# videos

christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzcDS53RQiQ
sermon: https://youtu.be/Z-6YU0vL_iI
commentary:
16:1 When Samson decided to attack Gaza by going into a harlot's house, he may have been consciously imitating the way the spies played their part in Jericho's destruction. And yet it was once again only a surface imitation. He fell for the 'little of both' syndrome, justifying it under the guise of Scriptural examples. The warnings about not looking at a strange woman recall how Samson saw the Philistine girl in Timnah and the prostitute in Gaza (14:1; 16:1). The wicked woman lying in wait to kill the simple man (Prov. 23:25-27) is a clear enough reference to Delilah and her henchmen lying in wait in the bedroom. And yet, for all this reflection upon Samson, Solomon went and did par excellence according to Samson's well-studied folly. And we can do the same, in principle. There is a vast distance between knowledge and belief.
16:3 Samson went in to spend the night with the prostitute, but Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the city gate. If he went in to spend the night there, he presumably entered the house at around 7 or 8. He had what he wanted, and then lay there thinking, the record seems to suggest, and decided to not lay there all night as he planned, but get up and do God's work. Whilst it is unrecorded, surely there were prayers of deep and fervent repentance as he lay there? His conscience likewise seems to have struck him after he attempted to marry the Philistine girl, and also when he burnt up the vineyards. And so again here. He may have justified his behaviour by reference back (in his deep subconscious, maybe) to how the spies sought to destroy Jericho by entering the city and lodging with a whore. We must ever examine our motives.
16:7 Cords- See on 14:5.
16:9 Samson should have already learnt. As his first wife had vexed her with her words to tease his secret from him, so Delilah did. As the Philistines laid wait for Samson as he lay with the whore in Gaza (16:2), so they laid wait in Delilah's bedroom (16:9). He had already repented of using God's service as an excuse for satisfying his own flesh in the incident with the Gaza prostitute. He had bitterly walked away from his first Philistine wife. He burnt down the vineyards, recalling how he had foolishly strolled in them as a Nazirite. He must have looked back and seen how he had played with fire. And now, he goes and does it all again. He goes to the valley of Sorek, 'choice vines', and Samson falls for Delilah, 'the vine'. He went down to the vineyards again; the Nazirite tried to take fire into his bosom again.
16:13 "If they tie me..." (:7) now changes to "If you [singular]"; he knew beforehand that she would betray him, although couldn't admit it to himself. And so we see the complexity of Samson's situation. It was not that his telling of the secret to Delilah was necessarily a sin in itself. He trusted her and yet knew on another level she would betray him. This is just a psychological condition. It helps explain why the Lord Jesus knew from the beginning that Judas would betray him (Jn. 6:64), and yet how He could really trust in Judas as his own familiar friend, confide in him (Ps. 41:9), telling him that he would sit with the other eleven on thrones in the Kingdom (Mt. 19:28). A man can know something about someone on one level, but in love act and feel towards them in a quite different way than this knowledge requires.
16:17 The question arises: Why did Samson tell Delilah that if his hair were cut, he would become weak? Surely he must have known within him that she would do it, in line with past experience? He went out as before to fight the Philistines, surely aware that he had been shaved, and yet assuming God would still be with him. He had come to realize that his long hair was not the real source of his strength, on some kind of metaphysical level. He saw that his strength was from the Spirit of God, not long hair or Naziriteship. He went out knowing, presumably, that his hair had been shaven, and yet still assumed he would have God's strength. And even when his hair began to grow again, he still had to pray for strength (:28). He fell into the downward spiral of reductionism. He figured that if his hair was shaved, well it was no big deal. He was supposed to be a Nazirite all the days of his life, and yet perhaps he came to reason that because he had touched plenty of dead bodies, he therefore needed to be shaved anyway (Num. 6:9). He thought that therefore God would accept him in principle as a Nazirite even though he had broken the letter of Naziriteship, and therefore losing his hair was only a surface level indicator of spirituality. And yet there is also good reason to think that there was an association in Samson's mind between his hair and his God-given strength. For why did he "tell her all his heart" by saying that if he were shaved, he would lose his strength? And of course, when his hair was cut off, then his strength went. Samson saw a link between being a Nazirite and having strength (:17). When Samson went outside from Delilah and shook himself as he usually did, was he not shaking his hair free before attacking the Philistines, as if he saw in his hair the source of his strength?
16:20 The way Samson was so deeply sleeping on Delilah's knees that he didn't feel them shave him, and then he went out and shook himself- all this could suggest he was drunk. There is no concrete evidence for this, but his love of vineyards would suggest he had a yearning for the forbidden fruit. He had broken the Nazirite vow by touching dead bodies, he obviously thought that having unshaven hair was only tokenistic and irrelevant to the real spirit of Naziriteship, and therefore he may have reasoned that alcohol was also another tokenism. Thus his reductionism destroyed him (almost). Perhaps it was brought about by a misunderstanding of God's waiving of the Nazirite ban on touching dead bodies; for after all, God had made Samson a Nazirite, and then empowered him to go and kill Philistines in personal combat, thereby touching dead bodies. So God waived one principle for a more important one; and yet Samson abused this, taking the principle far further than God intended, to the point that he ended up justifying sin as righteousness.  The idea of binding the strong man (Mt. 12:29) must surely look back to Samson. This means that Jesus saw Samson at that time as the very epitome of Satan, even though ultimately he was a man of faith (Heb. 11:32). Thus the Spirit doesn't forget a man's weakness, even though ultimately he may be counted righteous.
16:22 He only ground in the prison a short time, until the great sacrifice was offered to Dagon in thanks for Samson's capture. In that time, his hair grew- but not very long, in such a short time (no more than months, :22,23). The growth of his hair is to be associated with his renewed determination to keep the Nazirite vow. He was reckoned by God as a lifelong Nazirite (15:7); the time when his hair was cut was therefore overlooked by God. His zealous repentance and desire to respond to the gracious way in which God still recognized him as a lifelong Nazirite, although he wasn't one, inspired him to a real faith and repentance. It was this, not the fact he had some hair again, which lead to God empowering him to destroy the palace of Dagon.
16:24 Gentiles praising their gods, mocking Yahweh, and then suddenly being destroyed (16:24) was a scene repeated in Dan. 5:4. See on 13:15.
16:25 Samson suddenly called up out of the prison house cp. Joseph (Gen. 41:14) and John (Mt. 14:9). See on 13:15.
16:30 Samson's desire to die with the Philistines could be read as suicidal. In this case, he had elements of weakness at the end, and yet he was accepted as dying in faith. Or it could be understood that he wanted to die because he believed that through his death, he would achieve God's plan for taking the gates of his enemies. In this case he would have had the spirit of Christ. Samson's death plea for vengeance against the Philistines for his two eyes (:28) sounds woefully human. In some ways, for all the intensity of weeping before God in repentance (16:28 LXX), Samson had not progressed much from his attitude in 15:7, over 20 years before- where he once again had admitted that his motive for 'seeking occasion against the Philistines' was partly just personal revenge. The spirit of not avenging oneself but leaving it to God to do was evidently something he never quite rose up to in his life (Rom. 12:19). Although it seems to me it was wrong, and betrayed some unspirituality, yet it is taken as the epitome of the desire of all the faithful for vindication through the coming of Christ (Rev. 6:10).
16:31 Heb. 11:34 says that that Samson was a man of outstanding faith- yet the record in Judges seems framed to paint Samson as a womanizer, a man who lacked self-control and who only came to God in times of dire personal need. But imagine if only the negative incidents in our own lives, over a period of 40 years, were recorded. Anyone reading it would conclude that we were hypocritical to claim to have any hope of salvation. In our self-examination, we sometimes see only this negative record; we fail to see that God has justified us, that in His record book, we are ranked among the faithful, as Samson was in Hebrews 11. Any reflection on Samson needs to bear this in mind. He seems to have lived the rest of his life full of faith and zeal- although this doesn’t minimize the mistakes he made.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pWxsBdznUs
sermon: https://youtu.be/HM2UvsidIzI
commentary:
19:12 This man was likely an alcoholic (note he got drunk four days in a row, and took wine with him, :19), a polygamist and hard hearted and brutal toward his woman (he told her when unconscious and gang-raped to just get up and carry on the journey, :28). Yet he still had a religious conscience, and thought that separation from the Gentile world was important; we note that he emphasized the externality of his religious devotions in :18. But separation from the flesh must begin internally; it’s no good to be separate from the world and yet live the life of the flesh in our private lives.
19:30 This was done so that all who received the parts of that broken body would “consider" and be motivated in response. It was designed to elicit the declaration of their hearts, and above all to provoke to concrete action. Splitting up a body and sharing it with all Israel was clearly a type of the breaking of bread, where in symbol, the same happens. Consider some background, all of which points forward to the Lord’s sufferings: The person whose body was divided up was from Bethlehem, and of the tribe of Judah (:1); They were ‘slain’ by permission of a priest; They were dragged to death by a wicked Jewish mob; They were “brought forth" to the people just as the Lord Jesus was to the crowd (:25); “Do... what seems good unto you" (:24) is very much Pilate language; A man sought to dissuade the crowd from their purpose- again, as Pilate. There should be a like effect upon us as we receive the emblems of the Lord’s body- the inner thoughts of our hearts are elicited, and we are provoked to action.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiyluDOP9Uw
sermon: https://youtu.be/x4P-6Jf0C3Q
commentary:
20:1 As one man- Repeated in :8,11. In the same way as disparate parties became united in killing Christ, so self-righteous anger against brethren who are scapegoated can produce an apparent unity (Lk. 23:12; Acts 4:26). But the parties soon go back to their anger with each other once the group they have set up as their common enemy is either destroyed or the situation moves on.
20:16 We read of men being able to sling stones and not miss “a hair’s breadth”- an idiom which of course isn’t literally true. The Bible uses such inexact language at times in that it uses human terms; which explains why the New Testament speaks of ‘demons’ as if they exist whereas elsewhere it shows clearly that they have no real existence.
20:23 Both sides were in the wrong. But God as it were lead the idolatrous and hypocritical Israelites further down the downward spiral. We learn from this that division amongst God’s people is in a sense sent from Him in the sense that He confirms divisive brethren in their position they wish to adopt, and even uses it to destroy communities which displease Him. Even with Gentile nations, His preferred manner of destroying their armies was to turn their swords against themselves.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1-7aNBL1As
sermon: https://youtu.be/x4P-6Jf0C3Q
commentary:
21:2 This repentance of people who had many other weaknesses in their lives is similar to the situation in 17:1-4. It shows there is a religious conscience in people, no matter how far they stray from God. We should bear this in mind when we become discouraged in our preaching by the thought that ‘nobody’s interested’. People are, passively.
21:4 Peace offerings were offered in times of Israel's sadness and defeat (see too 20:26). In our traumas of life, we need to remember that the only thing that matters is our peace with God, the joyful fact that we have nothing separating us. As Israel made their peace offerings at those times, so we too should consider the possibility of breaking bread, perhaps alone, as we meet the desperate traumas of our lives.
21:5 Israel made oaths before Yahweh which they didn’t keep and yet God worked through their failure in order to preserve His people... we see here how God works through human self-righteousness, failure and hypocrisy, in order to do His work and save people. We likewise shouldn’t totally turn away from those guilty of such things but try to patiently work through them still to God’s glory.
21:24 Each man did that which was right in his own eyes- It was right that there was no human king in Israel, because God was their king. This statement may therefore not be a criticism, but rather an observation- that in the absence of a human king, the people were to make their own personal decisions about what was right and wrong, just as we should. The sad thing was that Israel turned away from God’s word and therefore lost a correct sense of right and wrong.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdEK3BsVJhw
sermon: https://youtu.be/ryhEfrugsbU
commentary:
1:18 After praying for a child, Hannah went her way “and her face wasn’t sad any more” because she truly believed she would soon become pregnant. She’s a great example to us of believing and feeling that what we have prayed for, we have actually received (Mk. 11:24).
1:19 Hannah’s prayer of thanks is clearly the basis for Mary’s prayer; and Hannah had requested a child, and received it. As Hannah described herself as “Your handmaid” (1 Sam. 1:18), so did Mary too (Lk. 1:38). God remembered His mercy in making Mary conceive (Lk. 1:54), just as God had remembered Hannah in answering her prayer (:19). And just as Hannah “rose up” and went to Ramah, so Mary “rose up” and went to Judea (Lk. 1:39). There is reason to think that Hannah too desired to bear Messiah. The lesson is that examples of prayer influence others.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2YuybVM0wM
sermon: https://youtu.be/Qkh0M5fRXLI
commentary:
3:13 Eli did rebuke his sons; but in God’s eyes he didn’t (cp.  2:24). He said words for the sake of saying words, but in his heart he didn’t mean them. He honoured his sons above God, to make himself “fat with the best of all the offerings”. The description of Eli as being fat surely reflects his guilt (2:29; 4:18). And yet he appeared on the surface to run his family life on a spiritual footing. Eli is presented as a kindly old man who had a heart for God but was too soft on his children; but God’s judgment of him is much harsher, teaching us the serious consequence of sins of omission, and of allowing abuse to continue when it is in our power to stop it. Because Eli wouldn't restrain the abuse, he was seen as committing those very things which he failed to rebuke. Likewise the man who wouldn’t discipline his wayward ox was to be treated as if he had committed the crime the ox did, and therefore must die if the ox killed a man (Ex. 21:29).
3:18 When Samuel told Eli of the prophetic vision which he had received, Eli commented: “It is Yahweh”. He meant ‘It is the word of the Lord’; but he saw God as effectively His word. “The word”, the “word of the Kingdom”, “the Gospel”, “the word of God” are all parallel expressions throughout the Gospels. Our attitude to God’s word is our attitude to Him.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j_fxLQBKWA
sermon: https://youtu.be/5aZLDO6TBMI
commentary:
4:10 God wished to demonstrate by this defeat that mere religious tokenism wouldn’t save anyone. Israel’s tokenistic use of the ark, a mere wooden box, is similar to the way some use the crucifix and icons today. It is the essence behind the symbol rather than the symbol itself which we must understand and believe in. See on 5:9.
4:13 His heart trembled for the ark of God- The record emphasizes Eli’s love for the ark; even after the shock of hearing that his sons had been killed, it was only when he heard that the ark had been taken that he had a stroke and died (:18). Likewise his daughter in law died with mourning for the ark on her lips (:22). But this love of the external things of one’s religion (see on :10) wasn’t the same as true spirituality. For all Eli’s love of the things associated with the true God, he was severely condemned for not having the glory of God and care for His people at heart (see on 3:13). It’s not difficult to love the external trappings of our religion- the church hall, the social events, the regular activities, the general ambience. But this isn’t the same as true spirituality.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs9DqC7my6g
sermon: https://youtu.be/5aZLDO6TBMI
commentary:
5:9 God didn’t give Israel victory because they had the ark with them in battle, and yet He kills many Philistines because they have the ark with them. So strong was His desire to demonstrate that religious tokenism will not bring blessing, in fact the very opposite- it is the path to death (see on 4:10 and 4:13).
5:12 God has a sensitive heart even for the sufferings of unbelievers. He so hates to see any of His creation suffering. Those believers who fear God’s final rejection should remember this; that He has a hugely sensitive heart. Note that as ‘ascending to Heaven’ is hyperbole and not literal (see too 2 Chron. 28:9; Ezra 9:6; Ps. 107:26), so likewise the language of ‘falling from heaven’ in verses like Is. 14:12-14 must also not be read literally.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVIQQ4LSurY
sermon: https://youtu.be/5aZLDO6TBMI
commentary:
6:9 He has done us this great evil- God is repeatedly described as the source of both good and “evil” in the sense of disaster; God is all powerful, and it isn’t the case that all good comes from Him and all “evil” from some supposed ‘Satan’ figure. God creates both good and “evil” (Is. 45:5-7).
6:19 The men of Beth-Shemesh were smitten because they looked into the ark, probably because they wanted to find more jewels which the Philistines might have placed there (:15). In the face and presence of the things of the supreme glory of Yahweh of Israel, they scavenged around in a spirit of petty materialism- just as men gambled for the clothes of Jesus at the foot of His cross; they trampled upon the supreme holiness of God in their crazed fascination with wealth. And people are doing this all around us.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mmC8oQRyWk
sermon: https://youtu.be/FB-C-nF7Gp0
commentary:
7:6 The pouring out of water before God symbolized the state of their hearts in repentance before God. Repentance is literally a re-thinking, something internal, a pouring out of self before God. Water poured on the ground can never again be gathered up where it was before; some permanent change happens every time we experience an episode of true repentance. Water being poured on the ground became a Hebraism for death (2 Sam. 14:14); in repentance, we recognize that we have sinned and ought to die for what we have done, but in the continued life given us by God’s grace we will seek to live for Him.
7:9  As the Philistines closed in upon Israel, Samuel was busy offering up the burnt offering, symbolizing Israel’s plea to God for help, with all the intensity of the suckling lamb crying to its mother- when the natural reaction would have been to think ‘Enough of that, come on, do something practical now…’. We see here the supreme priority of prayer and the urgent intensity of powerful prayer.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_u2POg1Zw0
sermon: https://youtu.be/FB-C-nF7Gp0
commentary:
8:3 Samuel failed as a father in the same way as his mentor Eli did, although he wasn’t condemned for it as Eli was. The lesson is that even in later life, we are influenced by the examples we saw in the spiritual mentors of our youth. The power of influence is far greater than we imagine; we have more responsibility for our actions and examples than we think. Nobody lives life to and for themselves, because every life has such a powerful effect upon others (Rom. 14:7 and context).
8:7,8 Here is an example of the mutuality between God and man: ‘They didn’t reject you, they rejected Me, but they rejected you, in that you are with Me’.
8:8 Israel sinned not only by worshipping idols but by thereby omitting to worship God as He required. God is highly sensitive to human sin; sins of commission often lead to and involve sins of omission, which are equally significant to God.
8:11,12 Israel were told three times that Saul would have many chariots. If they were spiritually aware, they would have realized that by multiplying horses and chariots, he was going to be a King who ruled in studied disobedience to the Mosaic Law (Dt. 17:16-21). They were given the spiritual potential to grasp this. But they were already hardened in their rebellion, and this potential spiritual help went unheeded (although God still gave it to them potentially, even at a time when it seemed pointless. He is so ever willing to coax His people back!).
8:14 When God offered Israel a king, He did so with a series of warnings that this king would treat them just like the prophesied invasion of condemnation described in Dt. 28; he would take their sons, seed, vineyards etc. in just the same way. The links are unmistakable (8:14 = Dt. 28:30,33; 8:11,14 = Dt. 28:41; 8:15 = Dt. 28:38; 8:17 = Dt. 28:43). Through these allusions, Yahweh was saying to Israel: Do you want the condemnation for disobedience? And they answered 'Yes!'. And yet, in His grace, Yahweh still worked through the system of human kingship to bring about His purpose of salvation with Israel. Thus through our unfaithful actions now we will be witnesses against ourselves at the final judgment (Mt. 23:31); indeed, in that the judgment process is now ongoing, we are right now witnesses against ourselves when we sin. And we are not only witnesses, but also the judge who pronounces the verdict of condemnation: for the sinner is condemned of himself (Tit. 3:11). In this lies the illogicality of sin and the blindness of man to the implications of his actions before God.
8:22 God was Israel’s King and they were His Kingdom. To reject Him as king was therefore to count themselves as not His Kingdom. And yet God still tried to work with them through the system of human kingship. Likewise, He didn’t want a physical temple; but they wanted one, and so He came and dwelt in it and worked through it, but it wasn’t His ideal intention. God thus makes concession to human weaknesses, so eager is He to remain at work with us; and yet our use of those concessions often makes spirituality harder rather than easier. We should also learn to allow others some concessions to their human weaknesses- for God certainly does so with us.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z_SoWDiuLM
sermon: https://youtu.be/hR27__zltQs
commentary:
9:15,25 What we hear in the ear, that we must preach on the housetops (Mt. 10:27). This is built on these verses, where God speaks in Samuel’s ear, and then he speaks that word to Saul on the housetop. Jesus is saying that in essence, we are all in Samuel’s position; we hear the word of this world’s salvation, the word about “the Kingdom” as it was for Saul, and that very fact is in itself the imperative to overcome our natural reservations and share it with those for whom it is intended- even if, as with Saul, we may consider them unlikely and unspiritual hearers.
9:16 Their request for a human king was, as God Himself mightily demonstrated to them, a rejection of Him, and He grieved because of it. And yet when God gave them a King, He expresses His decision in quite a different tone- as if Saul would save them from the Philistines in response to the people’s request to God. God speaks as if the gift of Saul was akin to the provision of Moses, to save poor Israel from their unwarranted persecution. Actually, Saul was slain by the Philistines- in His foreknowledge, the Almighty knew all about Saul. But in His pure grace, He doesn't reflect this in the way He speaks at this time. Another view would be that Saul could have saved Israel from the Philistines, that potential scenario had been enabled by God, but like so many people, he failed to live up to the potential God had created for him.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0oAG1BJCi0
sermon: https://youtu.be/hR27__zltQs
commentary:
10:9 God gave him another heart- God is able to work directly on the human mind, giving us mindsets and attitudes which are more spiritual than we would otherwise have. He can make us “another person” (:7). But despite this will and ability of God to do this, Saul was ultimately untransformed, because he simply preferred the flesh.
10:19-21 It was God's wish that Israel would not have a human king; hence His sorrow when they did. Yet in the Law, God foresaw that they would want a human king, and so He gave commandments concerning how he should behave (Dt. 17:14,15). God foresaw their weaknesses and somehow provided for them, as He does with us. These passages speak of how Israel would choose to set a King over themselves, and would do so. Yet God worked through this system of human kings; hence the Queen of Sheba speaks of how God had set Solomon over Israel as King, and how he was king on God's behalf (2 Chron. 9:8). Israel set a king over themselves; but God worked with this, so that in a sense He set the King over them. However, by opting to make use of God's concessions to human weakness, real spirituality became harder to achieve. Thus it was harder to accept Yahweh as King if they had a human king demanding their allegiance.
10:27 As though he had been deaf – Much later, David describes himself as responding to criticism like this: “I as a deaf man, heard not” (Ps. 38:13). Yet he was alluding to how Saul, when likewise criticized by wicked men, “was as though he had been deaf” to their words. David learnt the secret of seeing the positive in our weak brethren, even in our persecutors, and he didn’t let all that was wrong with Saul interfere with this. He saw the good in Saul, he remembered that one good example he showed- and it empowered him to follow it. This not only develops and reflects humility, but it helps us cope with ongoing abusive situations without completely losing any sense of the value and significance of every human person- including the person of our abusers.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95Kq_QUFfn0
sermon: https://youtu.be/7jpUV_SAPcg
commentary:
11:5 The call of God comes to us right in the midst of ordinary, mundane life. Gideon was called whilst in the middle of threshing wheat in a time of famine (Jud. 6:1), Saul whilst he was out looking for lost cattle (1 Sam. 9:10) and again whilst he was coming home from work one evening (1 Sam. 11:5); David whilst he was looking after the sheep; Samuel whilst he was asleep; Amos whilst he was leading the flocks to water (Am. 7:14); and see too 1 Kings 11:29; 19:16; 2 Kings 9:1-13,18. Christ likewise called men, arresting them with His radical call in the very midst of daily life, at the most inconvenient moment, even the most humanly inappropriate moment- such as being on the way to your father’s funeral, or in the very act of casting a net into the sea.
11:11 Saul attacked in three groups because he was trying to imitate Gideon, whom he had as his spiritual hero: 1 Sam.11:11 = Jud.7:16; 13:2 = Jud. 7:8; 13:5 = Jud.7:12; 13:6 = Gideon offering before fighting Midian; 14:5,20 = Jud.7:22; 14:24 = imitating Gideon and his men going without food; 14:28,31 = Jud.8:4,5; 11:7 = Gideon killing his father's oxen. But merely replicating the outward actions of a faithful person doesn’t of itself mean we are spiritually minded nor finally acceptable to God.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T10ZfNaqTI4
sermon: https://youtu.be/7jpUV_SAPcg
commentary:
12:14 With both you and the king- If all Israel had been obedient, then Saul would have been too. If a majority are spiritually minded, this can at times and in some ways influence a potentially weaker minority; even though the reverse is more often true. And yet Saul made the people “follow him trembling” because they weren’t spiritually stronger than him (13:7).
12:14,15 Israel requested a human king. God was Israel's king, and therefore their desire was effectively a rejection of God and Israel's special relationship with Him. And yet God gave them a human king. If they had a human king, it was harder for them to be God's Kingdom, to personally realize that God was their King, that He was the one to whom they owed all allegiance and duty. And yet God gave them a human king, because this was the path they had chosen; and by so doing He in one sense pushed them down the downward spiral of disobedience because they had chosen this themselves.
12:20,21 If we don't serve God whole-heartedly, we will serve the idols of this present age. There's no third road.
12:23 It is an actual sin- albeit a sin of omission- to cease to pray for our brethren.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJFAZRbM0pA
sermon: https://youtu.be/ekI3s4ls9g8
commentary:
13:9 Are we going to be like those Israelites who offered a peace offering, when actually they were not at peace with God at all (see too  2 Kings 16:13; Prov. 7:14; Am. 5:22)? This is a thought worth bearing in mind as we approach the breaking of bread service.
13:13 Yahweh would have established your kingdom in Israel forever – God sets up amazing potentials for people, and yet they fail to achieve them. It must be so tragic for God, seeing all the wasted potentials of humanity. And yet this would explain His enthusiasm to confirm us in our attempts to rise up to the potentials He has enabled for us. God’s punishment of Saul may appear severe, but Saul’s actions obviously embodied a large amount of unspirituality which was beneath the surface.
13:14 A man after His own heart- The God whose ways are above our ways as far as Heaven is above earth can say that David was of the same mind as Himself. This shows the extent of God’s humility, His enthusiasm to connect with man, and His eagerness to count our feeble spiritual mindedness for far more than it really is of itself.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaET__7CHl0
sermon: https://youtu.be/udArVmtB7nk
commentary:
14:6 Perhaps David was in fact "the young man who carried his armour”. Saul also calls him "young man" in 17:58. There was evidently an intense spiritual and physical rapport between Jonathan and his armour bearer which was similar to that described between Jonathan and David. "I am with you according to your heart" (:7) has firm connection with David and Jonathan being described as having their souls knit together in 18:1. The record of David's battle with the Philistines in 2 Sam. 5:17-24 has certain similarities with the exploits of 14:8-11; as if, years later, David replicated his early adventure of faith. David already had a reputation in Israel for being "a mighty man of valour, a man of war” (16:18), even before the Goliath incident. This would be understandable if he had gone with Jonathan in chapter 14. His becoming Saul's  armour bearer (16:21) would then be seen as a logical promotion from being Jonathan's armour bearer. David came to lead Jonathan, rather than the other way around. And yet Jonathan accepted this, recognizing his own weakness and David’s spiritual superiority to him, without any jealousy. In this we see a wonderful humility. See on 18:3.
14:10 It is open to debate whether we should set up signs for God to fulfil. As we mature spiritually, it should become clearer and more intuitive to us from His word what we should do and how we should decide issues, without the agonies of indecision and dilemma.
14:20 Every man’s sword was against his fellow- This was God’s preferred method of destroying Israel’s enemies in so many of the victories He gave them. Division within a community is therefore a sign of God’s judgment of it; and those who justify and encourage division are therefore living out a position of condemnation.
14:33 Pointless following of legalistic obedience often leads people into sin because of their basic humanity.
14:37 In the same way as answered prayer reflects God’s pleasure, so prayer which God doesn’t respond to at all is one indicator of His displeasure (e.g. Saul’s experience in 1 Sam. 14:37). This isn’t to say that when we don’t receive the answers we expect, then God hasn’t responded. There’s a difference between God responding to prayer and God answering prayer as we expect Him to answer.
14:39 Even if it is Jonathan my son- It would seem that Saul was purposefully manipulating circumstance in order to kill his own son. This is how far jealousy blinds eyes, breaks families and relationships and obsesses people beyond reason.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uklZ-zdpf5A
sermon: https://youtu.be/2a_WD3N4DKE
commentary:
15:6 Guilt by association isn’t a Biblical idea; in fact the very opposite is taught, and we should be careful not to practice this.
15:11 God tells Samuel of His rejection of Saul, and Samuel cries to Him all night. The implication is that Samuel was pleading with God to consider another future with Saul (see too :35; 16:1). Having stated His intentions, God is open to persuasion before He carries them out; that gap period is intended to inspire intense prayer and dialogue with God on our part.
15:17 Notice the links between Saul and Paul. "Is Saul also among the prophets?" (10:11) was directly matched by 'Is Saul of Tarsus also among the Christians?'. The way Paul was let down through a window to escape persecution (Acts 9:25; 2 Cor. 11:33) was surely to remind him of what King Saul had done to David (see on 19:12). They were both Benjamites, and perhaps his parents saw him as following in Saul's footsteps. And it seems Paul was aware of this. The implication is that Paul changed his name from Saul to Paul ('the little one'), consciously alluding to this statement that when Saul was little (Heb. 'the littlest one') in his own sight, God anointed Saul and made him the rosh, the chief, over Israel. Maybe Paul's parents intended him to be the rosh over Israel; and it seems he would have made it had he not been converted. Paul saw how he had persecuted Christ, as Saul had David. He saw the self-will within him as it was in Saul. Yet he went on to see how pride had destroyed a man who could have achieved so much for God. And he determined that he would learn the lesson from Saul's failure; so he changed his name to Paul, the little one. What influence his sustained meditation on one Old Testament verse had upon him! It affected some basic decisions in his life; e.g. the decision to change his name. There was a time when Saul felt he was 'the littlest one' (as demonstrated in 9:21; 10:22). Paul alludes to it when he says he is less than the least of all saints, least of the apostles, chief of sinners (1 Cor. 15:9; Eph. 3:8; 1 Tim. 1:15). He earnestly resolved to be like Saul was at the beginning. "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19) is surely a reference back to Saul's disobedience (:22). What Bible characters are we trying to consciously learn from? For the Bible is largely history, and the range of characters and situations recorded are chosen so that we can always find some Biblical precedent and guidance for whatever situation we are in (Rom. 15:4).
15:23 Because you have rejected the word of Yahweh, He has also rejected you- Our attitude to God’s word is our attitude to Him; as we treat God’s word, so He will treat us.
15:35 Samuel mourned for Saul- Any condemnation of the wicked by God or occasional separation from them which we are asked to make must be the result of much sorrow (see too Lev. 10:6; 1 Cor. 5:2; Phil. 3:17-19). The idea of 'block disfellowship'- the cutting off of whole groups of believers because of their association with some more questionable ones -  hardly enables 'mourning' and pleading with individuals as is required.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1llWQ6mghY
sermon: https://youtu.be/HAqd9IgkWno
commentary:
16:14 The “spirit” often refers to an attitude of mind (e.g. Dt. 2:30; Prov. 25:28; Is. 54:6; 61:3; Ez. 18:31; Mk.14:38; Lk. 2:40; 2 Cor. 2:13; 12:18; Eph. 4:23). The “evil spirit” refers to Saul’s state of mind here; just as a “holy spirit” refers to a sanctified state of mind. The idea that ‘evil spirits’ refer to invisible cosmic beings isn’t Biblical; they would hardly flee just because of how a man plays a harp. Notice that here the “evil spirit” was “from Yahweh”-  this is emphasized (:14,15,16; 18:10); this attitude of the mind was sent by God, not a super-human evil being acting in radical opposition to God.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXnwKZinOV0
sermon: https://youtu.be/rSb2QL_Zwu4
commentary:
17:9 This conflict is prophetic of Christ’s victory over sin on the cross (see on :54). The way that Israel failed to find a man to fight until David arose is exactly the language of the prophecies which speak of our inability to find a single man who could overcome sin, until Christ did so on the cross (Is. 41:28; 50:2; 59:16). There was a very real possibility that Christ like David could have failed [for He was man, not God Himself]- with the same disastrous consequences.
17:16 The faithful Israelite would have thought of the sacrifices being offered morning and evening, and would’ve reflected that they were powerless to give victory (cp. Heb. 10:4).
17:26 What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine…?- David asks this having just heard what would be done for the man who killed Goliath (:25); and then he asks it again (:30). The implication is that the offer of Saul’s daughter he found motivating. As Saul’s servant, from a poor family, he likely would’ve looked on at her from a distance, regretting that she was unreachable (18:23); and she was in love with him (18:20). Jonathan, her brother, was perhaps already his good friend (see on 14:6). Perhaps this looks forward to how Christ was motivated in His battle with sin by the thought of thereby winning us, His bride.
17:32 Let no man’s heart fail- Just before Christ destroyed the power of sin on the cross, He assured us in similar words (Jn. 14:1,27).
17:35 I went out after it and struck it, and rescued it out of its mouth- This shows an unusual level of commitment to the sheep, after the pattern of the unusual shepherd in Christ’s parable who risks His life in fighting a wild animal to save a sheep- no normal shepherd would do this. David not only prefigured Christ as the ultimately “good shepherd”, but shows the value he attached to all God’s creation.
17:40 Five smooth stones- He took five not because he thought he might miss a few times but because Goliath had four sons whom he likely intended to kill at the same time (2 Sam. 21:18-22; 1 Chron. 20:4-8). This was indeed spiritual ambition. But those four sons were killed later, by David’s men; just as we are left with some aspects of Christ’s victory against sin to follow up on ourselves.
17:46 I will strike you down and cut off your head- David was completely confident in faith, and had worked out what he would do after the initial victory- he would cut off Goliath’s head. Christ likewise was confident of victory on the cross and His parables and teachings assumed that victory ahead of time.
That all the earth may know that there is a God- The spirit of Christ’s words just before He went out to kill the power of sin on Golgotha (Jn. 14:31; 17:23).
17:49 His forehead- This is twice emphasized; pointing forward to how Christ’s victory over sin was ultimately in the mind.
17:54 'Golgotha' meaning 'The place of the skull' may well be the place near Jerusalem where David buried Goliath's skull. The whole incident opens up as a prototype of Christ’s victory over sin on the cross, with Goliath presented as a “man of sin”.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-X6VOlvDOA
sermon: https://youtu.be/5CZnUJA_Wgw
commentary:
18:3 Our notes on chapter 17 have shown that David’s killing of Goliath was typical of Christ’s killing of sin on the cross. His victory there enabled the new covenant to come into operation with those who believe in Him; and so Jonathan becomes representative of us, and the covenant he enters with David looks ahead to the new covenant. Jonathan as the king’s son and commander of the army was the one who ought to have fought Goliath; but he didn’t (see on 14:6). Instead of being filled with envy, he humbled himself, stripped himself and gave his all to David, as we should to Christ, motivated by the wonder of His victory.
18:5 To achieve this state of mind must have required a lot of conscious thought and self-analysis by David. We get the sense that David pitted his wisdom against Saul's anger and bitter persecution; David's wisdom and prospering is repeatedly mentioned in tandem with Saul's anger against him (:5,11,14,15,30). These words are referring back to Dt. 29:9, which promised that those who kept the words of the covenant would prosper. David's charmed life and prospering despite all manner of plotting against him was due to his single-minded devotion to the Law; to those very chapters which tired Bible readers tend to skip over as boring and not motivating. Yet David found something immensely inspiring and practical about the Law. The word made him wiser than his foes (Ps. 119:98)- and there is reason to think that Ps. 119, which is all about how much David loved God’s word, was written by David at the time of his persecution by Saul.
18:10 An evil spirit from God- See on 16:14.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MbAIUX3r8s
sermon: https://youtu.be/oNQG4iYMfVU
commentary:
19:5 Saul wanting to slay “innocent blood” = Mt.27:4; his persecution of David “without a cause” was exactly what the Jews did to Christ (Jn. 15:25). We see clearly David as a type of Christ and Saul as representative of the Jewish opposition to Him.
19:12 There are many connections between Saul and Paul; and Paul noticed them and was motivated by them (see on 15:17). The way Paul was let down through a window to escape persecution (Acts 9:25; 2 Cor. 11:33) was not of his own choice; God set up that situation to make him realize that he should not be as Saul, his namesake. And so, led by God in this, he purposefully changed his name from Saul to Paul, ‘the little one’, recalling how when Saul was “little” in his own sight, he was acceptable to God (15:17). We too are to look for the similarities between our lives and those of Biblical characters, and act accordingly; and God will work in our lives to make the similarities, differences and lessons the more apparent to us.
19:13 An idol- Although both Michal and David were in love with each other when they married and they were both members of God’s people, indeed Michal’s brother Jonathan was a very faithful believer, Michal was clearly not devoted to Yahweh as she should’ve been- for she had a large idol in the house. Ultimately the marriage didn’t work out. Being in love and both being nominally believers isn’t enough to make a marriage work as God intends; there must be on both sides a genuine love of God.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxWZ-A1dagI
sermon: https://youtu.be/oNQG4iYMfVU
commentary:
20:8 Your servant- David was respected by Jonathan as his spiritual superior because of David’s victory over Goliath (see on 18:3), but despite that, David considers himself Jonathan’s servant, in the spirit of servant leadership which characterizes Jesus.
20:16 Yahweh will require it- This affects the question of whether there will be a specific 'going through' of many (all?) our deeds at the day of judgment, or at least, all the sinful deeds of the condemned. Actions in this life will be "required" by God (Dt. 18:19; 23:21; Josh. 22:23; 2 Chron. 24:22; Ez. 3:20; 33:6,8)- at judgment day, when an explanation for our behaviour will be "required". The Hebrew word translated "require" in the above passages has the sense of to search / enquire- which suggests a process of discussion during the judgment process. Likewise God will "require" the flock at the hand of the pastors (Ez. 34:10; Heb. 13:17). There must be answerability before God for human actions; in this life and / or at the day of judgment when Christ returns. The apparent silence of God in this life can lead us to think that there are things we can ‘get away with’; but ultimately there will be accountability before God.
20:27 The Jews asked about Jesus "Where is he?" at a feast time (Jn. 7:11); just as Saul did about David.
20:30 To the confusion of your mother’s nakedness – The Hebrew idiom is hard to interpret, but it could suggest that Saul was falsely accusing Jonathan of having a homosexual relationship with David. If you feel you have been slandered by gossip in the church, remember that almost every servant of God has been through this at the hands of those they counted as their brethren: Joseph, Moses, Job, David, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, Paul, and above all Jesus Himself
20:31-34 Jonathan represents us all in our relationship with Christ (see on 18:3). He lived in an environment which was bitterly opposed to David; yet he stuck up for him, at the risk of embarrassment and opposition, and certain damage to his own prospects; as we should in this wicked world. As Saul cast a javelin at David, so he did at Jonathan; as we should fellowship the sufferings of David's greater son. Saul's hate of David resulted in Jonathan being "grieved for David, because his father had treated him shamefully". Is this not our response to our world in their ceaseless blasphemy of Christ?


