And so the pair of Samuels draws to a close, and befitting David, who held by far the pre-eminent place in the books, it ends (almost) with a song/psalm.
I'll admit, I've always found reading songs to be fairly boring. I'm pretty sure that's why I've still never made it all the way through The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien loved him some ballads, etc, and I just end up getting bored and finding something shiny to look at instead.
This one here was shaping up to be just another song that I more or less mentally ignore while I'm reading it, until I got to 22:22:
22 "For I have kept the ways of the LORD, And have not acted wickedly against my God. 23 "For all His ordinances were before me, And as for His statutes, I did not depart from them. 24 "I was also blameless toward Him, And I kept myself from my iniquity. 25 "Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness, According to my cleanness before His eyes.
Um... David? By "kept myself from iniquity" do you really mean that you abused your power, coveted your neighbour's wife (literally), kidnapped her, slept with her and then had her husband killed? Cause... that's what heppened...
It's "good"... I guess... to see that denial and bloated self-image have not been modern innovations, but event ancient kings can suffer bouts of them from time to time.
---
Also, does anyone have any idea why census-taking is apparently considered a grievous offence? In pre-Promised Land days, Moses took a few censuses (censi?) of the Israelites, and that was no problem.
Also, and (spoilers!) this is something to log away, but notice that it's actually the Lord's anger that motivated David to take the census in the first place. Hold that thought until we get to Chronicles.
But first: KINGS!
No comments:
Post a Comment