountered a sneaky man
the Mmonite. So now David is like becoming a new Saul
or becoming what Saul ought to have done or should have done. So Saul hears about this young kid
who's like, you know, trash talk in this Philistine. So he brings him into his tent and he says,
listen, this is what Saul says to David, you are not able to go against this Philistine.
You're just a kid.
He's been a warrior.
Did we skip a part where he actually volunteered?
Yeah, yeah.
It's okay.
He actually does volunteer.
He does volunteer, that's right.
But he volunteers because Saul hears the rumors start spreading
that there's this kid who's saying that he would be willing
to fight the Philistine.
So Saul tries to talk him out of it.
And David gives this great speech when he says, listen, I've been a shepherd for a while.
And there have been times when a lion or a bear would come and take one of the lambs.
And you know what?
I just went after that thing and I attacked it.
And I rescued the lamb from its mouth. And if a lion or the
bear rose up against me, I would seize it by its beard. I guess the lions have mane.
It's a beard of a bear. You know, they can be hairy. They can be kind of hairy.
Yeah, under the chin. Yeah, and if they've been drooling or something, then that's kind
of like just that hair is just hanging down. So, well, let's keep reading. I'll see, he's devised
beer and I'll strike him and kill him. That lion or bear. I mean, your servant has killed both the
lion and a bear. And this Philistine, yeah, will be just like that because he has publicly shamed
the armies of the living God. So David said, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion,
from the paw of the bear, will deliver me from the hand of this
Philistine snake. This snake is my addition.
So he's comparing Goliath to this wild beast. Sure, an owl.
Yeah.
And Goliath has already been subtly compared to a beast of the field, namely a snake.
So now David is being portrayed on analogy.
David's now the new Adam in the story facing the snake in his ordeal, just like Saul did, but now Saul is facing this snake and he's totally
afraid and you can see the contrast. So let's just stop. This is a pivot point. It's a pivot point.
Yeah, but notice just how creative this is. Right. Yeah. The way the narrative is being shaped to
compare both of these characters back to Adam and the Garden and then to contrast them with each other within the Samuel story.
Yeah, who pointed this stuff out to you? I mean, this is not very like clear on the surface.
Like the...
Oh. I mean, the guy's name is Snake, I guess you're reading in Hebrew.
Yeah, that's... Yeah, like that.
The bronze sounds like the word Snake.
Yeah, so two things. One, this is over the last many years, I have been going to every Jewish and Israeli
scholars work who's trying to understand the reading habits and skills of Jewish Bible
nerds in the second temple period.
And when you learn how they read their Bible,
it becomes clear that they were reading it
along the grain of its design.
So this is a lot of what we've been doing
with design patterns and hyperlinks in the melody.
So I did, however, find an author who,
so for a while, I was just like,
oh, I could see all this, this makes a lot of of sense and I've learned a lot also from a number of
Scholars William Tumon David Andrew Teeter Jake Stromberg. These are Hebrew Bible scholars right now publishing and pursuing similar
Questions in Hebrew Bible, but I found author
Brian Verrett who wrote a book recently called the Serpent Insamual, a Messianic motif.
And when I read his book, I was like, I'm not crazy.
He sees it all too.
So if this is a topic, the interest to you, this is a whole book on Garden of Eden imagery,
specific to the snake in the story of Samuel.
So just, you know, not making this up.
Yeah.
Okay.
So yes, it is very creative, very interesting.
Mm-hmm.
And it makes you want to stop and kind of think more about these ideas.
But it's incredibly easy to miss.
I mean, but cool.
Yeah.
Showing us.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Totally.
Okay. We're almost, we're getting there. Okay. So the Philistine mocks David says am I a dog?
That you're coming to me was this is a lie of this a lie. Yeah, yeah, okay, so David goes out
He can select his five smooth stones right gets a sling. Yeah, all that right effort that sermon
um
and
He goes out to face the giant snake and
And he goes out to face the giant snake.
And this giant snake makes fun of him, saying, am I a dog?
You are coming at me with sticks.
Yeah.
