The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 128: Mighty Men of Valor (2023)

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

As we continue to read about how King David expands his kingdom, Fr. Mike points out the mighty men of valor, who were men of great courage, honor and excellence that fought in Israel's battles. Today's readings are 2 Samuel 10, 1 Chronicles 13, and Psalm 31. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is day 128. We're reading from 2 Samuel chapter 10 and 1 Chronicles chapter 13. We're also praying Psalm 31 as always.

The Bible translation that I'm reading from is the revised standard version, second Catholic edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a year. And if you have not yet subscribed to this podcast, just let this be my invitation to you to subscribe to this podcast by clicking subscribe, and then it's done. As I said,

it is day 128. We're reading only three chapters today, 2 Samuel chapter 10, 1 Chronicles chapter 13, and Psalm 31. The second book of Samuel chapter 10, the Ammonites and Syrians are defeated. After this, the king of the Ammonites died, and Hanun, his son, reigned in his stead. And David said, I will deal loyally with Hanun, the son of Nahash, as his father dealt loyally with me. So David sent by his servants to console him concerning his father. And David's servants came into the land of the Ammonites. But the princes of the Ammonites said to Hanun, their lord, do you think because David has sent comforters to you that he is honoring your father?

Has not David sent his servants to you to search the city and to spy it out and to overthrow it? So Hanun took David's servants and shaved off half the beard of each and cut off their garments in the middle at the hips and sent them away. When it was told David, he sent to meet them, for the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown, and then return.

When the Ammonites saw that they had become odious to David, the Ammonites sent and hired the Syrians at Beth Rehob, and the Syrians of Zobah, 20,000 foot soldiers, and the king of Ma'aka, with 1,000 men, and the men of Tob twelve thousand men. And when David heard of it, he sent Joab and all the host of the mighty men. And the Ammonites came out and drew up in battle array at the entrance of the gate. And the Syrians of Zobah and of Rehob, and the men of Tob and Ma'akah were by themselves in the open country. When Joab saw that the battle was set against him both in front and in the rear, he chose some of the picked men of Israel

and arrayed them against the Syrians. The rest of his men he put in the charge of Abishai, his brother, and he arrayed them against the Ammonites. And he said, if the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me. But if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and help you. Be of good courage and let us play the man for our people and for the cities of our God.

And may the Lord do what seems good to him. So Joab and the people who were with him drew near to the battle against the Syrians and they fled before him. And when the Ammonites saw that the Syrians fled, they likewise fled before Abishai and entered the city. Then Joab returned from fighting against the Ammonites and came to Jerusalem. But when the Syrians saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they gathered themselves together. And Hadadezer sent and brought out the Syrians who were beyond

the Euphrates, and they came to Halam with Shobak, the commander of the army of Hadadezer, at their head. And when it was told David, he gathered all Israel together and crossed the Jordan and came to Halam. And the Syrians arrayed themselves against David and fought with him. And the Syrians fled before Israel. And David slew of the Syrians the men of seven hundred chariots and forty thousand horsemen and wounded Shobak, the commander of their army, so that he died there. And when all the kings who were servants of Hadadazar saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they made peace with Israel and became subject to them. So the Syrians feared to help the Ammonites any more.

First Book of Chronicles, Chapter 13. The Ark Brought from Kiriath-Jerim. David consulted with the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, with every leader. And David said to all the assembly of Israel, If it seems good to you, and if it is the will of the Lord our God, let us send abroad to our brethren who remain in all the land of Israel, and with them to the priests and Levites in the cities that have pasture lands, that they may come together to us. Then let us bring again the ark of our God to us, for we neglected it in the days of Saul. All the assembly agreed to do so,

for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people. So David assembled all Israel from the Shehor of Egypt to the entrance of Hamath to bring the ark of God from Kiriath-Jerim. And David and all Israel went up to Baala, that is, to Kiriath-Jerim. And David and all Israel went up to Baala, that is, to Kiriath-Jerim, which belongs to Judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord, who sits enthroned above the cherubim. And they carried the ark of God upon a new cart from the house of the Ben-Hadab. And Uzzah and Ahio were driving the cart. And David and all Israel were making merry before God with all their

