The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 137: David Mourns Absalom (2024)

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

In today's readings, Fr. Mike points out how the loss of David's son overshadows everything else for a time. The readings are 2 Samuel 19, 1 Chronicles 24, and Psalm 38. 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 137. Gosh, think about that. Day 137. You have been so faithful.

Oh my gosh. Even if you haven't gotten every day perfect, maybe you have, but here you are. Nevertheless, you have made it all the way to day 137. We are reading 2 Samuel chapter 19, 1 Chronicles 24, and we're praying Psalm 38. As always, the translation of the Bible that I'm reading from is the Revised Standard Version, the Second Catholic Edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. I know some of you have been able to follow along, and you might listen as you're driving in your car, you might listen as you're out for a walk, but some people just really love to sit down and have the words in front of them as well as the words in their ears. And so that's it. What an incredible opportunity and gift to be able to do that. 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, you can by simply clicking subscribe and you'll be subscribed and we'll move on. Anyways, speaking of moving on, as I said, we are reading from 2 Samuel chapter 19, 1 Chronicles 24, and we are praying Psalm 38. 2 Samuel chapter 19, 1 Chronicles 24, and we are praying Psalm 38. Second book of Samuel chapter 19, David mourns for Absalom. It was told Joab, behold, the king is weeping and mourning for Absalom. So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the people, for the people heard that day, the king is grieving for his son. And the people stole into the city that day as people steal in who are ashamed when they

flee in battle. The king covered his face and the king cried with a loud voice, Oh, my son, Absalom. Oh, Absalom, my son, my son. Then Joab came into the house of the king and said, You have today covered with shame the faces of all your servants who have this day saved your life and the lives of your sons and your daughters and the lives of your wives and your concubines, because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you. For today I perceive that if Absalom were alive

and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased. Now therefore arise, go out and speak kindly to your servants. For I swear by the Lord, if you do not go, not a man will stay with you this night. And this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now. Then the king arose and took his seat in the gate. And the people were all told, behold, the king is sitting in the gate. And the people were all told, Behold, the king is sitting in the gate. And all the people came before the king. Now Israel had fled every man to his own home, and all the people were at strife throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies, and saved us from the hand of the Philistines. And now he has

fled out of the land from Absalom. But Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore, why do you say nothing about bringing the king back? David is recalled. And King David sent this message to Zadok and Abiathar the priests. Say to the elders of Judah, Why should you be the last to bring the king back to his house, when the word of all Israel has come to the king? You are my kinsmen. you are my bone and my flesh. Why then should you be the last to bring back the

king? And say to Amasa, Are you not my bone and my flesh? God do so to me, and more also, if you are not commander of my army henceforth in the place of Joab. And he swayed the heart of all the men of Judah as one man, so that they sent word to the king, Return, both you and all your servants. So the king came back to the Jordan, and Judah came to Gilgal to meet the king, and to bring the king over the Jordan. Shimei meets David and is forgiven. And Shimei, the son of Gerah, the Benjaminite, from Bahurim, made haste to come down with the men of Judah to meet King David. And with him were a thousand men from Benjamin. And Ziba, the servant of the house of Saul, with his fifteen sons and his twenty servants, rushed down to the Jordan

before the king, and they crossed the ford to bring over the king's household and to do his pleasure. And Shimei, the son of Gerah, fell down before the king as he was about to cross the Jordan and said to the king, Let not my lord hold me guilty or remember how your servant did wrong on the day my lord the king left Jerusalem. Let not the king bear it in mind, for your servant knows that I have sinned. Therefore, behold, I have come this day, the first of all the house of Joseph, to come down to meet my lord the king. Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, answered, Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the Lord's anointed?

But David said, What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should this day be as an adversary to me? Shall anyone be put to death in Israel this day? For do I not know that I am this day king over Israel? And the king said to Shimei, You shall not die. And the king gave him his oath. David and Mephibosheth meet. And Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, came down to meet the king. He had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed until the day he came back in safety. And when he came from Jerusalem to meet the king, the king said to him, Why did you not go with me, Mephibosheth? He answered, My lord, O king, my servant deceived

