Horrible
Notes
Transcript
We are nearing the end of our time in 2 Samuel. Those of you who are ready to be done with 2 Samuel, don’t get too excited. There are still several Sundays worth of sermons here. This will take up right up to Easter, Resurrection Morning, or pretty close.
These last chapters, 2 Samuel 21-24, are referred to as the epilogue to the book. It’s the intended wrap-up to the saga that is 1-2 Samuel.
One thing we need to realize about these chapters: the ending of 2 Samuel isn’t necessarily chronological. The passage we’re going to read today begins with this phrase: During the reign of David or In the days of David, there was a famine.
This refers to *sometime during David’s reign*, not necessarily what happened immediately after 2 Samuel 20.
This famine happened *sometime* during the time when David was king. That’s all we know about when.
I debated with myself about how we should go through this passage, and I landed on reading it up front and then discussing it.
So, if you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to 2 Samuel 21. As you are able and willing, please stand for the reading of God’s Holy Word:
1 During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so David sought the face of the Lord. The Lord said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.”
2 The king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not a part of Israel but were survivors of the Amorites; the Israelites had sworn to spare them, but Saul in his zeal for Israel and Judah had tried to annihilate them.)
3 David asked the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? How shall I make atonement so that you will bless the Lord’s inheritance?”
4 The Gibeonites answered him, “We have no right to demand silver or gold from Saul or his family, nor do we have the right to put anyone in Israel to death.” “What do you want me to do for you?” David asked.
5 They answered the king, “As for the man who destroyed us and plotted against us so that we have been decimated and have no place anywhere in Israel,
6 let seven of his male descendants be given to us to be killed and their bodies exposed before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul—the Lord’s chosen one.” So the king said, “I will give them to you.”
7 The king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath before the Lord between David and Jonathan son of Saul.
8 But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, whom she had borne to Saul, together with the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab, whom she had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite.
9 He handed them over to the Gibeonites, who killed them and exposed their bodies on a hill before the Lord. All seven of them fell together; they were put to death during the first days of the harvest, just as the barley harvest was beginning.
10 Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest till the rain poured down from the heavens on the bodies, she did not let the birds touch them by day or the wild animals by night.
11 When David was told what Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, Saul’s concubine, had done,
12 he went and took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh Gilead. (They had stolen their bodies from the public square at Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hung them after they struck Saul down on Gilboa.)
13 David brought the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from there, and the bones of those who had been killed and exposed were gathered up.
14 They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the tomb of Saul’s father Kish, at Zela in Benjamin, and did everything the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer in behalf of the land.
May God add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!
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It’s not a great story, is it? Now, it’s God’s Word, so it’s useful and helpful and good for teaching and correction (2 Timothy 3:16-17), but it records a pretty horrifying series of events.
It all starts because of some bad choices on the part of a few different people.
We need to go back and think about the Gibeonites and Joshua, and then King Saul. Stick with me as we study a little Biblical history.
In the book of Joshua, the LORD has given the land of Canaan to His people, but they were instructed to go in and drive out the current inhabitants before they could move in.
Joshua and the people of Israel enter the land and start driving out people, conquering cities with the LORD’s help. With the LORD’s help, the walls of Jericho crumble at the blast of trumpets and the shouts of the people.
You remember the story.
Well, in Joshua 9:3–4 “when the people of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, they resorted to a ruse…”
I love the word “ruse” and don’t get to use it often enough. The Gibeonites flattered and tricked the Israelites.
They pulled off their “ruse”, convincing Joshua and the leaders of Israel that they were from a very distant, foreign land and that they had come all that way because of the fame of the LORD Yahweh.
Truth was, the Gibeonites were neighbors to the Israelites; they lived just down the road. It’d be like people in Osceola tricking us into believing they were from Tennessee.
Joshua ended up believing the Gibeonite ruse, their little story about who they were and why they had come to them, and he ends up making a treaty with them not to harm them.
How did this happen? Why did this happen? What led to this horrible mistake of accidentally making a treaty with a people they were supposed to drive out of the land?
Well, we read this in Joshua 9:
14 The Israelites sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord.
To put it another way:
14 So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord.
Three days after Joshua made a treaty with them because of the Gibeonites’ successful ruse, Joshua figured out the truth. And because they had made an oath before the LORD, there is nothing they could do to them.
Hence the note in parentheses in 2 Samuel 21:2. The Israelites had sworn to spare them...the Gibeonites who weren’t part of Israel.
That’s what happened in Joshua 9. The Gibeonites and the Israelites swear an oath and make a treaty with one another.
BUT Saul…
Saul didn’t care so much about the treaty. Saul tried to wipe out the Gibeonites. Saul violated Israel’s oath to the Gibeonites.
We may not see the issue here. Some say Saul was just doing what he thought was best, protecting the land in his zeal for Israel and Judah. Sounds good, but...
