1 Kings 21-22 - sniveling kings and Godly staff meetings

The readings - Day 110 - 1 Kings 21-22

Remember that time when I referred to Ahab as one of the most unlikable people ever? I was actually doing a bit of foreshadowing, looking forward to this story.

Don't get me wrong, he's never been a peach, but at least in the past he was despicable for being out-and-out malevolent, and acting entirely outside of the established rules for a king of Israel. He was a villain all the way, but he at least had a sort of internal consistency. He was a little bit like a well-cast movie villain; you love to hate him, but that in itself is a sort of psychologically mitigating factor on your opinion of him.

Then we get to the final two chapters of 1 Kings, and all of that goes out the window, because Ahab becomes genuinely pathetic.

1 Sam 1-8 - The king and I... srael...

The readings - Days 86 and 87 - 1 Samuel 1-8

If Judges is any indication, the fact that 1 Samuel starts with a man who is from the hill country in Ephraim is hardly the most optimistic sign... Hopefully this one turns out better.

A couple of interesting things about the opening chapters of 1Sam struck me over the course of this run-through.

The first is that I find it somewhat bizarre that people blindly throw out a phrase like "traditional Biblical interpretation of marriage" without, apparently, much of a fleshed-out idea of what that might mean. Samuel himself is the son of a second wife. Anyway... moving on.

Lev. 22-27 - on jubilation, priests and prophets

The readings - Days 39-41 - Leviticus 22-27

Yes, I'm behind. No, I'm not catching up today. Yes, I'm over it. 

The final chapters of Leviticus, by and large, fall into the same category of the rest of the book - rules and laws, particularly concerning the spiritual/religious matters for the new and burgeoning nation of Israel. So far, the book has been, not to put too fine a point on it, dry.

There were two things that leapt off the page at me, however, in these final passages. The first is the fact that Moses is even part of this book at all, and the second is the concept of the Jubilee.