me. For your servant said to him, Settle a donkey for me, that I may ride upon it and go with the king, for your servant is lame. He has slandered your servant to my lord the king. But my lord the king is like the angel of God. Do therefore what seems good to you. For all my father's house were but men doomed to death before my lord the king, but you set your servant among those who eat at your table. What further right have I then to cry to the king? And the king said to him, Why speak any more of your affairs? I have decided, you and Ziba shall divide the land. And Mephibosheth said to the king, Oh, let him take it all, since my lord the king has come safely home. David blesses Barzillai. Now Barzillai, the Gileadite, had come

down from Mogilem, and he went on with the king to the Jordan to escort him over the Jordan. Barzillai was a very aged man, eighty years old, and he had provided the king with food while he stayed at Mahanaim, for he was a very wealthy man. And the king said to Barzillai, Come over with me, and I will provide for you with me in Jerusalem. But Barzillai said to the king, How many years have I still to live that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem? I am this day eighty years old. Can I discern what is pleasant and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats or what he drinks?

Can I still listen to the voice of singing men and singing women? Why then should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king? Your servant will go a little way over the Jordan with the king. Why should the king recompense me with such a reward? Please, let your servant return, that I may die in my own city, near the grave of my father and my mother. But here is your servant Chimham. Let him go over with my lord the king, and do for him whatever seems good to you. And the king answered, Shemham shall go over with me, and I will do for him whatever seems good to you, and all that you desire of me I will do for you. Then all the

people went over the Jordan, and the king went over, and the king kissed Barzillai and blessed him, and he returned to his own home. The king went on to Gilgal, and Shemham went on with him. All the people of Judah, and also half the the sons of Israel brought the king on his way. Dissension between Israel and Judah. Then all the men of Israel came to the king and said to the king, Why have our brethren, the men of Judah, stolen you away and brought the king and his household over the Jordan and all David's men with him? All the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, Because the king is near of kin to us. Why then are you angry over this matter? Have we eaten at all at the king's expense, or has he given us any gift? And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah,

We have ten shares in the king, and in David also we have more than you. Why then did you despise us? Were we not the first to speak of bringing back our king? But the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel. The first book of Chronicles chapter 24. The divisions of the sons of Aaron. The divisions of the sons of Aaron were these, the sons of Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. But Nadab and Abihu died before their father and had no children, so Eleazar and Ithamar became the priests. With the help of Zadok of the sons of Eleazar and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, David organized them according to the appointed duties in their service. Since more chief men were found among the sons of Eleazar than among the sons of Ithamar, they organized them under the sixteen heads of fathers' houses of the sons of Eleazar

and eight of the sons of Ithamar. They organized them by lot, all alike, for there were officers of the sanctuary and officers of God among both the sons of Eleazar and the sons of Ithamar. And the scribe Shemaiah, the son of Nethanel, a Levite, recorded them in the presence of the king and the princes, and Zadok the priest, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the priests and of the Levites, one father's house being chosen for Eleazar, and one chosen for Ithamar. The first lot fell to Jehoiarib, the second to Jediah, the third to Harim, the fourth to Seorim, the fifth to Malkijah,

the sixth to Mishamin, the seventh to Hakoz, the eighth to Abijah, the ninth to Jeshua, the tenth to Shekiniah, the eleventh to Eliashib, the twelfth to Joachim, the thirteenth to Huppah, the fourteenth to Jeshibiab, the fifteenth to Bilgah, the sixteenth to Emer, the seventeenth to Hazir, the eighteenth to Hebezez, the nineteenth to Pethahiah, the twentieth to Jehezkel, the twenty-first to Jekeen, the twenty-second to Gamul, the twenty-third to Deliah, the twenty-fourth to Maaziah. These had, as their appointed duty in the service, to come into the house of the Lord according to the procedure established for them by Aaron their father, as the Lord God of Israel had commanded them. Other Levites. And of the rest of the sons of Levi, of the sons of

Amram, Shubael, of the sons of Shubael, Jediah, of Rehobiah. Of the sons of Rehobiah, Ishaiah, the chief. Of the Izharites, Shalemoth. Of the sons of Shalemoth, Jehath. Of the sons of Hebron, Jeriah, the chief. Amariah, the second. Jehaziel, the third. Jechamiam, the fourth. The sons of Uziel, Micah.