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyb45l0Afj4
sermon: https://youtu.be/ZR41BtxItIo
commentary:
21:9 David’s eager taking of the sword of Goliath contrasts sadly with his earlier rejection of such weapons in order to slay Goliath (17:39). David later reflects how he knew that his faithless taking of that sword and the showbread  would lead to the death of Abiathar’s family (1 Sam. 22:22). But still he did it. David was ultimately a righteous man, but if we were to draw a graph of his level of faith, with time along the bottom and his level of faith on the side- it would be a jagged graph. Just like our lives.
21:13,15 Going down South to Achish of Gath and playing the mad man has sad connections with the patriarchs going down to Egypt in times of weak faith. This was a weak period of David’s life; see on :9.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT-rxaxF8gU
sermon: https://youtu.be/ZR41BtxItIo
commentary:
22:2 David at this time could be likened to Christ in our period of history, still awaiting being enthroned and given the Kingdom promised to Him. Those who followed David at this time would then represent us who follow Christ today, when society generally doesn’t accept Him. Those who came to Him were initially spiritually weak, but they developed during their time in the wilderness with Him. It was those who were loyal to him in the wilderness who later became the rulers in his Kingdom, as we will in Christ’s Kingdom when it is established on earth (Rev. 5:8). Those who came to David were initially driven to him by their hard experiences in this world, rather than attracted to him for purely spiritual motives; and so it is with many of those who come to Christ. Our motives for doing so change and mature over time.
22:5 Go into the land of Judah- David’s whole experience with Saul was arranged by a loving Father. The sensible thing would have been for David to get out of Saul’s way and lay quiet- and this is what he tried to do, by going to Moab. But then God tells him to go back into Judah. This was political suicide; it’s similar to how Christ returned to Judea in a similar situation (Jn. 11:7,8). It made no human sense to expose himself to Saul again. And then God tells David to go and fight with the Philistines in order to rescue the people of Keilah (23:2). Yet the men of Keilah weren’t allies worth having- even they were prepared to betray David to Saul, and by this action he made the Philistines hate him yet more, so refuge amongst them was no longer possible. Again and again, God led David into situations that were politically suicidal, that only made things worse for him… because He wanted David to trust in Him alone. And so it happens in our lives. Time and again.
22:22 David had great sensitivity and this led to an almost telepathic ability to enter into other's problems; it became legendary throughout Israel, and this was one of the things which endeared him to his people (see too 2 Sam.14:17,20; 18:13)- and there is a powerful similarity here with Christ, whose sensitivity was greater than anyone’s. His ability to know things may have been partly due to direct Divine guidance, but sometimes it may’ve been simply due to His acute sensitivity to people and human situations. We can take comfort that He is the same today as He was yesterday, and is highly sensitive to all our circumstances.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j19a7WaJkY
sermon: https://youtu.be/MbMbu1MckDo
commentary:
23:2 See on 22:5. This situation is typical of Christ’s in Jn. 11:7,8.
23:15 To seek his life- Psalm 54 was written when David received the news that the Ziphites had betrayed him. The reference to oppressors ‘seeking after my soul / life’ (Ps. 54:3) uses the same Hebrew words as here, where Saul seeks for David’s life at Ziph. That Psalm gives an insight into the mind of David; how he perceived himself, how he understood God. He was obviously in a desperate situation- he’d been betrayed, and Saul appeared certain now to corner him and kill him. He asks God of course to save him; he doesn’t just resign himself to what looked like an impossible situation. He had the vision to believe that God can do miracles. He asks God to ‘judge’ him, to ‘plead my cause’ (Ps. 54:1 Heb.). There he was, just having received the news… and he prays, and composes a Psalm, right there and then. Composing poetry in the heat of the moment was his way of calming down and focusing his faith. That’s not to say, of course, that he didn’t later refine Psalm 54 and ‘write it up’ as it were.
23:16,17 Only occasionally could Jonathan and David meet, brief moments of intense fellowship away from the rest of the world, strengthening each other's hand in God, re-confirming their covenant together (18:3; 20:8,16; 23:18). No wonder their goodbyes were so hard (20:41). Not surprisingly, they looked forward to the promised day of David's Kingdom. Our communion meetings with Christ (see on 18:3) during our wilderness journey must surely mirror those meetings.
23:21 Yahweh bless you, for you have had compassion on me- Saul made the common mistake of assuming that anyone on his side and against his perceived enemies was therefore also on God’s side. But our enemies’ enemy isn’t therefore necessarily a good person or Godly. This logic leads to all manner of damaged relationships between individuals and groups.
23:26 Saul went on one side of the mountain and David and his men on the other- David was going up one side of the cone shaped mountain, getting higher and higher, whilst Saul was chasing him, never catching up with him, but going around the other side. The dust from David’s group would’ve been visible to Saul’s army. It was clear that soon David would reach the summit- and there would be no way out, apart from upwards to Heaven. He was in a no way out situation, just as God sometimes puts us into. But amazingly, God stopped Saul in his tracks, just as He sometimes saves us from such humanly hopeless situations, so that we will walk humbly and gratefully before Him the rest of our days. See on 29:4.
23:27 The way Saul returns from pursuing David because of a rumour of invasion is so similar to Rabshakeh’s retreat from Jerusalem after rumours of incursions (Is. 37:9,10). There is much repetition within the Biblical narratives. Individuals tend to go through very similar experiences, and often the same words are used in the descriptions of the experience or their response to it. Some of these similarities are so specific and humanly unlikely to be replicated that one can only conclude that there was a higher power over-ruling their situations. It may be that the Angels work in human lives according to some kind of Divine pattern, and this accounts for the sense of repetition and déjà vu. But it may also be because it is God's intention that we meditate upon the lives of previous servants to the point where we see their experiences coming through, in principle, in our own lives; and we are urged on to a like victory as they attained.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzbL6Fdg-6Q
sermon: https://youtu.be/Ko09PdzZriE
commentary:
24:4,5 David saw Saul for who he was, the anointed of God. Christ too taught His men to have respect for the Pharisees, who ‘sat in Moses’ seat’ , and therefore ought to be given reverence on that account (Mt. 23:2). David's extreme respect for Saul is shown in the fact that Yahweh had explicitly told him that he would deliver Saul into David's hand, and David was free to do as he wished to him; but because of his genuine respect for Saul, David didn't take the liberty of killing him; he chose a higher level on which to relate to Saul. Indeed, he even felt guilty at cutting off the blue ribbon from Saul's coat, such was David's respect for Saul. All those baptized into Christ have been “anointed” in that we are “in Christ”, ‘the anointed one’ (2 Cor. 1:21). We must truly respect others on account of their being in the body of Christ / God’s people, as Saul was. Paul deeply loved Corinth and respected them for their status as men and women in Christ, in receipt of the Father's love and grace, even though they abused him. Therefore he like David could love his enemies within the ecclesia; for Saul was in the ecclesia of Israel as much as David was.
24:15 Yahweh therefore be the judge and give sentence between me and you; may He plead my cause- It’s not as if God isn’t watching what’s going on now, and will only open the books and judge human behaviour when Christ returns. His judgment is in a sense ongoing; we live out our lives before His judgment presence, and the final day of judgment will be a public declaration of the verdicts which have already been announced; it will largely be for our benefit rather than God’s. David mixes metaphors here- God is for him both the ultimate judge, and also his counsel for the defence. Paul does the same in Romans 8, concluding in awe that if God in Christ is both our judge and our personal advocate, the one on our side in the case, then nobody and nothing can be against us; our salvation is assured.
24:18 It seems God later gave Saul into David’s hand when “a deep sleep from the Lord” fell upon Saul at the very time David intended to kill him (26:12). Saul himself realized that the Lord had delivered him into David’s hand to kill him. God thus gave David the possibility to get revenge and freedom from persecution- and yet at the last minute, it seems, David chose an even higher level; of love and deep respect for this spiritually sick man.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3E4losVvi0
sermon: https://youtu.be/eKvWVP43qNw
commentary:
25:3 He belonged to the family of Caleb- A reminder that a faithful believer doesn’t always have faithful descendants. We each stand independently before God, and yet nurture can play a significant part in the final algorithm determining why some end up faithful and some don’t.
25:19 Go on before me; I am following you- Abigail was learning from Biblical precedent, just as we should; in this case, the example of Jacob trying to appease the approaching Esau and his men (cp. :20) by sending extravagant presents and then following behind them (Gen. 32:13-22). The similarity presents David as unspiritual Esau, and indeed this was a low point in David’s spiritual life; see on :33. Her bowing with her face to the earth was exactly what Jacob did to Esau (:23 = Gen. 33:3). Her mind was clearly in that record, and she succeeded as we should in translating Biblical history into a practical template for our daily crises.
25:33 David thanks Abigail for persuading him not to ‘shed blood’ and “avenging myself with my own hand”- the very things he elsewhere condemns in his Psalms (e.g. Ps. 44:3). Often in the Psalms, David uses that Hebrew word translated “avenging myself” about how God and not man will revenge / save him against his enemies, for God saves / avenges the humble in spirit not by their strength and troops but by His. But in the anger of hot blood, David let go of all those fine ideas. In the heat of the moment we too can let go of all the far higher principles we know and love, and do the very things we detest when we see in others.
25:34 David sent messengers to Nabal meaning well to him but they were rudely rebuffed, resulting in his anger which only Abigail’s grace and wisdom saved him from . And yet the same situation repeated in its essence when David sent messengers to Hanun who were likewise misinterpreted and rebuffed (2 Sam. 10:3). Again, David got angry- but there was no Abigail to restrain him, and he did get into an impossible fight… from which by grace God delivered him. David failed to learn from his previous experience. David had just been tested by God in the matter of sparing the life of his enemy Saul- and he came through the test with flying colours (1 Sam. 24). But now, soon afterwards, he was tested again in the same area in the matter of Nabal- and he initially failed, intent as he was on taking the life of his enemy Nabal. Thus a circumstance can repeat over a matter in which we were previously successful- and we can still fail that test. God is ever seeking to teach us by repeating circumstances in our lives.
25:35 It seems that the thief on the cross had a deep Bible knowledge. It could be that when he asks to be remembered for good when the Lord Jesus returned in His Kingdom, he had in mind Abigail's words: that when David returned in glory in his Kingdom, "my Lord, then remember your handmaid" (:31). This was prefaced by her asking: "Forgive the sin of your handmaid” (:28). David's response was very similar to that of Jesus to the thief: “Go up in peace to your house. I have listened to your words and have granted your request”. It would seem that the thief saw in David a type of Christ, and saw in Abigail's words exactly the attitude he had. And Christ accepted this. The faithful didn’t just read the Bible as history but proactively saw the similarities with their situations and spoke and acted accordingly.
25:39 Has kept back His servant from doing wrong- God is able to work in our lives to stop us sinning over and above our own will; and we should ask Him to do so. We should also seek to be like Abigail, using wisdom and humility to stop others falling into sin.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDQTzwPxvjE
sermon: https://youtu.be/WPItJITU6Pc
commentary:
26:12 See on 24:4,5,18. 
26:19 So many of the Psalms contain references to the smear campaign against David (Ps. 27:12; 31:13; 109:23 all seem to have reference to this verse). This frequency of reference in itself indicates the weight with which this tragedy rested upon David's mind.
They have said ‘Go and serve other gods!’ – Whether or not they said these very words, to exclude someone from the worshipping community [which can be done by anything from being too lazy to give them a ride to a meeting to formal excommunication] effectively invites people to go to “other gods”. Many fail this test; others like David learn that in fact God is far wider than what they had previously thought (see on :20).
26:20 Far from the presence of Yahweh- David still held the wrong idea that a national god, in this case Yahweh of Israel, could only be served on his own territory and not outside of it. This explains why David so bitterly regretted that Saul had made it practically impossible for him to remain within the territory of Israel (:19). Yet David’s later Psalms reflect his realization that Yahweh is the one and only God of all the planet, His presence is everywhere and He can therefore be worshipped anywhere on earth. Although David had a wrong understanding of God on this point, this didn’t mean that he couldn’t have faith in God nor please Him; and through reflection on the circumstances God sent him, David came to the truth about this matter.
26:21 I have sinned- The very words of Judas (Mt.27:4), again confirming David as a type of Christ and Saul as representative of the opposition to Christ.
26:24 Here we see established the principle that the grace we show others is related to the grace God will show us. David could have killed Saul, indeed God gave him the legitimate opportunity to do so, but he chose the higher level- of grace and forgiveness, despite Saul’s lack of repentance at the time. Someone doesn’t have to be grovelling in repentance before we show grace to them.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHaZghcZFTw
sermon: https://youtu.be/4DBcnFNnxSg
commentary:
27:1 I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul is surely a collapse of faith, given that God had anointed him as king. And it led to the way in which David deceived Achish by pretending he was attacking Israelite towns, when in fact he was going out and attacking the Amalekite settlements, killing all men, women and children in them so that nobody was left alive to tell that it was David who had attacked them (:8-10). Innocent people were slain by David’s sword for the ‘political’ reason that he had to keep Achish ‘in the dark’ about what he was really up to. And so in case a five year old say something incriminating later, David simply killed the little boy. Indeed, when Achish later says that David would be best not to go with him to fight Saul, David hypocritically insists that he has been a loyal and upright servant of Achish (29:8). This was hardly an example of the “integrity” and “uprightness” which David glorifies in his Psalms, and which he insisted he was full of (Ps. 25:21). Indeed he claims that his integrity is the basis of his acceptance by God (Ps. 26:1). It’s recorded that in this ethnic cleansing which David performed, he took the spoil of those settlements for himself (:9). Indeed when he destroyed Ziklag, he took away their herds “and said, This is David’s spoil” (30:20). The pressure of circumstance can so easily lead us to slip into periods of life where we betray the principles we enthusiastically proclaim in worship, as David at this time lived quite contrary to the spirit of his own Psalms.
27:4 Searching- It’s emphasized that Saul "sought" David in order to kill Him (19:10; 23;14,15,25; 24:2; 25:26,29; 26:2,20; 27:1,4; 2 Sam. 4:8), and likewise the Gospels stress that the Jews “sought” to kill Christ (Mt. 21:46; Mk. 11:18; 12:12; 14:1,11,55; Lk. 19:47; 20:19; 22:2,6; Jn.5:16,18; 7:1,11,25,30; 8:37,40; 10:39; 11:8,56; 18:4,7,8).
27:8 From ancient times- The Hebrew word olahm, often translated ‘for ever’, clearly doesn’t always mean literal future infinity- although in some places it can have that sense. It’s actually used in places to describe the past; events of a long time ago, but not events that happened an ‘infinitely long time’ ago. It describes up to the time of the Exodus (also in Is. 51:9; 63:9); and elsewhere the time of a previous generation (Dt. 32:7; Job 22:15); to the time just before the exile of Judah (Is. 58:12; 61:4; Mic. 7:14; Mal. 3:4); to the time just before the flood (Gen. 6:4). Descriptions of the Law of Moses and other things as being olahm, eternal, must be understood in this more limited sense of a long time, an age, but not necessarily literal eternity.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krmGNj1NFxE
sermon: https://youtu.be/kaFdZgYI-7A
commentary:
28:6 When Saul inquired of Yahweh, Yahweh didn’t answer him- But in God's final analysis of Saul, He says that He killed Saul because Saul sinned against God's word by not enquiring of God, but of a witch (1 Chron. 10:13,14). But Saul did enquire of God (see too the same Hebrew word in 14:27), but God didn't answer him. Although Saul prayed to God and enquired of His word on the surface, in his heart, he did nothing of the sort; and therefore his prayer and enquiry was reckoned never to have happened. And we must ask how much of our prayer and Bible study is seen by God as being only spoken and read on a surface level. This was exactly the problem of natural Israel (Hos. 7:14; 11:7).
28:11,12 Death is total unconsciousness (Job 3:17; Ecc. 9:5,10). Notice that Samuel came "up" out of the earth as in a resurrection, not down from heaven, where we would expect him to be if common ideas are correct (:14,15). Samuel appeared as an old man, not a “soul” (:14). The woman surely guessed she was talking to Saul- he was the tallest of the Israelites (10:23), and was well known to everyone as the king; hence she could accept his assurance of immunity from prosecution (:10). She was used to running fake séances (because nobody truly communicates with the dead), and so she pretends she has some insight to know she’s talking to Saul even though it was obvious (:12), and then describes Samuel in the kind of terms Saul would’ve expected- an old man wearing a prophets’ mantle (:14), just as Saul would’ve last remembered Samuel. However, Samuel then appears for real, temporarily resurrected by God according to the principle of Prov. 26:5, that God answers fools according to their foolish requests. Perhaps her scream of :12 was in genuine shock at seeing Samuel appear for real. This would explain why the woman stops speaking to Saul and Samuel talks directly to Saul- not through the woman as a medium between them, as was usual for such a séance.
28:19  Saul, Jonathan and Samuel all went to the same place at death. Righteous Abraham was “gathered to his people” (or ancestors), on death; they were idolaters (Gen. 25:8; Josh. 24:2). The division between sheep and goats will be when Christ returns, at the resurrection and judgment seat (Mt. 13:48; 25:33)- not at the moment of death. At death we return to dust like the animals, good and bad all go to the same place- but the difference is that those responsible to God will be resurrected and judged, and the faithful will then live eternally in God’s Kingdom on earth.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmgMU3RadXM
sermon: https://youtu.be/9viM6EqkTTY
commentary:
29:4 David was in an impossible situation; he had not been attacking Israelites as he had previously claimed to the Philistines; he had a strong conscience against killing Saul; yet he had given the impression he was willing to zealously fight against and kill his own Israelite people; it seemed there was no way out. And then, God’s gracious hand acted. Some of the Philistine army leaders objected to David’s presence on the battlefield- at the very last minute! God leads us into apparently dead end, no way out situations- and then delivers us out of them by His grace, in ways we had never considered. See on 23:26.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JghNIncAKZQ
sermon: https://youtu.be/9viM6EqkTTY
commentary:
30:7 There are several references to the ephod and to “Urim” and “Thummim” in the historical records. The ephod was the priest’s waistcoat upon which the breastplate was hung. It seems that Urim and Thummim were the names of two stones kept within the ephod. From the questions answered by them, it would seem they were capable of giving binary answers to questions, presumably through flashing in a certain sequence- if God chose to work through them in response to prayers for answers about yes / no choices.
30:22 Paul considered that Mark had not gone with them to the work (Acts 15:38). This is quoting the Septuagint of 1 Sam. 30:22, where "all the wicked men and troublemakers among David’s followers said, Because they didn’t go with us we will not give them any of the spoil”. Why does the Spirit make this connection? Is it not suggesting that Paul, zealous soldier of David / Jesus as he was, was in those early days in some sense a sinful man, bent on achieving his own glory in preaching, and unwilling to share it with anyone who wasn't spiritually or physically strong enough to do it as he was (cp. the weaker followers of David)? If this is the case, then this is a far, far cry from the Paul who wrote his letters some years later, begging Timothy to come to encourage him. Paul like David developed spiritually over the course of his spiritual journey.
30:31 We wonder why God arranged for David to have the experiences of this chapter just before the death of Saul. The moment of Saul’s death was of huge significance to David psychologically- it was the end of an era of persecution, the end of a love-hate relationship which must have emotionally and spiritually drained him, and the beginning of his own kingship. God is very sensitive to us, and He obviously knew that David needed these humbling experiences in order to prepare him for the news of Saul’s death- e.g. he had to go through the experience of having his supporters turn against him to the point of almost literally killing him, falsely blaming him for a disaster (:6), in order to prepare him for widespread acclaim and desire to crown him king just days later.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPBhdzIX3vw
sermon: https://youtu.be/GIsb8NZ24j4
commentary:
31:4 His armour bearer would not, for he was respectful- David had been known throughout Israel for teaching by example that he would not harm the Lord’s anointed, and that anybody who did so would have to give account (24:6; 26:9-11). Although Saul’s armour bearer was likely one of his most loyal supporters in the campaign against David, David’s spiritual reasoning and example had influenced him, so that in the heat of battle he acted accordingly. We learn from this that our examples are far more powerful than we may realise.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vho7E6Fre0
sermon: https://youtu.be/XZ8vembbUhY
commentary:
2:5 The way of grace is sometimes counter instinctive and can be seen as political suicide.
2:16 This incident was surely to show the tragic wastage and pointless destruction caused by conflict between brethren. Perhaps both sides were being prompted by this incident to call off the entire armed conflict with each other, but they failed to respond to the providential hint.
2:19 He didn’t turn to the right hand nor to the left- This phrase is typically used in the Bible to describe our faithful following of God in this way; he didn’t turn aside to the right nor the left in following his brother (:21), another phrase usually used about faithful following after Yahweh. Asahel justified his persecution of his brother as a faithful following of God- and died because of it. The same mistake is often repeated in the church.
2:26,27 Both sides in this conflict between brethren sensed it was wrong, and yet they still did it. Reconciliation between brethren should seek to appeal to this conscience which there often is- that conflict and division is wrong.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1vIdf1KBCA
sermon: https://youtu.be/XZ8vembbUhY
commentary:
3:16 David’s breaking up of this marriage for reasons of personal politics and pride seems totally wrong. This was not only a breach of Mosaic law, but displayed a sad elevation of politics above others’ relationships and marriages. It may be significant that her renewed marriage with David wasn’t blessed with any children (6:23).
3:35 David is at great pains to demonstrate that he is against the pointless shedding of blood. But his earlier life had featured much pointless shedding of blood- e.g. he killed 200 Philistines when only 100 were required (1 Sam. 18:25,27), and thought nothing of killing the man who informed him of Saul’s death (1:15; see too 4:12). He said that he was disallowed from building the temple because of how much blood he had shed (1 Chron. 22:8). His Psalms often call for the death of his enemies. We are left to reflect that perhaps now he was maturing, as we should over the course of our lives, to perceive the value and meaning of the human person. Or it could be that he was simply emphasizing that he really didn’t seek the blood of Saul’s family because he had truly forgiven him; or perhaps as a highly emotional person, he demonstrated both great sensitivity to the death of people and also great insensitivity; a very soft side and a very hard one, all within the same personality. Human nature is capable of very contradictory behaviour.
3:36,37 See on 1:18.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ93NDwHTRg
sermon: https://youtu.be/XZ8vembbUhY
commentary:
4:4 His nurse took him up, and fled- She failed to believe in David’s grace; she assumed that he and his men would come and kill Jonathan’s son, despite David’s grace to Saul and demonstration of his loyalty to Jonathan. We too find it so hard to believe in grace, even when it is demonstrated by the cross. Grace is the hardest thing to believe in because it is so contrary to all we have experienced at the hands of people and all we see around us; it is Divine in origin and doesn’t come naturally, so we so struggle to believe it- and, as in this case, catastrophes happen because of refusing to believe it which damage others permanently.
4:8 Yahweh has avenged- This was true, but they were wrong to have taken the work of His vengeance and judgment into their own hands. Vengeance is God’s, and by taking it for Him we are as it were playing God; we aren’t to take vengeance exactly because vengeance is God’s, not ours; and this is written in Scripture, Paul says (Rom. 12:19). Whilst Paul’s allusion may be to Dt. 32:35, he may also be drawing his Old Testament teaching from this incident. If we would forbid ourselves to even think of taking vengeance, we and others would be saved so much hurt and trouble.
4:12 See on 3:35.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tuoe8wPpld8
sermon: https://youtu.be/bUX0a6ws34c
commentary:
5:1 We are your bone and your flesh- This idiom is quoted in Eph. 5:30 about how we who are baptized into the body of Christ are as it were His bone and flesh. David again represents Christ, and his people represent we who are following Christ.
5:2 You shall be shepherd of My people- Yahweh was David’s shepherd (Ps. 23:1), and David was to shepherd Israel. There is a wonderful mutuality in God’s relationship with people.
5:6 Unless you take away the blind and the lame- The idea was that the blind and lame amongst the Jebusites would be enough to hold off David’s men.
5:8 The blind and the lame can’t come into the house- The lame and blind were not allowed to serve God under the law (Lev. 21:18), nor be offered as sacrifices (Dt. 15:21), nor come within the temple. Christ purposefully healed multitudes of lame and blind (Mt. 15:30), and allowed them to come to Him in the temple (Mt. 21:14). His acted out message was clearly that those who were despised as unfit for God’s service were now being welcomed by Him into that service. The lame and blind were despised because they couldn’t work. They had to rely on the grace of others. Here is a crucial teaching: those called are those who can’t do the works, but depend upon grace. We are the lame and blind who have been invited to the Messianic banquet; and we are to reflect God’s calling of us, the desperate, in our calling of others- we too are to invite the lame and blind into our homes and thus into God’s Kingdom (Lk. 14:13,21). A person who feels they are somehow a nice guy and worthy of invitation will be the one who tends to consider others as unworthy of invitation to the Kingdom. He or she who perceives their own desperation and the sheer grace of our having been called into the Kingdom will eagerly invite even those they consider to be in the very pits of human society.
5:23,24 David didn’t get victory by the mulberry trees the same way each time. God changed the method; just as we too can’t assume God will deliver us just because He has in the past.
5:24 The sound of marching- David was being taught that he on earth must follow the movement of the Angel cherubim marching above him; in Ezekiel’s terms, we as the wheels of the cherubim on earth are to faithfully follow wherever they move above us.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st2pQqZVlTQ
sermon: https://youtu.be/w_q_hDQu6CE
commentary:
6:2 The blood of atonement was always present on the top of the ark (the “mercy seat”), where the very presence of God was. This foretold the intense association of God Himself with the future sacrifice of His Son. In this sense, God was in Christ in His reconciliation of the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19). As the Angel cherubim overshadowed the top of the ark, so the Angels were intensely aware of Christ’s death; He could have called upon them to rescue Him out of it (Mt. 26:53), but He didn’t- in order to achieve maximum identity with us for whom He died.
6:5 The lesson is that all the fine worship in the world is meaningless unless it is underpinned by careful awareness of and obedience to God’s word. The great worship procession ended very abruptly- to drive home this point. See commentary on 1 Chron. 13 for more about David’s mistake and Uzzah’s sin.
6:9 Elizabeth’s words: “Who am I, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk. 1:43) are remarkably similar to the Septuagint of 2 Sam. 6:9, where David asks “How can the ark of Yahweh come to me?”. As a result of this question of David’s, the ark remained three months in the house of Obed-Edom (:11). And was this why Mary, seeing herself as the ark bearing the special Name and glory of Yahweh in Christ, remained for three months in the house of Elisabeth straight after hearing this same question asked (Lk. 1:56)? There are further links, between the gladness of Lk. 1:44 and the joy of :12; and the loud cry of Lk. 1:42 and that of :15. If one combines Lk. 1:31 and Jn. 1:14 we have the word of God becoming flesh and “tabernacling” among us in the womb and faith of Mary. The Angel’s description of Holy Spirit ‘overshadowing’ Mary (Lk. 1:35) could have sent her mind back to how the Spirit-Cherubim and the cloud of Spirit glory overshadowed the ark (Ex. 25:20; 1 Chron. 28:18). The Septuagint uses the word for “overshadow” about the cloud of glory overshadowing the ark in the wilderness (Ex. 40:35; Num. 9:18,22). If these connections are valid, then Mary would have felt that within her, as the ark of God, was He who would be the covenant of the Lord, the stones of the word of God made flesh in a little boy. This was perception indeed, all achieved within the spiritual mind of an illiterate teenage country girl from a dumb village in Palestine. Depending how deeply we meditate upon God’s word and perceive the relevance for us, such connections are easily possible in our minds too, and can guide us in our decisions and actions, just as they did in teaching Mary she should remain three months with Elizabeth.
6:17-19 One of the most obvious similarities between the peace offering and the breaking of bread is that they both feature bread and wine, associated with a slain animal in the midst (see too Num. 15:9,10). Both require the eating of the sacrifice by the offerer. The peace offering and Passover (also typical of the memorial meeting) featured the offerer eating the sacrifice “before Yahweh". This phrase "before Yahweh" is continually emphasized in the records of the peace offerings. At our memorial meetings we really are "before Yahweh" as we sit there. God came unto men when they offered acceptable peace offerings (Ex. 20:24), as Christ is made known to us through the breaking of bread (Lk. 24:35).
6:21 Before your father- This is a good example of “before” meaning ‘before’ in importance rather than time. God chose Saul well before He chose David. But God chose David before or above Saul in terms of importance and honour. This explains how in Jn. 8:58 Jesus was “before” Abraham in the sense that he was “before” him in terms of importance- but not in time, because He didn’t literally pre-exist.
6:20-22 In the eyes of the handmaids... in the eyes of Yahweh... in my own eyes- David is highly perceptive here. He’s saying that if this is how he feels in his own eyes, then this is how he is before the eyes of God, and therefore this is how he will be before the eyes of Israel and the general public. David is saying: ‘Who I am, my real self, is the one God sees, and I’m not going to hide it from the world; let them see me how I see myself and how God sees me’. In this incident, there was no gap between the ‘real self’ of David and the image he projected to the world. There was complete congruence between how he felt about himself, how God saw him, and how the watching world saw him. And this incident ought to be programmatic for our entire lives. This will ever keep us from worrying too much what others think of us, doing what is smart and acceptable and right in the eyes of men… rather we will think only of what is right in God’s eyes.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxy6ZBxqCTM
sermon: https://youtu.be/P8ZKXqdyinQ
commentary:
8:4 But reserved of them for one hundred chariots- The king of Israel was not to have chariot horses (Dt. 17:16). David destroyed most of them, but kept a few for himself. This weakness which he allowed himself led to his son Solomon becoming obsessed with horses and chariots, trading with Egypt in order to get them, and turning away from God completely. Weaknesses which we may allow ourselves can lead to others taking them much further and losing their faith. David seems to have tried to ‘get around’ God’s intention that the king of Israel trust in the heavenly cherubim horses and chariots of Angels rather than human ones; for he hamstrung the horses, so that they could only breed and not be used for work. But of course the next generation of horses were his. If we have a heart for God we won’t seek to get around His laws or have a little of both- obedience to Him and also the ways of this world. Yet despite David’s weakness in this matter, God still gave him victory and blessing (:5,6). We shouldn’t turn away from other believers because we perceive in them some weakness; for God doesn’t treat us nor any of His children like that.
8:13 David made himself a name- A name in Hebrew thought isn’t merely a personal identification tag, it speaks of a person’s achievements and character- hence the significance of God’s Name (Ex. 34:4-6) being His character and personality. By baptism into the Name, all God’s righteousness is counted to us.
8:17 Those who had faithfully followed David in his wilderness years, when he seemed a hopeless cause, were the ones who later became the rulers in his kingdom. We who follow Jesus now will be the rulers in His Kingdom (Rev. 5:10).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtAyZyVgTKM
sermon: https://youtu.be/HMfAauBi4mc
commentary:
9:1 We too should consciously seek out opportunities to show grace, even to the relatives of our enemies. We have been shown kindness or grace from God (:3) and we should respond to this by reflecting it to others, thinking up ways to do so as God has done to us. The challenge is to ask ourselves when was the last time we thought up a way of showing grace to others.
9:8 See on 7:18-20. To be invited to eat bread at someone’s table was a sign of their grace and acceptance of you. We who are in Christ are openly and warmly invited to eat bread at the table of the King of the cosmos; and yet so many can’t be bothered to accept the invitation, or feel unworthy  to do so. We should note too that it’s not for us to control which of His people Christ invites to His table; we are there as grateful guests, not as the host.
9:13 He was lame- Christ taught that He has invited the lame to His table and we should also invite them to the table of the Messianic banquet in His future Kingdom on earth (Lk. 14:13,21).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3WV_Xc956k
sermon: https://youtu.be/HMfAauBi4mc
commentary:
10:3 David had earlier sent messengers to Nabal meaning well to him, and they were rudely rebuffed, resulting in his anger which only Abigail’s grace and wisdom saved him from (1 Sam. 25). And yet here the same situation repeated in its essence when he sent messengers to Hanun who were likewise misinterpreted and rebuffed. Again, David got angry- but there was no Abigail to restrain him, and he got into an impossible fight… from which by grace God delivered him. David failed to learn from his previous experience; and God repeats situations in our lives too, that we might learn from them and develop. Note how suspicious people were in the societies of those days when they encountered David’s grace (see too 3:24,25); and today too, we tend to disbelieve God’s grace because we haven’t encountered it very often from people.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fR6-kyQV4w
sermon: https://youtu.be/ARfVIUgC6VE
commentary:
12:4 Nathan’s parable about David’s sin with Bathsheba blamed the act on a traveller ‘coming to’ David asking to be satisfied. The traveller of the parable represented David’s lusts which led to adultery and murder, although this was not his usual state of mind- they were as a traveller to him.

12:8 There will be anomalies in the lives of our brethren- just as there are in the lives of us all (if only we would examine ourselves ruthlessly enough to see them). And in some ways at some times, God goes along with them. Thus He gave Saul’s wives to David, which would’ve involved David being married to both a mother and daughter- for he had married Saul’s daughters. And this giving of Saul’s wives to David may not have occurred simply after Saul’s death. For David’s eldest son, Amnon, was borne by Ahinoam (3:2), who was initially Saul’s wife (1 Sam. 14:50). Now this is not to justify sin. Adultery, taking another’s wife or husband, is all wrong. Let there be no mistake. But God at times sees the bigger, or longer, perspective, and tolerates things which we may quite rightly find intolerable. And if He loves us despite of our sin and failure- are we surprised that we are invited to show love to others in the face of their sin and failure toward us? A black and white insistence upon God’s standards being upheld in the lives of others, demanding their repentance for having hurt us, is what has caused so much division between believers. Whilst God alone will apportion the guilt for this, in the final algorithm of Divine judgment, it’s worth observing that the fault for division isn’t always with the sinners, the wider thinkers, the freewheelers; but with the inflexible intolerance of those in power.

If that would have been too little, I would have added to you- This seems to be saying that God would have made concessions to David's sexual weakness, even further than the ones He had already made. It is as if God had prepared those concessions on different levels. If David had felt that he needed yet more sexual fulfilment, God had a way prepared to meet this. Yet David took it into his own hands to decide what God would concede to him. However, God's concessions to David cannot necessarily be extrapolated to our lives today. “Too little” recalls 7:19, where the promises to David are described as a “little thing”; the promises were so wonderful that David should not have allowed himself to fall into such sin. And we likewise. Such is the wonder of God’s promise to us that we really have no excuse to sin. Every sin is a denial of His promises.

