For my weekly quiet time this week, I read II Samuel 23. It contains a song of David and talks about David’s mighty men. Here are two points that came to me as I prayed about the chapter:
1. In vv 3-4, David says the following:
The God of Israel has spoken, the Rock of Israel has said to me: One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land. (NRSV)
According to P. Kyle McCarter’s comment on this verse in the HarperCollins Study Bible, “The just ruler is compared to a bright sun that causes vegetation to sprout after rainfall.” A righteous king brings prosperity, health, relief, and justice for his nation.
This brings to mind a post that I read by K.W. Leslie this morning, Introductions to Jesus. K.W. defines the message of the Gospel of Mark as follows: “Mark, on the other hand, is purely a gospel—a proclamation of a coming conqueror King, whose valiant deeds are told so that the people could see he deserves to rule them.” I read this to mean that Jesus’ miracles showed he was a compassionate person and would make an excellent ruler.
And this brings to mind something I read in a Jehovah’s Witness book about Christ, The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived (though I can’t find the exact passage I’m thinking about): Jesus’ miracles of compassion show us that he’ll be a beneficent ruler during his millennial reign.
And this recalls a passage I read in Isaiah several years ago, one that inspired me to do good for a while. It’s Isaiah 32:1-2, and I like how the NRSV phrases it:
See, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule with justice. Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a covert from the tempest, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
Not only will the Davidic king (whom Christians understand as Jesus) be a welcome relief to the afflicted and the weary, but so will the people who rule with him. And who will rule with him? Believers (II Timothy 2:12; Revelation 5:10; 20:6). Maybe our task on earth is to prepare for that, to become people who love justice, do kindness, and walk humbly with God, as Jesus did. Would we want any other kind of person to rule?
2. II Samuel 23 is also about David’s mighty men, who do spectacular tasks. They are brave when the odds are against them, and they are fiercely loyal to David. But how did they become like this? I think I Samuel 22:2 offers a clue: “Everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him; and he became captain over them.”
These were people who had no future, who were discontent and in debt. But David loved them and gave them a chance. And so they were fiercely loyal to him, and David’s grace inspired them to boldly fight Israel’s enemies against great odds.
This reminds me of Stephen King’s The Stand (the miniseries). By all accounts, Lloyd and the Trashcan Man were losers. Lloyd was in jail because he shot people when he was holding up a gas station. Trashcan Man was considered an icky lunatic, and people threatened to put him in the nuthouse in Terre Haute. But the sinister and demonic Randall Flagg gave them both a chance. Lloyd was to be Flagg’s righthand man, and the Trashcan Man was to be high in Flagg’s counsels. Lloyd said Flagg was the first person in his miserable life to have any faith in him, so he stuck by Flagg when many in Flagg’s camp were seeing his true colors and thinking of deserting him. And Trashcan Man repeatedly said to Flagg, “My life for you!”
This is something that has inspired me whenever I’ve watched The Stand, but I felt bad about being inspired, since Flagg and Lloyd were such bad people. (Trashcan Man was just crazy!) But the theme itself is not bad, for giving people a chance and showing faith in them can bring out the best in them. That’s what David did for a band of discontents, and the result was that they became his “mighty men.”