Of the sons of Micah, Shamir. The brother of Micah, Ishaiah. Of the sons of Micah, Shamir. The brother of Micah, Ishaya. Of the sons of Ishaya, Zechariah. The sons of Merari, Mali and Mushi. The sons of Jaaziah, Bino. The sons of Merari, of Jaaziah, Bino, Shocham, Zakur and Ibri. Of Mali, Eleazar, who had no sons, of Kish, the sons of Kish, Jeramiel, the sons of Mushi, Mali, Edar, and Jerimoth. These were the sons of the Levites according to their father's houses. These also, the head of each father's house and his younger brother alike, cast lots, just as their brethren, the sons of Aaron, in the presence of King David, Zadok, Ahimelech, and the heads of the father's houses of the priests and of the Levites.

Psalm 38, a penitent sufferer's plea for healing. A Psalm of David for the memorial offering. O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor chasten me in your wrath. For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me. There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation. There is no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head. They weigh like a burden too heavy for me. My wounds grow foul and fester because of my foolishness. I am utterly bowed down and prostrate all the day I go about mourning.

For my loins are filled with burning and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am utterly spent and crushed. I groan because of the tumult of my heart. Lord, all my longing is known to you. My sighing is not hidden from you. My heart throbs, my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes, it also has gone from me. My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague. And my kinsmen stand afar off.

Those who seek my life lay their snares. Those who seek my hurt speak of ruin. And meditate treachery all the day long. But I am like a deaf man. I do not hear. Like a mute man who does not open his mouth. Yes, I am like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth are no rebukes. But for you, O Lord, do I wait. It is you, O Lord my God, who will answer. For I pray, only let them not rejoice

over me, who boast against me when my foot slips. For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever with me. I confess my iniquity. I am sorry for my sin. Those who are my foes without cause are mighty, and many are those who hate me wrongfully. Those who render me evil for good are my adversaries because I follow after good. Do not forsake me, O Lord. O my God, be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation. Father in heaven, give you praise today and every day. Your mercies are new every morning, and you speak to us with your fresh voice, your eternal voice, your voice that is the

same yesterday, today, and forever, because your word, Lord God, your word, Jesus Christ, is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so we thank you, and we give you praise today. Thank you for speaking to us words of knowledge, words of wisdom, words that even capture the penitence of our hearts, the sorrow of our hearts when we experience opposition, when we experience even internal failure. You give us in the Psalm, Psalm 38 today, Lord God, you give us words of repentance, words that voice confidence in you when we need you the most and when we deserve you the least. And that's when you give us your love. That's when you give us your mercy, when we need it the most and deserve it the least.

And so we give you praise and thank you in Jesus' name, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Gosh, okay, here we go. Just two quick things as we kind of wrap up this day, day 137. One thing about Chronicles, remember that Chronicles started out

with all of those names. We wanted to highlight the genealogy. The Chronicler wanted to highlight the genealogy of not only the people of Israel, but specifically the people who are following in the line of David, right? Of the tribe of Judah, because that's where the Messiah is going to come from. Now we also are getting a bunch of names connected to the priesthood. So we have the tribe of Levi, a bunch of names connected to the priesthood. So we have the tribe of Levi, because remember, the chronicler wants to remind the people of Israel, okay, yes, we have fallen on hard times, but God promised that there would be a kingdom that lasts forever. And God promised there'd be worship that would give him glory for all time, right? So he's really following the line of Judah

and the line of Levi. And that's going to be a really important thing to keep in mind. Now, one thing yesterday, I think it was yesterday, we read about all of the new roles of the families in the tribe of Levi, right? So we have Aaron, who's the priest, but then we have the other three sons of the tribe of Levi that had duties in the temple that weren't duties of priests. I don't know if you noticed this before, but David is a couple number of times described as having an ephod, that he would put on an ephod and then go pray. He'd put on an ephod and go before the Lord. And one of the things we can

think is, wait, is David a priest? Now we know very, very clearly that David is from the tribe of Judah. And we also know very, very clearly that you can only be a priest if you're from the tribe of Levi and actually of the family of Aaron. And so when David puts on an ephod, he's wearing the clothes of a priest and he's even seems to participate in a certain way in the actions of the priest. But it is important to note that while David participates in worship, David participates by even writing a bunch of songs, aka the Psalms that are used in worship. Well, he participates in this and he is active when it comes to temple worship, even wearing an ephod. David is not a priest.