12:9 David murdered, committed adultery and even the deadly sin of presumption (cp. Num. 15:31). All of which required his death; and yet he is held up in Rom. 4:7 as representative of every sinner. Only if we appreciate the seriousness of our position before God will we be able to feel true joy, peace and commitment after realizing our forgiveness. Note how God reads our motives; He saw David as if he had killed Uriah with his sword; even though David's command to Joab to retire from Uriah and let the Ammonites kill him was carefully calculated not to break the letter of the law.

12:9,10 David "despised the word of Yahweh... you despised Me". His attitude to God's word was his attitude to God- for the word of God, in that sense, was and is God.

12:13 David’s “I have sinned” is word for word what Saul said at his condemnation (1 Sam. 15:24). David then lies all night upon the earth, refuses to eat, people try to raise him up from the ground, and then they succeed in setting bread before him and he eats it (:16,17,20). David was consciously doing exactly what Saul did in 1 Sam. 28:20-25, the night before his death / condemnation. David was recognizing, of his own volition, that he was no better than Saul. And by doing this, he was saved. Unlike Saul, he altered the verdict of condemnation by meaningful repentance. Paul makes the point that if we condemn ourselves, we will not be condemned (1 Cor. 11:31). The terms of the judgment pronounced against him are framed to echo the rejection and condemnation of Saul: He despised the commandment of Yahweh (:9) as did Saul (1 Sam. 15:29). Evil was raised up against David out of his own house (:11)- what happened to Saul (1 Sam. 20:30). David’s wives were given to his neighbour (:11), as Saul’s wives were (12:8; 1 Sam. 15:28; 28:17).
You will not die- David at that moment represents us all, today. The Spirit changes David’s personal reflections upon this forgiveness in Ps. 32:1 ("Blessed is he”) to "blessed are they" (Rom. 4:7) to make this point. "Blessed is the man (e.g. David, or any sinner- David is our example) unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity" (Ps. 32:2) is alluded to in 2 Cor. 5:19: "God was in Christ... not imputing (the world's) trespasses unto them". Through being justified, any repentant sinner will then have the characteristics of Christ, in God's sight. In Christ there was no guile (1 Pet. 2:22), as there was not in David (or any other believer) after the justification of forgiveness (Ps. 32:2). "Blessed is the man... in whose spirit is no guile" (Ps. 32:2) is picked up in Rev.14:5: "In their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God". The picture of forgiven David in Ps. 32 is what we will each be like after acceptance "before the throne of God". Yet David's experience can also be ours here and now; in those moments of true contrition, we surely are experiencing salvation in prospect.
12:16 David prayed and fasted for his child by Bathsheba not to die- even though God had said that it would. He clearly believed that God was a God who was open to changing in response to prayer. Prayer and repentance can change God's stated purpose. Prayer changes things. It really does. What would otherwise have happened can be changed by prayer. We, little and tiny humans, can change the mind of Almighty God. This is the extent of His sensitivity to us. Moses, Samuel and Jeremiah had the power to within limits change God’s mind towards His people (Jer. 15:1).
12:23 This verse is sure proof that David didn’t believe that dead children go to live in Heaven; there is no immortal soul taught in the Bible.
12:28 Whatever carried the name of a person was seen as his property. If a city was conquered, it bore the name of the conqueror, as here; the names of owners were on their property (Ps. 49:12); and in this context, God's Name is over His people (Dt. 28:10). So to bear God's Name is to recognize His complete ownership and even conquest of us. By baptism into His Name we become totally His. And yet there's a significant twist to all this in Is. 43:1: "I have called you by your name, because you are Mine". It seems like a slip- we expect God to say that He has called us by His Name, because we are His. But no- He wishes us to bear both His Name and our own name, He doesn't wish to subsume us beneath His ownership and manifestation to the point that we are not significant as persons.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eiMNNiJ8Fc
sermon: https://youtu.be/38KaIG4_Phk
commentary:
13:15 Any giving in to the lust of the flesh, especially sexually, can never bring happiness but rather yet more anguish. This incident teaches clearly that sexual desire and love aren’t always the same thing.

13:20 There are Biblical examples of refusing to take guilt when others feel that it should be taken. Recall how the Lord’s own parents blamed Him for ‘making them anxious’ by ‘irresponsibly’ remaining behind in the temple. The Lord refused to take any guilt, didn’t apologize, and even gently rebuked them (Lk. 2:42-51). In similar vein, Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “Even if I made you sorry with a letter, I do not regret it” (2 Cor. 7:8). He would not take guilt for their being upset with him. Likewise Absalom comforted his raped sister not to ‘take it to heart’, not to feel guilty about it, as it seems she was feeling that way, taking false guilt upon her. We should take true guilt before God for our actual sins, and not allow others to put guilt on us.



christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EosmcMClknM
sermon: https://youtu.be/shShDxbdSR8
commentary:
14:8-10 The slayer of innocent blood was to be slain without pity, and this would in fact bring some kind of blessing "that it may go well with you" (Dt. 19:13). But David seems to have stepped up to a higher level when he told the woman of Tekoah that he would protect her son from revenge murder, after he had slain another man. The woman pointed out that if her son was slain, the inheritance would be lost in her husband's name. Here was a case where two principles seemed to be at variance: the need to slay the guilty, and the need to preserve the inheritance. The higher level was to forgive the slayer of innocent blood, even though the Law categorically stated that he should be slain.

14:11 The woman of Tekoah wanted David to show mercy, and so she says: "Let the king remember Yahweh your God”. To be aware of who Yahweh is, of the characteristics outlined in Ex. 34:5-7 that comprise His Name… this must affect our behaviour, seeing we bear that Name. It is an understanding of the Name that inspires our faith in forgiveness and our ability to show grace.

14:13 The woman understood the implications of the promise in Eden when she tells David that God “devises means” to bring back the banished and expelled to Him. Whom did God banish? Adam, and all his children. But God ‘devised means’ through the promises of Gen. 3:15 so that this banishment was not permanent expulsion. The means devised was the death and resurrection of His Son, the seed of the woman. But the woman’s point was that as God sought to restore His banished sons, through the pain and cost to Him of the blood of His Son, so we ought to likewise be inspired to win back the banished. And so we look to those banished from ecclesial life by disfellowship, church politics, personal animosities of past decades, or simply their own sins; or those marginalized by poverty, education, disability, health, geography… these are the banished whom we ought to be winning back.

14:14 Her point was that as God in some sense breaks His own laws, e.g. that sin leads to permanent death, so surely David likewise could have the same spirit of grace and bring about the salvation of someone rightly appointed to death. Legalism fails to understand grace.

14:20 The woman thought that Angels know everything and therefore David was like an Angel (2 Sam. 14:20). Angels don’t know everything (Mt. 24:36). Yet the woman’s immature concept isn’t corrected, just as wrong understandings of demons weren’t.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRPXFKwa_2M
sermon: https://youtu.be/HW7XdtqDco8
commentary:
15:8 If Yahweh shall indeed bring me again to Jerusalem, then I will serve Yahweh- Absalom was quoting the words of Jacob in Gen. 28:20,21. But a little reflection ought to have shown that these were the words of Jacob in a very weak part of his life. Both Jacob and Absalom should’ve wanted to serve God anyway, whether or not He gave them blessing in this life. Absalom thought that all would be good for him just by quoting the words of the Bible and thus identifying himself with a righteous man (even though he paid no attention to the context of his quotation). This kind of surface level Biblicism and spirituality can easily happen today as a cover for simply doing what the flesh naturally wants to do.

15:13 The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom- The record of the various rebellions against David show how fickle are the hearts of men; they changed loyalty so easily according to whatever seemed to offer them the most immediate advantage; just as a study of the theme of “the crowds” in the Gospels shows the same. For all their apparent culture, sophistication and education, people’s hearts today are the same, and we can never trust in human loyalty generally; although our experience with God’s people can be amazingly better.

15:23 The brook Kidron- David’s exit from Jerusalem has many similarities with Christ’s crossing the brook Kidron and the mount of Olives (:30) and going to His death, surrounded by a few faithful followers who had promised to follow Him to the death (:21 = Mt. 26:35). The support which David had within the Jerusalem leadership points forward to that of Joseph and Nicodemus for Christ at the time of His betrayal and final rejection.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x9ElHkVpPI
sermon: https://youtu.be/H1nyXsNJ2F4
commentary:
16:2 This unexpected grace formed the basis of Ps. 23, where David marvels at God’s kindness in furnishing a feast for him in the wilderness at the very time that it seemed he was walking in the valley of the shadow of death. Sometimes God does things like this in our lives too- His grace bursts into the darkness of a situation.
16:10 Shimei was a wicked man who hated God's servant David. God told him to curse David. Afterwards, Shimei repents and acknowledges that by doing so he sinned (2 Sam. 19:20). And although David recognized that God had told Shimei to curse him, David tells Solomon not to hold Shimei "guiltless" for how he had cursed him (1 Kings 2:9). Thus a man is encouraged by God to do the sinful act on which he has set his heart.
16:18 This is one of several Biblical examples of untruth being told in vague, ambiguous terms in order to save others’ lives. See on 17:20.
16:21 Ahithophel was Bathsheba’s grandfather (11:3 cp. 23:34); his inability to forgive David despite his evident repentance and the Divine blessing of the marriage led him to a bitterness which led him to death.
16:22 From this we could infer that David lay with Bathsheba in that same place on the roof top. This is significant insofar as it shows how exactly the thought leads to the action. David's thoughts in that spot were translated into that very action, in precisely the same physical location. The roof top is also the place of prayer, and in this we see the schizophrenic nature of David’s spirituality; he went to pray, and then stood at the edge of the roof in order to view Bathsheba, with his hands on the railing around the roof which surely he would have erected, in obedience to the Law. And he realized that it was evening, and that in accordance with the spirit of the Law a menstruating woman ought to wash and be unclean until the evening. In this we see the mixing of flesh and spirit which is at the root of most of our failings.  See on 11:4.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Rcz-jCoK0
sermon: https://youtu.be/qu97ZOZ1xbk
commentary:
17:11 As the sand that is by the sea for multitude- Baptism means that we are now the seed of Abraham, and the promised blessings are right now being fulfilled in us (Acts 3:27-29). Israel were multiplied as the sand on the sea shore (1 Kings 4:20), they possessed the gates of their enemies (Dt. 17:2; 18:6)- all in antitype of how Abraham's future seed would also receive the promised blessings in their mortal experience, as well as in the eternal blessedness of the future Kingdom.
17:14 Ahithophel advised Absalom to attack and kill righteous king David without any more delay. Absalom refused this advice. The inspired record comments: “For Yahweh had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel”. Was it really good counsel? Not in God’s eyes. It was only ‘good’ for Absalom from a fleshly viewpoint. And yet the record speaks from Absalom’s perspective; it speaks of something definitely evil as being “good” within the context in which it was given. Thus the record here refers to men’s bad thinking as if it is correct. This principle explains why the New Testament uses the language of demons to describe mental illness, even though demons don’t exist and God is all powerful.

17:20 They have gone over the brook of water- The Hebrew is ambiguous; they were literally over the water in that they were hiding over a well (:18). See on 16:18.

17:23 Ahithophel was like so many people- giving up his life, even if not everyone does it by suicide, because he felt he had failed, he ran out of highway and lost his political power to others. For those in Christ, life becomes valuable; we number our days with wisdom (Ps. 90:12). We no longer fear failure, for firstly we know there is forgiveness in Christ; and secondly, our realization will be that we’re on a journey, living the real life of ultimate discovery and adventure, able to live with the fears which this presents to us. Failure is no longer a problem to us; for the aim of the Kingdom is ever before us. Our failures are nothing more than temporary setbacks, as the baby who stretches out her hands to the lamp on the ceiling and cries because she can’t reach it. We take them all, even our sins, in the spirit of the cross- the supreme failure which became the supreme triumph of God and the spiritual person.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0GTHQcSQYA
sermon: https://youtu.be/Q7GXD43B7GU
commentary:
18:3 David was described as the chiefest among ten thousand, and yet this is how Solomon’s illegal girlfriend describes him (Song 5:10). He had clearly told her all about his father David- and she evidently pleased Solomon by describing him as being like his father, even though she probably had never known David. He sought a wife who would be a surrogate parent rather than someone he could serve and assist towards God’s Kingdom.
18:27 He is a good man, and comes with good news- This is the kind of comment which would be uttered by someone in David’s position, and it has total psychological credibility. This kind of thing gives us every confidence that the Bible is indeed the inspired record of the actual words spoken by people thousands of years ago. What David says here is typical of our human tendency to associate the nature of the messenger with the message. The good news of the Gospel must be associated with the ‘goodness’ of the messenger. The Greek word evangelion translated 'Gospel' means, strictly, 'good news that is being passed on'; for example, the good news of a victory was passed on by runners to the capital city. It reflects the Hebrew association of carrying tidings, and good news which we see here. Once it had been spread around and everyone knew it, it ceased to be evangelion; it was no longer news that needed to be passed on. But in that time when there was a special urgency to pass it on, it was evangelion. This is to be the spirit of our spreading of the news about Christ; such heralding is not the same as lecturing or indifferently mentioning facts to someone. Such lecturing seeks no result; whereas the herald of God has an urgency and breathlessness about his message. There must be a passion and enthusiasm in us for the message of Christ and His Kingdom. More to be feared than over emotionalism is the dry, detached utterance of facts which has neither heart nor soul in it. Man’s peril, Christ’s salvation… these things cannot mean so little to us that we feel no warmth or passion rise within us as we speak about them. Remember how the early preachers were so enthusiastic in their witness that they were thought to be drunk. We are insistently pressing our good news upon others- evangelising.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsOZ9ou5S_Q
sermon: https://youtu.be/Q7GXD43B7GU
commentary:
19:6 Material relevant to David is applied directly to all believers in the New Testament, thus setting him up as our example and realistic pattern rather than merely a historical figure. Joab's comment about the way David loved his enemies was thus set up by Jesus as the example for each of us (Mt. 5:44). And yet David only came to be so kind and forgiving because of his experience of God's forgiveness to him over the Bathsheba incident. Just as God did not impute iniquity to David over this (Ps. 32:2), so David did not 'impute iniquity' to Shimei for cursing him, and did not carry out a rightful death sentence against that man (:19,21). Note how Shimei uses the very same wording which David used in his repentance: "I have sinned" (:20).
19:11 “We are of (Christ's) bones and flesh” (Eph. 5:32) is a direct allusion back to the way David called the men of Judah who were not enthusiastic for his return in glory "my bones and my flesh". How much more intimate then can we feel to Christ, we who are baptized into His body and who look for His return eagerly?
19:14 He bowed the heart of all the men of Judah- See on 15:13.

19:22 This is an example of where we read of Israel’s King having a human being who was an adversary [Heb. Satan, the Greek Septuagint version here uses diabolos]. There are other such examples in 1 Sam. 29:4; 1 Kings 5:4; 11:14,23,25. We face a simple choice – if we believe that every reference to ‘Satan’ or ‘Devil’ refers to an evil cosmic being, then we have to assume that these people weren’t people at all, and that even good men like David were evil. The far more natural reading of these passages is surely that ‘Satan’ is simply a word meaning ‘adversary’, and can be applied to people [good and bad], and even God Himself – it carries no pejorative, sinister meaning as a word. The idea is sometimes used to describe our greatest adversary, i.e. our own sin, and at times for whole systems or empires which stand opposed to the people of God and personify sinfulness and evil. But it seems obvious that it is a bizarre approach to Bible reading to insist that whenever we meet these words ‘Satan’ and ‘Devil’, we are to understand them as references to a personal, supernatural being. See on 24:1.

19:23 David graciously overlooked Shimei's cursing, promising him that he would not die because of it (16:10,11). But he didn't keep up that level of grace to the end: he later asked Solomon to ensure that Shimei was killed for that incident (1 Kings 2:8,9). Perhaps it was Shimei’s words which so broke David’s heart that he later wrote: “Because that he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man… as he loved cursing, so let it come unto him; as he delighted not in blessing, so may it be far from him. He clothed himself also with cursing as with a garment…” (Ps. 109:16-18).

19:28 To be invited to sit at the King's table is an honour indeed; we have this invitation to break bread with Jesus the King.

19:35 Even in the cynicism of Ecclesiastes, written in Solomon’s later life, he still uses words and phrases which have their root in his father David- e.g. his description of women as snares in Ecc. 7:26 goes back to how his father dealt with women who were a snare (1 Sam. 18:21); his whole description of old age in Ecc. 12 is based on his father’s experience with Barzillai here. The simple point is that the influence we have upon our children will continue all their lives, even into their old age.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQyGQhpu2ZQ
sermon: https://youtu.be/OibMybFN4pI
commentary:
20:2 All the men of Israel changed- See on 15:13.
20:5 As Samuel tarried longer than Saul expected (1 Sam. 13:8), so Amasa "tarried longer than the set time which [David] had appointed him". Circumstances repeat within our lives and also between our experiences and those of characters in Biblical history. God through His Angels is working out a script for us, so that potentially we are enabled to see that God is teaching us through repetition and through re-framing circumstances in different contexts to see if we have really learnt the lesson intended. We learn from this that we are not in the hands of random fate, but rather there is meaning attached to every event, even if we can’t immediately discern it- and perhaps in some cases we will only finally discern it in the Kingdom.
20:8 It seemed that the sword at Joab’s side accidentally fell out of its scabbard as he went toward Amasa to greet him– but it was on purpose, of course. The Bible at times like this is recording situations according to how they appear to men, rather than how they are in ultimate reality. This helps us understand the apparently non-scientific parts of the Bible, e.g. the attribution of mental illness to ‘demons’ in the New Testament.

20:10 Amasa took no heed to the sword- Drivers can see a collision coming, but not swerve; there is a lack of cognition somewhere in the human psyche. Pilots take off at times knowing that their wings are frozen, and crash. Amasa saw the sword and must have seen the possibility of death, but didn’t take cognisance of it. Samson must have known, on one level, what Delilah would do. Jesus too was human, and knew what Judas would do from the beginning; and yet felt and acted as if He hadn’t taken cognisance of it. But mankind is in partial amnesia, somewhere, somehow, we fail to recognize the obvious. Likewise with the nearness of the Lord’s return, with the urgency of our task in witness, with the evident need to follow God’s word- this lack of cognisance so often comes into play. We really ought to pray, earnestly, for open hearts and eyes and obedient lives before our daily reading.
20:24 The men subject to forced labour- 1 Kings 12:4


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1wOmwAXJ3s
sermon: https://youtu.be/VjZua83hURI
commentary:
21:1 There was a famine- Innocent people suffered because of others’ sin. This is why babies die and why we all suffer as the result of Adam’s sin. The sinfulness of sin is largely in the effect which it has upon others. God will not force people not to sin, because He has given humanity genuine freewill; and because of this, He will not shield others from the consequences of sin, because sin and its consequence cannot be divided; sin is the consequence of the sin.
21:16,18 The “mighty men” of Gen. 6:4 weren’t anything other than ordinary men, even if they were very large in size; that text is no proof for misguided ideas about Angels sleeping with women on earth. Here and in Dt. 3:11, the same term is used about ordinary men who could be killed; the Rephaim had children like other human beings, inhabiting an area known as the valley of Rephaim (Josh. 15:8).
21:22 These four were born to the giant in Gath- David killed Goliath but took five stones to do the job, only one of which he used (1 Sam. 17:40). He was spiritually ambitious (as we should be), and so he had planned to kill Goliath’s four giant sons too. Our notes on 1 Sam. 17 show that David’s victory over Goliath was typical of Christ’s conquest of sin on the cross; this should inspire us to rise up against the other giants of sin which we encounter, inspired by Christ’s victory there. Hence we read that Goliath’s sons died at the hand of David’s men and in that sense also at David’s hand.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG7JzVtjBo4
sermon: https://youtu.be/DE35aGyA2hs
commentary:
22:6 “The cords of Sheol” are paralleled in the poetry here with “the snares of death”. ‘Sheol’ is the Hebrew word often translated “grave” in many Bibles, and refers simply to the grave and death rather than any supposed place of fiery punishment for the wicked. Righteous David ‘went there’ in that he was close to death; Christ also died and was in the grave, so it clearly isn’t a place where only the wicked go.
22:7 My cry came into His ears- This is the wonder of prayer. Our actual words are personally heard by the God who is so far away; and He acts mightily on earth (:8) in response.
22:8 “The earth” is paralleled with “the foundations of heaven”. This (and also Job 26:11; 1 Sam. 2:8) speaks as if Heaven / the sky rests on the mountains, from where earth seems to touch the heavens (Is. 13:5), with the stars stretched out in the north (Job 26:7). Prov. 8:28 speaks of God establishing “the clouds above”, and the surrounding context seems to describe God as forming the sky around the earth and then putting a horizon in place – just the sort of scientifically incorrect geo–centric view held by people at the time. The point surely was that however people understood creation to be or to have happened, God had done it, and in wisdom. God adds no footnote to David’s words, pointing out his understanding to be incorrect. This is important to bear in mind in our days, as we who believe in God as creator encounter so many scientific theories about the origin of our world.

22:10 God Himself is spoken of as coming, descending etc. when He ‘preaches’ to humanity (see too Gen. 11:5; Ex. 19:20; Num. 11:25; in this sense Christ ‘went to’ people and preached without going Himself personally, 1 Pet. 3:19). We are therefore very intensely manifesting Him whenever we take His word to others, and our behaviour should reflect that.
22:11 The Old Testament describes Yahweh, the one true God, as riding through the heavens on chariots to the help of His people Israel (see too Dt. 33:26; Ps. 18:10; 104:3; Is. 19:1; Hab. 3:8). But Baal was known as ‘the one who rides upon the clouds’. Clearly the language of Baal is being appropriated to Yahweh, teaching Israel that there was no other God apart from God, no cosmic satan bringing evil, no gods of good bringing blessing- all was from Yahweh (Is. 45:5-7). Often the Bible alludes to contemporary language used about false beliefs and deconstructs them, and the passages which do this are often misunderstood because readers are unaware of the local language and ideas being deconstructed.
22:21-25 David at the end of his life could say that he was upright and had kept himself from his iniquity- despite his sins concerning Bathsheba and Uriah. He could only say this by a clear understanding of the concept of imputed righteousness (Ps. 32:1-8), believing that he was totally “purified” from the past (:27). He really believed it and felt it, as we should. Paul's claim to have always lived in a pure conscience must be seen in the same way (Acts 23:1; 2 Tim. 1:3)- when there were times when he kicked against the goads in his conscience (Acts 9:5).
22:26 To have bowed the neck- The Hebrew word only occurs elsewhere in Prov. 25:10 concerning 'bowing the neck' in shame or reverence. And this is what the Hebrew means: to bow the neck. This, David recognized in his time of spiritual maturity, was what God does in response to those who show a truly spiritual attitude to their brethren. David thus recognized the humility of God; all the characteristics we are asked to demonstrate are emulations of His characteristics, and humility is one of them.
22:31 David was very much involved in Israel his people. He saw himself as their representative. "God, my rock [is] my shield... he is a shield to all those who take refuge in Him" (:3,31). “I am in distress; let us fall now into the hand of Yahweh” (24:14) reflects this. When he sung Psalms, he invited Israel to come and sing along with him (Ps. 105:2; 107:22; 111:1). In this we see foreshadowed the representative nature of the work, being and sacrifice of Jesus.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSQ2_SywMRY
sermon: https://youtu.be/ryuT4Fr2gKM
commentary:
23:2 The inspired writers of the Bible spoke their words because God’s Spirit was moving them (1 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:19-21).
23:4 Like the clear shining after rain- David was talking about his promised descendant, Jesus, for he knew his own immediate family wasn’t going to totally fulfil the promises to him about the Kingdom of God (:5). Christ’s future Kingdom will be like the dawn of a new day in which He is like the sun (Mal. 4:2), after the rain of all this world’s problems has finally ended.
23:5 Is. 26:8,9 parallels “the desire of my soul” with “my spirit”; it is the dominant desire of a man. For David, the salvation promised to him through Christ was “all my desire”. The direction of his life was towards that end. 2 Chron. 15:12,15 parallels seeking God with having our whole desire for Him, giving all our heart and soul to Him. God judges a man’s life with regard to where the essential, dominant desire of his heart is focused. And like David, our dominant desire should be for the coming of the Kingdom.
23:6,7 The ungodly shall be as thorns... the man who touches them must be filled with iron and the staff of a spear. They shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place- Jesus had this in mind when He taught that only He could root up the weeds; we cannot do so (Mt. 13:24-30). The wicked will be destroyed in the same place (just outside Jerusalem) where Christ was "filled with iron" by the spear thrust. It isn't possible for us to uproot the tares because this can only possibly be done by the One who totally uprooted sin in Himself, dying to it on the cross. This association between Christ's unique right to judge and His victorious death is shown by the way the "thorns" will be burnt in the same area as He was crucified in. Literal Gehenna was in the same vicinity as Golgotha; and this in this sense His death was a foretaste of the future judgment. Phil. 2:9-11 reasons along the same lines; because Christ died for us, He therefore has the right to have every knee bowing to Him at the judgment. On account of being "the Son of man" and yet also being our perfect Messiah, He has the right therefore to be judge (Jn. 5:27 cp. Dan. 7:13,14).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q49YQin9rrE
sermon: https://youtu.be/pfHSUtdH2Rw
commentary:
24:1 The books of Samuel and Chronicles are parallel accounts of the same incidents, as the four gospels are records of the same events but using different language. Here, Yahweh moved David against Israel in order to make him take a census of Israel. The parallel account in 1 Chron. 21:1 says that “Satan” moved David  to take the census. In one passage God does the ‘moving’, in the other Satan does it. God acted as a ‘Satan’ or adversary to David. He did the same to Job by bringing trials into his life, so that Job said about God: “With the strength of Your hand You oppose me” (Job 30:21); ‘You are acting as a Satan against me’, was what Job was basically saying. The word ‘satan’ of itself carries no sinful or evil connotation; it simply means an adversary. See on 19:22.
24:14 It is written in the context of God’s final condemnation that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31). But David said that he would prefer to fall into the hands of God rather than into the hands of man. To fall into the hands of God is thus a figure for judgment / condemnation by Him. Fearful as it is, it is actually far milder than the judgment of men. This is how cruel our judgment of others can be; this is how awful is human condemnation of each other. It is worse that God’s. No wonder that the Lord established “Judge not…” as a foundation principle for His true people. God is kinder than men. It's better to be punished by Him than by men. This puts paid to the Catholic conception of God as a merciless torturer of wicked men. Clearly the doctrine of eternal torments was invented by men, not God.
24:16,17 Thanks to David building an altar at his own expense and asking God to kill him and his family, God stopped the plague upon Israel; the stretched out hand of God in destruction was what David asked to be upon him and his family. Israel were suffering the effect of their own sin, in not paying the temple tax (Ex. 30:11-16); but in the spirit of Christ, David was willing to die for them. And his dominant desire was counted as if it had been done, and thanks to his self-sacrificial spirit, the people were saved when they personally were unworthy. The wrath of God can be turned away by the actions of those He is angry with (Num. 25:4; Dt. 13:15-17; Ezra 10:14; Jonah 3:7,10; 2 Chron. 12:7; Jer. 4:4; 21:12). And yet that wrath can also be turned away by the prayers of a third party (Ps. 106:23; Jer. 18:20; Job 42:7). This means that in some cases, our prayers for others can be counted as if they have repented. We can gain our brother for God’s Kingdom (Mt. 18:15), as Noah saved his own house by his faithful preparation (Heb. 11:7).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfS5TRh0olQ
sermon: https://youtu.be/NM45MS2zuvc
commentary:
1:2 This cure for hypothermia seems to leave somewhat to be desired in moral terms. Even if we want to do the best for someone, that genuine motivation shouldn’t lead us to cross moral boundaries; for we may lead others into sin by doing so. There are many such incidents recorded in Biblical history which are left open-ended, as it were, for us to reflect upon as to whether they were sin or not. This is intentional; to provoke our thought and introspection.
1:6 David hadn’t disciplined his son because he wanted to please him- and it resulted in this awful betrayal. The parental role isn’t to please their children, but to raise them to be God’s children.
1:15 There’s something very tragic in this scene; Bathsheba, the one time beautiful woman whom David had risked his salvation to sleep with, comes in and finds a younger woman sexually stimulating David. The sins of youth seem so far away from old men on their deathbeds, but then they like all of us suffer the consequence of our sins. David’s calling of Bathsheba to come to him (:28) recalls how he had called her to come sleep with him many years before.
1:31 Let my lord king David live forever- This is an example of using language without literally believing the truth of the words; for Bathsheba has just pointed out that David is going to die (:21). The language of demon possession in the New Testament and other non-scientific usages of language in the Bible must be considered in this light.
1:42 You are a worthy man, and bring good news- We too can assume that the message carried by a person must be good and true because we perceive them to be a good person. Yet they are only ‘good’ in our eyes, in our experience and perception of them. The messages we receive from others must somehow be separated by us from our perception of them as a person, and in our context, compared against God’s revealed word before we accept them as true.
1:48 My eyes even seeing it- The promise of 2 Sam. 7:16 about David’s great son being established on his throne referred to Christ reigning on David’s throne at His return to earth, when David would be resurrected to see it. But in his old age, David seems to have lost focus upon Christ and become obsessed with the idea of having God’s promises fulfilled in this life, and he came to see Solomon as the fulfilment of the promises more than Christ. No matter how long we have been in Christ, we must be aware that we can always let our focus upon Him slip, and seek for the fulfilment of the Kingdom promises in this life rather than their main, intended fulfilment in the future Kingdom.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv6Gclii6go
sermon: https://youtu.be/iTDR3r1Jypg
commentary:
2:8,9 David graciously overlooked Shimei's cursing, promising him that he would not die because of it (2 Sam. 16:10,11; 19:23). But he didn't keep up that level of grace to the end: here he asks Solomon to ensure that Shimei was killed for that incident. And one wonders whether it was Shimei’s words which so broke David’s heart that he later wrote the words of Ps. 109:16-18 wishing cursing upon Shimei. We too must struggle to keep up the level of grace we may show to a person, to the end of our lives. Forgiveness in this sense isn’t a one time act, but an ever continuing process we engage in.
2:2 Show yourself a man- David here redefines manliness as obedience to God’s law; he entirely subverts the stereotype of ‘manliness’.
2:7 Let them be of those who eat at your table- To eat at the king’s table was a sign of acceptance and special favour; and all believers are invited to eat at Christ’s table at the breaking of bread. To refuse or ignore the invitation is to turn down a great honour.
2:24 Who has made me a house, as He promised- The promise to David was that he would have a son who on account of his obedience would be given an eternal kingdom / house. The main fulfilment was to be in Messiah, the Son of God. But Solomon too quickly assumed the promise was to him and that his success in establishing his own kingdom was a fulfilment of that promise; and he overlooked the conditions. He does the same in :45 when he pronounces that “king Solomon shall be blessed”, again ignoring the conditions attached to the promised blessings. We too can do the same- overlooking, skimming over, the conditions of immortality, and assuming any present blessing is a sign we are ultimately acceptable with God.
2:28 The legal codes of the surrounding nations held that certain physical, sacred places could be entered and provide even murderers with freedom from judgment. The Torah allows this in some cases, but not in the case of deliberate murder. Thus when Joab grabs the horns of the altar, thinking he therefore couldn’t be slain for his sin, he is dragged away and slain. This would’ve read strangely to many of the surrounding peoples. Hammurabi’s laws had a sliding scale of punishment according to the social status of the person who had been harmed by misbehaviour – if a rich man struck out the eye of a ‘commoner’, he had to pay less compensation than if he did so to a person of higher status. The Torah reflects the immense value placed by God upon the human person; for such distinctions are totally absent in it. We are to likewise perceive the value and meaning of persons, and treat them accordingly.

2:45 See on :24.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiZwmSveh7U
sermon: https://youtu.be/G7nOYzwtBUY
commentary:
3:3 It seems that Solomon loved God insofar as this was a living out of parental expectations; David is spoken of by both Solomon and the record as Solomon’s “father” hundreds of times. Yet God will work in our lives so that our love of Him is purely of our own account, rather than the living out of parental or others’ expectations.

3:12 I have already given you- God may have prepared great things potentially for us, which are only ‘released’ by our prayer for them. Solomon asked God for a wise heart- but he was told that God had already given him this. The process of educating Solomon in wisdom would have started long before; but it was released, as it were, by Solomon’s specific prayer.

3:26 Solomon immediately demonstrated his wisdom by the way he judged between the two prostitutes who came to him. They lived in the same house, and had given birth at the same time. The whole situation spoke of the kind of shameless prostitution which the Mosaic Law demanded should be punished by death. But the way of Divine wisdom in this case was not to automatically apply Divine law in condemning sinners. Instead, by cutting to the conscience within those women and appealing to it, they were led to at least the possibility of repentance, transformation and salvation. Solomon’s wisdom was given him in order to know how to guide God’s great people. The way of wisdom is therefore sometimes not to press a point when someone’s in the wrong. We see this in all levels of relationships. There are weak points in relationships, fissure lines, which when pressed or brought under tension will cause earthquakes and destruction. It’s best not to press on them; and yet if they are ignored, then the quality of relationship suffers and descends into interacting only over ‘safe’ matters. So what are we to do? By not raising the obvious issue- you’re prostitutes and must be put to death- Solomon showed grace, but he showed it in such a way that those women surely couldn’t have felt the same again; rather like the woman taken in adultery in Jn. 8:1-11. The very fact she was not condemned by the One who could condemn her- meant that she went away indeed vowing to “sin no more”.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_omKly_4Qo
sermon: https://youtu.be/ovPggTvHXfA
commentary:
4:20 The promises of the future Kingdom were fulfilled to a limited extent at this time; Israel were multiplied as the sand on the sea shore (2 Sam. 17:11), they possessed the gates of their enemies (Dt. 17:2; 18:6)- all in antitype of how we, Abraham's future seed would also receive the promised blessings in their mortal experience, as well as in the eternal blessedness of the future Kingdom.

4:25 Rabshakeh promised the Jews an Assyrian Kingdom where everyone sat under their own vine and fig tree- consciously parodying Micah’s contemporary prophecies of God’s future Kingdom (Is. 36:16 cp. Mic. 4:4). The Assyrian Kingdom was being presented as a parody of Solomon’s, which was the Kingdom of God (2 Chron. 9:8). Our surrounding world comprises “the kingdoms of this world” (Rev. 11:15); it is a fake kingdom of God. We have a choice between God’s Kingdom and that of this world, although to unspiritual eyes, this world with its promises of a wonderful life here and now can appear a replica of God’s Kingdom.