And the reader is thinking, no,
like you're like a bear or a lion or like a snake.
That's what you are.
So the Philistine cursed David by his Elohim.
So in the name of dog-one,
and in the name of Baal, I curse you, Israelite.
And so David famously says to the giant snake, you are coming at me with a sword and a spear
and a javelin, but I am coming to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel's battle lines whom you have publicly shamed. So that theme
of shame is really key here. Wow, because Adam and Eve feel shame. Adam and Eve, they were naked
and not ashamed. And then on a day they ate of the fruit, their eyes were opened and they saw
that they were naked and then they hide their bodies from each other. So this is also an echo of the Eden motif here.
Yeah, that's worth thinking about a little bit more.
Shame is it's a feeling of inferiority.
Because it's due to hide.
Because it's due to hide.
But it seems like also this is an honor shame society.
That's right.
And really it's like by being publicly disgraced, it's kind of one of the worst things that
could happen to you in a different way.
Yeah, your identity is kind of bound up in your status.
In this case, among the nations.
To be shamed, to be shamed is to be treated as nothing, as less than,
which is kind of like Jesus saying,
you can murder someone, you could also just
hate your brother.
And it's like just as bad as murder.
It's like by making them.
Yeah, by publicly insulting them.
Yeah, shaming them.
It's a big deal.
It's kind of connected to the idea of being the image God.
And Adam and Eve feeling shame, no one's shaming them, but all of a sudden something happened where by
taking the fruit wisdom on their own terms, their eyes were open, but then they recognized Yeah, we've made a huge... I've made a terrible mistake.
I've made a terrible mistake.
That's a whole trope now, like different films and shows.
Yeah, I've made a horrible decision.
Yeah, that moment.
A moment of realization.
That's right.
Now here, it's someone, you know, forcing public shame on another that would resist it.
But the Israelites, their king is running away.
In a way, it's as Saul fears and runs away from the giant snake, it's a way of him saying,
my God is not powerful enough to deliver us, and we are not powerful enough of a nation to defend ourselves.
So their status among the nations is lowered.
And for David, he's like, no, my God delivered me from a lion and bear.
He's the living God.
So he can take off the head of the snake, and that's essentially what David does. He famously slings Goliath with one stone,
sinks into his forehead. And then there's a little focus of the story where David runs up with no
sword in his hand, and then in verse 51 of first Samuel 17, David ran and stood over the Philistine,
took his sword, drew it from its sheath,
killed him, and cut off his head with it.
So he crushes the head.
Genesis 3.15.
He strikes the head.
And he is not struck by the snake.
Because in Genesis 3, the snake crusher will also be struck.
Yeah.
So this case, it's just one direction to strike. Just a snake woven. also be struck. Yeah. So, in this case, it's just one direction.
Just a snake woven.
Yeah, totally.
So here, then, David is compared.
Well, he's contrasted with Adam and Eve in that he successfully drives out the snake.
Yeah.
Crushes the snake's head.
So, by the time you get to the end of first Samuel 17, you are
feeling great about this kid. You're like, he has radical faith and trust in Yahweh.
And he is secretly Israel's king, but Israel does not recognize him.
You're feeling great about that, but did we feel great about that when Saul told about the snake?
Yeah, we were. Yeah. So there must be some tests coming. Okay. I expect some tests to come
Mm-hmm David's way and long behold when did the test begin chapter 18?
Here Saul becomes jealous
About how God is elevating David and people are singing songs about David saying you know Saul
Killed his thousands of Philistines, but David
He's killed just tens of thousands.
This is what it says, the young women sing in the town.
Maligued under your skin.
Totally.
It does.
Yeah.
So, in these chapters, I'm all leading up to First Sam of 24, which will land the plane
here.
But for the next five chapters, for Samuel 18 to 23, it's all stories about
Saul trying to kill David. So this is a can an able kind of thing. Exactly right. Yeah.
Yeah. So David is like an Adam or like an able, you know, who's favored in God's eyes, the chosen one.
And Saul takes on the role of a cane,
whose anti, the anointed one,
but they're both anointed ones, that's what makes it.