might, with song and lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets. And when they came to the threshing floor of Chidon, Uzzah put out his hand to hold the ark, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and he struck him because he put forth his hand to the ark, and he died there before God. And David was angry because the Lord had broken forth upon Uzzah, and that place is called Perez Uzzah to this day. And David was afraid of God that day, and he said, How can I bring the ark of God home to me?

So David did not take the ark home into the city of David, but took it aside to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. And the ark of God remained with the household of Obed-Edom the Gittite. And the ark of God remained with the household of Obed-Edom in his house three months. And the Lord blessed the household of Obed-Edom and all that he had. Psalm 31. Prayer and praise for deliverance from enemies. To the choir master, a psalm of David. And you, O Lord, I seek refuge. Let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness deliver me. Incline your ear to me. Rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. Yes, you are my rock and my fortress. For your name's sake, lead me and guide me. Take me out of the net which is hidden for me, for you are my refuge.

Into your hand I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. You hate those who pay regard to vain idols, but I trust in the Lord. I will rejoice and be glad for your merciful love because you have seen my lowliness. You have taken heed of my adversities and have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy. You have set my feet in a broad place. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress. My eye is wasted from grief, my soul and my body also. For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my misery and my bones waste away. I am the scorn of all my

adversaries, a horror to my neighbors, an object of dread to my acquaintances. Those who see me in the street flee from me. I have passed out of mind like one who is dead. I have become like a broken vessel. Yes, I hear the whispering of many, terror on every side, as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But I trust in you, O Lord. I say you are my God. My times are in your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors. Let your face shine on your servant. Save me in your merciful love. Let me not be put to shame, O Lord, for I call on you.

Let the wicked be put to shame. Let them go dumbfounded to Sheol. Let the lying lips be silent, which speak insolently against the righteous in pride and contempt. O how abundant is your goodness, which you have laid up for those who fear you. And I wrought for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the sons of men. In the shelter of your presence, you hide them from the plots of men. You hold them safe under your shelter from the strife of tongues.

Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown me his merciful love when I was beset as in a besieged city. I had said in my alarm, I am driven far from your sight. But you heard my supplications when I cried to you for help. Love the Lord, all you his saints. The Lord preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays him who acts haughtily. Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord. Father in heaven, we give you praise and we thank you. And we're reminded by your word today to love the Lord, to love you. As David said, love the Lord, all you his saints.

To love you, God, is our highest good. It's our highest duty. It's our highest call. It's our highest honor to be able not only to be loved by you, but to love you in return, which makes no sense whatsoever, God, that you would even care.

Why would you even care that we love you? And yet it matters. Yet our tokens of affection are even our small gestures of love, our small gestures of faithfulness, our gestures of worship, even this podcast, Lord, allowing us to hear your word. You receive that. You receive that as a gift of love to you. And we think, oh my gosh, Lord, you're the one who's loving us by speaking your word into our minds, our hearts, into our ears, into our lives. And yet you see this and you receive it as our act of love to you, our act of thanksgiving, our act of worship to you, to simply allow you to speak to us.

So Lord, we just want to give you love in return for the love that you've given us. So please help us to love you this day. Love the Lord, all you his saints. Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Okay, what a gift today is, oh man.