4:29 According to the sand which is on the seashore- The same term is used in :20 to describe the number of the Israelites. Solomon was given wisdom in order to assist them. We should search for wisdom in order to be of spiritual assistance to others, to God’s glory. Bible study is of no value unless we harness it to the service of God’s people. Our search for knowledge in every aspect of life must be because we seek to turn it into wisdom.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEa5Sbvz3qo
sermon: https://youtu.be/ovPggTvHXfA
commentary:
5:4 Adversary – Heb. ‘satan’. The Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament uses the Greek word diabolos to translate the Hebrew ‘satan’. Hence Devil and Satan are effectively parallel in meaning. Thus we read in the Septuagint of David being an adversary [Heb. Satan, Gk. diabolos] in 1 Sam. 29:4; the sons of Zeruiah (2 Sam. 19:22), Hadad, Rezon and other opponents to Solomon (1 Kings 5:4; 11:14,23,25). If we believe that every reference to ‘Satan’ or ‘Devil’ refers to an evil cosmic being, then we have to assume that these people weren’t people at all, and that even good men like David were evil. The far more natural reading of these passages is surely that ‘satan’ is simply a word meaning ‘adversary’, and can be applied to people [good and bad], and even God Himself – it carries no pejorative, sinister meaning as a word. The idea is sometimes used to describe our greatest adversary, i.e. our own sin, and at times for whole systems or empires.
5:12 The practical result of wisdom was peace between persons, and this should be the practical outcome of translating all our knowledge of God into practical wisdom.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKZBkDWWuro
sermon: https://youtu.be/FINBiKQ__9Y
commentary:
6:7 We are represented by these stones of the temple (1 Pet. 2:5); we are being quarried and shaped now by the hand of God in our lives, and will be assembled into the temple at Christ’s return. It will be too late then for corners to be knocked off; the shaping process is going on now. Stones need shaping so that they fit nicely with the other stones, in order to be a useful part of the entire house. Spiritual isolation isn’t therefore what God intends; the shaping process involves us in inter-personal relationships and getting along with others, rather than walking away every time there is awkward conflict.
6:12 God saw the need to remind Solomon that he was still required to be obedient; the promises about him were always conditional upon this. Solomon was tempted to reason that because of his works and his outstanding effort in building the temple, he was thereby excused from practical obedience in other areas of his life. We too can face the same temptation; to serve God in one area of our lives and think that this excuses us from submitting our entire lives to His word.
6:13 Thanks to Solomon's prayer, and if he had been obedient, all Israel would have been blessed and experienced Yahweh dwelling amongst them. Our obedience or disobedience really can affect third parties.
6:19 Inner sanctuary- Translated in some Bibles as “oracle”, the Hebrew word thus translated also means ‘the word’, and can be interpreted as meaning ‘the speaking place’. God speaks to us today in His word; as we read His word and respond to it, we are in the most holy place, as God speaks to us and we respond- whether we read on the bus, hear it on our headphones or read in bed at night. Daily Bible reading is therefore so important in our personal relationship with God.
6:38 He was seven years in building it- Perhaps prophetic of God’s 7000 year plan to build a spiritual temple for Him to dwell in. Throughout the temple there was the theme of God’s glory- the cherubim motif was throughout the building (:29). Our entire purpose both now and eternally is to give glory to God and not to ourselves.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swsit_Iq4kg
sermon: https://youtu.be/FINBiKQ__9Y
commentary:
7:1 Solomon spent nearly twice as long building his own house as he did God’s house (6:38). He liked building (Ecc. 2:4); he served God in ways convenient to him, rather than taking up a cross and going against his own natural desires. See on 9:1.
7:12 Like as the inner court of the house of Yahweh- Solomon was maybe unconsciously playing God, creating a throne for himself in similar and more glorious style to God’s throne room in the temple.
7:23 Sometimes the Bible is very vague. There are times when the Spirit uses approximate numbers rather than exact ("about the space of four hundred and fifty years", Acts 13:20 cp. 1 Kings 6:1). The reference to "seventy" in Judges 9:56 also doesn't seem exact. Seven and a half years (2 Sam. 2:11) becomes "seven years" (1 Kings 2:11); three months and ten days (2 Chron. 36:9) becomes "three months" (2 Kings 24:8). And here 1 Kings 7:23 gives the circumference of the laver as “thirty cubits”, although it was ten cubits broad. Taking ‘pi’ to be 3.14, it is apparent that the circumference would have been 31.4 cubits; but the Spirit says, summing up, “thirty”. Surely this is to show that God is God, not man, and as such He’s not on the back foot, writing under the fear of criticism. His word is not contradictory, but on the other hand, God has more spiritual culture than to sink down to the level of a man who wanted to foresee all criticism in writing something which could stand all petty criticism. He has a spiritual culture much higher than this. And this is the answer to many of the petty objections about ‘Bible contradictions’ which are raised by cynics.
7:25 The sea or laver was a washing place in which the priests and sacrifices had to be washed before approaching God. It speaks of baptism under the new covenant, and is alluded to in Tit. 3:5, which speaks of our being saved by faith through the laver or bath of regeneration. Water baptism is part of the process of regeneration, the required expression of our faith in God’s salvation, and is therefore vital for all who would come to God in this age.
7:50 The hinges... of gold- Gold wasn’t the most suitable material for many of the utensils. But it represents faith (1 Pet. 1:7). The life of faith means that we may do things which appear to have a very weak human basis, and yet this is how God loves to work- through the human weakness of decisions taken and work done in faith.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHEoO4NX_4E
sermon: https://youtu.be/Nnj2yyy9f_A
commentary:
8:5 Sacrificing sheep and cattle, that could not be counted nor numbered- Solomon hadn’t learnt the lesson his father David did after his sin with Bathsheba- that God doesn’t really want multitudes of animal sacrifices, but rather the sacrifice of a broken heart and true internal spirituality (Ps. 50:8-15; 51:16,17; Is. 1:11; Jer. 7:22; Am. 5:25). We must be aware that organized religion so easily leads us to think that the externalities of religious devotion are all important; whereas it is internal spirituality which God seeks above all, and any organized religious system we are part of should be merely an assistance towards that, rather than an end in itself.
8:17 It was with the heart of David- In the Hebrew Bible, the idea of being "with" someone means to "be in one's consciousness, whether of knowledge, memory or purpose". Thus Job speaks of how what God plans to do to him is "with God", i.e. in His purpose (Job 23:14); David is spoken of as having the idea about building a temple "with" him (here and 2 Chron. 6:7)- and see too Num. 14:24; 1 Kings 11:11; 1 Chron. 28:12; Job 10:13; 15:9; 23:10; 27:11; Ps. 50:11; 73:23. When we read of Jesus being "with" God from the beginning (Jn. 1:1-3), the Western mind can assume this means sitting literally together with Him. But Jesus didn’t physically pre-exist His birth. It is this refusal to read the Bible within its own Hebraic context which has led to so much misunderstanding, and adopting of doctrines and positions which simply don't stand up to closer Biblical scrutiny.
8:18 Whether God did in fact say exactly this to David is open to question, because it would contradict God’s own reasoning about why He didn’t want a temple, and the fact the promises to David were mainly about the spiritual temple to be built by God’s Son Jesus (Lk. 1:31-35). David assumed this is what God meant; and Solomon now repeats it as if it is the very word of God. This kind of error so often occurs.
8:22 Such public, ostentatious prayer is surely not in the spirit of Christ, who commanded us to pray secretly (Mt. 6:6).
8:29,30 Listen to the prayer which Your servant shall pray toward this place- Solomon had the wrong idea that the existence of the temple somehow made prayer more noticeable by God. One of the reasons for the destruction of the temple was to bring God’s people into direct, prayerful contact with Him in their exile in the Gentile world. God likewise takes away the props of our religion in order to bring us directly to Him.
8:39 Hear in heaven Your dwelling place- We are invited to see God as having a “throne” (2 Chron. 9:8; Ps. 11:4; Is. 6:1; 66:1). Such language is hard to apply to an undefined essence which exists somewhere in heavenly realms, but is rather appropriate to a personal God having a specific location. We can better understand the idea of ‘God manifestation’ in personal human beings if we understand Him as being Himself personal. It also provides focus to our prayers, as it did for Solomon here.
8:49 Hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven... and maintain their cause- This is legal language, implying that our situations on earth are acted out within the Heavenly throne room, where God is both judge and the one who advocates for us to Himself, maintaining our case and supporting our supplication. We need never feel, therefore, that the complexities of our situations on earth are unnoticed. They are known and analyzed better than we know ourselves, in Heaven itself.
8:58 He may incline our hearts to Him- We're wrong to think that God passionlessly waits for us to repent or pray to Him, and then He will forgive or act for us. He loves us, simply so; and with all love's manipulation of circumstances, seeks to pour out His love upon us. Thus repentance itself is a gift which God gives and is not totally upon human initiative (see too Dt. 4:29-31; 30:1-10).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMMyvTRhUTk
sermon: https://youtu.be/0tYHtSN-Hzs?si=xnz_mzLZtysDDB_i
commentary:
10:4-8 The Queen of Sheba saw Solomon's wisdom through seeing the "sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their clothing". It was through her observation of Solomon's people that she perceived and understood his wisdom. The nations will likewise learn the knowledge of Christ through observing the example of natural Israel and ourselves; as they should in this life too. People tend not to believe mere words until they see them lived out in practice before their eyes.
10:9 Because of God's enthusiasm for human response to His ways, the exalted language in which He describes believers, even in their weakness, is an essay in His humility. Thus God "delighted" in Solomon- translating a Hebrew word meaning literally 'to bend down to'. It's used about men in love (Gen. 34:19; Dt. 21:14; 25:7), and about Jonathan's deferential attitude to David (1 Sam. 19:2). If God is humble, so should we be.
10:14 Six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold- The connection with 666 as the number of the man of sin (Rev. 13:18), and the similarities between Babylon’s merchandise in Rev. 17 and 18 and that which came to Solomon, indicates that all was not spiritually well with Solomon. His kingdom was on one hand God’s Kingdom, and yet it was also a kingdom of sin. This is ever our temptation- not atheism, but a serving of sin under the impression of serving God.
10:29 Solomon’s love of horses was not right for the king of Israel (Dt. 17:16). He began by being a middleman, bringing horses out of Egypt and selling them on to other nations. But he ended up being addicted to them. We should choose not to have involvement with sinful things, because it’s likely that the more we deal with them, the more likely it is we will ourselves start to use them.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkiIe-PmJ9w
sermon: https://youtu.be/h5JhgRA872E?si=i886VhAMbUPFywWT
commentary:
11:2,3 The following passages all make the same connection between marriage out of the covenant, and adopting idolatry: Ex. 34:12-16; Dt. 7:2-9; Jud. 3:6,7; Mal. 2:11; 2 Cor. 6:14. Dt. 7:4 dogmatically predicts that a Gentile man will definitely turn away the heart of his Hebrew son-in-law… So certain is it that marriage to Gentiles leads to accepting their idols that Ezra 9:1,2 reasons that Israel hadn't separated from idols because they had married Gentiles. Marriage to unbelievers is very serious.
11:6 Anything less than following Yahweh with all our heart is seen as doing evil in His eyes. We see here the logic of total devotion to Him.
11:13 The extent of grace explains many apparent contradictions and paradoxes throughout God's relationships with men- e.g. God repeatedly said that He would leave David with “one tribe”. But actually by grace He gave David and Judah two and a half tribes.
11:14 1 Kings 11 mentions that God raised up ‘adversaries’ to Solomon (see too :23,25). The Hebrew word ‘satan’ used here means simply an adversary. God didn’t stir up a supernatural being to be a Satan/adversary to Solomon; He stirred up ordinary men. The original word ‘satan’ has no negative connotation in itself. Mt. 16:22,23 speaks of Peter as a ‘satan’ to Jesus. Note that God is in control of these ‘satans’. He raised them up and put them down; ‘satan’ doesn’t refer to anyone in radical opposition to God.
11:28 The final comment upon Jeroboam is that he was not as God’s servant David (14:7-9). And yet he was set up with that potential possibility. He was a young “man of valour” as was David (1 Sam. 16:18; 17:58); a ruler over all (as David, 1 Sam. 18:5); taken by God to reign over Israel (:37) as was David (2 Sam. 7:8); would have a house built (:38) as David (2 Sam. 7:11); and compare :40 with 1 Sam. 19:2,10. We are set up with great potentials; our lives are sometimes potentially guided to be similar to those of Biblical characters. But we have to make the right decisions and choices in order to realize that potential.
11:29 The division within Israel was the greatest tragedy to come upon God’s people, just as it is today (Is. 7:17). The way the new garment of Ahijah was torn up symbolized the division, and it reflects the utter waste. For an outer cloak was a garment a man could wear for life; to have a new one was something significant. The Lord’s coat being unrent at His death may therefore be a reflection of how His death brought about unity amongst His people (Jn. 11:52; 17:21,22). Before Him there, we simply cannot be divided amongst ourselves.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmLNoN138kE
sermon: https://youtu.be/nge7xzXCEws
commentary:
12:7 We see here the paradox of servant leadership- if Rehoboam had been a servant of his people, then he would have ruled over them. In all ways, Jesus is our pattern. He was a servant of all, and so should we be. His servanthood dominated His consciousness. He said that He came not [so much as] to be ministered unto, but so as to minister, with the end that He gave His life for others (Mk. 10:45). This is what makes Him Lord of all- because He was servant of all.
12:15 There are times when God has influenced men not to respond to the evidently wise words of other men, in order to fulfil His purpose (see too 2 Chron. 25:20).
12:21 The Lord Jesus framed His parable about Satan's kingdom rising up and being divided against itself (Mk. 3:23-26) in the very language of the Kingdom of Israel being "divided" against itself by Jeroboam's 'rising up' (see  too 13:6)- as if Israel's Kingdom was Satan's kingdom. Dividing against our brethren makes us Satan’s Kingdom rather than God’s.
12:24 So they listened to the word of Yahweh- It requires quite some humility to change our plans when we have already set up a plan of action which involves mobilizing others.
12:26 ‘Said in his heart’ is a common Biblical phrase (e.g. Gen. 17:17; 1 Sam. 27:1;Esther 6:6). The focus of the Bible is upon our spiritual mindedness, rather than upon any cosmic conflict between God and a supposed Satan figure. The arena for spiritual conflict is ultimately within the human heart.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBU1GthC5PA
commentary:
14:14 Even now- This reflects how God’s words are as good as done as soon as they are uttered, so certain are they of fulfilment. This is the way to understand those passages which appear to teach that both Jesus and ourselves existed physically before our birth. God doesn't completely express Himself in our terms and language (although of course to some degree He does). There is a degree to which God is God, and He expresses Himself as He is. We must bring ourselves to accept His perspective. Indeed, faith is the ability to believe that what God has said will actually happen physically, and that therefore we can live as if we see that future physical event as actually having happened. In other words, faith is about adopting God's time-less perspective.
14:15 As Pharaoh’s heart was plagued (Ex. 9:14), so was Israel’s (1 Kings 8:38); as Egypt was a reed, so were Israel (1 Kings 14:15). The language of the world is thus applied to God’s people because this is how they thought and acted. Apostate Israel are spoken of as the pagan world; and therefore at the day of judgment the rejected of the new Israel will be condemned along with the world (1 Cor. 11:32); assigned their portion “with the unbelievers” (Lk. 12:46).
14:31 His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess- This is repeated twice (:21). The emphasis is on the fact that Solomon’s marriage to a Gentile unbeliever resulted in unbelieving children.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgUqwm1-kMQ
commentary:
15:11 Asa is recorded as serving God just as well as David, when actually this wasn't the case; but God counted him as righteous. The incomplete faith of men like Baruch was counted as full faith by later inspiration (Jud. 4:8,9 cp. Heb. 11:32). Sometimes the purges of idolatry by the kings is described in undoubtedly exaggerated language- such was God's joy that at least something was being done? Or because, again, He imputed righteousness to those who had some faith in Him?
15:14 The high places were not taken away: nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect with Yahweh all his days- God appears prepared to overlook some failures because our conscience is still right with Him. And yet, despite the significance of conscience, we will be judged at the last day according to God’s word rather than our own conscience as it were jumping out of us and standing there as the yardstick for our judgment. Asa and Jehoshaphat removed the high places, but in a sense they didn't (1 Kings 15:14 cp. 2 Chron. 14:5; 17:6 cp. 20:33). We read of how the land was purged of Baal, Sodomites etc.; but in a very short time, we read of another purge being necessary. Hezekiah, Manasseh and Josiah all made major purges within a space of 80 years. Jeremiah therefore condemns the Jews who lived at the time of Josiah's reformation for not knowing God in their hearts.
15:15,18 Asa gathered the gold and silver vessels back into the temple- and then went and used them to make a political treaty. He apparently treated them as God's riches, but then in reality he used them as his own. Many a believer has this very same tendency.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1avfWoJoVTU
commentary:
16:2 We can make others stumble from the path to His salvation. Baasha made other people sin and thus provoke God to anger; his own sin and that of the people are described in identical language, to portray how he influenced them. We have far more spiritual influence upon others than we might think.
16:25 Dealt wickedly above all who were before him- The same is stated about his son, Ahab (:30). The weaknesses of the fathers tend to be repeated by the children, even worse. Sin tends towards a downwards spiral, people become morally worse and worse without the influence of God’s word.
16:31 Ahab's marriage to a Gentile was far worse than all the sins of Jeroboam; the idolatry, the perversion, the making of Israel sin; these were "a light thing" compared to the evil of marriage out of the faith. That perspective on marriage to unbelievers needs to be shared by us today. And further, those who married the daughters of Ahab were led astray by them (2 Kings 8:18,27).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZJFr41Y4oc
sermon: https://youtu.be/s6SC81DwTCI
commentary:
18:4 God tried to correct Elijah’s despising of the other prophets of the Lord. Elijah was in a cave, and was also fed bread and water- just as the other prophets were. And yet Elijah didn’t see, or didn’t want to see, that connection- after having been reminded of this experience of the other prophets, he claims that he alone was a true prophet of Yahweh (:22)- he wrongly believed that all other valid prophets had been slain (19:10). But the record shows how that during Elijah’s lifetime there were other prophets of Yahweh active in His service (20:13,35). Yet God still works through the conceited, the spiritually superior, those who despise their brethren. God didn’t give up on Elijah because he was like this, and neither should we give up in our relationship with such brethren.
18:8 Go, tell your lord- Elijah didn’t have too positive a view of anyone apart from himself- and that included faithful Obadiah. Obadiah repeatedly calls Elijah “my Lord” and describes himself as “your servant”; but Elijah responds to this by calling Obadiah the servant of Ahab- he tells him to go and tell “your Lord”, i.e. Ahab. Elijah is insisting that he and Obadiah have nothing in common- Obadiah serves Ahab, and he is nothing to do with Elijah. ‘Obadiah’ means ‘servant of Yahweh’- the name surely reflects very faithful parents to have called him that at the time of the Baal cult. But Elijah insists that Obadiah is really a servant of Ahab, not of Yahweh. The fact Elijah was hidden by God meant that he was forced into fellowship with the prophets of Yahweh whom Obadiah hid in a cave (:4). Elijah was thus intended to see a link between Obadiah and God, and himself and the other prophets of Yahweh. But Elijah’s pride didn’t let himself make the connection, just as ours often doesn’t. For he continued doubtful of Obadiah’s sincerity, and still insisted that he alone remained a faithful prophet of Yahweh- even though Obadiah had hidden one hundred other prophets from Jezebel’s persecution. Those one hundred prophets were presumably part of the 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal. And maybe they weren’t that strong- they are set up as representative of those who will only be saved by grace, not their works (Rom. 11:4-6). But, by implication, Elijah, for all his love of Israel, did not look upon them through the eyes of grace. Elijah insisted that he alone was “left”; yet God says that He has “left” Himself the 7,000 (19:18). The preservation of the people of God, or ‘the truth’ is done by God Himself; yet the likes of Elijah consider that it is they who ‘preserve the truth’. Again, Elijah had to learn that we are all saved by grace. God will leave for and to Himself His people, without requiring the help of man. Elijah struggled with this issue of accepting others and not thinking he was the only one who could do the job right up to the end of his ministry; for he ascends to Heaven clutching his mantle, the sign of his prophetic ministry. It seems he took it with him because he felt that not even Elisha was really fit to do the job and take his place; but perhaps in what were possibly the last seconds of his mortal life, he learnt his lesson and let go of it, allowing it to fall to the earth to let another man take it up.
18:15 Elijah assured Obadiah that he was really telling him the truth, because Yahweh of Hosts (Angels) is real, and he stood before those Angels. A sense of Angelic presence and observation will likewise inspire us to transparent lives (1 Cor. 11:10; 1 Tim. 5:21).
18:21 The inertia of indecision is a huge problem. Your own example of making clear choices, doing what is right before God rather than what is wise and smart in human eyes, will reveal a sense of clarity about you which will become inspirational to your brethren. Yours will not be one of those many lives that is paralyzed by constantly postponing the choices, by indecision, like Israel on Carmel, hopping backwards and forwards between two opinions. When Elijah demands that the people chose which lord they will serve- Baal [= ‘lord’] or Yahweh, he is really getting to the very crux of spirituality- for truly, there can be no halting between the two opinions of serving Baal and serving Yahweh. Jesus based His words of Lk. 16:13 on those of Elijah here- we can’t serve two masters. Although on one hand the Lord Jesus Himself quotes Elijah’s ‘truth’ approvingly, there is evidence galore that at the very same time, Elijah’s attitudes were far from Christ-like
18:26-29 The idea of prophets was well known in the world around ancient Israel. The idea of a prophet was that a person was caught up in some kind of ecstasy, transported into some ‘other’ world, leaving behind their humanity. The true prophets were different. Their inspiration was about being attuned to the mind of God, they remained very much in the flesh and in the world, and the subjects of their prophecy related to very real, human things- injustice, a guy building an extension on his house without paying the labourers. Not flashing lights and ethereal coasting through space. The pagan prophets (e.g. the prophets of Baal here) worked themselves into a frenzy in order to reach a state of depersonalization and loss of consciousness, in the hope that then they would be filled with Divine consciousness. True prophets were absolutely different; the inspiration process required them to be fully in touch with their own consciousness and personality, and it was exactly through their humanity that the personality of God came through in the inspired words they spoke and wrote. This is why at times the prophets give God’s word but then interrupt, as it were, in full consciousness, to plead or even protest (e.g. Am. 7:2). Whereas the false prophets aimed to lose consciousness in order to receive something from God’s consciousness, the true prophets received heightened sensitivity and conscience / consciousness in order to receive God’s word and to know His mind. The message which the true prophets received wasn’t some vague abstraction or personal transport into an unreal world. What they received from God was the sense that this world and its fate are very dear to its creator. It was because the true prophets entered into the mind of God, that this issued in the experience of words. The false prophets tended to experience something happening; whereas the true prophets experienced the thoughts of God, which issued in words. Their experience had form, but no content. The Pentecostal ‘Holy Spirit’ experiences appear to be the form of ecstasy claimed by the false prophets. Receipt of God’s true revelation involved dialogue with God, even disagreement with Him for a moment, response, pleading, speech and counterspeech. It wasn’t a case of merely passively hearing a voice and writing it down.

18:27 To the toilet- This kind of mockery and crudeness is surely not how the Father and Son would have us act. We aren’t to mock false beliefs in this way. Yet Elijah did this whilst at the same time deeply believing the fire would come down, and bringing it down by his faith. Elijah’s mocking attitude is also shown by the way in which he demands they find him four barrels of water- on the top of a mountain, after a major three and a half year drought (:33). Presumably they took the water from the sea at the bottom of the mountain- and thus Elijah’s sacrifice would be offered with salt. He was strictly obedient to the requirements for sacrifice- yet amidst an abusive, self-justifying mindset. The very possession of truth can take our attention away from our need for self-examination and right attitudes towards others. In this lies one of our most subtle temptations.
18:36 Elijah “prayed in his prayer” (James 5:17 Gk.)- there was a deep prayer going on within his prayer, words and feelings within words- the prayer of the very inner being. This was how much he sought their repentance. The James passage sets Elijah up as a pattern for our prayer for our wayward brethren. He really is our pattern here. He clearly saw prayer as requiring much effort; and the way he prays at the time of the evening sacrifice on Horeb suggests that he saw prayer as a sacrifice.
18:37 Answer me- Elijah appears utterly certain that God will answer by a bolt of fire, without having asked Him first. He asks God to “answer me” without specifically requesting for fire to be sent down; he brings the situation before God and asks Him to ‘answer’ that situation. Prayer is often answered in ways we do not perceive, or by an answer which will only much later be revealed. Elijah's prayer here will only be finally answered when Elijah comes in the last days (Mal. 4:6).
You have turned their heart back- God appeals for people to respond by pointing out that in prospect, He has already forgiven them. Thus Elijah wanted Israel to know that God had already in prospect turned their hearts back to Him (see too Is. 44:22). We preach the cross of Christ, and that through that forgiveness has been enabled for all men; but they need to respond by repentance in order to access it. God has potentially enabled their conversion (see Jn. 1:7). Hence the tragedy of human lack of response; so much has been enabled, the world has been reconciled, but all this is in vain if they will not respond.
18:40-44 Believe that you really will receive; avoid the temptation of asking for things as a child asks for birthday presents, with the vague hope that something might turn up. Remember how Elijah heard, by faith, the noise of rain even before he had formally prayed for it, and when there was no hint of rain.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zemYvJsi180
sermon: https://youtu.be/S4vdnu1yZOI
commentary:
19:10 "I, even I only am left" was Elijah's cry to God as he realized the depth of Israel's apostasy. But this was interpreted by God as a prayer for God to condemn Israel (Rom. 11:2,3). God read what was in Elijah's heart, and counted this as his prayer.
19:11,13 The Angel tells Elijah to actually go and stand before the Lord and learn what it really meant; so he had to literally stand before the Angel as He passed by. Yet Elijah hid his face; he was no longer so happy to be before the Lord once he realized the humility and breaking in pieces of a proud man’s spirit that it really implies.  So (:13) he wrapped his face [in Hebrew, the words for ‘face’ and ‘before’ are the same] in his mantle and “stood” in the cave mouth before the Angel. Too ashamed to really stand before the Lord, Elijah therefore wrapped his face. Earlier, he had been so keen to use this phrase of himself (17:1; 18:15); he had prided himself on the fact that he stood before the Lord. But now he hid his face, an idiom often used by God for withholding fellowship. The fact we too are God’s covenant people can initially be a source of pride to us as we do our theological gladiatorship with others. But the implications are so far deeper; and through Angelic work in our lives, we too are brought to see this. The word for “mantle” is translated “glory” in Zech. 11:3; Elijah wrapped his presence in his own glory, rather than face up to the implications of God’s glory. A desire for our own glory prevents us perceiving God’s glory. Only at the very end does Elijah cast away his mantle (2 Kings 2:13), his human strength, allowing himself to merge with God’s glory. He should have cast away his mantle earlier, when he stood before the still small voice on Horeb. The question of :13 “Why are you still here, Elijah?” may imply that Elijah should have allowed himself to be carried away by the cherubim, he should have surrendered himself to the progress of God’s glory, rather than so obsessively insist upon his own personal rightness and the wrongness of others. And this was why God’s ultimate response to Elijah’s attitude on Horeb was to dismiss him from his prophetic ministry and instate Elisha as his successor (:16). Elijah seems to have finally learnt his lesson, for he calls Elisha to the ministry by ‘passing by’ Elisha as in a theophany, taking off his mantle and throwing it upon Elisha (:19). He realized that he had hidden behind that mantle, using it to resist participating in the selfless association with God’s glory [rather than his own] to which he was called. But he got there in the end; hence the enormous significance of Elijah giving up his mantle when he finally ascends to Heaven in the cherubim chariot (2 Kings 2:13).
19:16 The call of God comes to us right in the midst of ordinary, mundane life. Christ called men in just the same way. This was what was and is so unusual and startling about the ministry of the Lord. His love sought men out, He didn’t wait for them to come to Him; and He does the same today in calling us to live as Him, often unexpectedly and in the midst of life’s repetitive course. Other examples in 2 Kings 9:1-13,18; Jud. 6:1; 1 Sam. 9:10; 11:5; Am. 7:14. 
19:18 There is such a thing as feeling lonely when we needn’t. Elijah is an example of this; he felt that he was “left alone” faithful in Israel- even though there were another 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal (Rom. 11:3). The Hebrew could mean that God reserved 7,000 of Elijah’s brothers and sisters who potentially would not bow the knee to Baal. Yet Elijah didn’t want to see the potential of his brethren. He set himself in a league above them, like the Psalmist, saying in his haste that all men are liars (Ps. 116:11).
19:20 Elisha bade farewell to his family before following Elijah, and Elijah allowed him to do this- but the Lord Jesus was more demanding (Lk. 9:59-61).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEHn6V00k68
commentary:
20:28 Sometimes God gives victory to unspiritual people because He wishes to justify Himself or teach others a lesson through that victory. The fact God uses us doesn’t necessarily mean we are therefore acceptable with Him.
20:40 So your judgment shall be; you yourself have decided it- Right now, men are justified by their words before the court of Heaven- for 'justify' means to pronounce righteous, and this pronouncement / justification is therefore given even now.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WzAWLGpdXw
sermon: https://youtu.be/JNCNTcxPZUA
commentary:
21:4 Sullen and angry- As in 20:43. Living with a bad conscience before God, endlessly seeking our own pleasure, doesn’t bring happiness but rather depression and anger (1 Tim. 6:9,10).
21:21 I will bring evil on you- We expect this to be prefaced by a “Thus says Yahweh”- but Elijah was so close to God he assumed he was speaking directly from Him. And yet Elijah doesn’t repeat what God had told him to say in :19. Was he too familiar with God? Assuming he knew God’s will and words? But Elijah improved- in 2 Kings 1:6 he says that what he says is the word of Yahweh, and he repeats verbatim what he was told to say. We too know God’s word. We know the Bible text well. But this can lead to a wrong assumption that we speak for God; that we must be right in all our attitudes and positions we adopt on issues.
21:29 Before Me- Yet Elijah also lived a life “before Yahweh” (17:1); it’s as if God was trying to get Elijah to see that he wasn’t the only person in God’s presence. Spiritual elitism is so wrong, and God works hard to bring people out of it.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgQezsnjadk
sermon: https://youtu.be/On4q8Tr_zxE
commentary:
22:15 Go up and prosper- Like the prophet Nathan in 2 Sam. 7:3, Micaiah initially said what he knew his audience wanted to hear. We who know God’s word are tempted likewise; human nature has a strong ability to sense what our audience wants to hear, and to say it. This is where speaking according to God’s word is at times counter-instinctive.
22:20 God deceived prophets to speak things in His Name which were actually false (see too Ez. 14:9). He chose Israel's delusions by making their idols answer them (Is. 66:3,4). Jeremiah feared God had deceived him (Jer. 20:7)- showing he knew such a thing was possible. God is constantly pushing people up an upward spiral of spirituality, or further down a downward spiral of unspirituality whereby He makes those who don’t love His truth to believe a lie (2 Thess. 2:10,11).
22:22 Here the Angels present their various plans of how to slay Ahab. God says to the one whose plan He accepts that he must go out and "prevail" or 'struggle' to operationalize a command from God which they know is His will to perform. And we have to do likewise, not least in the preaching of the Gospel, both obeying and prevailing. We shouldn’t think that God is unaware of our situations on earth. The Angels discuss their plans for us in the court of Heaven, coming up with various possibilities of how to act in our lives, discussing them with God. We will take over the roles of the Angels in administering God’s future Kingdom (Lk. 20:35,36; Heb. 2:5). Their knowledge and power isn’t total; they still have to go through a process of working out how to operationalize God’s will, coming up with differing suggestions.
22:32 Jehoshaphat nearly lost his life because of his alliance with Ahab. Even though Ahab was nominally one of God’s people, he had no respect for Yahweh’s word (:8). We have to chose our friendships and associations carefully even amongst those who are numbered amongst the body of believers.
22:49 Jehoshaphat had learnt the lesson about not working together with the family of Ahab (:32). Sometimes God repeats situations in our lives so that we learn the lesson and have practice in it; this is why it’s clear that our life situations tend to repeat, under God’s providential hand. See on 2 Kings 3:7.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDdaXFv0bq4
sermon: https://youtu.be/_wLA5vgXQjU
commentary:
1:2 This clearly tells us that Baal Zebub, or Beelzebub, was a false god of the Philistines. When the Jews of the first century accused Jesus of being in league with this god, Jesus did not say, ‘Now look, 2 Kings 1:2 says Beelzebub was a false god, so your accusation cannot be true’. Rather He spoke as if Beelzebub existed, because He was interested in getting His message through to His audience. So in the same way Jesus talked about casting out demons – He did not keep saying, ‘actually, they do not exist’, He just preached the Gospel in the language of the day.

1:9,10 When Elijah is ordered by the captain of 50 to “come down”, Elijah responds by saying “let fire come down”.  Elijah sees himself as the fire sent from God; he associates himself directly with God and His judgments. He hadn’t learnt the lesson that God wasn’t in the fire but in the small voice. The captain wanted Elijah to come down from the high hill (cp. Heaven), so Elijah calls fire to come down from Heaven. He sees himself as the fire, as God coming down. The incident is specifically rebuked by the Jesus as not being of His Spirit (Lk. 9:54,55). And He rebukes His followers for assuming that their natural prejudice against others can be justified by an appeal to Elijah’s example. Elijah failed to see the value of those 100 lives; the value and meaning of persons was lost on him. All he could think of was fighting apostasy and judging it. Elijah called the fire down in allusion to how fire came down from the Lord to destroy Nadab and Abihu and also Sodom (Lev. 10:2; Gen. 19:24). He did the wrong thing from wrong motives and yet he Biblically justified it- for the prophets themselves saw an apostate Israel as being like Sodom (Is. 1:10). Elijah had the wrong attitude, lacking the spirit of Christ, and yet God still heard his prayers; God worked with Elijah as Elijah wanted. And so we perceive the subtleties of a man’s relationship with God. Prayer may be answered, and the extent of Elijah’s faith in ‘commanding’ the fire to come down is indeed awesome, but we may even then still be ‘playing God’ in a wrong way.

1:15 Don’t be afraid of him- Elijah may appear to have been a fearless aggressor, but underneath he was fearful, just as the Canaanites seemed so strong but in fact they were very fearful. Others’ aggression to us is sometimes simply because they fear us on some level.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RcmYsvbkEk
sermon: https://youtu.be/5aOUvOXOwHE
commentary:
2:11 Into the sky- This doesn’t mean that Elijah went to get his reward in Heaven. Nobody has ascended to Heaven (Jn. 3:13). Jesus was the first person to be given immortality (1 Cor. 15:20), and was the only person who never sinned. Elijah therefore had to die, because the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). The Bible presents the Kingdom of God on earth as the reward for the righteous, not going to Heaven at death. The dramatic snatching away of Elijah was in order to openly demonstrate that his public ministry had ended and been passed on to Elisha. It seems Elijah was snatched away into the sky and returned to earth somewhere else- hence the men go searching for him (:16). It seems this happened often in Elijah’s life (1 Kings 18:12). Some time after this, Elijah sent a letter (2 Chron. 21:12)- implying he was on earth.
2:12 The chariots and horseman of God appeared; and Elisha perceived that Elijah had finally become identified with them. For Elisha sees them and then describes Elijah as being them- the chariot and horseman of Israel. The Hebrew word for “mantle” is translated “glory” in Zech. 11:3. Elijah had earlier wrapped his presence in his own mantle / glory, rather than face up to the implications of God’s glory. But he got there in the end; hence the enormous significance of Elijah giving up his mantle when he finally ascends to Heaven in the cherubim chariot. Finally, Elijah became part of God’s glory; He merged into it rather than resisting it for the sake of his own glory. He was the charioteer of the cherubim; for his prayers had controlled their direction. This identification of ourselves with God’s glory, this losing of ourselves and our own insistence upon our rightness, and our focus on others’ wrongness... this is the end result of our lives if they are lived out after the pattern of Elijah’s. See on 13:14.
2:19 It could be that the people thought that the barren land was causing their women to be barren. This was evidently an incorrect superstition of the time; barren ground cannot make the women who live on it barren. But Elisha does not specifically rebuke them for believing such nonsense. Instead he performed the miracle of curing the barrenness of the land. The record says that there was no more barrenness of the land or women “according to the saying of Elisha which he spake”. Normally the people would have recoursed to wizards to drive away the relevant demon which they thought was causing the problem. But the miracle made it evident that ultimately God had caused the problem, and He could so easily cure it. This was a far more effective way of sinking the people’s foolish superstition than a head–on frontal attack upon it. The way Jesus dealt with the demons issue in the first century is identical in principle.

