Another Look At David

TUES., JAN. 14, 1992, 5:50 AM
FARM, STUDY

David is certainly one of the popular Biblical names for men and boys in your culture. It is interesting, isn’t it?, that four of your five sons were given Biblical names, but none named David or Paul, two of your favorite chosen ones. And, further, that these were the two names chosen by your sister for her sons.

So… now you have read the David story, and it was not an experience of great joy. While David retained his conviction that he was especially chosen of God and anointed to be king, the story has him spending much time in battle, involved in intrigue, or in hiding. That doesn’t seem to be what God’s anointed should be doing, but that’s the Biblical record. You see that it’s somewhat like present day newscasting, with more emphasis on the bad, gory news than on the gentle, loving aspects.

The life of a king, in its early aspects anyway, was not an easy one, as the story is told. He brought the ark up and danced before the Lord, but he also did a lot of running away or confronting those who would kill him and assume his kingship, even his son. You wonder when he wrote the Psalms for which he is credited, and you assume it was in the “easy years” toward the end of his reign, when his power was established, but when he still had vivid memories of times when God had seemed to abandon him.

Remember that the story was written after David’s reign and death, so that his chosenness and his long life were part of history. He had prevailed. Yet you can imagine that while it was actually happening he had doubts as to whether God really would lead him past the attempts to kill him. He knew that Saul had died in battle, and so could he… or so it seemed, to him.

You have a sense of being chosen, in the tradition of David, but for a life much less famous and for tasks not nearly as dangerous or as important. I have told you that I generally let “nature take its course” and do not intervene supernaturally very often. Therefore, as you are living life now you wonder whether you shall develop some life-shortening condition that shall abort this life task on which you are working. At the end of your life you shall know, just as David did. You have a son who wants to inherit all of these Teachings. Is he called to do this? Will he do with them what you can and will not? Solomon accomplished some things his father David did not. Will it also be with your son Jonathan?

Yes, you must do some rereading and studying to check out the lineage of Jesus, as coming through Nathan or Solomon. This is not particularly important, even as it seems so. It is just another instance of mystical truth being of a higher order than historical, rational truth. As Jesus I was of the house and lineage of David, and the details of this just aren’t vital. Worry not

The David story shows forth customs of a different culture, particularly in relation to women. You can assume that if David had several wives and numerous concubines that other men did also. It was not just a custom for kings. As men seemed to be often going off to battle, with thousands slain, you can assume that there were more females than males and that this was a means of taking care of women, for independent living was not a viable custom. Nevertheless in that time women were not important in the story.

The major woman was Bathsheba. Although David was punished for his action with her, the punishment was in losing an offspring, followed by the apparent heir, Solomon, whose ascendence to the throne was assured by his old mother, Bathsheba. If the story had been written in the present day, in your culture, you would know a lot more about Bathsheba, a woman “chosen”, in a sense.