It's the anti-noiety.
It's the anointed one turned into.
Yeah, the anti-noiety.
It's the cane figure.
Yeah.
The Christ and the anti-Christ.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting.
So, in other words, they're almost like reverse mirrors
of each other, because they're both Israelite kings. But one has been anointed secretly, privately. One has been
anointed publicly, and it's about the rivalry between the two. So notice all of these themes,
the anointed one, but the first born, right, the rivalry between between these two Kinsman kings, there's so many themes overlapping right here. So this all builds up to, for Samuel 24, where David flees, he just has to run for his
life into the wilderness.
But he's got a crew of like faithful,
abandoned brothers around him.
And so, and for Samuel 24, David flees to a cave.
And caves, you know, from the book of Genesis,
are little refuges that are like Eden, Eden refuges.
We do.
We know this.
Okay.
And then more specifically in 1 Samuel 241, we're told that David is dwelling in the wilderness
of Anguede, which is an actual place.
It is also the words of the phrase Garden of Eden with just the letters swapped around.
The phrase Garden of Eden is gone,
Aiden, and Angedi is the same letters, just reversed. Okay. So he's in his own little Eden.
But it's in a wilderness. Well, so was the garden of Eden. Yeah, we get exactly right, totally.
Yeah. So Saul took three thousand chosen men to seek David in front of just want to talk David
Yeah, so there's this cave and Saul looked into the cave and he went in he was like guys
I really got to go to the bathroom
And we're told that he went in to relieve himself and Hebrew that is
then to relieve himself. And Hebrew, that is.
Several Hebrew lessons here.
In Hebrew, it means to cover over the feet.
Really?
It means you take down your robe.
Oh, that's how you say it.
It's covering your feet and you're squatting
and you're taking a dump.
Oh, this is the, this is the number two.
Yeah.
To cover over your feet.
Oh, I'm totally gonna use that.
I need to go cover over my feet.
Yeah.
So, I mean, you get the idea.
If you ever row, there's basically two things you can do.
I would be more inclined to hike it up
and just hold it under my shoulders.
That's awkward.
If I'm squatting, but it's awkward.
It could fall down and then, so instead,
you kind of take it down.
And you kind of like blouse it out. And then it's over your feet. Yeah, at least that's the phrase
It's not a common phrase. It's only yeah, it's an idiom
It's used also in the story of that really overweight king egg lung in judges chapter three
He does a squatty and that's well, that's about he heard who stabbed him in the stomach. And he went, that's all the other thing.
But.
Say in Hebrew for me, just please just indulge me.
So saw we're into the cave, le hasek et ra-glav.
Hasek et ra-glav.
Hasek is to cover et ra-glav is the feet, his feet.
I'm not going to be able to pull that off.
And then here's the narrator. I'm not going to be able to pull that off. All right.
And then here's the narrator says,
Now David and his men had been sitting in that very cave in the back, like they were
hiding in the cave.
So Saul, they're like touring around the wilderness, looking for David.
They went and hid in this cave.
You just imagine this would be a great film scene.
And you're looking out and you just see King Saul coming in. Yeah. But then he goes halfway and then he turns around and
yeah. You're like, oh, he found us. Oh, wait, no, he's going to the bathroom. He's covered in his feet.
Okay. So this is so classic, man. In other words, he's naked. Oh, well, yeah, half naked. Yeah. So I'll get
think of Eden. Sure. Okay. Okay. All right. The men of David said to him, this is the day,
which you always said to you, I'm going to give your enemy into your hand. So David,
you should do to him what is good in your eyes. This is what there's what they're saying.
And that's the phrase from the Garden of Eden.
Yeah, this is also the phrase used from the story
of with Nakhash the Ammonite.
Yeah, they told the Ammonite.
It's, hey, I do what's good in your eyes.
Yeah. But to be clear in the Garden of Eden story,
how was the phrase used?
The woman saw it was good in her eyes.
Yeah, yeah, it was, she saw that the tree was good
for seeing or good to look at.
Okay. Yeah.
And then she took from the fruit and she ate.