2:21 Land and water were seen as barren and bad because they were salty (Dt. 29:23; Jud. 9:45; Jer. 17:6); to put salt into bad water to cure it was therefore counter-instinctive. But this is how God loves to operate; we have to recognize the badness and acknowledge that God can work through it. Hence in this case, salt was used to cure saltiness.
2:23 Go up, you baldhead- They were doubting that Elisha was really in Elijah’s place, and were asking him to go up into the sky as Elijah had done; and they mocked the difference between hairy Elijah and Elisha’s baldness.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYCc60GjWgE
commentary:
3:7 Jehoshaphat had been taught in 1 Kings 22:32 the error of association with the wicked kings of Israel; he learnt the lesson when it was repeated in 1 Kings 22:49; but now he fails the test again. Thus Jehoshaphat found himself repeating his words of 1 Kings 22:7 when he says “Isn’t there here a prophet of Yahweh, that we may inquire of Yahweh by him?” (:11). This is too often the pattern of our lives; God brings repeat situations, in essence, into our lives; sometimes we learn the lesson, other times we don’t. But through it all, He seeks to patiently teach us His principles and obedience to His ways. See on 7:18.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3m4VOwV-nU
sermon: https://youtu.be/uJ-0vse4Lfo
commentary:
4:3 Don’t borrow just a few- According to the level of our faith, so life will be unto us. The more and the larger the containers borrowed, the more oil they would have. God’s power and ability is unlimited; it is us through our faith who control the extent of His activity (Mk. 9:23).
4:4 Shut the door- This is emphasized (:5). God’s response to human faith is a very personal thing, not to be bragged about. Our relationship with Him is ultimately personal.
4:9 I perceive that this is a holy man of God- It seems Elisha said nothing of his ministry as a prophet; he simply stayed at the woman’s house when travelling. But our relationship with God will be perceived by others in the end, even without our specific preaching (1 Pet. 3:1).
4:13 This care- The Hebrew word for "care" here also means "reverence". To reverence someone is to care for them. Care therefore comes out of a respect / reverence for the person. If we respect persons for who they are, we will care. Care in that sense can't in any sense be properly done or shown if it's simply from a sense of duty, because we're paid to do it, because we might get some benefit from doing so, etc. It arises out of a basic respect for the human person, made as we are in the image of God.
4:29 Christ’s command in Lk. 10:4 to go preach the Gospel and greet nobody by the way (greetings in the East can take a long time) clearly alludes here. We are all to have the urgent intensity of Gehazi in taking the hope of resurrection to others.
4:33 Shut the door... and prayed- Jesus as it were takes a snapshot of this moment and posts it as a pattern to each of us (Mt. 6:6). Biblical characters like Elisha thus cease to be distant figures, but are to be realistically followed by us as living examples.
4:34,35 1 Kings 18:42 says that Elijah cast himself down in prayer. The Hebrew word occurs again only here, as if it was Elijah’s example which inspired Elisha likewise to cast himself down upon the child. The implication is that Elisha did so in prayer; and we wonder whether this implies that Elijah’s stretching himself upon another child, although a different Hebrew word, was also in prayer (1 Kings 17:21). Elijah’s prayerful example inspired another. Our attitude to prayer is so easily influential upon others, and we ourselves are likewise easily influenced. It should be no shame nor embarrassment to us to instantly break into prayer, nor to kneel down to further our intensity in prayer, regardless of the social embarrassment this may involve in some cultures. But we have to ask: Do we cast ourselves down in prayer as Elijah and Elisha? Do we know that kind of intensity in prayer?
4:42,43 This incident presents Elisha as a clear type of Christ, who did the same in His feeding miracles (Mk. 8:6-8). Those who know God's word will find encouragement there in their experiences of life- but that encouragement is dependent upon their appreciation of the word, and their ability to see the similarities between their situation and that of others who have gone before. An example is to be found in the way the Lord told the disciples to feed the crowd, when they had nothing to give them (Mk. 6:37). He was actually quoting from :42, where the man of God told his servant to do the same. He gave what bread he had to the people, and miraculously it fed them. The disciples don't seem to have seen the point; otherwise, they would have realized that if they went ahead in faith, another such miracle would likely be wrought. But it seems that God almost over-ruled them to make the response of the faithless servant of :43: "Shall we... give them to eat?" (Mk. 6:37). They were almost 'made' to do this to make them later see the similarity with the 2 Kings 4 incident. If they had been more spiritually aware at the time, the Lord's quotation would have been an encouragement for their faith.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iatFw_rty3Q
sermon: https://youtu.be/-Q7EjjZBi4g
commentary:
5:3 The girl said this in total faith; because at that time, no lepers had been healed by Elisha in Israel (Lk. 4:27). This girl had great spirituality; she had been taken captive by the Syrians (:2) and so had almost certainly been raped and abused, and now she was a domestic slave, possibly still liable to abuse. But she so loved her enemies that she wanted the army commander to be healed- when he was the visible figurehead of the organization (i.e. the Syrian army) which had abused her.
5:9,10 Naaman was the chief of the Syrian army and could easily have killed Elisha or destroyed his home. But Elisha isn’t courteous to him, doesn’t open the door of his home, but just sends someone to Naaman to tell him to go and wash in Jordan. This wasn’t rudeness, but rather a desire for Naaman to respond to God’s word. Sometimes God presents His word to us in such a way, without any attractive packaging, just bald demands- to test and develop our obedience.
5:14 The way Naaman was effectively born again by dipping in water looks forward to Christian baptism, which also requires humility to accept.
5:15,16 Elisha was accustomed to thinking of himself in terms of a man who stood before Yahweh, in His presence, before His face (3:14 Hebrew). Naaman and his "company" 'stood before' Elisha. Remember that this was the Syrian army General, standing with a "company" in Israelite territory, at Elisha's house- at a time when 'companies' of Syrian soldiers carried out raids upon Israel (:2). Any Israelite would've been terrified. But Elisha responds that he 'stands before' Yahweh more than before Naaman (:16). Elisha was so aware of how we live in God's presence, before His very face, that he wasn't the least phased by this. If only we can share this sense, of standing in God's presence... the most frightening of human situations will have little effective 'presence' because we know we are ultimately in God's presence, 24/7. But how, concretely and actually, did Elisha come to have this serenity? A clue is to be found in how in 6:17, Elisha prays that God will open the eyes of his frightened servant to behold the Angelic horses and chariots around him. Elisha was so confident they were there, that he didn't ask to see them himself. He knew they were there; he simply asked that his servant be enabled to see the unseen reality which he calmly knew was there. He of course had had first hand experience of the Angelic horses and chariots (a kind of cherubim) when he had been parted from Elijah in 2:11. This must have left an abiding impression upon him- he knew that those Angelic horses and chariots were in fact permanently encamped around him (cp. Ps. 34:7). And so we see significance in the way that Naaman came to Elisha's house with his horses and chariot- for this is surely a development of a theme of connection between Elisha, horses and chariots (:9). Most other Israelites would've been petrified to have the horses and chariots of Naaman and a company of Syrians pull up at their door. But Elisha was quite unphased. He didn't even bother coming out to meet Naaman, knowing this was an insult to Naaman's pride, and was humanly certain to result in Naaman simply killing him and burning his house. Surely the horses-chariot-Elisha connection taught Elisha that in fact there were Angelic horses and chariots around him- he need not fear any human horse and chariot. There is no hint that Angelic activity is any less  for us today.
5:17 This shows that Naaman was influenced by the surrounding superstition that one could only worship a god of another nation whilst on their soil. But this is not explicitly corrected by Elisha; he simply but powerfully comments: “Go in peace”. In other words, Elisha was saying that the peace experienced by Naaman in his daily life was so wondrous that it obviated the need for worshipping on Israeli soil. This is a similar approach to that taken by Jesus with regard to demons. See on 5:27.
5:18 This disproves the theory of guilt by association. God was willing to tolerate this believer in Him still being associated with a pagan religion. This concession to weakness shouldn’t be used to justify us in living lives which are indistinguishable from those of unbelievers; we are the light of the world, and if we hide that light, then it will go out (Mt. 5:14). But there are times when our faith in the true God is a matter of the heart, and our external appearance may have to be otherwise because of the life situation we are in; and God is understanding of that, as we should be towards other believers. And yet Naaman chose a lower level of serving God than he could have chosen. The higher level would surely have been, as Daniel’s friends, not to bow down to an idol. And when we ask what the rest of the Jews in Babylon did on that occasion, it seems hard to avoid the conclusion that they took the lower level which Naaman did- and bowed down. But when we choose a lower level of service, God works to inspire us to take higher levels- see on 6:11.
5:27 The idea of transference of disease from one to another was a common Semitic perception, and it’s an idea accommodated by God although it’s incorrect. God threatened to make the diseases of the inhabitants of Canaan and Egypt to cleave to Israel if they were disobedient (Dt. 28:21,60). Here too, as with the curing of Legion, there is Divine accommodation to the ideas of disease transference which people had at the time. This explains why the New Testament can speak of ‘demons’ whilst also denying their actual existence- it’s an accommodation to the ideas of the time. This is in harmony with similar accommodations in the Old Testament. See on 5:17.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjZRYLREl2A
commentary:
6:11 Naaman wanted to be a secret believer, even bowing down to Rimmon to keep his boss happy. God seems to have allowed this, but He worked in Naaman’s life, so that his faith was no longer secret. For soon after his conversion, his master got the hunch that one of his courtiers was “for the king of Israel”. And Naaman would have been the obvious suspect, as he had gone to Israel and been cured of his leprosy by an Israeli prophet. We then read that the army of Syria came against Elisha the prophet and sought to surround him in order to capture him. They were then judged by God. Could it really be so that Naaman would have led that army? Surely the situation arose so as to force Naaman to resign the job. Thus God worked to stop him being a secret believer, and to remove him from a position where he could not live with a free conscience before the Father. And so God will do in our lives- if we respond.

6:17 Elisha saw with the eyes of faith that the horses and chariots of their enemies were matched by the Angel cherubim around them. He was so certain they were there that he didn’t need to physically see them for himself, but he asked that the eyes of his servant would be opened to see them. We imagine Peter walking confidently through the dark streets with his Angel next to him, and then perhaps phased for a moment by the Angel’s disappearance. But the truth is that the Angel walked with him through every street he ever walked along (Acts 12:10). The actual presence of the Angels in our lives ought to motivate us to live as in the presence of God; the fact we don’t physically see them doesn’t mean they aren’t literally present (1 Cor. 11:10; 1 Tim. 5:21; see on 1 Kings 18:15). See on 5:15,16.
6:23 The showing of such great grace, to the extent of making a feast for them, stopped the aggression recurring. Grace is ultimately the only way to conflict resolution.
6:33 This evil is from Yahweh- Evil in the sense of disaster comes from God; it’s not true that only good things come from God and all negative things from some cosmic ‘Satan’; both good and “evil” come from God (Is. 45:5-7).
Why should I wait for Yahweh any longer?- Elisha here has an apparent roughness with the Almighty that could only surely come from his knowing that God fully viewed and knew his inner feelings; and so like David in some of the Psalms, he speaks his rough thoughts before God just as they are, because he knows God sees them anyway. Elisha’s roughness with God isn’t good, but it does reflect a level of intimacy with God which is commendable.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEJ3Elj45JU
commentary:
7:2 If Yahweh made windows in heaven- He forgot that there are windows in Heaven (Gen. 7:11; Mal. 3:10) through which blessing can be given. He believed in God's existence. But he didn't think this God could do much, and he doubted whether He would ever practically intervene in human affairs. We must be aware of this same tendency.
7:4 These utterly desperate men were chosen by God to be the heralds of good news (:9)- the Gospel. He uses desperate people today, even middle class comfortable people who perceive their desperation, as the means of His witness.
7:8 Jesus used this as the basis for His parable about the man who finds the Gospel, as the treasure in a field, and hides it (Mt. 13:44). But surely He intended us to think of what those men did afterwards. They even felt that woe would be unto them if they did not share the good news of what they had found. The same joyful urgency must be ours; and there is a “woe” unto us if we don’t share that good news (1 Cor. 9:16).
7:18 Jehoshaphat was on balance a righteous man, but his association with the sinful family of Ahab (see on 3:7) led to his children going astray from God because of his weakness in that area, which they repeated (:28). Whilst we may retain the faith, our spiritual weaknesses can lead to our children losing it.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPStY-_UHTE
commentary:
8:5 There are no coincidences in the lives of those with whom God is working; there is meaning attached to events, and perceiving this will preserve us from the sense of meaninglessness and pointlessness which afflicts so many unbelievers.
8:9 Even unbelievers in their extremity try to turn to God; there is in all people some level of conscience toward God, a sense of their need for Him, however deeply buried it is. The task of preaching is to reach down through their defences and connect with that sense.
8:10 Here we see how God is aware of multiple possible futures. To see individuals time and again messing up what He has made potentially possible must be so sad for Him (see too Mt. 11:21,22).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSq32aNb1HM
commentary:
9:2 Jehu arising from amongst his brethren and being anointed pointed forward to how Christ was anointed with oil above His brethren- for He was of our nature, one of us (Heb. 1:9). Jehu could have been a Messiah figure, but his pride in later life stopped him realizing his potential.
9:19 Fall in behind me- The emphasis is on the word “me” (:18,32; 10:6). Jehu did God’s work at this time, and yet he was very self-centred in doing it, seeking a personal following and glory to himself rather than to God. Our involvement in God’s work doesn’t automatically make our attitudes correct in all ways. Jehu seems to have used his service of God as an outlet for his anger (:20). See on 10:11.
9:20 Truly our style of driving often reflects our inner state of mind.
9:27 Ahaziah failed to learn from Biblical history- that association with the wicked kings of Israel would be to his own hurt (see on 3:7; 7:18). The Bible is largely history, specially selected for us to learn from and discern the relevance to our own lives (Rom. 15:4).
9:36 This is the word of Yahweh- God’s word is put for its fulfilment- so certain is it of fulfilment.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTaoLXQP62Y
commentary:
10:11 This would seem unethical; Jehu was being wilfully aggressive and bloodthirsty, justifying it in the name of zeal for God. Likewise he killed Ahaziah simply on the basis of ‘guilt by association’ with Joram, and then killed 42 of Ahaziah’s relatives by taking ‘guilt by association’ to yet another degree (:14). Defence of God’s Truth must never become an outlet for our native anger and dysfunction; see on 9:19.
10:16 See my zeal for Yahweh- True zeal for God is never so overtly self projected. Pride in spirituality means we’re not spiritual and simply ‘don’t get it’. Claiming to be obedient to God’s word (:17) can never justify such spiritual pride; pride is utterly reprehensible to God and we likewise should turn away from it when we encounter it.
10:18 This deceitful behaviour is surely unethical. We cannot justify unethical behaviour in the name of obeying God and defending His Truth against apostasy. So many sins have been committed in the name of this. Elijah gathered together all the Baal worshippers to a showdown on Carmel, but he did so on a transparent basis.
10:30 Hosea says that the blood of Jezreel would be visited upon the house of Jehu (Hos. 1:4). At Jezreel, Jehu had killed Ahab’s family in a quite literal bloodbath. And God had commented that because Jehu had done this and thus fulfilled His word, Jehu’s family would reign for the next four generations. So why, then, does Hosea start talking about punishing the house of Jehu for what they did to the house of Ahab? Jehu became proud about the manner in which he had been the channel for God’s purpose to be fulfilled, inviting others to come and behold his zeal for God (:16). Jehu and his children showed themselves to not really be spiritually minded, and yet they prided themselves in having physically done God’s will. And because of this, Hosea talks in such angry terms about retribution for what they had done; the house of Jehu’s act of obedience to God actually became something his family had to be punished for, because they had done it in a proud spirit. We see this all the time around us. Men and women who clearly are instruments in God’s hand, like the Assyrians were, doing His will… but being proud about it and becoming exalted in their own eyes because of it. And God through Hosea is so sensitive to the awfulness of this.
10:31 Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of Yahweh- Jehu had been obedient to God’s word about Ahab’s family and Baal as an outlet for his own aggression, anger and pride. But Jehu clearly didn’t really have a heart for God, because he only focused on those aspects of God’s word which were convenient to him and reinforced his own personality type. An obsession with criticism of others for their doctrinal and moral weaknesses has often been passed off as zeal for God’s word, when the whole spirit of God’s word in other matters has been totally ignored. God asks for our devotion to His word in every part of our hearts and living, not just as a justification for what we naturally would like to do.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE_Nyywpg08
commentary:
11:1 In response to the murder of her son, Athaliah murdered others. The cycle of hurt continues like this in so many lives, doing to others what was done to us. Only the gospel of grace in Christ can break this cycle.
11:17 The covenant between Yahweh and the king was related to the covenant between the king and the people. Our covenant relationship with God isn't just between Him and us. It demands that we are in covenant with His people; we can't love Him that begat without loving those others begotten by Him (1 Jn. 4:9).
11:18 This purge of Baal worship came soon after Jehu’s purge of Baal worship (10:18). The reforms were obviously never far reaching. We can remove the external appearance of sin from our lives, but it will come back quickly unless we replace sinful practices with dedication to the true God. Otherwise, the void created will again be filled by sin, in one form or another. Breaking sinful habits must be followed up by replacing them with something spiritual, or else we will revert again to sin.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuhPYbAzWuI
commentary:
12:2 Our spirituality can be dominated by others for a time, but in the end, God wants us to have a personal relationship with Him- and therefore He has a way of removing all the props which we have had holding up our faith, and then we are left alone to directly engage with Him totally on our own initiative. This may account for some of the midlife crises of faith which there are amongst believers who were raised in the Faith.
12:18 He went away from Jerusalem- Sometimes our faithless actions appear to have worked out and bought us the deliverance we sought, but the parallel record in Chronicles makes it clear that Jehoash paid for this with the loss of his personal faith.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA6zGVUEoLM
commentary:
13:14 Elijah’s example clearly influenced Elisha, both in the nature of the miracles which he performed, and in how when Elisha died, he was likewise seen as “My father, the chariot of Israel, and the horseman thereof”. How Elisha related to Elijah, was how people came to relate to Elisha. This is not only a neat cameo of the immense personal influence which we have upon each other; it reflects how Elisha learnt the lesson from Elijah, which we too must learn, of freely and totally absorbing ourselves in the progress of God’s Angelic, cherubic work to bring about His glory and not our own. See on 2:12.
13:19 Yahweh in some ways and at some times allows Himself to be limited by the perceptions and faith of His people. If Joash had perceived deeper what Elisha meant and discerned the symbolism of the arrows, he would have smitten many times and the Syrian threat would have been eliminated entirely. But he didn’t, and therefore Elijah was frustrated with him; the great potential victory was limited by a man’s lack of spiritual perception. Whilst theoretical understanding alone can’t save anyone, it plays a part in the quality and nature of a person’s relationship with their God.
13:21 Jesus was the first person to be given immortality (1 Cor. 15:20,23); the people resurrected before His time must therefore have died again. God’s plan is that all His people will be rewarded with immortality together, at the final resurrection and judgment (Heb. 11:39,40; 2 Tim. 4:8).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kesj0G2S3Bs
commentary:
14:2 His mother’s name- So often this is mentioned in the records of the kings, teaching us the huge spiritual influence of a mother upon her children throughout their lives.
14:3 There are levels of devotion to God, reflected in the different levels of reward at the last day (Lk. 19:17-19; 1 Cor. 15:41). If we have a heart for God, we won’t be minimalists in His service; motivated by love for Him rather than any seeking of personal glory in the future, we will seek to always serve Him on the highest level we can. Amaziah served God on the same level as his father; our service of God shouldn’t be a living out of parental expectation, nor should we feel content and self satisfied because we serve God on the level of our parents. We are to be motivated by our personal engagement with the fact God has loved us and His Son died for us, rather than comparing ourselves amongst ourselves; for Christ is to be for us the only standard of comparison (2 Cor. 10:12). The common phrase in the record of the Kings of Judah "he did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh", used here in :3 about both Joash and Amaziah, is hard to conclusively interpret. Many of the men of whom this was said were not very righteous, and some (e.g. Uzziah, 15:34) were punished for their later apostasy. Possible explanations are that they repented at the end, although unrecorded; or that they were initially righteous; or that God counted them as righteous although they did wrong things. Or perhaps a man can do (and maybe this is the word that needs emphasis) what is right in God's eyes, but still ultimately be condemned because his heart is far from God. Amaziah "did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh, yet not like (i.e. he didn't do his works like) David his father" must be paralleled with 2 Chron. 25:2: "he did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh, but not with a perfect heart". Working for God as David did therefore involved doing the works with a perfect heart, the open conscience which David so often displayed in the Psalms. But Amaziah was deceived by the fact he was doing good works, and the real essence of his relationship with God was thereby overlooked. And we too can project a shadow-self to others, an image of spirituality, which eventually we come to believe ourselves; when our heart is far from God. This feature of human nature explains why a man or woman can reach such heights of devotion and then turn round and walk away from it all, out into the darkness of the world.
14:10 Success in the cut and thrust of worldly life shouldn’t lead us to have the same attitude to our brethren, even if we consider ourselves stronger than them spiritually. We shouldn’t treat our weaker brethren as if they are unbelieving worldlings; that was the mistake Amaziah made here.
14:12 Each man to his tent- Although by this time the people were living in houses, their home was described idiomatically as their ‘tent’ (8:21). This was a reflection of the fact that God always wants His people to live in recognition of the fact that this life isn’t permanent, we are travellers on a journey towards His future Kingdom, which will be our permanent home (Heb. 13:14). We need to bear this in mind in how we perceive our room, apartment, house or mansion in which we live. All is temporary, a mere tent on the journey; and our resources of time and money should go towards the final destination rather than our temporary abode.
14:26 We must watch out for the tendency to think that because a man has dug a hole and then fallen into it, well, that’s his problem. But we have all done this, hopelessly so. We only have ourselves to blame. And yet God has rushed to us in Christ. He was grieved for the affliction of Israel, even though it was purely due to their own sin and wilful rebellion. If a man has fallen into his own hole, he is still down there and needs help, however he got there.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhYtmH84mpY
commentary:
15:3 According to all that his father Amaziah had done- See on 14:3.
15:9 The sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, with which he made Israel to sin- This phrase runs like a refrain throughout the record of Israel’s kings. The sinfulness of sin is that it leads others into sin; Jeroboam’s sin influenced many generations to sin in the same way. The Biblical record so strongly emphasizes this. Our behaviour has more influence upon others, for good or for bad, than we may realize; and it continues after our death, even if in this life we may consider ourselves insignificant to others. Jeroboam’s sin was in creating another centre of worship apart from the temple; thus he divided God’s people. It could be argued that this sin of division was what was so extremely serious to God. Our divisive behaviour, or upholding the divisions created by others, will have serious consequence to the next generation of believers.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IT309sGBiY
commentary:
16:2 In the eyes of Yahweh- This could be a reference to the Angels. Although God can see and know and do all things directly of Himself, it seems He always prefers to work through some kind of mechanism. The Angels are perhaps the mechanism by which He is aware of all things in the lives of people on earth; we are continually in their presence, with them feeding back to God the situations on earth, and perhaps discussing them in the court of Heaven (1 Kings 22:22).
16:7 I am your servant and your son- Ahaz ought to have been aware that he was Yahweh’s servant and son, and that Yahweh’s claims upon us are total. We can’t serve two masters. Ahaz likely justified himself by arguing that this was merely a form of words which was common at the time; but words have meanings and power, and by them we shall be judged at the last day (Mt. 12:37). We use so many of them each day that we can forget their colossal significance to God.
16:13 He offered a peace offering, when actually he was not at peace with God at all (other examples in 1 Sam. 13:9; Prov. 7:14; Am. 5:22). We must examine ourselves to know whether we are at peace with God before offering the “peace offering” of the breaking of bread service.
16:20 Wicked kings usually had wicked sons, but good king Hezekiah demonstrates that bad parents don’t have to have bad children; the power of God’s word is such that the vicious circle can be broken. For in God’s word and for those baptized into Christ, there is the power of new creation whereby we can be genuinely born again (Jn. 3:3-5; 2 Cor. 5:17).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0axg9Jj8Lc
commentary:
22:11 Josiah lived a life pleasing to God, as did others of his generation, and yet he was in ignorance of all the details of God’s law. Full knowledge, even of some quite important things, didn't stop Josiah from being credited with doing what was right before God and not 'turning aside to the right hand or to the left' (:2). He was judged according to how well he responded to that which he did know. And this may be a helpful window for us into how we should feel towards those who sincerely seek to follow the Lord and yet with imperfect knowledge. Time and again the prophets judged Israel according to their "ways", rather than according to their theological or academic knowledge (Ez. 18:30). We must bear this in mind in considering the status of those who only have partial access to or understanding of God’s word. And yet once Josiah knew these words of God, he eagerly obeyed them as far as he could and asked for forgiveness for his disobedience to them- thus recognizing that sins of ignorance are still a felt offence against God. Our ignorance doesn’t stop Him being hurt by our disobedience, just as others’ ignorance doesn’t mean they don’t hurt us by their inappropriate words or actions. Hence sins of ignorance still required atonement under the Law of Moses.
22:13 It would seem that the part of the book of the law which was found included God’s threatened judgments against Israel for their disobedience; it was “the book of the covenant” (23:2) and likely included the curses of Lev. 26 and Dt.28. Yet Jeremiah comments that when this was discovered, this word of God was for him the joy and rejoicing of his heart and he fed on it with joy (Jer. 15:16). All of God’s word, including those parts of the Old Testament which some may consider as repetitive judgments which we’d rather not read, should be fed on by us and be some source of joy to us.
22:14 The fact that a woman was a prophetess at this time shows that women aren’t always disqualified from speaking forth God’s word.
22:19 Your heart was tender- How is our response when a new understanding of the word's teaching in practical, everyday issues stares us in the face from the pages of Scripture?


