Last week I
gave a small talk to potential confirmands (11/12-year-olds) and their parents.
One of the kids read the passage where King David is anointed with oil. I told
them that they could also receive this sign that has existed for at least three
thousand years, and asked them if they knew what a king did. One of the kids
ventured, ‘Not much.’
That happens
to be a quite correct and Biblical answer. In I Samuel 8, when the people of
Israel come to the prophet-judge and demand a king to rule over them, Samuel
warns them that the king will take their sons and daughters into his service
and will demand their finest possessions and products. The word yiqqāh
‘He will take’ is repeated at least five times in the short description of the
king that the people crave. And yet the people demand a king, ‘that we also
may be like all the nations’ – an obvious red flag, because Israel’s
vocation is to be different from the nations.
Even King
David falls. He sins by committing adultery with Bathsheba, but even more by
his complicity in the death of her husband, who is one of his most loyal
soldiers. The story of David and Bathsheba (and Uriah) is well-known. But its introduction
is usually left out; a priest recently alerted me to it. After the author has
narrated one of David’s many military exploits against the Ammonites, in
defence of the honour of his servants, this is the opening paragraph of II
Samuel 11:
In the
spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle (hint, hint), David sent Joab,
and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and
besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
Well, perhaps
a king cannot be in the forefront of the battle all the time. Leading a band of
warriors is one thing, but ruling a nation demands administrative work,
diplomacy, thought. Right? Yeah, right:
It
happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on
the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing …
He wasn’t
keeping himself too busy!
Then comes the
whole Bathsheba shebang, Nathan’s parable, the child’s death, Solomon’s birth –
and then we go back to the beginning. Because while all these intensely
personal matters are going on, General Joab is still at the walls of Rabbah.
When the job is done and the gate is breached, he sends word to the king to
preside over the concluding military ceremony.
Gather the rest of the
people together and encamp against the city and take it, lest I take the city
and it be called by my name.
After all,
Davidopolis has a better ring to it than Joabtown.
Then David
arrives at Rabbah, which his faithful soldiers (minus Uriah and a few unnamed
others who have become collateral damage) have conquered for him. And what does
he do?
He took the crown of
their king from his head. The weight of it was a talent of gold, and in it was
a precious stone, and it was placed on David’s head. … And he brought out the
people who were in it and set them to labor with saws and iron picks and iron
axes and made them toil at the brick kilns.
The King of Israel wears
an Ammonite crown and acts like an Egyptian pharaoh.
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