Swearing an oath in the LORD’s name and then violating that oath is a problem.
The biggest problem is: acting in that way is a violation of the 3rd Commandment. It’s a misuse of the name of the LORD; it’s taking His name in vain. It discredits the LORD’s reputation.
“Yeah, yeah. I know they promised you on oath before the LORD that they wouldn’t harm you, but that doesn’t matter to me.”
That makes the LORD’s name mud. Saul didn’t care. But his descendants would.
Swearing an oath in the LORD’s name involves the one swearing the oath asking that the LORD bring the curses of the covenant upon them should they fail to keep they covenant word.
This is what is happening here. Saul violated the covenant. And the famine we read about in 2 Samuel 21 is the curse for that violation.
It’s a confluence of events that lead up to this. Yes, Saul broke the oath between the Israelites and the Gibeonites. But it’s an oath that should never have been struck. The oath was only made because Joshua and the people did not seek the LORD.
What a Horrible Idea it is to Act Without Seeking the LORD!
What a Horrible Idea it is to Act Without Seeking the LORD!
The whole Gibeonite drama started with Joshua’s and Israel’s failure to ask counsel from the LORD. That’s a good way to mess up just about anything.
The fact that the text in Joshua states that explicitly should tell us something. They did not inquire of the LORD. It’s a major problem.
Years later when the famine hits Israel, David began to think that Israel might have incurred God’s judgment for some offense, as the law threatened (Leviticus 26:20 “your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit.”)
The problem for David was that he couldn’t think of what he or the nation had done to deserve such punishment. A three-year-long famine!
But King David does the right thing in this situation. Heck, David does what should be done in every situation, any situation, all situations.
So David sought the face of the LORD.
Right there. Verse 1. That’s the key.
This whole scenario got to where it is because Joshua and the Israelites did not seek the face of the LORD. That was the problem.
The fix is found in seeking the LORD’s face.
David could have followed the ill-advised path of doing what he saw fit, attempting to work through everything himself, in his own wisdom, without seeking the LORD. But that’s a horrible idea with horrible consequences.
David seeks the LORD. I’d like to think King David understands how bad an idea it is to act without seeking the LORD.
And let me tell you: a bad idea in the 10th Century B.C. is a bad idea in 2025.
Whatever decision you’re trying to make, whatever issue you’re working through, whatever question you have—the best move on your part is seeking the face of the LORD.
Take the book in front of you, open it up, read and listen to what God has to say. Read His Word. See what the LORD would have you do.
Approach Him in humble prayer, with petition and thanksgiving, turning to Him. Go to Him; He cares for you.
Seek His face.
Don’t act without seeking His counsel—that’s a horrible idea.
When David seeks the LORD’s face, the LORD speaks and gives David the reason for the famine. The LORD says: “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.”
So David goes to the Gibeonites and asks what he can do for them.
3 David asked the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? How shall I make atonement so that you will bless the Lord’s inheritance?”
David has to ask them a few times. They kind of hem and haw around what they want. But they end up telling David what they want.
It’s horrible, but it’s out there.
And David consents. David is going to give them seven of Saul’s descendants for them to kill. They either impaled them or hanged them or did it in some other form or fashion. But seven of Saul’s descendants are taken out.
This is a puzzle to us. We think in different categories than “He killed some of us, let’s kill some of his people.” Or, I hope we think differently than that.
Some may prefer the eye-for-an-eye method, but for Jesus’ people, He says “No” to that way of thinking and behaving. Jesus says (Matthew 5:38), “You’ve heard it said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do no resist an evil person.”
We don’t like the bloodiness of it all. Sadly, here in 2 Samuel, a tidy solution was impossible for two reasons: blood and wrath.
The fact that Saul butchered the Gibeonites had polluted the land with their blood. Numbers 35:33 “Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.”
Even worse, Saul’s offense violated the oath that had been made.
Israel under Joshua had cut a covenant with Gibeon. An animal was cut in half, its pieces lined up across from one another, and those taking the covenant walked right between the pieces.
“The OT is a strange place, and strange things happen there.” -Haddon Robinson
After walking through the cut-up animal, they would say something like, “Just as this animal is cut in pieces, so may we be cut up if we don’t keep this oath.”
The Gibeonites demand blood for blood. They demand that Saul’s descendants die for bloodshed and for breaking the covenant.
But it’s not just the Gibeonites’ idea. God’s Wrath stands behind and stands taller than Gibeon’s request of David.
The LORD’s wrath must be appeased, satisfied, propitiated.
The curse of the covenant must be carried out. That means Saul’s descendants will die.
And here in 2 Samuel 21, God is good with that.
The end of the text we read, verse 14, says, “After that, God answered prayer in behalf of the land.”
This is hard to swallow, isn’t it? It should be. This is a horrible outcome. And God approves or at least accepts what’s done to turn away His wrath for breaking this covenant.