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmdfQm14sg4
commentary:
23:3 God had promised Josiah that all would be well in his lifetime, but He would judge the next generation for their sins. Josiah learnt the lesson of Hezekiah, who appeared to be satisfied with that (see on 20:19); for Josiah launches a major campaign to return Judah to Yahweh and to re-enter covenant with Him. It seems that Josiah believed that Judah’s repentance could really change the intention of God to destroy Israel in the next generation. We too should have this kind of concern for the body of believers in the next generation, rather than being merely content that we ourselves remain in fellowship with God.
23:4 When last did you read / understand something from Scripture, and then get up and do something real, concrete and actual about it? Josiah discovered the book of the Law- and he then went on to do something about it in practice. Reflect through what he did: Passover kept in Jerusalem (23:21-23) = Dt. 16:1-8; removed Asherahs (23:4,6,14) = Dt. 12:3; 16:21; star worship (23:4,11) = Dt. 17:3; the ‘high places’ and cults (23:8-20) = Dt. 12; child sacrifice (23:10) =  Dt. 12:31; 18:10; the cultic stones (23:14) = Dt. 12:3; 16:22; conjuring up the dead (23:24) = Dt. 18:11. It would seem that Josiah was motivated by Deuteronomy 12-18, perhaps this was part of the book of the covenant which was discovered. Here we have a man who allowed Scripture to live in his life, and who was immediately motivated by it to tangible action. His was not a religion of fine Sunday morning words, intellectually admired and aesthetically pleasing. The word should likewise be made flesh in us as it was in Christ. What is required is passionate, real, actual, tangible, concrete action and re-action to what we read and understand.
23:7 The fact these sexual abominations were committed within the temple of God suggests that they had become part of the ritual of Yahweh worship, in the same way as the letters of Paul and Christ to the churches suggest that sexual immorality became part of apostate Christian worship in the first century. The tendency to mix spirituality with illicit sexuality has always been a temptation for the people of God and one of their most persistent weaknesses; we must beware of it.
23:21 The Law of Moses stated that Israel must keep the Passover, and if they didn’t, or kept it incorrectly, then their covenant relationship with God would be fractured (Num. 9:13). But it seems that whilst the legislation about the Passover had been lost, they hadn’t kept the Passover properly, if at all. And yet there were many faithful individuals who lived during that time when the book was lost who still retained relationship with God. This is no reason to conclude that obedience to God’s covenant is irrelevant, or that it’s all simply a matter of the heart and conscience; but it does show the extent of God’s eager acceptance of people despite their ignorance of His word.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU2AWkSW-cA
commentary:
24:1 Three years- During which time the attacks of :2 occurred. This corresponds exactly with other indications that in the latter day judgment of Israel there will be an extended period of Arab raiding and desolation of Israel (for three and a half years?), culminating in the final invasion of the land by 'Babylon' and her smaller Arab allies in order to take Jerusalem.
24:3 For the sins of Manasseh- A whole community can be damaged by the long term influence and consequence of one man’s sin, even if he later repents as Manasseh did.
24:20 God’s anger was such that He propelled Zedekiah and Judah further down the downward spiral they had chosen. He has the ability to give people mindsets and to make decisions which are humanly unwise; and we see Him doing this here, by making Zedekiah rebel against the king of Babylon, when this was political suicide. And yet as the book of Jeremiah makes clear, God at the same time was pleading with Zedekiah through the prophet Jeremiah to repent. So whilst God confirms people in the downward spiral in which they chose to go, He still earnestly seeks their repentance and doesn’t abandon them totally until they themselves have totally broken away from Him and He can do no more without excessively controlling their own freewill.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er_378CTSlc
commentary:
25:2 The city was entered into- Judging Israel like this wasn’t done by God in a flash of anger, but after huge internal turmoil. He had passionately declared in an outburst of love for His wayward people “I will not enter into the city” (Hos. 11:9- the same Hebrew word is used as here). His condemnation of His people is very hard for Him, and is a result of much thinking, re-thinking and struggle about it (Hos. 11:8). Those believers who fear God will condemn them should take comfort from this- that He reveals Himself as struggling within Himself about doing this, and it is not something He wishes to do.
25:5 Overtook him in the plains of Jericho- The parable of the good Samaritan speaks about a man taking this same journey, from Jerusalem to Jericho, and being attacked and overcome on the way- and yet restored by grace (Lk. 10:30). The injured man of the parable represents each of us; and yet he is based upon Zedekiah, who had been given every opportunity to heed God’s word through Jeremiah and yet through human weakness and peer pressure had not done so. Zedekiah in all his pathetic weakness represents each of us; Christ, the good Samaritan, really does save each of us by grace alone.
25:19 Those who saw the king’s face- This is a technical term describing the king’s inner circle. Yet we are promised that we shall see God’s face at Christ’s return (Job 19:25-27; Rev. 22:4). The prospect is wonderful, almost beyond our grasp to comprehend- that we shall be as it were in God’s inner circle, at the very hub of all existence, His special friends. We who are so weak, dysfunctional, often disinterested and limited; we shall be His special people, forever and ever. See on :29.
25:25 The fact Ishmael, one of the royal family of Judah still at large, killed the Chaldean garrison would have suggested that the response of the Chaldeans would have been to destroy all the Jews who were left in the land. But strangely there’s no record of this. Coupling this with the information in :28 that the king of Babylon for no apparent reason showed great kindness to the king of Judah, we are left with the impression that despite all Judah’s sin and the inevitable punishment, God’s grace shone through and He didn’t punish them as their iniquities deserved, but in wrath remembered mercy and grace (Ezra 9:13), perhaps in specific response to Habakkuk’s prayer for this to be the case (Hab. 3:2).
25:29 To eat bread at the king’s table was a sign of special favour. And yet Jesus, King of the cosmos, invites us to do this weekly, as if we are His specially favoured inner circle of friends; to refuse the table is strange indeed, and rejecting an amazing grace. See on :19.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYBtvLzodVU
commentary:
2:4 Israel's sinfulness seems to be emphasized in the various 'interruptions' in the flowing list of names. Thus it is sometimes stressed that a man did not have many children (e.g. :4,6,16), as if to indicate that God's blessing was not with him (there seems an undoubted connection in Old Testament times between blessing and number of sons). Thus information such as that Jether died without children, Sheshan had no sons but daughters, Shimei had sixteen sons and six daughters; but his brothers had few children (2:32,34; 4:27) … all this would have been read as highly significant in spiritual terms. Some outstanding weaknesses amongst the patriarchs are recorded (e.g. 5:1), and the fact that the duty of the priests was to make an atonement for Israel (6:49) appears to be an obvious detail added in passing- until it is appreciated that these genealogies are highlighting the historical weakness of Israel. This is one of the major lessons from Chronicles.
2:12 Boaz's marriage to a Gentile is not highlighted; simply "Boaz begat Obed", whereas others' marriage out of the faith is recorded in the same chapter (2:3,34). The same action- in this case, marriage to a Gentile- can be done by different people with different motives. For one it may be an act of righteousness, for another- a sin. Thus when Uzziah acted as a priest he was condemned for it (2 Chron. 26:17-21), but when David (as a non-Levite also) did the same, it was a reflection of his spirituality. Seeing the inner motives and spirituality of others are hidden to us, we must be very careful not to judge by outward appearances; and we must resign all ultimate judgment to God, not least because of our total inability to make it.
2:16 Zeruiah was a sister of David, and David laments how her sons were very “hard” (2 Sam. 3:39; 16:10; 19:22). The fact that the hardness of those three men seems to be associated with their mother would lead us to conclude that David's sister Zeruiah was an extremely hard woman. Inevitably there must have been strands of hardness in David too (consider his treatment of Uriah, his intended massacre of Nabal's encampment, torturing the Ammonites etc.); and yet more often than not, we get the impression that David was a real softy. His experience of life made him progressively more soft, whilst his sister and nephews went the other way. Truly could he comment towards the end of it all that God’s gentleness had made him great (2 Sam. 22:36).
2:18 It’s unusual for the name of the wives or mothers to be recorded as we have here and in :24; perhaps the idea is to show the significance of women in Caleb’s family.
2:22 Some Jews reject our belief that Jesus is the promised seed of Abraham and David by claiming that Hebrew genealogy wasn’t reckoned through women in Biblical times. But that isn’t the case. We see here that Jair's father was of the tribe of Judah, yet in Num.32:41 he is described as "the son of Manasseh", showing that his mother must have been of the tribe of Manasseh. His descent was reckoned through his mother rather than his father. Likewise :34 records that Sheshan "had no sons, but daughters". According to the objection that genealogy cannot be reckoned through the woman, Sheshan would have no subsequent genealogy. However, he is described in :31 as having a son, presumably from the fact that he gave his daughter in marriage to his Egyptian servant (:34). Thus his seed was still reckoned through a woman. Note that Hiram is described as "the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan" (2 Chron.2:14).
2:46 Some of the names given to children seem to hint at a weakness in the parents. One wonders why Caleb called his illegitimate son "Haran”, after the city which Abraham left behind in order to attain God's promises.
2:48 Caleb’s concubine- The genealogies seem to stress the weakness and occasional strength of the people of God. Occasionally the list of names is interrupted by a piece of information which indicates God's awareness of their spirituality. For example, the fact some men had more than one wife or a wife from a nation other than Israel is often recorded (as here and also in 1:32; 2:3,26,35; 4:18; 5:1; 7:14; 8:8). The way these interruptions occur in the lists of names stands out. This is surely to indicate two things: that many faithful men made mistakes in this area of life, and secondly that all down the centuries God has not forgotten that they married out of the faith, or that they allowed the pressures of their surrounding world to influence them to break away from the ideal one man: one woman standard of Eden. These two facts provide us with both warning and comfort, in that although God is sensitive to failure, He is still able to justify men, to count them as if they are righteous for the sake of their covenant relationship with Him, even though (e.g.) their married life was not completely in order.
2:54 Bethlehem clearly refers to the city rather than a person of that name. Chronicling which Israelite families came from which towns in Judah confirms the suggestion made on 1:1 that these records were written up in the context of the return from exile clarifying who came from which town (see too 4:28-34).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTNfTiGur64
commentary:
3:3 Solomon wished to imitate his father David; his own real personality only came out in the Ecclesiastes years, when he took to alcohol, materialism, women and idolatry. It took the influence of his parents many years to wear off. David had weaknesses for horses (2 Sam. 8:4) and many wives; and Solomon followed in these steps too. Note here that David had six sons in seven years by six different women, including Gentiles. And in addition to these, David had children by “the concubines” (:9). Doubtless Solomon reasoned, albeit deep within his psyche, that such behaviour was legitimate because David his father had done it.
3:9 The repeated reference to the possession of concubines can be read as an indication of Israel's weakness in abandoning the ideal standards of God regarding marriage. Yet we read that even David had concubines- as if to show the extent of Israel's weakness in the area of marriage.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb3fNsc3iZA
commentary:
4:10 This is an example of spiritual ambition, requesting that their border be enlarged, at the expense of driving out neighbouring Canaanite tribes. Jesus uses Jabez’s phrase “Keep me from evil” and inserts it into His model prayer, "deliver us from evil” (Mt. 6:13).
4:24 The sons of Simeon were Nemuel, Jamin... and Shaul- But Gen. 46:10 shows that Shaul was Simeon's son by a wrong, casual relationship. Yet this is not recorded in Chronicles, even though so many other weaknesses are. Perhaps this is to demonstrate how if God imputes righteousness for a repented of sin, there really is no record of this kept by Him.
4:32 See on 6:61.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7V6vv8H1h0
commentary:
5:4 Gog is mentioned in Ez. 38 as leading a latter day invasion of Israel. The background to 'Gog' given here is that he was an apostate Jew who went away from the God of Israel, attracted by the grazing grounds to the north east of Israel, and who eventually ended up living permanently in the land of Israel's enemies, the land of the Hagarenes (sons of Hagar) and Assyria. The Gog of Ez. 38 may well be an apostate Jew (after the pattern of Rabshakeh) who leads an invasion of his ancient homeland. He attacks because he loves cattle (Ez. 38:11,12)- which was a characteristic of the Gog of 1 Chron. 5.
5:26 God… stirred up the spirit of Pul- God is able to work directly on the mind or spirit of people, even of unbelievers. What we are desperate for is spiritual mindedness, strength of mind / spirit against the flesh; and surely God is willing to give this to us if we ask Him.
To this day- This implies the Chronicles were written whilst Judah were in captivity; the genealogical records therefore had primary relevance to the exiles returning to Judah.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFfC-E2i8Ec
commentary:
6:57,58 The cities of refuge represented Christ as the ultimate place of refuge for those like us who have sinned, deserve to die, and yet didn’t wilfully sin (Heb. 6:18). It should be noted that these cities were generally in areas which required some effort to get to- in the wilderness, in the mountains (:67) etc. This teaches that there must be some conscious effort on our side in fleeing to Christ; repentance and entry into Christ aren’t momentary actions, they are highly deliberate and conscious acts from us. Jesus likewise went up into a mountain and invited those seriously interested in Him to come to Him there (Mk. 3:13).
6:61 Ten cities- The parable of the pounds describes the reward of the faithful in terms of being given ten or five cities (Lk. 19:17). This idea of dividing up groups of cities was surely meant to recall the way Israel in their wilderness years were each promised their own individual cities and villages, which they later inherited. The idea of inheriting "ten cities" occurs here and in Josh. 15:57; 21:5,26, all in the context of the priests receiving their cities, and "five cities" in 4:32. As each Israelite was promised some personal inheritance in the land, rather than some blanket reward which the whole nation received, so we too have a personal reward prepared. The language of inheritance (e.g. 1 Pet. 1:4) and preparation of reward (Mt. 25:34; Jn. 14:1) in the New Testament is alluding to this Old Testament background of the land being prepared by the Angels for each person amongst God’s people to specifically inherit (Ex. 15:17; 23:20; Ps. 68:9,10). Our promised inheritance is not only eternal life; it is something being personally prepared for each of us. The language of preparation seems inappropriate if our reward is simply eternal life; it is the nature of that life which is of the essence.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ-gSCE30EY
commentary:
7:14 His concubine the Aramitess- Here and so often in the genealogies we have evidence that from earliest times, the Jews weren’t ethnically pure. And intermarriage with Gentiles has continued to be a feature of the community throughout the millennia. Jewishness is therefore cultural more than genetic; which provides another perspective on Paul’s argument that fleshly descent from Abraham counts for nothing.
7:15 Zelophehad had only daughters; usually, in his context, a man would have taken concubines in order to produce sons. The record of his only having daughters is presented in the context of genealogies which show that many Israelite men had more than one wife. But Zelophehad wasn’t dragged down by this; God inspired him to maintain the higher level which he had chosen to live by. We too must seek to do what is ultimately right before God and not be influenced by the standards of our brethren who surround us in the body of believers.
7:24 One feature of these genealogies is that they mention the significance of women as mothers and wives by naming them; and the achievements of women like Sherah, who built Beth-Horon. This sharply contrasts with contemporary king lists of the time, which mention only the males and their exploits. This indicates that the Bible isn’t as it were anti-women, as has been ignorantly claimed, but rather God’s perception of the value and meaning of the human person is such that His word is very positive about women.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_dSMKM-VZc
commentary:
8:8 It would seem that the genealogies of the books of Chronicles, with all their emphasis on the priesthood and temple service under Solomon, were produced at the time of the restoration- in order to encourage the people to restore the Kingdom of God as it had been, and thereby bring in the Kingdom. References to “Jeconiah the captive” (3:17) make sense in the context of the records being written up in the captivity. And we can understand why the story of Shaharaim is mentioned here- a Jewish refugee in Moab, who sent away his two Gentile wives [cp. what was done in Ezra 10:44] but ended up being blessed with more children. “Seven sons” would’ve been understood as a completeness of blessing. Note that God still recognized his later wife as just that- his wife, even though he had been married previously. No sin or failure leads to a position whereby someone is intrinsically unable to be accepted by God.
8:30-34 When a passage is repeated twice, surely God wishes us to perceive something. 8:30-34 is repeated in 9:36-40. The reason may be that the name 'Baal' was used by the leaders of Israel. Gibeon's children included Kish and Baal, Kish's son was king Saul, Saul had a son called Eshbaal as well as Jonathan, David's beloved friend; and Jonathan had a son called Merib Baal. These are not the names as recorded elsewhere; the Chronicles record is highlighting the fact that there was a strand of weakness for idols in the family of Saul, including in faithful Jonathan. We note that his love of God, of David, his appreciation of David's righteousness, his belief that David would have the future Kingdom, struggled against the fact that the worldly influence of his father and great-grandfather still rubbed off upon him. We find ourselves so often in similar situations.
8:33 In all close friendships there are some aspects which just could not have been contrived by human arrangement, and which add to the closeness and sense of specialness which those relationships have. There were such aspects with David and Jonathan, intensifying the love of David for Jonathan. For example, it was a beautiful coincidence that they both happened to have a brother called Abinadab (1 Sam. 16:8).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyP2yODbR08
commentary:
9:17-19 The genealogy of the sons of Korah is significant in that Korah was the ringleader of the rebellion against Moses which led to his destruction. His children however obeyed the command to leave the tents of their father Korah when he was consumed in the earthquake. Num. 16:27 mentions Dathan and Abiram's children standing outside their tents at this time, but there is the pointed omission of Korah's children; they had left the tents, in recognition of Korah’s sin and dissociation from it. The descendants of Korah wrote at least 11 of the Psalms and protected the purity of temple worship. Conscious dissociation from sin is required of us; and it’s often very hard, especially when it concerns family members. We also learn from this family that the spiritual failure of a father figure doesn’t have to mean that the rest of the family likewise fail; in fact, they can learn from the tragedy and become strengthened spiritually by responding to God’s judgment of sin as He intends.
9:22 Their office of trust- As any employer soon learns, delegation is a risk. We have been “entrusted with the Gospel” (Tit. 1:3); the world God so wants to love, the world God is appealing to, do not directly see Him; for He makes His appeal through us. We are all that many people will ever see of Christ; for we are His body. God has trusted us with representing Him, and put His work into our hands. Those who did God’s work in the Old Testament temple were similarly given a “trust”, they were entrusted with God’s work.
9:40 There are clear connections between Jonathan and Gideon; compare 1 Sam.14:10-20 with Jud.7:3,10,11,14,22. Jonathan's son was called Merib Baal , meaning 'rebellion against Baal', an epithet for 'Gideon'. It’s not wrong to have Biblical heroes, and to be inspired by their examples in the life decisions we make, even to the naming of our children.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJx6fS6FNWo
sermon: https://youtu.be/Pjvqdw0x6g4
commentary:
10:4 Although the armour bearer was one of Saul’s men, in the anti-David camp, yet David’s example of not killing Saul must have deeply influenced him. We do make a difference. We have more influence upon others than we may think. It can be that an illiterate sister in a male dominated society can think that her attendance at church meetings cannot encourage anyone. It can be that the Christian stockbroker feels that it is impossible for him to influence those he works with. But we do have influence. We have become so humiliated by a shame based society that we can underestimate the value and power of our own personhood.
10:13 Against Yahweh, against the word of Yahweh- God and His word are here paralleled; for “the word was [and is] God” (Jn. 1:1). Our attitude to God’s word is our attitude to Him.
10:13,14 Just before his final fight with the Philistines, "Saul enquired of Yahweh (but) Yahweh answered him not" (1 Sam. 28:6), and therefore he went to a witch. But in God's final analysis of Saul, Yahweh says that He smote Saul because Saul sinned against God's word by not enquiring of God, but of a witch. But Saul did enquire of God (see 1 Sam. 14:27 s.w.; 28:6), but God didn't answer him (note how often in the records it is stated by contrast that David enquired successfully of Yahweh). The point is that although Saul prayed to God and enquired of His word on the surface, in his heart, he did nothing of the sort; and therefore his prayer and enquiry was reckoned never to have happened. And we must ask how much of our prayer and Bible study is seen by God as being only spoken and read on a surface level. This was exactly the problem of natural Israel. "They have not cried unto Me with their heart, when they howled (in prayer) upon their beds" (Hos. 7:14). "Though they called them to the Most High, none at all would exalt Him" (Hos. 11:7).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2b8qflbud0
sermon: https://youtu.be/kCysIUELVWA
commentary:
11:1 We are your bone and your flesh- An idiom meaning that they were in every sense his brethren. Here and in 2 Sam. 19:12 the phrase is used in the context of human beings wanting to have someone exactly like them, of their ‘bone and flesh’, as their leader. We find the same term used in Eph. 5:30, where we are told that those who are baptized into the body of Christ have in Him someone of their own bone and flesh; He urges His disciples to physically touch His bones and flesh after His resurrection to make the same point, that despite His changed nature, we can totally identify with Him and He with us because He too was totally human (Lk. 24:39). Hence Hebrews 2 labours the point that because Jesus was of our nature, therefore and thereby is He our inspiration and spiritual leader. In this we see the importance of understanding the nature of Christ properly, and the practical spiritual advantage of rejecting the Trinitarian view of Jesus.
11:18 David is a type of Christ; the loyalty he inspired amongst his men was a foretaste of the effect Christ should have upon us. See on :23.
11:19 That water came to represent the lives or blood of those men. We see here a basis for understanding the wine at the communion service; it represents life, the life of Christ; the water here was just water, and the wine we drink is just wine, but it represents the life of another.
11:22 Benaiah killed a lion in order to prepare him for killing two lionlike men. God often works like this, using one experience in life to prepare us for another one.
11:23 This act of bravery was clearly inspired by how David had killed Goliath, which speaks of Christ’s victory over sin on the cross. This should be repeated in essence by us in our spiritual battles. See on :18.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpvWTVQWC3U
commentary:
12:1 Those who followed David in his wilderness years were remembered by God by name for millennia afterwards. They became leaders in David’s Kingdom after the death of Saul. We who follow Christ now, even though at times it may seem we are supporting a humanly hopeless case, will finally be rewarded in the future Kingdom.
12:14 This alludes to how one faithful man would chase one thousand unbelievers (Dt. 32:30). We could infer that those who followed David in the wilderness years came to faith in God although perhaps they initially came to him more because of their own dissatisfaction with life (1 Sam. 22:2; Ps. 57:4). Some start their spiritual journey with one motivation and yet become more spiritual over time, influenced by Godly examples like David.
12:17 There is no wrong in my hands- Saul had falsely accused David of many things, but he refused to take false guilt because of them. When we are under false accusation, we tend to become very self-justificatory and refuse to accept true guilt before God (as opposed to before men) for our real sins, for which we should feel guilty. David sets a great example to us here and in his Psalms about these matters; he refuses to accept he had done anything wrong to Saul, and yet openly confesses his real sins to God.
12:22 David’s army increased, until it became “a great army, like the army of God”. The parallel between David’s men and the Angelic hosts is clear. Significantly, the Angelic armies that destroyed the Syrians are called ‘a great army’ in 2 Kings 7:6. Asa and his army defeated the Ethiopians- and it’s described as them being “destroyed before Yahweh and before His army” (2 Chron. 14:13). Again, the hosts of Israel become the hosts of God. Significantly in this context, 11:9 speaks of David’s God as Yahweh of Armies. As the cherubim visions demonstrated, we on earth are to be reflective of God’s heavenly armies, and if we walk in step with them, victory is assured. See on 14:15.
12:23 Those who supported David at this time were very significant to God, and their numbers have been recorded for millennia in His word. Our support for Christ’s cause in this world is highly significant to God, and He likewise remembers all the moments when we have in one way or another stood up for His cause in an unbelieving and spiritually hostile world.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW2VA0UpvLw
sermon: https://youtu.be/NU1TPCB7EH8
commentary:
13:2 If it seems good to you, and if it is of Yahweh our God- Alluded to in Acts 15:25,28, where the elders of the new Israel, the church, said that it ‘seemed good unto them and to the Holy Spirit’ to bring Gentiles into the church. We see that in both cases, decisions weren’t taken just because it seemed right to a majority; they weren’t pure democrats. They recognized another, Divine, element in decision making which was over and above the simple will of men, even if they were believers.
13:10 Uzza was a Levite but not a priest; and the Law clearly emphasized that the sons of Kohath were to carry the ark on staves on their shoulders, not on a cart as David was doing (Num. 4:15). David almost boasted in Ps. 119 that he studied God’s law day and night, but he obviously didn’t see the obvious; he blanked off those commands in his mind, assuming the spirit of serving God would make the details of God’s requirements superfluous. Because of our inattention to God’s word, others may die; and we also see that God’s holiness is never to be simply disregarded because we in one sense love Him and are joyful before Him. See on 15:2.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKYGjPs3rsg
sermon: https://youtu.be/ZtOIByD899k
commentary:
14:2 Any exaltation we may receive in life is ultimately for the benefit of God’s people, and not to be selfishly enjoyed just by ourselves.
14:14 God varied the pattern here as a test to David’s obedience, rather like He did to Moses in asking Him to speak to the rock rather than striking it. And He does the same in our lives too. Often God’s battle plans involved an initial turning away from the face of enemies, and then giving victory. To turn away from enemies was an indication of unworthiness and suffering for sin (Dt. 28:25). God wished to teach that victory can only come if we accept our unworthiness of that victory, and how as sinners we deserve only defeat.
14:15 The “sound of marching” was of the Angel cherubim. David was being taught that victory only comes through walking in step with the armies of Heaven which are above; see on 12:22.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmd-xxhZff8
sermon: https://youtu.be/XxG2iYTVHBA
commentary:
15:2 It took some time for David to repent over his failure in transporting the ark of God in disobedience to God’s commands (see on 13:10). The lag time between sin and repentance ought to be as short as possible; we see a similar lag time in the gap between David’s sin with Bathsheba and his repentance for it. God will work in our lives to bring us to repentance, but this often involves much suffering to ourselves and others; that can all be avoided if we have a sensitive conscience to God’s word and the humility to repent immediately. Yet even here, David appears to shift the blame from himself onto others (:13). Repentance has various shades and degrees, and God seeks totality of repentance and acceptance of the fact we personally have sinned.
15:12 The place that I have prepared for it- David’s bringing the ark to the place which he had prepared is the basis of Christ’s words in Jn. 14:1-3. Clearly Christ saw David as Himself, and us as the ark. The ‘bringing up’ or ‘lifting up’ of the ark (Heb.) to a permanent dwelling place has reference to the resurrection. And when the ark was finally brought or lifted up to Zion, David / Jesus dealt bread and wine to the people (16:3). One practical encouragement from this typology is that the memorial feast is a celebration that in fact we, the ark, have in prospect already been brought or lifted up into the eternal place prepared for us in the Kingdom.
15:13 David’s commission of good didn't outweigh his omission; we must take sins of omission seriously.
15:21 Obed-Edom- He was the one who had faithfully looked after the ark when others feared to have anything to do with it (13:14). He may have expected some great recognition for that, but he is listed along with many others as simply having a relatively small role in looking after it. If we are genuinely motivated by wishing to simply serve God’s people and maintain His presence amongst His people, we will not seek for recognition or status for it.
15:29 Despised him in her heart- The feelings we have about our brethren and their service of God are recorded indelibly by God.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l8mpBxnhd4
sermon: https://youtu.be/XxG2iYTVHBA
commentary:
16:2,3 Here and in 15:27 David acts as a priest, even though he was from the tribe of Judah and not Levi. On one hand, our understanding of the spirit and essence of God frees us from the need for literalistic obedience; but as David experienced at the time of the breach upon Uzza (13:10) and his sin with Bathsheba, this can lead us to disregard His principles to a point where it is counted as sin. On the other hand, when Uzziah acted as a priest he was condemned for it (2 Chron. 26:19-21). The same actions can be righteousness for one person and sin for another. In this lies the impossibility of our ultimately judging the outward actions of others; we simply must leave it to God.
16:3 Raisins were made from grapes, so we have here a prefigurement of the bread and wine of the communion service. It is a celebration of the blessing we have received from our high priest, the Lord Jesus.
16:21 He reproved kings for their sakes- This is a reference to the rebuking of Abimelech in Gen. 20; yet in this case Abimelech was in the right and is portrayed as the honourable one, and Abraham and Sarah as less than honourable and in need of reproof (Gen. 20:16). David is therefore asking Israel to glory in God’s undeserved kindness, His grace, towards them (:34,41).
16:26 The Truth of the Gospel is the only way to come to salvation. All other religions apart from true Christianity will not give salvation nor a relationship with God. Realising this, David pleads with his people to be a missionary nation (:8,25,26). The more we realise the pathetic fallacy of human religion, indeed the whole and utter vanity of life under this sun, the more we will preach Yahweh’s Truth to a tragically wandering, aimless world.
16:33 The prospect of God ‘coming’ to judge the earth should be a source of joy to us rather than of endless fear.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wljPqAwHwpg
commentary:
17:2 Nathan replied too quickly, assuming that he knew God’s will and what God’s word ought to say in response to such a desire. But he was wrong. We see here a lesson in our need to base our response to situations strictly upon God’s revealed word rather than our assumption of what He probably meant.
17:10 I tell you that Yahweh will build you a house- God’s grace is reflected in all this; David wanted to build God a physical house, and God responds by saying He doesn’t need that but rather He will build David an eternal house in the sense of a family, based around David’s descendant who would be Yahweh’s own Son (Lk. 1:31-35). God loves to do for us above all we can ask or imagine of asking (Eph. 3:20); He delights to lavish grace upon us and we should delight to do the same to others, thinking what we could do for them that would make them say “Wow!” to God’s grace.
17:11 Set up your seed- The Greek LXX version of the Old Testament uses the word elsewhere translated ‘resurrect’ for “set up”.
17:13 I will be his father, and he shall be My son- The only way for this to be fully fulfilled would be that a woman who was a direct descendant of David would have a child whose father was God. The account of the virgin birth shows how it all came to pass. It’s impossible therefore that Christ physically pre-existed before His birth. Notice the future tenses here. We note too that Jesus was therefore the direct descendant of David and the rightful king of Israel. Yet He lived as a poor, despised working man and died the death of a rejected criminal. We who are in Him by baptism into Him will likewise not be discerned for who we really are by the unbelieving society in which we live.
Sure mercies- “The sure mercies of David” result in the wicked man forsaking his way (Is. 55:3); they therefore inspire us in forsaking sinful thoughts and wicked ways (Is. 55:7).
17:16 Who am I- This should be our response also, for the covenants of promise have been made with us too in that we are in Christ and they therefore concern us (Gal. 3:27-29). It was because David was truly humble that he could immediately respond in genuine humility to God's promises to him; whereas Solomon became proud because of them. Note how "David the king… sat before Yahweh, and said, Who am I...?". Grace produces quite different responses in different people; some it humbles, others misinterpret it to justify continuing in sin.
17:17 Respected me according to the estate of a man of high degree- This could be rendered: “You have seen me as a type of the man on high”. David understood himself as a type of Christ.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av-PhSBy3Hk
commentary:
18:1-3 After David received the promises about the future Messianic Kingdom, he went out and established his Kingdom, attacking Israel's enemies and driving them out of the land. Our response to the future Hope of the Kingdom, which we too have through the very same promises, should also be to try to live the Kingdom life now, as far as we can.
18:4 But reserved of them for one hundred chariots- The king of Israel was not supposed to multiply horses and chariots but rather trust in God (Dt. 17:16). David allowed himself a little weakness in this matter; and his son Solomon used it as an excuse to multiply so many horses and chariots that he had to build cities to store them in. The problem with allowing ourselves a ‘little’ sin is that sin by its nature spreads and multiplies, and is repeated in others for whom we are an example (like our children) to a far greater extent.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9wUff3CJvE
commentary:
19:2 I will show kindness to Hanun… because his father showed kindness to me- Jesus in Lk. 6:32-34 may have this incident in mind when He taught that kindness to those who love us isn’t at all the radical love and grace which He taught. Loving those who love us doesn’t always work out well, as David’s experience here shows.
19:4 Earlier in his life, David had had a similar experience with Nabal; he sent messengers to him, who were abused. But David at that time over-reacted, and was only saved from destruction by the wisdom of Nabal’s wife Abigail (1 Sam. 25). There are times when God arranges for circumstances to repeat in our lives to test whether we have learnt a lesson, or to reinforce the lesson we learnt.
19:13 May Yahweh do that which seems good to Him- There is an element of predestination in our lives; but the fact that God will do His will shouldn’t lead us to complacency nor resignation to fatalism, but rather to zeal to do His will as far as we can perceive it, knowing that He will bless the doing of His will. In Joab’s case, understanding this led him to a zealous attempt to fight for the Lord, which God blessed with victory.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhBh9gt5AEo
commentary:
20:1 But David stayed at Jerusalem- 2 Sam. 11 fills in the significant detail that during this period, David had an affair with Bathsheba and arranged for her husband Uriah to be killed. Simple lesson: to properly understand the Bible we must read it all and compare it against itself in order to get the fill picture.
20:3 This seems an unnecessarily cruel way of punishing enemies. This is the period in between David’s sin with Bathsheba and his repentance. His own bad conscience with God led him to such excessive punishment of God’s enemies. Psychologically, it’s understandable; he realized he had sinned and deserved to be punished. But instead of confessing his sin and accepting the consequences as rightful and just, he psychologically transferred the sin onto others, and punished them instead of seeing himself punished. Judgmentalism and aggressive attitudes toward others often arise from a bad conscience within a person; the answer is to confess our sins to God, repent before Him and accept any consequences. We are thereby made free from the need to transfer sin and guilt onto others and judge them for our own sin.
20:5-8 These battles with giant Philistines have many similarities with David’s victory over Goliath in 1 Sam. 17. His victory there inspired his men, just as Christ’s victory on the cross [‘Golgotha’ = ‘skull of Goliath’] should inspire us and be replicated by us in our spiritual struggles.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6pZd3uec60
sermon: https://youtu.be/pfHSUtdH2Rw
commentary:
21:1 ‘Satan’ is a Hebrew word meaning ‘adversary’. It has no evil connotation of itself. The parallel 2 Sam. 24:1 says that God provoked David to number Israel. God therefore worked as a satan, an adversary, to David. Good people like Peter can be termed ‘satan’ (Mt. 16:21-23); the greatest adversary to us is our own internal tendency to sin. There’s no sinful cosmic being called ‘Satan’.
21:3 It wasn’t a sin to take a census of the people, but each time they were numbered, they had to pay a tax to the tabernacle; if they refused, they would be plagued (Ex. 30:12-15). David’s desire to know how many soldiers he had was a trusting in human strength. But it was also wrong in that Joab knew that the people likely wouldn’t pay the tax, and therefore they would be plagued. David could’ve argued that this would be Israel’s problem, not his, if they chose to be disobedient. But we ought to be sensitive to the likely spiritual failures of others and not lead them into sin by forcing them into positions where they have to take choices which they will probably fail in. God was angry with Israel and therefore He punished them (:7)- because they failed to pay the temple tax.
21:13 God is more merciful than people. This thought is a great encouragement when we at times worry as to whether God will be merciful to us at the last day. One factor in such fears is that we have only visibly known human mercy, but this is far inferior in quality and extent to God’s grace.
21:15 He relented- God can change His planned judgments upon His people for the sake of the intercession of one faithful person who is willing to take their sin upon him; which is what David did in :16-:27. David pointed forward to Christ at this time.
21:17 David sinned only in the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba (1 Kings 15:5); the people were punished by plague because they hadn’t paid the tax required of them whenever a census was taken (Ex. 30:12-15). There are times when our conscience can smite us for things of which we are not fully guilt; but see on :3.
21:24 We shouldn’t appear to make a sacrifice when actually it costs us nothing; e.g. to serve God in a way which naturally reinforces our natural interests and personality type. Sacrifice is to be after the pattern of Christ on the cross, and therefore has to involve real cost and pain for us; otherwise the concept of sacrifice loses any real meaning.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKh6lPoUzSs
sermon: https://youtu.be/4rQHzHZ5D0s
commentary:
22:8 Solomon slightly spins this when he tells Hiram that his father David hadn’t himself had the time to get around to the job of building the temple because of being busy fighting wars (1 Kings 5:3). He says nothing about David shedding blood; the moral aspect of it all is nicely ignored by Solomon. But David in his turn appears to be twisting the promises to him given in 1 Chron. 17 and 2 Sam. 7. The house referred to was God’s Kingdom, God’s family of people; and the great son referred to was prophetic of Christ (Lk. 1:31-35). Indeed, God clarified that He didn’t want man to build Him a temple, instead He wanted to build us up to be His house in Christ. One wonders therefore if God really did tell David that he couldn’t build the temple because he had killed many people; and whether the building plans David claimed to have received from God were really from Him. All we have here is the record of David claiming God had told him that He did want a house built, but not by David because of his bloodshed. There are other Biblical examples of men assuming they know what God wants to the point of claiming that their hunch is in fact God’s word (2 Sam. 7:3,4; 1 Kings 22:15-17).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd3rmlqq4r8
sermon: https://youtu.be/4rQHzHZ5D0s
commentary:
23:4 To oversee the work of the house of Yahweh- This system of arrangements in God’s house would’ve been practically experienced by Solomon. He twice uses the Hebrew word translated “oversee” in Proverbs. He says that ants are self-motivated; they need no “guide, overseer or ruler” (Prov. 6:6,7). This seems a critique of the complex system of overseers which Solomon had to place over Israel in order to build the temple and build up the Kingdom. Ideally, he seems to be saying, every Israelite ought to be a zealous worker. Prov. 12:24 says the same: “The hand of the diligent [whoever he / she is] shall bear rule [in practice]” [s.w. Prov. 6:7 “ruler”]. And we must ask ourselves, whether for whatever reason the new Israel hasn’t slumped into the same problem, of lack of self-motivation, waiting to be asked to do something before we do it, over-relying upon our “overseers”. The ants aren’t like this. They see the job to be done, and naturally get on with it.
Sanctified, that he should sanctify- This is alluded to in Jn. 17:17-19 where Jesus says that He sanctified Himself on the cross in order to sanctify us. Our sanctification is ultimately in order to do the same for others; because we are a Kingdom of priests (1 Pet. 2:5,6), the Levites are our pattern. Salvation and acceptance by God aren’t given to us simply to personally enjoy, but so that we may serve others with them.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX6yq_zBGeU
sermon: https://youtu.be/4rQHzHZ5D0s
commentary:
24:19 The 24 orders of priests are alluded to in the vision of the Heavenly court in Rev. 4:4; 5:8; 11:16; 19:4, where again there are 24 elders. God’s people on earth are to reflect the system of their representative Angels in Heaven. But Israel tragically perverted this; in Ez. 8:16-18 we read of how the High Priest and the 24 elders worshipped idols within the temple. We on earth are not alone as we do God’s work; we are part of a reflection on earth of the situation which is now in Heaven.
24:31 These likewise- Notice the stress on the equality of the priests and the irrelevance of their personal status (25:8; 26:12). We are the new priesthood (1 Pet. 2:5,6). The greatness, urgency and very nature of the work before us as a community of believers ought to make worldly differences of status and age irrelevant.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_tkd7MBgVU
sermon: https://youtu.be/4rQHzHZ5D0s
commentary:
25:2 The “sons” mentioned in these lists could include those who were taught by, e.g., Asaph; the students were understood as “sons” of the teacher (:8).
25:6 The service of God’s house- The temple project became an obsession with Solomon; after his death, his people complained at the “grievous servitude” which Solomon had subjected them to (2 Chron. 10:4). But the Hebrew word “servitude” is that repeatedly used to describe the “service” of the temple by the people (here and 26:8,30; 27:26; 28:13-15,20,21; 29:7; 2 Chron. 8:14). Solomon became obsessed with making others ‘serve God’ when it was effectively serving him; he came to be abusive to God’s people, when the initial idea of the temple was that it was to be built in order to help God’s people serve Him. And such obsession, turning well motivated projects into means of personal ego tripping, with all the resultant abuse, has sadly not been unknown amongst the believers of our generation.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTfKvHlcm8
sermon: https://youtu.be/4rQHzHZ5D0s
commentary:
26:4 Obed-Edom… God blessed him- Obed-Edom bravely had the ark stay in his home, when at the time all others thought that it would lead to the death of his family (2 Sam. 6:11,12). God blessed him for this- by giving him many children and grandchildren, 62 in all (:8). And yet Obed-Edom wasn’t highly rewarded for this in human terms; his many children were doorkeepers in the temple, which Ps. 84:10 implies was seen as the lowest and least honourable work. There are times when we have to do what is right and disregard the fears of others in the ecclesia, even those of the leaders [cp. David]. Reward and honour for such faithfulness will not necessarily come in this life, nor should we expect it now, if our focus is upon the future Kingdom of God on earth as the time and arena for our reward.
26:26 David… had dedicated- God swore to David “by My holiness” (Ps. 89:35). The Hebrew for “holiness” is the same word translated “dedication”. David’s response to God’s dedication to him was to dedicate [s.w.] all the silver and gold which he had won from this world, to the service of God’s house (see too 1 Kings 7:51; 2 Chron. 5:1). Our response to God’s dedication to us should be a like dedication of what we have to Him. Covenant relationship with God requires much of both Him and us. The case of David is a nice illustration of the meaning of grace. David wanted to do something for God- build Him a house, spending his wealth to do so. God replied that no, He wanted to build David a house. And He started to, in the promises He gave David. And David’s response to that grace is to still do something- to dedicate his wealth to God’s house, as God had dedicated Himself to David’s house. This is just how grace and works should be related in our experience.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW1sjGI_jiU
sermon: https://youtu.be/4rQHzHZ5D0s
commentary:
27:23 There would’ve been nothing morally wrong with taking a census of Israel’s young people, the next generation; but David believed in the promise that Abraham’s seed would be many, and so he didn’t. We can count every penny of our resources if we wish, but the higher level is to live in faith that God will fulfil His promise to provide for His people on their journey towards His Kingdom.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rnSlhHR6mA
sermon: https://youtu.be/4rQHzHZ5D0s
commentary:
28:3-6 These words of David appear to be his claims as to what God had told him; but what he says here appears to be a mixture of God’s actual words with some wishful thinking on his own part. The reasons God gave for not wanting David to build a temple are different to what David here claims God said, and clearly David was obsessed with justifying Solomon as his heir, even claiming that God had commanded Solomon to be king and to build the temple. David had lost his Christ-centeredness in his zeal to see his son become the major fulfilment of the promises to him in 2 Sam. 7. This desire to declare Solomon right and as God’s man at all costs was very damaging for Solomon, for it led him to a loss of conscience, chronic selfishness and loss of faith in the end. See on :19.
28:8 Seek out all the commandments of Yahweh- If we love God, we will not have a minimalistic attitude to serving Him, doing as little as we can get away with. We will eagerly seek out how to please Him, what principles we should live by, what we should and should not do or be in order to please Him.
28:19 This, said David, I have been made to understand in writing from the hand of Yahweh- The implication could be that David was only claiming to have been given the temple plans from Yahweh (see on 28:3-6). David like many today mixed God’s word with his own wishes and speculations, and ended up assuming that what he wished to be true was in fact God’s word.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx_YqZd1588
sermon: https://youtu.be/4rQHzHZ5D0s
commentary:
29:1 Whom alone God has chosen- God hadn’t said this, but David made his personal wishes and preferences to sound as if they were God’s word; see on 28:3-6,19.
29:5 To be made by the hands of artisans- Solomon's temple is described as being made with hands. The word "made" is stressed in the record of Solomon's building the temple (2 Chron. 3:8,10,14-16; 4:1,2,6-9,14,18,19,21). The work of the temple was very much produced by men's hands (2 Chron. 2:7,8). ‘Things made with hands’ is a phrase referring to idols in several passages (e.g. Is. 2:8; 17:8; 31:7). And it may be significant that the words of Is. 66:1,2 concerning God not living in temples are quoted by Paul with reference to pagan temples in Acts 17:24, and concerning the temple in Jerusalem by Stephen. The building of the temple became an idol to Solomon, just as the service of God can be twisted by us into a form of self-worship.
29:6 David’s generosity inspired his brethren to do the same; generosity to God’s work is contagious.
29:14 Of Your own have we given You- We are not our own: how much less is 'our' money or time our own! Like David, we need to realize that all our giving is only a giving back to God of what we have been given by Him. The myth of materialism is the assumption that we are ultimate owners of what we 'have'. Connected to this is David’s argument that we ought to be generous to God’s work because of our mortality (:15)- seeing we can take nothing with us, we should give it all to God. This is one outcome of believing that man is mortal and that we have no immortal soul which consciously survives death.
29:19 David earnestly prayed in Psalm 72 for Solomon to be the Messianic King, and therefore David asked for Solomon to be given a truly wise heart. These prayers were answered in a very limited sense- in that Solomon was given great wisdom, and his Kingdom was one of the greatest types of Christ's future Kingdom. Thus our prayers for others really can have an effect upon them, otherwise there would be no point in the concept of praying for others. But each individual has an element of spiritual freewill; we can't force others to be spiritual by our prayers; yet on the other hand, our prayers can influence their spirituality. David's prayers for Solomon is an example of this. Those prayers were heard, in that God helped Solomon marvellously, giving him every opportunity to develop a superb spirituality; but he failed to have the genuine personal desire to be like this in his heart, in his heart he was back in Egypt, and therefore ultimately David's desire for Solomon to be the wondrous Messianic King of his dreams had to go unfulfilled.
29:23 Solomon sat on the throne of Yahweh as king- Note that the Kingdom of Israel was in fact God’s Kingdom; the re-establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth (Ez. 21:27; Acts 1:6) therefore requires that the arena of that Kingdom will likewise be here on earth- not in Heaven.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DK0TKnQlYI
commentary:
1:6 The Chronicles record is very positive compared to the accounts of Solomon in 1 Kings. But Solomon’s many sacrifices must be compared with Mic. 6:7, which says that God isn’t impressed by such “thousands” of sacrifices, but looks instead for humility, justice and kindness in a person. Solomon’s father had likewise appreciated that the cattle on one thousand hills are God’s and so we can’t give Him anything materially which He doesn’t have, but we can give Him our personalities and characters (Ps. 50:10). But Solomon thought that external generosity to God was what He wanted, and he ignored the spiritual sacrifices which are far more important to God.
1:10 ‘Going out and coming in’ is an idiom for leadership. Solomon was asking for wisdom because he thought that he was the Messiah, and he saw wisdom as a Messianic characteristic. He failed to realize that the promises to Abraham and David were only being primarily fulfilled in him (e.g. 1 Kings 4:20); he thought that he was the ultimate fulfilment of them (1 Kings 8:20 states this in so many words). His lack of faith and vision of the future Kingdom lead him to this proud and arrogant conclusion (cp. building up our own 'Kingdom' in this life through our lack of vision of the future Kingdom which is to come at Christ’s return).
1:11 We too can prefer wisdom over wealth when we decide to turn down a more demanding or a second job or course of education because we don’t want to be left without time or heart for God’s word.
1:16 The king’s merchants purchased them- This was specific disobedience to Dt. 17:16, which taught that Israel’s king shouldn’t cause the people to go to Egypt to buy horses. And Solomon would have copied out this section of the law and memorized it (Dt. 17:18). This shows how we have a tendency to not only ignore God’s word but actually to do exactly the opposite. Israel was strategically situated between Egypt and other nations, and so Solomon became a middleman for the horse and chariot trade (:17); but Israel were not to have horses and chariots themselves (Dt. 17:16). Inevitably, Solomon ended up keeping horses for himself because he was ‘in the trade’, and became obsessed with them. It’s rather like a person dealing in alcohol becoming themselves an alcoholic; and in more subtle ways we too can fall for the goods of Egypt through wilful association with them and enabling others to enjoy them.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MADVAFrq4RU
sermon: https://youtu.be/ovPggTvHXfA
commentary:
2:1 Solomon wanted to build two houses, one for God and another for himself. There was always a duality in Solomon’s service, rather than a total commitment to God alone.
2:3-6 These words seem to smack of a false humility. He pompously informs Hiram of the magnificence of his project, lost in the manic obsession of the powerful architect, and then concludes: "Who am I then, that I should build (God) an house?". Confirmation of this is provided by the way in which Jer. 22:13-17 describes Jehoiakim's proud building of his own cedar house in the language of Solomon's building of the temple. We can serve God with pride, in which case it is an abomination. There’s an obvious contradiction in Solomon’s reasoning; if God is indeed so great that He doesn’t dwell in human houses (Acts 7:48; 17:24), then why build Him a house? This was all false humility, draped, as it were, in out of context Biblical quotation and spiritual allusion.
2:5 The house which I build is great- The Hebrew word translated “great” is used again by Solomon at the end of his life when he lost his faith and looked back at how he had built “great” buildings (Ecc. 2:4) in a vain search for self-fulfilment which he ultimately found to be vanity. The lesson of Solomon is that we can serve God on a surface level whilst our heart is far from Him, and the works we do for Him are in fact only a living out of our vain search for self-fulfilment, rather than a total devotion to Him and His causes.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzqqo9l0dS8
sermon: https://youtu.be/FINBiKQ__9Y
commentary:
3:1 This implies David assumed that the spot where the Angel appeared to him in 2 Sam. 24:17,18 was where he should build the temple. But this could be one of several examples of David wildly over-interpreting in order to justify his obsession with his son building a temple.
Mount Moriah- This was where Abraham offered Isaac (Gen. 22:2), and it was near Jerusalem- further strengthening the connections between that offering and the sacrifice of Christ on a hill outside Jerusalem.
3:3 A cubit was the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.
3:12 Joining to the wing of the other cherub- The cherubim totally covered the ark. In the Psalms, David reflects that the righteous dwell under the shadow of God’s wings (Ps. 17:8; 36:7), as if we are located on the atonement cover which was on top of the ark, where the blood of atonement was sprinkled, which represented Christ’s blood. Our covering by God’s Angelic cherubim protection is therefore total and complete. But the cherubim described here aren’t those which covered the ark; these covered the entire Most Holy Place. Likewise the constant theme of cherubim everywhere in the temple suggests that Solomon wished to expand the concept of the holiness and protection of the atonement cover to the entire temple. The temple represents all God’s people; for we are His temple. The New Testament expands the theme further- the person of each individual believer is the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:17; 6:19). Each of us personally becomes as it were within the Most Holy Place and likewise constantly in God’s most intense presence and covered by His wings.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8ezJ2KlOh4
sermon: https://youtu.be/FINBiKQ__9Y
commentary:
4:1 Stephen says that David tried to find a tabernacle for God, "But  Solomon built him an house. Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, Heaven is my throne... what house will ye build me?" (Acts 7:46-49 AV). This cannot mean 'God no longer dwells in the temple as He used to before Christ's death', because the reason given is that the prophet Isaiah says that God cannot live in houses. This reason was true in Isaiah's time, before the time of Christ. It would seem that Stephen is politely saying: 'Solomon made this mistake of thinking that God can be limited to a physical building. You're making just the same mistake'. And he goes on to make a comment which could well allude to this: "Ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers (including Solomon) did, so do ye" (Acts 7:51 AV). Further evidence that Stephen saw Solomon's building of the temple in a negative light is provided by the link between Acts 7:41 and 48: "They made a calf... and rejoiced in the works of their own hands... howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands" (AV). The word "made" is stressed here in the record of Solomon's building the temple (3:8,10,14-16; 4:1,2,6-9,14,18,19,21). The work of the temple was very much produced by men's hands (2:7,8). Things made with hands refers to idols in several Old Testament passages (e.g. Is. 2:8; 17:8; 31:7). Significantly, Solomon's temple is described as being made with hands in 1 Chron. 29:5. The lesson ought to be clear: we can expend huge effort in apparently serving God when in fact we are only serving ourselves; and thus we can turn the supposed service of God into an idol.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ULj7nMx31g
sermon: https://youtu.be/Nnj2yyy9f_A
commentary:
5:6 Sacrificing sheep and cattle, that could not be counted- Whilst the record here isn’t specifically critical of Solomon, he failed to understand his father David’s reflection that all the cattle on every hill are God’s (Ps. 50:10) and therefore God doesn’t so much as seek animal sacrifice from us as desire faith and a broken casting of ourselves upon God. David came to that understanding because his sin against Uriah and Bathsheba deserved death and there was no animal sacrifice which could take away that guilt- he had to throw himself upon God’s grace and learn that the real sacrifice God sought was that of a broken, penitent heart (Ps. 51:16,17). Solomon didn’t recognize his sins as David did, he didn’t mess up so publically as David did, and therefore he failed to appreciate this, focussing instead on the external rather than the internal. It’s amazing how God uses human sin and failure to teach us; those like Solomon who don’t sin publically and don’t recognize the weight of their private sins are often lead into the shallow, empty spirituality and surface level service of God which we see in Solomon at this time. See on 7:5.
5:8 The cherubim covered the ark- See on 3:12.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgAXWHiVoFc
sermon: https://youtu.be/Nnj2yyy9f_A
commentary:
6:2 A place for You to dwell in forever- This is one of several hints that Solomon felt that the full fulfilment of the Davidic promises was to be found in him (see on :10). He failed to look forward to the spirit of Christ, instead becoming obsessed with the achievement of his own works. He was largely encouraged in this by David, who seems to have felt that Solomon was the Messiah figure the promises spoke about. Thus Ps.72 is dedicated to Solomon, and yet it speaks clearly of the messianic Kingdom. David thus came to misquote and misapply the promises God made to him in his obsession about his own family, rather than seeing the promises as concerning the great spiritual family which would be built by Messiah. Solomon repeated his father’s error. God had told David that He did not want a physical house, because He had never commanded this to be done at any time in the past. Solomon misquotes this in :5,6 to mean that God had never asked for a physical house in the past, but now He had asked David's son to build such a house in Jerusalem. This is a lesson to us all against misquoting and misapplying Scripture to justify how we would like things to be for us and our immediate family.
6:6. Solomon claims that God said: “But I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name might be there”. God had chosen no resting place, although it would have been politically convenient for Solomon if Jerusalem as a city was where God had chosen to dwell. And so he kept thinking that way until he persuaded himself that in fact this was what God had said, and misquoted God’s word to that end.
6:10 Yahweh has performed His word that He spoke- The promise to David about his great son building God’s house was a promise of Messiah building a house in the sense of a spiritual family (Lk. 1:31-35). The promise was given in response to David’s desire to build a physical house for God. But Solomon was too eager to see the prophecy fulfilled in him and before his eyes, and this lack of Christ-centeredness and focus on the future, ultimate Kingdom of God on earth led him astray.
6:12,13 The record emphasizes how Solomon prayed in front of everyone and showed his apparent humility before all. Christ’s teaching condemning such behaviour may well allude to Solomon’s failures in these things (Mt. 6:6).
6:18 These fine words contradict what Solomon just said in :2, that he was building a house where God would dwell, and would do so, he claimed, “for ever”. This is all therefore false humility, which is something every spiritual person must ever be on their guard against.
6:20 Pray toward this place- Prayer should’ve been directed toward God, but Solomon gave in to the human tendency to want a buffer between God and man, just as Israel didn’t want to hear God speaking directly with them. Popular religion has pandered to this tendency through hierarchical systems of priesthood etc., but God has always revealed Himself as thirsting for relationship with man and therefore is eager for the most direct form of contact with us which our humanity permits. This is supremely enabled for those who are by status “in Christ” who can come directly to God because of Christ’s achievement for us.
6:24 Turn again and confess Your name- God’s Name refers to the declaration of His characteristics (Ex. 34:4-6). Repentance involves a recognition both of our wrongness, and God’s rightness. See on 12:6.
6:30 Render to every man according to all his ways- This will happen when Christ returns at the final day of judgment (Rev. 22:12). And yet it is said to happen in response to prayer now. When we pray, we come before God’s throne; the experience of prayer is therefore a foretaste of the day of judgment. As we feel toward the Lord now when we are in His presence in prayer, so we will then.
6:33 Solomon speaks as if the heavens where God lived were actually the temple; he bid men pray towards the temple where God lived, rather than to God in Heaven. Yet theoretically he recognized the magnitude of God (:18); yet the vastness of God, both in power and spirituality, meant little to him; it failed to humble him as it should have done.  It is a feature of human nature to be able to perceive truth and yet act the very opposite. His enthusiasm for his own works lead him to lose a true relationship with God. The idea of salvation by grace became lost on him, loving response to God's forgiveness was not on his agenda, he felt true humility was unnecessary for him, given his certainty that he was King as God intended.
6:35 Uphold their case- The crises encountered by God’s people on earth are as it were considered by the court of Heaven, with God acting as both the advocate and judge, upholding their case. But this is if we bring our case before Him in prayer. This is why simply telling God the situation we’re in, although He knows it in the sense that He knows all things, is so necessary.
6:36 Solomon is alluding in this verse to God’s threatened punishments for Israel if they totally rebelled against Him. But Solomon seems to minimize that sin by describing it as if it’s inevitable- “for there is no man who sins not”. God set before Israel the blessings for obedience and abiding in the covenant, and the curses for disobedience and breaking covenant with God, which included being scattered amongst the Gentiles and losing their land. And Solomon minimizes such serious rebellion as something ordinary. This minimizing of sin is what led him to spiritual self-destruction.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RC-d496Wn4
sermon: https://youtu.be/Bfsw_gX9lLI
commentary:
7:1 Although God had clearly told David that He didn’t want a physical house built for Him, He made a concession to Israel’s weakness as He did in allowing them to have a human king- and worked through that concession, that lower level of spiritual life which His people had chosen. Such is His thirst for relationship with us His people. Therefore His glory filled the temple as a sign that despite Solomon’s pompous prayer of chapter 6, He was willing to accept that system of temple presence.
7:5 These huge numbers of animal sacrifices weren’t really what God was looking for; each animal represented the dedication of one person, and we cannot dedicate other people’s devotion; they must themselves offer it. The fact Solomon’s animal sacrifices were too many or too large to fit on the altar God had designed and specified the size of (:7) indicates that they weren’t what God had intended. See on 5:6.
7:11 The house of Yahweh, and in his own house- Twice in this verse and often elsewhere we see God’s house paralleled with Solomon’s house. His dedication to God’s house wasn’t total and undivided.
7:12 2 God accepted the temple only as a place of sacrifice, i.e. a glorified altar (cp. 2 Sam. 24:17,18). And yet- God didn't really want sacrifice (Ps. 40:6; Heb. 10:5). It was a concession to weakness.
7:14 Solomon in his prayer had said that if Israel sinned and then prayed toward the temple, God would then forgive them. But God corrects this; He wants sinners to pray directly to Him, and He will forgive them- the temple was not to be seen as the instrument or mediatrix of forgiveness which Solomon envisaged. Likewise, Solomon’s implication that prayer offered in the temple would be especially acceptable was not upheld by God’s reply to him about this (6:24-26 cp. 7:12,13). Again and again we see that God thirsts for direct relationship with Him, rather than via any system of priesthood or human religion, even attending meetings because that’s our social club and family background. Solomon says that God will hear the prayers of His people because the temple is called by God’s Name; but God’s response is that “My people who are called by My name” would pray to Him themselves and be heard, quite apart from the temple (6:33 cp. 7:14). He sees them as bearing His Name rather than the temple building, as Solomon perceived it. God goes on to parallel the temple and His people in :21,22, saying that if He punishes the temple He will punish the people. Solomon seems to have thought that the temple would still stand favourably in God’s eyes even if the people were punished. The lesson is that it’s individual people rather than religious structures, of whatever sort, which God is interested in.
7:16 This is a conditional promise, followed by five verses of conditions concerning Solomon's spirituality which he overlooked. Like Solomon, we too can fix upon promises without considering their conditionality. There is good reason to think that communally and individually we so easily shut our eyes to the possibility of our spiritual failure and disaster, the sense of the future we might miss. God constantly warned Solomon about the conditionality of the promises, before the building started (2 Sam. 7:14), during it (1 Kings 6:11-13) and immediately after completing it (1 Kings 9:2-9).
7:20 God here corrects Solomon’s idea that if Israel were dispersed, then the temple would still stand and they could pray to it from their dispersion.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXwr_YsBFc0
commentary:
8:1 Solomon had built the house of Yahweh and his own house- Again Solomon’s building of God’s house is paralleled with building his own house, implying his dedication to God’s house wasn’t wholehearted, unlike David his father. This chapter goes on to use the word “built” many times. Solomon’s building of God’s house is set within the context of the way he liked building anyway. At the end of his life, he admits that he went through a phase of being obsessed with building, in some vain search to find self-fulfilment without God (Ecc. 2:4). In his apparently zealous building of the temple, Solomon was therefore only serving God in ways which he enjoyed, which reinforced his own personality type. Hence :6 speaks of how he “desired to build for his pleasure”. On one hand, we must use our God-given talents to serve Him; and yet on the other, we are asked to take up Christ’s cross and follow Him, going right against the grain of how we would naturally like to be.
8:6 Solomon had so many horses and chariots that he needed to build cities to store them. This was a specific disobedience to the command that the king of Israel was not to multiply horses to himself (Dt. 17:16). Yet that was the very section of the Law which he had to copy out and remember (Dt. 17:19). He had the ability, like all of us, to know God’s requirements and yet do the very opposite. He must’ve assumed that somehow he was an exception... but if we accept and love God’s principles we will not wish to make ourselves any exception to them.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbWC2yTawrE
sermon: https://youtu.be/0tYHtSN-Hzs?si=xnz_mzLZtysDDB_i
commentary:
9:5 No more spirit in her– The Hebrew word translated “spirit” has a wide range of meaning. It can refer to the life force within people; or as here, it can refer to the mind.
9:6 People usually need to see intellectual truths lived out in practice before they will really believe them. This is why the Gospel is more powerfully taught by people, rather than through impersonal mediums like the internet or reading books.
9:8 To be king for Yahweh your God- Israel were God’s Kingdom on earth, and their kings were reigning on God’s behalf. The Kingdom was therefore overturned when the last king of Israel was deposed; but it will be re-established at Christ’s return (Ez. 21:25-27;  Acts 1:6). The hope of the coming Kingdom of God on earth is therefore the hope of the re-establishment of God’s Kingdom which once was upon earth. Again we see that the promised Kingdom will be on earth- this is the Biblical hope, not going to Heaven on death.
9:13 The reference to 666 cannot be coincidental; this is the number of a man who is the epitome of “the beast” (Rev. 13:18). There are many other similarities between the descriptions of the beast’s kingdom and that of Solomon’s kingdom. And yet his kingdom was clearly a type of Christ’s kingdom. We see in this the terrible duality possible within human beings; and we see how what may appear very spiritual and wonderful on the surface can in fact be very sinful. This is true of both individuals and communities.
9:19 Solomon came to see his throne as the throne of God; he seemed to think that the promise to David that Messiah would sit on his throne could be fulfilled if he built the most amazing throne ever seen in the world. He made 12 lions to stand on either side of his throne, perhaps in imitation of how the Angels were perceived to be on either side of God’s throne (1 Kings 22:19). He was indeed sitting on the throne of the Lord as king over Israel, but in the sense that he was reigning on God’s behalf; for God was Israel’s true king. Solomon seems to have thought that he himself was some kind of God over Israel. And the lesson for us is to perceive ourselves as God’s servants and representatives, but not to take this to the extent that we think that all of our actions are thereby justified as somehow Divinely sanctioned. The end result was that Solomon lost sight of the future Kingdom- and we too will likewise lose our way if we de facto consider our little kingdoms to effectively be God’s Kingdom.
9:23 Solomon had God's wisdom throughout his apostasy (Ecc. 2:9), as the Truth ever remains with us in intellectual terms. God put that wisdom in his heart in order for him to help others, both in Israel and in the world; yet Solomon failed to realize that he needed to apply it to himself. The more truth passes through our lips to others, the stronger we are tempted to not apply it to ourselves personally.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcMU8pxlmL8
commentary:
10:4 The temple project became an obsession with Solomon; after his death, his people complained at the “grievous service” which Solomon had subjected them to. But the Hebrew word translated “service” is that repeatedly used to describe the “service” of the temple by the people (1 Chron. 25:6; 26:8,30; 27:26; 28:13-15,20,21; 29:7; 2 Chron. 8:14).Solomon became obsessed with making others ‘serve God’ when it was effectively serving him; he came to be abusive to God’s people, when the initial idea of the temple was that it was to be built in order to help God’s people serve Him. And such obsession, turning well motivated projects into means of personal ego tripping, with all the resultant abuse, has sadly damaged so many within the body of Christ. Jesus invited people who were heavy burdened under a hard yoke to come to Him and have that yoke made lighter (Mt. 11:29,30). He was clearly alluding to this incident, where heavily burdened people ‘came’ seeking a lighter yoke.
10:10 Younger people are often harsher than older ones, and therefore make good soldiers in wars of aggression, both literal and figurative. As we grow older we ought to become softer and the more influenced by God’s grace, rather than growing hard and gnarled as some do.
10:15 It was brought about of God- Rehoboam’s response to the people seems obviously wrong and unwise. Yet this error of judgment was worked through by God to fulfil His prophetic word. Whilst we have freewill, God confirms us in the attitudes and choices which we make.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuZDSQnxhZM
commentary:
11:4 So they listened to the words of Yahweh- This is very commendable. When we’ve prepared to do something on a major scale, turning back from the project because we perceive God’s word to teach otherwise is a hard thing to do. But this must be the power of God’s word in our lives. Any war of aggression against our brethren just has to be wrong; and we as the Israel of God should bear this always in mind regardless of what provocation we receive from our brethren.
11:14 Despite Jeroboam being so apostate from the true God, the ten tribes are still called the “brothers” of Judah (:4). No matter how far some go from the Lord or His truth, once a brother always a brother. Once a person is within the family of God through baptism into Christ, it is not for us to ever say in this life that they are no longer in that family.
11:16 In times when the children of God turn away from Him, the faithful minority will go to great lengths to meet with others who are still faithful; and it may even require our geographical relocation, with all the economic costs associated with that (:13).
11:18 This implies that David married his own niece. There were many anomalies in David’s life, especially in his personal relationships; and yet God accepted him and spoke so highly of him. This isn’t to justify any sin or complacent attitude in ourselves personally; but to encourage us in the hard work of being patiently acceptive of those who have similar anomalies in their lives.
11:21 Eighteen wives, and sixty concubines- The weakness of Solomon his father was repeated in Solomon’s son. Justifying sin and worldly behaviour inevitably influences our children to think such behaviour is acceptable. And in their turn, Solomon’s son sought to lead his children into failure in this area of polygamy (:23).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU4GnPqPhQE
commentary:
12:1 Made himself strong- The Hebrew word translated “strong” is hezek. Good king Hezekiah had the same word within his name, but with ‘Yah’ added on the end- ‘the one made strong by Yah’. Human strength and prowess is the very opposite to God’s strength. We wonder why we don’t always have all we want- wealth, health, acceptance, good relationships, praise of men, nice homes and vehicles... but it’s not surprising really, because human strength nearly always leads us away from God.
12:6 Yahweh is righteous- Repentance involves not only a recognition of our wrongness, but of God’s rightness. See on 6:24.
12:8 They shall be his servants, that they may know My service- Sometimes God teaches us how to relate to Him by putting us in situations where we simply have to be obedient to some human entity or person. In this way we can serve our worldly masters in our employment as if we are serving Christ (Col. 3:22-24; it seems Paul there is alluding to the LXX here).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEQD7WGra9M
commentary:
13:7 When Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted, and could not withstand them- This was an exaggeration, because he was 41 when he became king (12:13). We can so easily justify the sins and weakness of others whom we perceive as being ‘on our side’, trying to reduce everything to a simplistic black and white view of the world, whereby people are either wonderfully good or totally bad (:11). Reality is far different- we only have to realistically analyze our own lives and personalities.
13:12 Don’t fight against Yahweh- It seems Abijah was assuming that he was as it were in the place of God. He had picked a fight with Jeroboam (:3), but then realized he was outnumbered and wanted a way out- and so he starts claiming how righteous Judah are (:10-12) even though they were rebellious against God from the day He knew them (Is. 65:2; Ez. 16,20) and were worshipping idols (14:3).  He also starts playing God, by assuming that his enemy is God’s enemy. Therefore God brought Judah’s strong men into a situation where they were about to be destroyed, and had to throw themselves upon His grace (:14).
13:13 This was exactly the situation which the Gentile people of Ai were in as described in Josh. 8:21,22. They were caught in an ambush and hemmed in on all sides. Judah who thought they were so superior spiritually were being taught they were no better than Gentiles who had to be cast out by God.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrgUbRm6ZQ0
commentary:
14:3 This shows that the previous king’s claim to such great spirituality in Judah was hypocritical; see on 13:12.
14:11 Him who has no strength- All Asa’s human strength he considered as non-existent. He had learnt the lesson of 12:3 [see note there]; that the only strength is in God. God brought Asa to this realization by putting him in a situation where he was hopelessly outnumbered, just as He tried to teach Abijah in13:12.We see God working to a pattern in these men’s lives, just as He does with us. He puts us in situations which are quite beyond our own strength- and then makes a way of escape (1 Cor. 10:13; 2 Cor. 1:8; 8:3). This not only strengthens our faith for the next crisis we face, but awes us into an appropriate humility.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3s5D6ASUuY
commentary:
15:8 And put away the abominations out of all the land of Judah- But 14:3 says that Asa did this at the start of his reign. Whenever we root out weakness from our lives, it tends to return. The records of Judah’s kings are full of such accounts of purging out the idols- and then we read the same again soon afterwards. The tendency to idol worship was and is very strong.
15:9 The faithful in the 10 tribes relocated to be near the believers in Judah. We should make every effort to fellowship with other believers, even if it may mean relocating.
15:15 All Judah rejoiced at the oath- Joy comes from full dedication to God; indeed true joy can come from nothing else.
Sought Him... and He was found- Christ’s invitation to seek knowing that we shall find is in the context of His teaching that whatever we ask for in prayer will be given; if we knock, the door will be opened (Mt. 7:7; Lk. 11:9). However, this isn’t a blank cheque offer to give us whatever we wish; rather is it teaching that if we pray to find God, if we really seek relationship with Him- we will find it, and thereby all other requests and needs in our lives will appear far less significant.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRDepjtxgwA
commentary:
16:2 By giving the wealth of the temple to Ben Hadad, Asa was acting as if it was his personal wealth, to spend as he wished. But those things had been given or dedicated to God; if you give somebody something, it’s theirs and no longer yours. Although God was invisible to Asa, it’s as if He was sitting there in that temple with His silver and gold- which had been given to Him in thanks for what He had done for His people. And then Asa walks up to God and takes that silver and gold right from His presence and gives it to a pagan idolater whom he considers a better defence against enemies than God. The more we sense the presence of God, the more we perceive His total ownership. What we dedicate to God is His, it’s not for us to ‘play God’ by then taking it back and acting as if it’s ours. And we are asked to dedicate our whole lives to God.
16:3 Let there be a covenant- Asa’s covenant or treaty with Yahweh in 15:12,13 demanded total dedication to Him; he should therefore have trusted in Yahweh rather than now making another covenant with a pagan king. Covenant relationship with God is all demanding, as Asa had said at the time; we can’t be in covenant with more than one God.
16:8 God gave Asa a test of faith when He sent a huge army against him earlier; and Asa passed the test. But like any good teacher, God repeats the circumstances in our lives; and sometimes like Asa we may do well in one test, but fail when it is repeated. God gave Asa more such wars (:9)- not simply as a punishment, but so he would learn the lesson of trusting in God and not men against our enemies.
16:9 These “eyes of Yahweh” refer to the Angels. If we ask how, mechanically, as it were, God sees and knows all things, the answer is perhaps ‘Through His Angels’. Their activity is amazing; because their work is invisible to us, we may get the impression at times that God is somehow silent and inactive. But the colossal network of Angelic work on earth is constantly humming with activity- for our sakes (Heb. 1:14).
16:10 Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time- In our deepest conscience, we know when we sin; even if we don’t consciously recognize every sin. We also realize that sin must be punished. When we sin but don’t confess that sin, or if we refuse to accept the punishment for sin, we have a tendency to subconsciously transfer that sin onto others and punish them for it. This is why religious people can be capable of the greatest hypocrisies and inconsistencies, punishing others for the very sins which they commit, or falsely accusing others of committing the sins they commit and then eagerly punishing them for them. Asa’s bad conscience at this time is reflected in how he treated others.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02ML1wzrxmE
commentary:
17:3 In the first ways of his father David- Does this imply that David became less spiritually committed as he got older?