Okay.
And then later that act is called God describes what Adam and Eve did as stretching out their
hand and taking from the, from the tree.
Okay.
So, David's friends are saying, David, do what's good in your eyes.
Mm-hmm.
Like, this guy's trying to kill you.
Yeah. Here's your in your eyes. Like this guy's trying to kill you. Yeah, here's your moment.
Yeah. So David got up
and he cut off the edge of Saul's robe.
That sounds familiar.
Yeah.
He goes off the edge of the robe, but secretly.
So how he pulled this off, I mean...
Did you.
Yeah. He meant like what? wasn't it quiet in there? Like was it
solved being loud about his business? You know, the David could like, anyway, leaves a lot
to the imagination. Yeah, it's almost focused. So it came about afterwards that David's, it says,
his heart struck him because he had cut off the edge of Saul's
robe.
Or he felt bad about it.
He felt bad.
He's like, I shouldn't have done that.
So David said to his men, may the Lord forbid that I ever do such a thing to my master,
who is Yahweh's anointed one?
Isn't that interesting? Yeah, because David knows he's also the anointed one. Yeah, not just also but like
He's clued in that he is the true anointed one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but he is willing to honor even though that God's
Anointed one has become the anti-anointed one
David says far be it from me to do that,
or to stretch out my hand against him,
which is the phrase to describe what Adam did.
Stretch out their hand and take.
Yep, yeah, for he is the anointed one.
So in other words, he's being portrayed here.
So they told David, like, just take him out.
Stretch out your hand and kill him.
Yeah. Let's say David doesn't do that. He just stretches his hand. Stretch out your hand and kill him. Yeah.
Now David doesn't do that.
He just stretches his hand and he takes a bit of his robe.
Yeah.
And even that, David's like, I've gone too far.
Yep.
And he says to his guys, no, I'm not going to do what's good in my eyes.
And I'm not going to stretch out my hand against him.
So in this scene, Saul going to the bathroom becomes the tree of knowing good and bad.
Right. Or David. Well, striking him down. He comes taking the fruit. Exactly right. going to the bathroom becomes the tree of knowing good and bad.
David was striking him down, who comes taking the fruit.
Exactly right.
And he won't do it.
And with these words for seven, David sharply rebuked his men
and he didn't allow them to strike Saul either.
Saul left the cave and went his way.
So David passes his test. So what's rad is, once Saul gets
down the hill, David runs out to the mouth of the cave. And he says, look, Saul, that's
me. And Saul's like, what, David, what? And he says, look, I've got your robe right here.
I am not trying to kill you. You left something. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So as soon as David finished saying these words, verse 16, Saul said, is that your voice?
David, my son.
And he started crying.
And he said, you are more righteous than I am.
You have done tov to me.
You did tov.
You did good.
And I have been doing raw, I've been doing bad.
It's the same words as the tree of knowing good and bad.
Just as you told me about the good that you did to me,
how Yahweh delivered me into your hands,
but you didn't kill me.
You know, when a guy finds his enemy,
does he let him get away?
May Yahweh reward you for the good
that you have done to me today.
I know that you will be king
and the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hands.
So I think what's, one, this is just great storytell.
Yeah.
The robe.
Yeah, it is.
And they're both compared to Adam,
but then saw fails like Adam and Eve,
but David succeeds where Adam and Eve fail.
It's just all, you know, hall of mirrors
of all the stories reflecting each other.
But what we're meditating on is what,
what does it look like when God's heavenly presence
manifests itself in an earthly human ruler?
And Saul and David offer these contrast portraits.
Well, in both of them, they are anointed, they both have a confrontation with the snake.
Usually the story goes in the Bible, the snake deceives you. Yeah, you take. Yeah. And then
you fail the test. But both of them actually succeed.
Their first test.
Yeah, that's right.
But then comes more tests.
And while Saul failed his subsequent tests,
what we get here is David after defeating his snake, Goliath.
Now having this other victory over, well, Saul's now the snake here.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, he's the tree.
But he's also the enemy.
And he's the test.
And David succeeds.