If he is, he is what I've heard people describe as he is like a priest in the line of Melchizedek, which is a whole nother thing, which is pretty phenomenal. Jesus, according to the letter to the Hebrews is a priest, according to the order of Melchizedek, because Jesus also was not of the tribe of Levi. And so there's a, there's a, a way in which David not only foreshadows Jesus as being a king, the royal nature of Christ's role on the earth, but also foreshadows in some ways a priesthood of Melchizedek. And so if you're ever wondering about that, like, wait a second, it seems like David, it's always going before the Lord, dressed like a priest. Is he a priest too? He's not. And we're actually going to see a number of times we saw Saul who offered a sacrifice. He shouldn't have offered a sacrifice.

We're going to see in kings, other kings who offered sacrifices and were killed because of that. So it's not something someone takes upon themselves. It is given to them because they're of the family of Aaron, of the tribe of Levi. Just FYI, in case you're interested at all in that, it's good to note. Now, going back to 2 Samuel chapter 19, this is a really big moment because there's a couple of things that happened that show, again, David's brokenness, David's weakness, and David's goodness. The first is, here is David who is mourning and grieving over his son Absalom. Now, he's doing this, and yesterday we noted it and how powerful it was.

And in some ways, you can even, how tragically beautiful it is. This love of a father for his son would that I had died instead of you. Okay. But what happened was because of this, David brought shame upon all the people who fought for him. Remember there are 20,000 people had died that day in order to preserve David's kingdom in order to preserve the fight against the civil war that was happening. As everyone was going, as many people were going after Absalom. 20,000 men had died fighting for David's throne. And now here's David who's saying, would that I had died instead of Absalom. And so what it describes, it says, they heard that the king is grieved for his son. So the people stole back into the city as people who are ashamed, who ran away from battle, steal back when they flee in battle.

And so what does Joab do? Joab is, man, he has to speak truth to power here, right? Joab has to come before the king and say, today you've disgraced people who put their lives on the line for you. People who have given up everything, even their very life for you, you've disgraced them by acting like this. He says, we even think that maybe you wish we had all died and Absalom was alive, but you have other sons, you have other

daughters. Absalom would have killed them if we had not fought. And so he kind of knocks some sense into David because this is the thing. So, so often, man, so often we can find ourselves in a position just like this. We can find ourselves in a position where what we've lost, what we've lost overshadows what we have or the sadness of losing someone in our lives can overshadow the fact that there are still people in our lives who love us, who need to be loved by us, that are still there and that we have to, we can grieve. Of course we do. We can mourn. Of course we do. But at some point, we've got to acknowledge that there are people still here.

There's people still among us that need to be loved. And we're the only ones who can do it. And so David had to get some sense knocked into him in order to get out of that funk. Now, obviously, this is a big moment. One of his sons was killed in battle, but this is the same son who was trying to kill him and trying to kill the rest of his family. And so, again, Joab does a good word. He does a good deed by knocking some sense into David in this.

Later on, you have David forgiving Shimei. Remember the man who cursed David and threw rocks at him as David was fleeing Jerusalem. He comes back to David and apologizes. But there's this really interesting moment where David basically says the people of Judah, right? His tribe, David's from the tribe of Judah. They reestablish him as the king in Israel and the other tribes in Israel, the other 10 tribes in Israel, they said, why don't we get to be part of this? Well, you know, a lot of them had gone and followed after Absalom. And since they weren't really necessarily immediately welcomed back, they

weren't necessarily immediately brought into the fold, you can see the beginnings of the seeds of rebellion that's going to happen after the death of King Solomon. You can see that already those 12 tribes united in one kingdom still experienced some division. I mean, obviously experienced some division because they just fought a civil war with a number of them going after Absalom and the others going after David. But this is the reestablishment of David's kingdom. And what you have is, again, some cracks that are happening already. Yet and yet, David says very clearly in 2 Samuel 19 that he ultimately wants the kingdom, the tribes of Israel, to receive him back wholeheartedly, right? He's

not going to assert himself as king until they affirm him as king. And that's what happens in 2 Samuel we just heard today. Just a little recap. As we move forward, one of the things we're going to keep on doing is we're going to keep on noting where David acts wisely and where David acts foolishly, where David acts bravely and where David acts with cravenness, right? With some cowardice, because that's the truth. And the truth is we can often see in some of these characters ourselves, we can see that there's no human being that is fully good and no human being that is fully evil, but we are a mix. Even our heroes are a mix of good and bad and dark and light. And so it is what one of the reminders that we all need God's grace, every one of us

needing God's grace. And so we pray for each other. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.