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_GcJI3_iho
commentary:
18:1 This chapter shows how Jehoshaphat was wrong to make this alliance with Ahab; our covenant with Yahweh precludes any other covenant. Ahab was one of God’s people, but clearly his faith in Yahweh was weak and he had surrounded himself with false prophets who claimed that whatever Ahab wanted to be true was in fact the word of Yahweh (:4-7). Even within those who are externally the children of God, we must be careful whom we choose to closely associate with; for not all are seriously interested in following God’s word.
18:14 Considering Micaiah had already seen the vision of :18-21, this was a significant failure of his. In some contexts, we all have a tendency to quickly perceive and then say what we think the other person wants us to say. The fact we know God’s word means that we are now bound not to do that, but to speak according to how His word has influenced us.
18:18-21 We have here a unique insight into how the court of Heaven operates. God states His plan, but the Angels discuss how they will operationalize it. The “spirit” in :20 refers to an Angel- for God makes His Angels spirits (Ps. 104:4). One Angel had the idea that Ahab’s false prophets could be moved to prophesy to him a false prophesy about going to Ramoth Gilead, where he would die. God liked that idea, perhaps because it was an appropriate way to punish Ahab for his rejection of the true prophets. That Angel was empowered to bring that about, and went out from the court of Heaven to do it. God confirms people in the way they wish to go, and He can do this through leading them into mindsets and theological understandings which are false (2 Thess. 2:11). The amazing thing is that God is holding case conferences about us in Heaven, with Angels discussing how best to bring about God’s will in our lives.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lT3HgKz9yY
commentary:
19:2 Love those who hate Yahweh- We can imagine how Jehoshaphat would’ve justified the alliance he made with Ahab in 18:1,2- ‘We both serve the same God... believe more or less the same things... face a common enemy...’. But God’s wrath was upon Jehoshaphat for saying this. Ahab’s refusal to hear Yahweh’s word in 18:4-17 was counted as hating Yahweh.
19:3 Nevertheless- God didn’t reject Jehoshaphat because of his failure in one area in one period of life; He saw the bigger picture. When one aspect of another believer’s failure is extremely difficult for us to tolerate, we too need to see this bigger picture and think of the other areas of their lives where they are spiritual.
19:10 Between blood and blood- Perhaps a reference to controversies about revenging bloodshed, alluding to Dt. 17:8.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6s5FRJwZcM
commentary:
20:2 A great multitude is coming- Jehoshaphat was expected to have learnt the lesson from Asa’s experience when hugely outnumbered (16:8), and it seems he did. The whole purpose of Biblical history is for our sakes, that we might learn from the experiences of others who in essence were in our situation- and be strengthened, warned and encouraged (Rom. 15:4).
20:12 God, will You not judge them?- Jehoshaphat like David in the Psalms saw the crises of life as a foretaste of the final judgment; he stated the situation before God in detail (:10) and felt his prayer was a coming before God’s throne of judgment. Our prayers likewise come before the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16); our feelings toward God in prayer now are as they will be in essence at the final judgment.
20:21 There is a strong theme of praise; and praise is something one does to their God after a victory, not before it. Humanly, they must have feared that they were being asked to trust in mere words. Yet Jehoshaphat praised God for the assurance of victory as if it had already happened; and his battle plan was hardly humanly wise. He sent out ahead of his troops a group of priests who were praising God for the victory. Such faith is all about adopting God’s perspective, who speaks of things which are not yet as if they are, so sure is His word of promise of fulfilment (Rom. 4:17).
20:35 Jehoshaphat king of Judah joined himself with Ahaziah king of Israel- When he earlier joined himself with a king of Israel, he nearly lost his life and was rebuked for it severely in 19:2. We too can deal with a situation in the wrong way, repent for doing so, and then the essence of the situation is repeated in another context- and again we fail. And yet although at the end of his life, Jehoshaphat failed in this matter, he was on balance reckoned as righteous (:32). This shouldn’t lead us to think that some aspects of human behaviour don’t matter and we can ‘get away’ with them. But it helps us in not rejecting brothers or sisters who clearly have weakness in one point of their lives at some period of their spiritual journey, even if as with Jehoshaphat it’s right at the end of their lives when we might expect more spiritual maturity from them. We will all come to the end of our journeys with some incomplete spirituality, and we should show others the same grace God shows us.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57MVCSA_Bkw
commentary:
21:6 Jehoshaphat his father had been rebuked for his alliance with Ahab (19:2) and had continued to fail in making alliances with the rulers of Israel (see on 20:35). The result of this was that although he himself was righteous, his son committed failure in the same area but went much further to the point of becoming totally sinful and being rejected by God. The problem with sin and permitting ourselves weaknesses is that our children and others will likely commit the same weaknesses but take them much further; the mother who gets drunk once a year on her birthday shouldn’t be surprised if her son becomes alcoholic.
For he had the daughter of Ahab as wife- The history of the kings often stresses the huge influence of women upon a man, especially his wife or mother. Women at that time were considered mere chattels, but the Biblical record grants them human dignity and significance,  and stresses their huge influence especially in spiritual matters.
21:12 This incident is well after the time when Elijah had ascended into the sky at the close of his public ministry. It seems that Elijah was simply taken up into the sky and put down somewhere else, which is why his servants went out looking for him; it was done in this dramatic public manner to indicate to all that his public ministry had come to an end. But it seems that he returned to earth and continued a more discrete ministry, as this incident demonstrates. The Bible doesn’t teach that we go to Heaven at death; Jesus was the first person to be raised from the dead and given eternal life, and all the faithful will receive eternity together at the day of judgment when Christ returns.
21:16 God is able to work directly on the mind or “spirit” of people, according to His will. We should therefore eagerly ask Him to work on our spirit / mind to make it holy; for the human mind is the ultimate arena of our spiritual warfare.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PElY5_OrGhE
commentary:
22:3 His mother was his counsellor to do wickedly- Again we see the influence of women on the spiritual lives of their children; see on 21:6. Her ‘counsel’ to him likely refers to the way she raised him in his youth. His grandfather, righteous king Jehoshaphat, had a weakness with respect to his friendship with the Ahab family (19:2). Jehoshaphat’s son Jehoram even more so (see on 21:6), and the grandson likewise. The failure of a righteous man had disastrous spiritual consequence even for his grandchild. Grandfather Jehoshaphat nearly lost his life by going to war in tandem with Ahab king of Israel; and the grandson failed in exactly the same way (:5), at the very same place, Ramoth Gilead (18:11). He didn’t learn the lesson of his grandfather’s failure but rather repeated it.
22:6 Ahaziah was severely punished because he didn’t learn the lesson from spiritual history. Jehoshaphat had been nearly killed because of his union with Ahab the king of Israel; we really are intended to learn from Biblical history and take concrete action based upon what we perceive within it, rather than let these records drift over us without taking a grip upon our lives in practice.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrGg_kLFvLs
commentary:
23:1 Took... into covenant with him- Note how at this same time they made a covenant with God (:3). Our covenant with God is often connected with our covenant with each other; covenant relationship isn’t just a deal between God and us, rather does our relationship with Him involve us in relationship with the rest of His true people. We can’t be in relationship with God and isolate ourselves from His people.
23:11 Jehoiada and his sons anointed him- One of these sons was Zechariah, whom Joash was later to ungratefully murder for daring to criticize him (24:20-22). Indeed, 24:25 says that Joash killed all these sons. Ingratitude is a sin because the kindness we were shown is a reflection of God’s grace to us through a human channel, and to be ungrateful for it is thereby a rejection of God’s grace.
23:16 The parallel record in 2 Kings 11:17 says this covenant was between Yahweh and the people, but here we read that it was between Jehoiada and the people. Jehoiada as the priest was God’s representative, and therefore what he did was on God’s behalf. God’s representatives can be spoken of as if they are God, even though they aren’t God Himself in person. This principle, which is found throughout the Old Testament, should prepare us to accept that God’s Son, Jesus, as His Father’s total representative, isn’t God Himself but can be spoken of as God, as Jehoiada was, because He functions so completely on God’s behalf.
23:21 The people of the land rejoiced- In the same way as “all the people” destroyed the temple of Baal (:17) and “all the people” rejoiced at the idea of Joash being made king (:13). Although the people were spiritually weak at this time, there was deep within them a desire to do the right thing- they just lacked the strength to do it, and needed someone like Jehoiada to present it clearly to them. We may consider those around us to be totally disinterested in spiritual things, but if we present them with the right way, we will be surprised how this is passively and unconsciously what a lot of apparently ‘worldly’ people are in fact looking for. See on 24:10.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guC7WWSlsro
commentary:
24:10 People do respond generously when someone gives them firm leadership and explains the need; see on 23:21.
24:14 All the days of Jehoiada- Joash’s zeal for restoring the temple appears to have been all on his own initiative. But clearly his zeal for God was all the result of Jehoiada’s influence upon him, and as soon as Jehoiada was dead, he turned to other gods (:17,18). People can serve God, even in a very zealous way, purely as the result of others’ influence upon them. This is why how we end our spiritual journey is so important- when those who influenced our youth are no longer with us, and we serve God with no possibility of the motivation of pleasing those we respect. It seems Joash was grateful to Jehoiada for saving his life and organizing the coup which led to his having the kingdom at seven years old- when his gratitude should’ve been to God, who used Jehoiada merely as a human channel. If we don’t see our spiritual elders as channels used by God, but glorify them in themselves, then we will tend to do spiritual things just to please those elders. And when they are no more, we are left with no real relationship with God Himself. This would explain how immediately on the death of Jehoiada, Joash turned to other gods.
24:17 The king listened to them- So often the history of the kings repeats itself. This was exactly the mistake of Rehoboam- listening to bad advisors and rejecting the Godly advice of older men (1 Kings 12:8,10). Our life situations likewise tend to repeat in essence the situations faced by Biblical characters; and we really are expected to learn the lessons. We have to ask how often it is that we base a life decision specifically upon a Biblical precedent... How much does Bible history really affect our life choices today?
24:21 At the commandment of the king- See on 23:11.
24:22 May Yahweh look at it, and require it- This is one of many Biblical indications that at the day of judgment, situations in this life will as it were be played back to the wicked, and be ‘required’ from them. All their sins will be mentioned unto them, whereas this will not be the case for the righteous, whose sins have been forgiven (Ez. 18:22; 33:16).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdica8K4idA
commentary:
25:3 When the kingdom was established to him, he killed his servants- This sentence structure is common in the record of the kings; when they became strong, once they were set up in life, then they did wrong (11:17; 12:1; 17:1; 21:4; 26:8,16). Some people never get set up in life or become financially or domestically ‘strong’ as they would wish, and resent it. But remember this formula; perhaps if that had been granted them by God, they would turn away from Him. Amaziah repeated the pattern of Jehoram, who became strong in his kingdom, and then killed his brothers (21:4). Again we see how God intended Amaziah, as He intends all of us, to perceive how we should be and live on the basis of the examples in the history of His people. This is why reading the records of these kings is so valuable for us; and more than valuable, God intends us to be familiar with the history He has recorded and carefully preserved for so long, and learn from it, applying it specifically in our lives.
25:4 Despite committing murder after the pattern of wicked Jehoram (21:4), he was careful to be obedient to part of God’s law. We so often justify wrong behaviour by mixing it with some element of legalistic obedience to God’s word, just as we see in the account of the judgment and crucifixion of Jesus, with the Jews careful to obey parts of the Mosaic Law in detail- whilst totally missing the bigger picture
25:6 Jehoshaphat (19:2) and other kings of Judah had always gotten into trouble by making military alliances with Israel; but still the lesson wasn’t learnt, spiritual history wasn’t allowed by Amaziah to really have a practical impact upon him.
25:8 But if you will go, go and take action, be strong for the battle- A classic example of the downward spiral, whereby God pushes people along the road of self-destruction if this is the path they choose.
25:13 We might be surprised at this; Amaziah had paid money to hire this army, but in humility to God’s word had dismissed them and as it were wasted his money, just because God had told him not to use them but trust in Him. But then they do so much damage to Amaziah’s kingdom. Perhaps this was because his obedience to God’s word was only external, and not with a complete heart (:2). Likewise Amaziah won a great victory by faith in Yahweh, but immediately adopted pagan gods (:14,15).
25:17 Earlier Amaziah had wanted to make an alliance with Israel (:6,7); now he picks an argument with them and purposefully provokes a war with them. This unstable, inconsistent attitude arose from his incomplete devotion to God (:2). The instability and inconsistency evident in so many aspects of so many lives is reflective of a lack of steady, consistent devotion to the God who is eager to be our rock.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRsmZYuKiPA
commentary:
26:4 But Amaziah only did a few things right before God and turned to other gods in the end (25:20). God so thirsts for human response to Him that He writes these records so positively, in recognition of any spirituality which there was.
26:16 But when he was strong- He was strong only in his own self-perception, because his strength was only the result of God’s help (:15). Again we see how human strength precedes spiritual failure, which is a common theme in these lives of the kings and indeed throughout history; see on 25:3.
26:18 Uzziah is here condemned for doing what only the priests could do. However, David also did what only the priests (of the tribe of Levi) could do; but he was of the tribe of Judah and therefore not a priest (1 Chron. 15:27; 16:3). So we conclude that the same action can be sinful for one person but a sign of spiritual maturity in another. We need to bear this in mind when considering the behaviour of others, and try not to legislate against it in a legalistic manner but treat each case on its merits. We also learn from this that motive and not external action nor appearance are of ultimate importance to God. All our works need careful analysis once we grasp this point. It could be that Uzziah was trying to imitate David in acting as a priest when he wasn’t; for 2 Kings 14:3 emphasizes that Uzziah did not do his good deeds in the spirit of David. It was all just an attempt to externally mimic a righteous man when the heart was far from spirituality; and God judges such hypocrisy very hard.
26:17 Azariah was very brave to do this; for kings, especially like Uzziah at this time, considered themselves all powerful and beyond such criticism. We shouldn’t fear to bring God’s word to those who are ‘senior’ in rank, even if it criticizes them explicitly or implicitly; for compared to God’s word, all men are as grass, of whatever rank they are in human society (Is. 40:6-8).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb5sSga8lNo
commentary:
27:6 If a man prepares his way after God’s principles (see too Prov. 4:26), then God will ‘prepare’ that man’s way too (Ps. 37:23; 119:5), confirming him in the way he chooses to go.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBo-2YafoME
commentary:
28:5 Therefore Yahweh his God- Yahweh was still his God even through this very evil part of his life when Ahaz had forsaken God (:6); we too shouldn’t give up on our brethren who clearly leave God’s principles. Even if we disbelieve God, He still remains faithful to us (2 Tim. 2:13). God is still working with our lost brethren, and so should we, after the pattern of the shepherd who searches until he finds the lost sheep.
28:9 The “rage” of sinful Israel against sinful Judah was likely because they transferred their own sins onto their brethren, and then eagerly punished them for them. This psychological phenomenon explains why there is so much judgmentalism and anger against other members within the church. To avoid it, we must face up to our own sins, and believe that the judgment for them has truly been laid upon Jesus. We will therefore know our guilt to have been lifted and will not feel the need to transfer it onto others.
28:11 Fierce wrath- This seems a stronger term than the ‘anger’ of God with Judah for their idolatry (:9). Hypocrisy and harshly judging our brethren when we too are sinners is something which makes God fiercely angry.
28:13 This kind of thing happens several times in the record of the kings; men had committed themselves already to a significant plan like hiring many soldiers and are then told to not go ahead with the plan (e.g. 25:9) at the risk of loss of face or money. This kind of thing ought to be a regular aspect of our lives- stopping in our tracks and turning back from a course of action because of God’s word.
28:15 Clothing the naked, putting them on donkeys and taking them to Jericho is all the basis of the good Samaritan parable (Lk. 10). We can therefore understand that parable in terms of our having compassion upon those within the ecclesia who are suffering for their sins; we are to take care of them, considering our own sins deserve the same judgment (:10).
28:27 They didn’t bring him into the tombs of the kings- This is mentioned several times about the sinful kings. Although the people were themselves sinful and rebellious, they recognized that the kings who hadn’t followed the spirit of king David shouldn’t be buried together with him. There is in society a basic sense of right and wrong, which is reflected in such decisions as this. It’s not the case, therefore, that people are totally disinterested in spirituality and have no sense of right or wrong. There is interest in spirituality in people; it’s just connecting with it in an appropriate way which is our challenge.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0GLjQvMhhs
commentary:
34:3 A 16 year old can significantly search after God; and a 20 year old isn’t too young to do major things for God or take a leadership role if there are no others willing to do so.
34:14 Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of Yahweh given by Moses- Jeremiah (Jer. 15:16) says that when this book was found, it was to him the joy of his heart and he as it were ate it. Yet the part of the Law which was found listed the judgments for disobedience and the explanation of the terms of the covenant (:31). He didn’t regard these things as some might- the boring droning on of God about sin. Jeremiah perceived in it God’s requirements and the blessings for obedience, and rejoiced in it all, as only one who truly loves God can do. Note that in the generations that didn’t have access to this book of the Law, there were still people who pleased God greatly, including Josiah. And yet they did so in ignorance of all His word. We who have the completed word of God so conveniently accessible can come to think that therefore anyone without a complete knowledge of God’s word on every point cannot please Him or have a relationship with Him. But this is clearly not the case; for those at Josiah’s time and the generation before who were ignorant of parts of God’s word could still please Him. However we who have God’s completed word have a far higher level of responsibility before Him. It could also be argued that God revealed more of His word and requirements to Josiah in response to Josiah’s zeal to do the right thing before God so far as he knew, as with Cornelius in the New Testament. Those who truly seek after God will have His true word revealed to them.
34:19 He tore his clothes- He realized that sins of ignorance are still sins; hence the Law of Moses required offerings for sin once the sin was recognized. “Great wrath” was from God because of this disobedience, albeit performed in ignorance (:21). The fact sins of ignorance are still felt by God should lead us to search His word the more diligently to know what exactly He requires and hopes for from us. Spare a thought for God in this; He feels sin, all sin, committed by whoever, even in ignorance. His sensitivity to sin should lead us to vow the more passionately to live pleasingly before Him.
34:22 Huldah the prophetess- The Hebrew word translated ‘prophet’ doesn’t just refer to someone who predicts the future, but to one who spoke forth God’s inspired word. It’s significant that in such a male dominated society, God chose to relay His word at times through women.
34:31 Josiah didn’t just accept the threatened judgment to come as inevitable. He believed that by repentance it could possibly be averted by God’s grace, just as the people of Nineveh believed.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9yx3OsyP44
commentary:
35:3 Serve Yahweh your God and His people- We serve God through serving His people; our attitude to them, our care for them, is effectively our attitude to the Lord, and will be the basis upon which we are judged at the last day (Mt. 25:40). We can’t simply believe in God from the isolation of our own homes or computer screens, and not get involved with actively serving His people.
35:11 Flayed them– This seems to imply that the skin was flayed off the lambs, in uncanny prediction of Christ’s whipping and scourging before His offering as the ultimate Passover lamb.
35:18 Neither did any of the kings of Israel keep such a Passover as Josiah kept- Kings like David and Solomon were more prosperous than Josiah was, and yet he was the more generous in his Passover celebration. Seeing that God isn’t impressed by numbers of sacrifices, this may not necessarily be an indication of Josiah’s spirituality; he should’ve learnt the lesson from the success of David and the failure of Solomon, that God seeks a broken heart rather than physical sacrifice. In any case, the people of Judah were soon taken into captivity because of their wickedness; Josiah gave them sacrifices to offer, whereas ideally they should’ve brought their own. We simply can’t give spirituality to others.
35:21 This spirit of seeking a fight was his destruction; he should’ve learnt the lessons from Abijah in 13:3 who made the same mistake. God’s history is written so that we might learn from it; but whilst it remains in our minds as mere history for the sake of it and doesn’t become a living word speaking to us personally, it won’t fulfil its intention. Perhaps Josiah’s zeal for God had lifted him up in pride, and he thought that he could show his zeal for God by aggression towards ‘the world’, represented as always by Egypt. But aggression for the sake of it is so displeasing to God; God gave His Son to die for this world, this Egypt, rather than to try to destroy it for the sake of it. And it cost Josiah his life. Spiritual superiority, arrogance and aggression are simply so abhorrent to God.
35:22 The words of Neco from the mouth of God- The words of pagan Neco weren’t inspired by God but were indirectly from Him, just as the words of Caiaphas were in Jn. 12:49-51. We mustn’t think that unbelievers have nothing to teach us; God may be trying to communicate with us through them, although this doesn’t make the channel of His communication righteous.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8vq3-1BXtY
commentary:
36:9 Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign- 2 Kings 24:8 says he was 18, and Ez. 19:5-9 speaks of him as a young lion who killed people- relevant to an 18 year old but not an 8 year old. The Septuagint- the Greek version of the Old Testament which the New Testament writers tend to quote rather than the Hebrew text- gives “eighteen” here. This is an example of where although the Bible text itself is inspired, there may be slight errors of copying in a few places as the manuscripts were transmitted over the centuries.
36:17 King of the Chaldeans- Assyria is here called ‘Chaldea’ perhaps to bring out the fact the people of Abraham, who had been called out of Ur in Chaldea, were now returning there. The call of the Gospel is a call to separation; if we don’t want to be separate from this world, we shall be returned there. When Christ returns, those responsible to Him will come before His judgment, and the rejected will be sent back into the world to share the judgments coming upon it (1 Cor. 11:32). But that will be the last thing they want- seeing the eternity of God’s new world stretching before them, to be sent back into this world which they so preferred in this their day of opportunity.
36:22 Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus- Although God can work directly on the mind / spirit of people, Dan. 10:13 says that the Angel who brought this about was initially resisted by the king of Persia for 21 days. This amazing proclamation by Cyrus, to allow the Jews to return to their land with his blessing and rebuild their temple, was genuinely from him; and yet the Angel had worked through various ways to stir him up to it. The amount of Angelic activity going on behind the scenes in our lives and in the geopolitics of the world is amazing; God isn’t indifferent nor inactive, but is ceaselessly at work to bring about His Kingdom plans for us His people.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHJOiyX-f_0
sermon: https://youtu.be/xdu2HJO9_-Y
commentary:
2:1 The majority of Jews preferred to stay in Babylon. “The province” (singular) suggest that only a few Jews who lived in the province of Babylon returned (one out of 127 provinces; see 7:16 too), even though there were significant numbers of Jews in all the provinces, as the book of Esther makes clear (as also does Neh. 1:8, which says that the Babylonian captivity fulfilled God’s prophecy to scatter Israel amongst all nations). Those who did return were very significant to God, and He has therefore recorded their names and numbers to the individual, even how many donkeys went with them- each one who returned was so special to Him, just as we will be if we respond to the call of the restored Kingdom and come out from ‘Babylon’.
2:52 Comparing the list of names in the list of returnees in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7, we find that a number of names recur in both lists, e.g. Bazluth (Ezra 2:52; Neh. 7:54). It could be that some went from Babylon to Judah with Ezra, then returned to Babylon, and returned with Nehemiah. This hardly sounds like the glorious, positive, confident return of the captives to Zion prophesied in the restoration prophecies. Many respond to the call to leave the good life in Babylon but then falter; the vision of the restored Kingdom on earth and our working with God’s blessing to bring it about just doesn’t motivate us as it should.
2:64 Haggai's criticism of the returnees is more understandable if we understand that most of them were the poor, who hadn't 'made it' in Babylon and who went to Judah hoping to get nice houses, great harvests and material blessings- rather than to rebuild God’s house. It would be fair to infer that only the poor Jews returned from Babylon. The record here in :64-70 speaks of 42,360 people returning, along with 7,337 servants and 200 singers, making a total of 49,837. And yet only 8,100 animals went with them to transport them. This means that many would have walked. They carried 5,400 vessels for use in the temple- so the picture could be that their more wealthy brethren laded them with goods, but only the poor returned. Further, the list of towns of origin in Ezra 2 suggests it was mainly those who had originally lived in peripheral villages who returned, rather than the inhabitants of Jerusalem and larger cities. It's stressed twice that only "some" of the returned exiles supported the work of the temple (:68-70)- which was supposed to be the main reason for their return. We too can leave ‘Babylon’ by responding to the call of the Kingdom when actually our motivation is simply a disillusion with our present life, with life in ‘Babylon’, rather than a serious desire to work for the establishment of God’s Kingdom.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVisrD1xew4
sermon: https://youtu.be/wPx4KDb0n-k
commentary:
3:1 As one man- Unity amongst God’s people comes from all being committed to a sacrificial life before God and a genuine desire to hear God’s word and obey it (:2-4).
3:3 Their fear- The promises of the restoration from Babylon had repeatedly emphasized that they were not to fear nor be dismayed because God would be behind their return- if they were returning to rebuild God’s house and Kingdom rather than seek their own houses and kingdom (Jer. 30:10; Is. 41:10,13,14; 43:1,5; 44:2,8; 51:7; 54:4). This is such strong emphasis that we have to conclude that their fear was because they didn’t allow God’s prophetic word to influence them as they should have done.
3:7 According to the grant that they had from Cyrus King of Persia- Hag. 1:8, a prophecy given 18 years after the decree of Cyrus, orders the people to go up into the hills of Judah and get wood with which to build the temple. And yet we read here that the decree of Cyrus 18 years earlier had resulted in cedar wood being brought from Tyre and Sidon, enough for the temple to be built. Where did that wood go? Is the implication that the leadership had used it for their own wood ceilinged houses (Hag. 1:4)? It all seems so petty minded. But this is what we are tempted to do, time and again- build up our own house and leave God's house desolate and in a very poor second place.