We could dismiss this. Ignore it. Pretend it’s not here, or that there’s an error in the text. Or we can, like any honest golfer, play it as it lies (no Mulligans, no drops, no kicking the ball out of the rough). We take it straight and we sit with it.
No one can escape the horror of this scene.
Saul violated the covenant with Gibeon. He’s dead and can’t suffer the curses of the covenant-breaker. Therefore, those who belong to Saul become, as it were, the covenant-breakers in Saul’s place.
No one can escape the horror of this scene. That’s kind of the point. You should be horrified.
Atonement is Gory, Gruesome, Horrible
Atonement is Gory, Gruesome, Horrible
Atonement is never nice. It’s not clean and tidy. It’s horrible. It’s not just a doctrine, or a concept, or a bit of theology to be explained and analyzed.
It’s meant to be felt. It’s meant to horrify. It’s not a nice little Easter-tide story to replay year after year. Atonement is never nice and neat, cute and happy.
“Surely the Israelite worshiper realized this when he towed a young bull to the tabernacle and had to slit its throat, skin it, cut it in pieces, and wash the insides and the legs. It was all mess and gore. From slicing the bull’s throat in Leviticus 1 all the way to Calvary, God has always said atonement is nasty and repulsive.” D.R. Davis
In a lot of places, Christianity has been pressure-washed so that all the yuck is gone. Because we want a kind and gentle message. No mess. No gore. No gruesome horror.
“I’d like some rainbows and fairy tales and puppy dog kisses. Give me that toothy-grinned fella telling me about my best life now.”
Sorry to break it to you: that’s not the message of the Bible. That’s not Christianity. That’s therapeutic moralistic deism, and it’s false.
Truth is, we’re too familiar with the scene of Jesus on the cross at Golgotha to appreciate what’s going on. We’ve sanitized and sanctified the horror of the atonement.
It was a horrible day. A terrible day.
The worst day ever, when Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God made atonement for the sins of those who would believe.
Jesus was tortured, mocked, beaten, brutalized, and hanged on a cross. He suffered, and bled, and died.
That’s the message. It’s horrible and true. It happened, and we should be thankful it did. But that doesn’t erase the awfulness of it.
We need this brutal, bloody, horrible story in 2 Samuel to remind us that atonement is “a drippy, bloody, smelly business. The stench of death hangs heavy wherever the wrath of God has been quenched.”
So it is here in 2 Samuel.
Atonement is gory, gruesome, and horrible.
Sit with it. Feel it. It’s horrible.
>We should take notice that King David spared our good friend, Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul because of the oath before the LORD between David and Jonathan son of Saul.
Saul broke an oath, but David kept an oath. David was faithful to the promise he made and continues to be faithful by keeping Jonathan’s son alive.
David was committed to Mephibosheth’s safety, just as another Covenant-Keeping King assures us of our safety in His care.
Jesus says:
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.
Our King is committed to our safety, our eternal security. No one’s taking us from Him.
>That King David spared Mephibosheth is the one bright spot in the horrible story.
We find Rizpah camping out with the bodies of her two sons and the five other members of her family who have been killed as atonement.
A mother and family member just sitting there, day in and day out, week after week, forced to experience this horrible scene.
We don’t have any idea how long Rizpah was there. Some are convinced it lasted from April when the barley harvest was beginning all the way to October when the seasonal rains would come.
Mercifully, the rains did come, signaling the end of the famine and the end of the LORD’s wrath.
Someone tells David about this poor woman.
And moved by this woman’s plight, David retrieves the bones of Saul and Jonathan and gives them and the seven descendants of Saul an honorable burial.
We’re left to read this horrible story. The writer tells you this horrible story, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and especially that part about Rizpah with the bodies, because it’s meant to make us sit with it.
We’re meant to be sad. Solemn.
That’s not tough for you all. You’re pretty good at looking solemn during my sermons. Solemn and sleepy. I don’t blame you; you lost an hour of sleep last night.
But stay here in 2 Samuel 21. Stay here, sad and solemn. Grieve with Rizpah. There’s goodness in this sadness, Solomon says so in Ecclesiastes 7—the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.
Maybe we’ll start to feel, along with the people in this story, the weight and grief of covenant-breaking, and the horror of the atonement.
We need to feel what our sins have wrought.
Consider the wrath of God that you rightfully deserve.
On your own, based on your record, you are not okay. You are not fine. The furthest thing from it, actually.
Consider the wrath of God that Jesus absorbed, drinking the cup of God’s wrath to the very dregs.
For you. For me.
See the darkness come over the land at noon on that horrible day. Darkness—the judgment and curse of God upon His Son.
Hear Jesus forsaken cry out to His Father.
Let the sadness sink in.
Consider the wrath of God.
Feel how horrible this was.
See the horror
and then, and only then, will you start to grasp
the wonder
and the grace
and the mercy
and the deep, deep love of God.
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