We get another perspective into David's kindness, into David's goodness. Here is the king of the Ammonites, and he died. And so David, as a good king, thinking, I'm going to have diplomatic relations with the kingdoms or the nations that are around us, in our area, in our general vicinity. And he sends these ambassadors to basically offer his condolences to the son of the deceased king. And what does Hanun do? Hanun, the new prince slash king of the Ammonites, he takes David's ambassadors and he shaves off half their beards and cut off their garments in the middle. So this is meant to obviously humiliate these men. You think about in the ancient world, if you were a grown man, you would typically have a beard. And that would be a sign of, you know,

a sign of your age, be a sign of kind of some maturity, be a sign of even some honor in some places. And half of your beard has been shaved off. And then not only that, but cut off their garments in the middle, or cut off their garments down the middle, basically exposing their private parts. And for all the world, kind of a situation is the idea. And obviously, David, just he does well with those men even. They're sent back in shame and in disgrace. And what David goes out to meet them, again, just such a gift of this man, this king. He's showing himself to be a noble person who knows how to interact with these men. He knows how to interact with his people. And he goes out to them and says,

hey, listen, just stay in Jericho for a while. Let your beards grow back so you're not shamed publicly in front of the people. But then David gets the mighty men. Now, we've heard about the mighty men already because we've been reading First Chronicles, but this is the first time that the mighty men have actually been introduced when it comes to the books of Samuel. And so this is the introduction of the mighty men that we've heard about for the last number of days. And the particular mighty man that is named here is Joab, right? So Joab is one of the kings, not kings, gosh, that's the wrong word. David's the king. He's one of the chiefs of the mighty men. And so he goes, leads them into battle against the Ammonites and the

Syrians. And it says what all these mighty men need to have, as I talked about yesterday, they're men of bravery, men of valor. There's men of excellence, right? They know what they're doing. They're men of wisdom and they're men of single minded purpose. And so they are. And so they be of good courage, as Joab says, be of good courage and be strong for our people and for the cities of our God. And may the Lord do what is good in his sight. And so they go into battle and they win as one would expect. In 1 Chronicles chapter 13, we have a familiar story. We just heard a couple of days ago about David saying, okay, I'm living here now in the city of David. I'm living in Jerusalem. And it makes sense that we need to bring the presence of God, the ark of God, into the

city of Jerusalem where we can have worship in the Lord's presence. And what do they do? They put it on a cart. Now, in 1 Chronicles, it does make the point that they put it on a new cart, which wasn't recorded in 2 Samuel. They put it on a new cart. And yet, remember, the Ark of God was never, ever meant to be transported on a cart, but only by that family of the tribe of Levi that was

dedicated to carrying the Ark of the Covenant, not to be touched. And here is Uzzah who does what we know he's going to do. He reaches out and he touches the Ark of the Covenant. And so here is David who says, we'll leave it here in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. And Obed-Edom and all his family and all his servants and all his everything are blessed beyond belief. And so David's going to circle back around to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite, and he is going to bring the Ark soon. He's going to bring the Ark all the way into the city of David. And that's one of the great gifts for all of us, is that we want to live in the presence of God. At the same time, I mentioned this a couple of days ago when it came to Uzzah's story, is that our disobedience,

you know, when we sin and say, God, I know what you want. I want to do what I want to do. That leads to spiritual death, just like it led to the physical death of Uzzah. And yet, and yet we're still called to live in God's presence. We're still called to, again, leap and dance before the Lord, to wait in stillness before the Lord, to pray and worship before the Lord in his presence. And so we just pray today, Lord, help me to live in your presence. Help me to have a mind that's attentive to you, that recognizes where you are, both in sacred spaces, like churches and sacred spaces and the Blessed Sacrament, but also in common spaces where you still exist. Lord, God still

dwells. He still is present in all places, even right now, wherever you are, maybe listening in your car, maybe brushing your teeth, whatever you're doing right now to listen to the word of God. Just take a moment and stop right now and be aware that yes, absolutely, God is particularly present at the Ark of the Covenant. God is particularly present in the sanctuary. God is particularly present in the blessed sacrament and in his word, but also God is present to you right now. Whenever we call upon his name, whenever we are even just aware that he is present, we realize he's been there the whole time

and he will be there long after we have gotten distracted. But right now, God is present to you and to me. He is here and God, we just, we say we love you. And now we pray for each other. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

God bless.