He doesn't take what he could have taken and Saul could see like, well, that was the right move.
That was good. So, to be an anointed one means you're going to have tests.
And you're required to pass the test.
And you can fail the test and you can lose your status as the anointed one.
I mean, that's crazy.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, the anointed one can through their choices become the anti-annointed one.
And... I don't like that.
The anointed one.
I was thinking, I can rub you wrong a little bit.
Hmm.
Hmm.
The God would be like, you're the one.
Like, you start Monday.
Hmm.
And then it's like, I've made a mistake.
Well, I don't know.
How is that different than the story of humanity in...
That's true.
That bugs me too.
Ah, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you're right.
That's a good point.
The story of humanity, that is the story of humanity.
Yeah, that's why all these stories are being hyperlinked and said on an analogy to
Adam and Eve.
So I'm just annoyed by being human.
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess so.
Look at the meta plot themes here.
You have a an anointed one who's given everything they need to succeed, but there are moments
that are going to need to trust and trust God's wisdom.
And in Saul's case, he does it first. And then he stops. And we didn't look at those stories
in detail. Saul's failure stories. But they're all about him not listening to the word of the Lord
and doing God's command. It's just like what God says to Adam and Eve. But now here's David.
And he not only succeeds, where Adam and Eve failed, because Saul did that too. But now David is succeeding where Saul failed,
test after test, in fact, Saul becomes the test.
And David refuses to exalt himself
to the public place of God's anointed one.
Yeah.
That's what's key here.
He's being patient.
Yeah.
And he's kind of like has this radical trust.
And like, if God wants me to be anointed one, like, I'll wait for God's timing.
Yes, that's right.
And I won't take in my own initiative.
Yep, that's right.
And in fact, that's what the next two chapters we don't have time to look at them.
For Sam, 25 and 26, tell two more stories, making a total of three right here,
that are David's kind of ultimate test.
And three times, he refrains from using the sword to make himself king.
And one, in the middle time, it's not even his own decision fully.
He's persuaded by a wise woman named, my father is the Redeemer, Abigail.
And she convinces David not to use the sword
to try and assert his authority as king.
And he listens to her.
And he does the will of God by listening to the woman
when he faces his test.
So I guess the whole thing is the portrait of the anointed one takes a big step
forward in the story of David in that whatever it's going to look like to stop on the snake.
Yes, there is a sometimes it's as simple as Goliath. You know, like that's fair that it's
calling a common trope. There's a good guy. There's the bad guy. Killed a bad guy.
By simple, you mean it's plain. Yeah, plain. There's the bad guy. there's the bad guy. Killed a bad guy. By simple, you mean it's plain. Yeah, plain.
There's the bad guy.
He's described like a snake.
Yeah.
Talks like a snake.
Take the bad guy out.
Take him out.
But what if the bad guy is the anointed one?
Right.
A fellow.
A fellow with your life.
He's a real life.
A brother who's still king.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, what then?
What then?
How do you fight the snake when the snake is your brother?
Whoa, yeah.
Yeah, and in this case, he doesn't crush his head.
He allows the snake to bring about his own ruin
and he waits for God to elevate him.
You know, as we think about, you know,
their relationship as a can-enable kind of story,
it's fun to rethink the story of can-enable
as like, cane to kill Abel,
isn't able to. I didn't mean to say that.
What the word play on Abel? Kane tried to kill Abel. Yeah. Doesn't, he isn't.
Abel to. He doesn't have the ability to.
And then Abel can then go back and take out Kane. Yeah. That's right. And then decides not to. And then able, can then go back and take out cane. And then decides not
to go. That's the story. That's the story.
Yeah, that's right. So the true victory of God's real anointed one is to sit patiently
and wait through suffering. Wow. Even suffering that comes from your own brothers and allow God to elevate you to the place of
rule and to trust that God will bring about the downfall of your persecutors who claim
to be the anointed ones.
And when I first started to see these themes of work, it was so hard for me not to start
thinking about how the gospel authors have shaped these themes of work. It was so hard for me not to start thinking about how the gospel authors
Have shaped the story of Jesus. Yeah, I was thinking about that like how much was Jesus?
thinking about
David when he would talk about the ethic of the kingdom too. Yeah, you know like yeah, don't
How do you treat your enemy? Yeah,hmm. Yeah, there's David killed plenty of enemy
At least in this story, but for this story this is clearly the author wants to see this is the tests of David's faith
Yeah, it's he he doesn't take
Vengeance into his own hands. Mm. It's really powerful young David's pretty. It's pretty radical. Yeah, yep. I've killed lions
Send me after credible. Yeah. Yep. I've killed lions. Send me
after him. Yeah. So I think why this is cool for the
anointed conversation is the reason why most people think of a
king from the line of David when they hear the word Messiah.
Is because the David story is the full-est narrative portrait
of the anointed one in the Bible. I mean, Aaron appears in the Torah,
and he's important, but he doesn't get nearly as much airtime as David. There's one character who
isn't an anointed one who gets a lot of page time. Yeah, it's David. But also God very explicitly says,
there's going to be a king in the land of David, is going to. Yeah, in fact, this perfect place to land the plane. At the very end of David's life,
he sings two poems that we call Second Samuel, chapter 23 and 22. Samuel 22, it's also identical
to Psalm 18 in the book of Psalms. It's a song of David that he sang when the Lord rescued him from the hand
of Saul and the hand of all his enemies. That's how it opens. And he retells the story in poetic
imagery of how God's rescued him throughout his life. And the last line, last lines of the poem,
or this, he says, Yahweh is alive. How blessed is my rock?
Yahweh is a rock.
May God the rock of my rescue be exalted.
God accomplished vengeance on my behalf.
He brought peoples under me.
He brings me out from my enemies,
from those who rise up against me.
You lift me up from violent men, you rescue me.
So I will praise you Yahweh.
Among the nations I'll sing, praise this to your name.
And you're like, yeah, Brad, here's the last line.
He makes great deliverance for his king.
He shows loyal love to his anointed one, to David and to his seed forever.
So what he's saying here is that the rescues that God performed for me,
based on the promises he's made to me, he will continue to do that for my seed on into the future.
So I think the contribution that the story of David makes in the Hebrew Bible
is to portray him in the story of his rise.
I mean, he blows it eventually, but to portray him in the story of his rise. I mean, he blows it eventually,
but to portray him in his rise as being this portrait
that kind of like Moses in the Torah,
the kind of human we need who will be victorious over the snake
will need to be like David was on his best day.
And David trusts that God will do for that descendant of mine,
the anointed descendant of mine,
what God did for me, he will do for my descendants as well. And so in that sense, the Samuel scroll
is pointing forward. It's a it's a messianic story. It's a story about the Messiah.
About a future anointed one. Yeah. Who will be like the past anointed one of David?
So with the story of David, the portrait of the anointed one that the Hebrew Bible points to,
if you think of a mosaic made up of lots of little tiles, the David tiles,
there's like a lot of David tiles.
And that's what we've been exploring in this conversation.
It's pretty rad.
Yeah.
And so next.
Yeah, next. What I want to look at is how this portrait of the anointed one in David's story is picked up and developed in the scroll of Isaiah and then in the Psalms.
Okay. And then we'll turn to see how the story of Jesus
and the Gospels is modeled and hyperlinked
to Isaiah the Psalms and the story of David
and the story of Adam and Eve.
All right, great, after that.
Thanks for listening to this episode
of Bible Project Podcast.
Next week, we're talking about David again, the new David,
promised and looked for in the scroll of Isaiah. He won't look like a royal, glorious
heir from the line of David, ruling in Jerusalem. It's not going to be like that. That rule is going to
look like somebody who is rejected, isn't honorable in the eyes of important people,
and he identifies with people in their suffering and grief.
Today's episode was brought to you by our podcast team,
producer Cooper Peltz, associate producer Lindsey Ponder, lead editor Dan Gummel,
and editor Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza.
Tyler Bailey also mixed this episode and Hannah Wu provided the annotations
for our annotated podcast on our app.
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