3:12 The young and old didn’t rejoice together as required by the restoration prophecy of Jer. 31:12-13. Instead the old men wept, perhaps at how small the temple was compared even with Solomon’s, at how Ezekiel’s temple wasn’t being rebuilt; whilst the younger ones rejoiced.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azz_QXRYlkg
sermon: https://youtu.be/wPx4KDb0n-k
commentary:
4:2 We seek your God, as you do- They didn’t actually seek the God of Israel. The fact people have some belief in a ‘god’ and perform religious worship doesn’t mean that the people of the true God have anything in common with them. The mantra of ‘unity’ has often been used in attempts to undermine the work of the true God. We live in a world of reductionism whereby the lowest common denominator is often used as a tool for manipulation. Yet the true God stands revealed in His word as He is and the core of the Gospel is in that sense non-negotiable.
4:24 This means that the work of rebuilding the temple was suspended for 21 years. This corresponds to the 21 days (a day representing a year) during which the Angel Gabriel worked on the prince of Persia to make him genuinely support the work of rebuilding, even though during that period the prince of Persia resisted him (Dan. 10:13). This was in response to Daniel’s 21 days of prayer (Dan. 10:1,12). So although it may seem that God is distant and everything is in the hands of human rulers, in fact the Angels are actively at work, not forcing people to do what they don’t want, but seeking to arrange circumstances so that they make the choices which favour God’s work going forward. But because of this desire not to ‘force’ men, there are such delays. This is one way to explain the apparent silence of God at times in our lives, and the way that humanly, things can appear to ‘go wrong’.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cURf5BqZDs
sermon: https://youtu.be/wPx4KDb0n-k
commentary:
5:1 Ezra 4 says that the reason the temple was not further rebuilt was because of the decree of Artaxerxes suspending the building programme; then Haggai came and told Israel that the temple wasn’t built because they had preferred to build their own ceiled houses (Hag. 1:4). So God had confirmed the people in the way they chose. They preferred to build their houses rather than His, so He stopped them from building His house altogether until they wholeheartedly recommitted themselves to Him. God arranges circumstances in our lives to try to bring us toward total commitment rather than a surface level devotion which is made out of social necessity.
5:2 With them were the prophets of God, helping them- The prophets didn’t merely speak God’s word and think they had done their job by relaying it; they proactively worked to as it were bring about the fulfilment of the things they predicted. We should have the same spirit, living according to the good news of the Kingdom which we preach.
5:3,4 This is a situation very similar to that in Acts 4:18-21, where the early Christians were ordered not to preach about Christ and likewise threatened, but they felt they must do God’s will above the will of man. And true believers often have this choice; we are to seek to live obediently in the societies within which we live, but we cannot obey any command (especially relating to military service) which causes us to disobey God’s principles. God’s word must come before the word of men.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-ggk05qYh4
sermon: https://youtu.be/wPx4KDb0n-k
commentary:
6:3 Sixty cubits- The temple which Cyrus commanded the Jews to build in Jerusalem was of different (smaller) dimensions to that of Ezekiel. Two possibilities arise here. Either Israel chose to listen to the words of man rather than those of God through Ezekiel; or perhaps God reduced the dimensions, knowing that this was within the capability of Israel to achieve. In any case, Israel were encouraged by Divine prophesy in the work of building according to the pattern which Cyrus had given (:14). God is so eager to work with men that He will work with us on our lower level, even if it is a level lower than what we are capable of. And so we should treat our weaker brethren.
6:10 Paul exhorts us to pray for kings and governors, in the very language of the LXX here about the returnees praying in the new temple for the kings of Babylon (1 Tim. 2:1,2).
6:21 The account of Judah’s separation from the surrounding peoples reads similarly to that of the purges from idolatory during the reign of the kings. They separated / purged, and then, within a few years, we read of them doing so again. Initially, the exiles separated from the peoples of the land; by 9:1 they are in need of separating again; and by 10:11 likewise; then they separate (10:16), only to need another call to separation by the time of Neh. 9:2; 13:3. Our natures gravitate downwards, and any personal spiritual reformation we achieve has to be consciously maintained.
6:22 Yahweh had made them joyful, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria- Constantly we see evidence of God’s ability to give people attitudes of mind, e.g. joy, and to affect how even unbelieving kings think about His people (Prov. 21:1). As believers in Christ, our greatest need is for spiritual mindedness, to think spiritually rather about worldly and fleshly things; and we can ask God to help us in this. For He surely has the power to change our hearts.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohleBmSKu3Y
commentary:
7:2 Son of Zadok- It could have been possible for the Messianic Kingdom to have been established at the time of the restoration, and Ezekiel’s temple prophecies would then have been fulfilled. Ezekiel emphasised that the sons of Zadok were to organize priestly work in the temple (Ez. 40:46; 43:19; 44:15; 48:11); Ezra, the leader of the initial restoration, was one of the sons of Zadok. He was in a position to fulfil those prophecies, although the bulk of his brethren seem to have precluded this. Ezra was enabled to ‘beautify’ the temple (:27), the very same word used in Is. 60:7,9,13 about how God would “glorify” [s.w.] His temple with merchandise from throughout the Babylonian empire- all of which was willingly offered by Cyrus and Darius. Ez. 40-48 stress the “gates” dozens of times; and Nehemiah’s account likewise stresses many times the attention he paid to setting up the “gates” [s.w.], as if he saw his work as fulfilling Ezekiel’s words. Ez. 40:42 speaks of the vessels to be used in the temple [AV “instruments”] with the same word used for the temple vessels which were brought up out of Babylon back to Judah, in fulfilment of several of Isaiah’s ‘Kingdom’ passages (Ezra 1:6-11; 8:25-33 cp. Is. 52:11; 66:20). God’s relationship with Israel has in a sense been one long story of Him working out amazingly detailed and extensive potentials, which human inattention and lack of faith and vision meant didn’t come true. But still He endures, trying to work with us, and is so thrilled at our attempts to respond. What relief and rejoicing and fulfilment God will have when His Son finally fulfils all these potential scenarios in their essence at His return.
7:10 For Ezra had set his heart- Ezra went up to Jerusalem with his heart set on fulfilling God’s word there; and this was exactly the attitude of Jesus. It was evident from His body language that His heart was set upon going to Jerusalem to die there (Lk. 9:51,53). Ezra’s single-minded focus upon his objective should be our pattern too; not gaining worldly wealth or honour, but rather the building up of God’s house and people, and the things of His Kingdom.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObvvqsmJbww
commentary:
8:21 A straight way for us- God’s people had been prophesied as returning, walking “by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble” (Jer. 31:9). Ezra fasted for them to be given a “straight way”, as Jeremiah had foretold they could have. He saw the need for them to make the effort to fulfil the prophecy of Ezekiel’s vision in which the cherubim made “straight” progress (Ez. 1:12); the wheels on earth surely connect with how Israel should have been, moving in a straight way back to the land, in harmony with the Angel-cherubim above them likewise moving in a straight way. But they failed to “keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25). They were to walk “each one straight before him” (Is. 57:2 Heb.), as each of the cherubim went straight ahead (Ez. 1:12). We too are not alone in this world, we are being guided by the Angels above, and are to walk in step with them.
8:22 The returning exiles had been comforted by the prophetic word: “Fear not... I will help you” (Is. 41:10). Ezra was ashamed to ask for help against Judah’s enemies, the implication being that he wanted that human help but was ashamed to ask for it from the King. He had initially believed those words of Isaiah, but found it hard to maintain that level of faith. We find ourselves so often in this situation as we struggle to believe God’s promises in the midst of our secular lives.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rwVxi9ybXU
commentary:
9:1 The Levites in the restored Kingdom were not to marry divorcees or Gentiles (Ez. 44:22); but they did just this (see too Mal. 2:11-16). Time and again, they didn’t have the Kingdom experience because they didn’t want it. All who truly love the Kingdom and want it to ultimately be real for them will have it (2 Tim. 4:8).
9:2 For they have taken of their daughters- This was why they were following the idols of the Gentiles (:1). Marriage out of the faith is strongly associated with adopting the religion of the unbelieving partner. Whatever exceptions there are to this rule, that is the general pattern- be it the worship of Baal in those times, or agnosticism today. This is the spiritual danger of marriage to unbelievers.
9:3 Plucked off the hair of my head- The very punishment for marriage out of the faith at this time (Neh. 13:25). Ezra so identified with his weak brethren that he felt as if he himself had committed the sin; he even blushed before God because of the failure of His people with whom He was so closely identified (:6). This should be our response when we encounter weakness in our brethren, rather than self-righteousness and mental or physical separation from them as persons. The Lord Jesus supremely identified with us as sinners in His time of dying; our similar identity with our sinful brethren is therefore one way of living out the spirit of the cross.
9:4 The sins of those who returned are called "the transgression of those that had been carried away". Yet those who returned to the land weren't mainly the generation who had been carried away. The intended confusion is surely to suggest that those who returned committed the same sins as had led Judah into captivity a generation earlier. Ezra comments on this fact in his subsequent prayer (:7). One sad thing about spiritual history is that so few learn the lessons from others’ failures; the entire Bible is in one sense a history of spiritual failure, written for our learning (Rom. 15:4).
9:9 Ezra referred to the Jews in Babylon as those "bondservants… in bondage"- when historical records, as well as the book of Esther and the fact Nehemiah the Jew was the king's cupbearer, show that the Jews were very far from being servants in Babylonian society. Yet Ezra perceived the spiritual poverty and servanthood of remaining in that affluent society, compared to the freedom of giving it all up and going to rebuild the ruins of Zion.
9:13 Ezra said that God had punished them less than their iniquities deserved; yet he appears to have in mind Is. 40:2, where God said that at the time of Zion’s restoration, He would admit to having punished her “double for all her sins”. Yahweh in His love and pity felt that He had punished them twice as much as they deserved; but Ezra realized that it was less than what they deserved. His love is so abounding that He almost rushes to take guilt for having justly punished sin. Another example is 9:8: “And now for a little moment grace has been shown from Yahweh”. This uses the same relatively rare Hebrew construction as in Is. 54:6-8, which likens Judah to a young wife who had been “refused” during the 70 years captivity: “For a little moment have I forsaken you... in a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment”. Here is Yahweh, likening Himself to a faithful husband feeling more guilty than He was, taking upon Himself the fault for it all, saying that for the “small moment” of the captivity, He had forsaken His people. But Ezra saw that “little moment” as a time when they received grace; what may appear to some as forsaking is in fact God’s grace to us, when spiritually discerned- whether it be deep within our own lives, or in the state of affairs upon this planet.
9:14 The covenant was not to be broken in the restored Kingdom; the temple had been destroyed before because of breaking covenant with Yahweh (Ez. 44:7). But now, Judah broke covenant [s.w.] with Yahweh at the time of the restoration by marrying Gentiles and worshipping their gods.
9:15 We cannot remain before You- Ezra is recognizing that the prophecies of the restored Kingdom which speak of God’s returned people standing or remaining [same Hebrew words] before Him for ever were not going to come true (Is. 66:20-22; Ez. 44:15). 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RboLR5cENZw
commentary:
10:3 The suggestion to divorce their Gentile wives and send them away to their Gentile families, even with the children they had had by them (:44), was on their initiative. When there was a similar repentance about marriage out of the faith in Nehemiah’s time, this wasn’t done. There are degrees to which we can repent; the word ‘repent’ literally means a change of mind. Repentance is a matter of the heart, hence we can’t judge others’ repentance. But it will be articulated to different levels by different people. The fact there are different levels on which we can respond to God shouldn’t encourage a spirit of minimalism within us, but rather a desire to serve Him on as high a level as we can.
10:9 In the context of the restoration, Is. 66:1,2 had stated that having a humble spirit which trembled at God’s word was more important than building a physical house for Him. The Jews did tremble at the word at the beginning of the rebuilding. But it was a momentary thing; they came to see the building of the walls as more important than keeping a trembling spirit. Works eclipsed spirituality. Yet Isaiah had taught that the trembling at the word was more essentially important than building temples. But Judah paid no attention in the long term.
10:13 We are not able to stand outside- Literally, ‘we are not strong enough to be outside’. The returned exiles were prophesied as having increased strength and energy for their task of rebuilding the temple and God’s Kingdom; their strength would not fail (Is. 40:29-41:1), in contrast to how for the idolater, “his strength fails” (Is. 44:12). But the same word is used here about how the strength of the redeemed exiles did become weak; and again in Neh. 4:10 about how the Jewish builders didn’t have strength to remove all the rubble to rebuild the walls. God will strengthen us in all our weakness- if we are truly committed to His work, His people, His house and His Kingdom. Resources will be provided and our personal weaknesses overcome- if these things are the true yearning of our hearts.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YTV8SualnA
commentary:
1:2 Who had escaped- The urgency of 'fleeing' from Babylon was understood by Nehemiah; he speaks of those who had returned to the land as those who has "escaped" from Babylon- even though they had returned with every blessing from the authorities. He perceived as few did the  danger of remaining in the soft life of Babylon. The call to leave Babylon is used in the New Testament as the basis of the appeal to mentally leave this world and start a journey towards the restored Kingdom of God on earth at Christ’s return.
1:10 When Nehemiah speaks of them having been redeemed by Yahweh’s “strong hand” he is using the language of Is. 40:10, regarding how Yahweh would come and save Israel from Babylon and make them ‘come to Jerusalem’ “with strong hand”. Nehemiah saw the prophecy could have been fulfilled then. The way Zerubbabel (Ezra 2:2; Neh. 7:5-7), Ezra (Ezra 7:8; 8:32) and Nehemiah (Neh. 2:11; 13:7) are described as ‘coming to Jerusalem’ may hint that they could have fulfilled this coming of Yahweh to Zion; they could have been Messianic figures. So much potential was set up- and wasted- at the time of the return from exile.
1:11 Your servant- It seems that Nehemiah could have been a Messiah figure. He ‘came up’ from Babylon, and was “the servant” who ‘prospered’ Yahweh’s work (also 2:20), just as the servant prophecies required (Is. 53:10; 48:15); and he was thereby the redeemer of his brethren (5:8). He encouraged the singing of praise on the walls of Zion (9:5; 12:46), surely in a conscious effort to fulfil the words of Is. 60:18- that Zion’s gates in Messiah’s Kingdom would be praise. He was “despised” as Messiah would be (2:19; Is. 53:3 s.w.). He entered Jerusalem on a donkey, as Messiah would (2:12 cp. Zech. 9:9); and 2:16 sounds very much like “of the people there was none with me” (Is. 63:3). The Gentiles round about came to sit at Nehemiah’s table to eat and drink (5:17), just as Isaiah had prophesied could happen on a grander scale at the restoration of the Kingdom. One wonders if the potential fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies was transferred to him? And yet Nehemiah returned to Babylon at least once, and there is no record that on his second visit to Judah he stayed on, but rather, the implication seems to be, he returned again to the service of Babylon. The total lack of Biblical information about his later life may reflect this disappointing decision. This train of thought enables us to appreciate the joy and pleasure which the Father had when finally His beloved Son lived up to all that He sought and expected. It seems Nehemiah could have been a Messiah figure but failed, as did others, to live up to what was potentially possible for him. We must seek to perceive in our lives all those things which are potentially possible for us in God’s strength.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGJPq_xHn6I
commentary:
2:2 The king’s servants were supposed to be always happy and positive in his presence. But Nehemiah’s very body language reflected the pain he felt for his impoverished and spiritually weak brethren in Judah. He didn’t allow his own wealth and comfortable social standing to isolate himself from them, and as such is a valuable example to the more wealthy and comfortable members of the body of Christ today.
2:4 So I prayed- There are times when we need to pray in a half second, with eyes open and fully engaged in a human situation. But the fact God welcomes and accepts this kind of prayer doesn’t mean that we can reduce all our prayer life to this level; carefully prepared, prolonged prayer is also to feature.
2:6 The queen was also sitting by him- The implication seems to be that she influenced him to be positive towards Nehemiah and the Jews. She may have been Esther, or some other Jewess.
2:12 God put the idea of rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls into Nehemiah’s heart, and yet it’s clear from 2:2 (see note there) that his own conscience had led him to this idea. God therefore confirms us in the desires of our hearts, positively or negatively.
2:16 We feel here and in :12; 5:7 (“consulted with myself”) Nehemiah’s loneliness in his mission; a feature of all God’s true servants, no matter whether or not they like Nehemiah are flanked by supporters and resources to perform their mission.
2:20 Gentiles didn’t come and help the Jews in building. It could be that their refusal of Gentile help to build the temple, insisting that only Jews work in it (see too Ezra 4:3), was actually going too far; by being so exclusive, they were disallowing the fulfilment of the prophecies both in Zech. 6 and in Isaiah, that Gentiles would help in the final rebuilding of Zion.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2_seioy_Wc
commentary:
3:5 Their nobles didn’t put their necks to the work of their Lord- All these centuries later, God still has note of who amongst His people were true workers and who weren’t (He noted too that some “earnestly” did the work, :20). Significantly it was the nobles, the lords and leaders of the people, who found it hard to submit beneath the Lord and Master. The higher our social standing and the more human respect we command in this world, in whatever context, the harder it will be for us to recognize that we are merely humble servants beneath the Lord of all creation.
3:8 Goldsmiths and perfumers were hardly civil engineers and building site labourers; neither were the wealthy daughters of a ruler (:12). But God’s work at times requires us to do what is quite against the grain of our natural inclination; resulting as it did here in men and women of totally different backgrounds, social positions and specialisms working together to do His work. It should be the same in the ecclesia of today.	
3:15 The emphasis in the record on bars, gates and locks was perhaps to highlight how the restoration prophecies of Ezekiel, of a people living confidently without those things, had actually not been fulfilled; and therefore the prophesied events of Ez. 38-40 didn't happen- i.e. an invasion of a restored Judah, dwelling without bars and gates, which would lead in to the rebuilding of the temple and establishment of the Kingdom.
3:31 Nehemiah did his best to bring the potential Kingdom of God about by urging the people to repentance and conformity to God’s will, such was his perception of what was going on; that the coming of God’s Kingdom was being limited by the apathy of his own people. No fewer than 24 times in Ez. 40-48 are we told that the temple was to be built by ‘measure’ (e.g. Ez. 40:3,5,10,21,22,24,28,29); and the same word occurs frequently in describing how Nehemiah gave various groups of Jews their own “portion” [s.w. ‘measure’] in the work of rebuilding Jerusalem (:11,19,20,22,24,27). He arranged for 12 gates to be built in the wall, as Ez. 48:31-34 had commanded there to be. He built miphkad, “the Muster Gate”, the “appointed place” [s.w.] of Ez. 43:21. As he ‘measured out’ the work of rebuilding Jerusalem, he must have been conscious of the Kingdom prophecy of Jer. 31:38-40. It could have been fulfilled, this could have been the potential Kingdom of God, and he set about to seek to fulfil it; but those places were not kept “holy unto the Lord”, and therefore the Jews were to be again plucked up and thrown down.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvPKps1Sl5s
commentary:
4:4 Is. 51:3-11 is clearly in a restoration context: “For Yahweh shall comfort Zion: He will comfort all her waste places... Hearken unto me, you that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is My law; fear not the reproach of men [s.w. Neh. 1:3; 2:17; 4:4; 5:9 about the reproach of the Gentiles against the partially rebuilt Jerusalem], neither be afraid of their reviling”. Insofar as Nehemiah and the Jews knew this prophecy, they would have taken great encouragement. But maybe they were unfamiliar with it, and yet still did the work, although lacking the encouragement which they could have had. Our familiarity with God’s word becomes of great value when in a difficult situation we suddenly perceive how we are being spoken to directly by God’s prophetic word.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT2n6CerJ2M
commentary:
5:1-5 The prophecies of the restored Kingdom emphasized that the princes would not then oppress the people (Ez. 45:8,9; 46:18); but we see here that they did (see too Zech. 7:10; Mal. 3:5). Jer. 7:3-7 made it clear that Judah’s return to the land was to be conditional upon them not oppressing the poor- only “then will I cause you to dwell in this place”. Yet in His grace and zeal for His people, it seems God overlooked that condition- for the returned exiles did oppress each other, and yet they returned to the land. And yet they would’ve dwelt in Zion “for ever and ever” (Jer. 7:7) if they had not been abusive to others and truly loved God. Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi all record social injustice as being the order of the day at the time of the restoration.
5:7 See on 2:16.
5:8 We... have redeemed our brothers- God redeemed the exiles from Babylon (Is. 48:20; 51:11; 52:9; 62:12), and our response to that redemption should be to redeem others and not abuse them.
5:15 Is. 58:1,2 is a criticism of Judah in exile and also of those who did return to the land- they sought God daily, and yet abused their brethren (Is. 58:6), just as recorded here. If they had ceased from their sins, "Then shall your light break forth as the morning", if they had fed the hungry etc, then would've been fulfilled the Messianic Kingdom prophecies of the light of Zion rising above the Gentiles etc (Is. 58:10,12 cp. Is. 60:1). These Kingdom predictions will ultimately come true at Christ’s return to earth and the establishment of His Kingdom here, but we will only be there if we learn the lessons from Judah’s failure and don’t abuse our brethren.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbf4LVjkFyw
commentary:
6:1 There was no breach left- Amos 9:11-15 refers to this: “In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old”. The passage goes on to prophecy a time of great fertility and victory over “Edom”. “I will raise up” uses a Hebrew word commonly featured in the records of the restoration, when the people were exhorted to “arise up and build” (Ezra 1:5; 3:2; 10:4,15; Neh. 2:18,20). The statement that they would “close up the breaches thereof” is exactly the language of Neh. 6:1, which records that the walls were rebuilt so that there was no breach [s.w.] therein. It was after the Babylonian invasion that Zion was “fallen” and ‘ruined’ (s.w. Jer. 31:18; 45:4; Lam. 2:2,17). “I will build it” is exactly the theme of the records of the return from Babylon (Ezra 1:2,3,5; 3:2,10; 4:1-4; Neh. 2:5,17,18,20; 3:1-3, 13-15; 4:1,3,5,6,10,17,18; 6:1,6; 7:1). Surely Amos 9 is saying that at the rebuilding at the time of the restoration, God’s people could have ushered in the Kingdom age of agricultural plenty and victory over their Arab neighbours. But they intermarried with Edom, and suffered drought because they didn’t fulfil the requirements to rebuild Zion correctly. But the words of Amos were still to come true in some form- they are given an application in Acts 15:17 which may appear to be way out of context, i.e. to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Thus words which could have had a plain fulfilment at the restoration were given a delayed fulfilment; but they were not fulfilled in a literal sense, but in a spiritual one. And so it may be with many prophecies about us today; they could be fulfilled if God’s people are more ‘fulfilling’ of them.
6:3 Why should the work cease- This should be our perspective in such times of conflict; cries of unity and reconciliation can be used as a mantra to make God’s work cease, and we shouldn’t be afraid to see them for what they are. The way the opponents of God’s work created a false allegation- that Nehemiah was setting himself up as king- and then tried to blackmail him over it (:7,8) is typical of what happens in these situations. We can simply insist we are telling the truth and not be afraid to name false accusation for what it is (:8).
6:11 As eunuchs weren’t allowed within the temple, this could suggest Nehemiah was a eunuch; for he says that for a man like him to enter the temple would be a sin (:13). He would likely have had to be made one in order to be the king’s cupbearer (1:11), but he used the limitations which this world had unreasonably placed upon him in order to funnel his creative energy into God’s work and the welfare of His people and the things of His Kingdom.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L61IR2TwyUE
commentary:
7:2 Nehemiah’s brother Hanani was given “charge over Jerusalem: for he was a faithful man”- not just because he was the boss’s brother, which is how the nepotism of those times would have usually required. It can be that human qualification, e.g. being a successful businessman, or the brother of a leading brother, is related to positions of eldership amongst us. Yet the Nehemiah passage shows that although sometimes there may be overlap between both spiritual and human qualification, it is the spiritual qualification which must be paramount.
7:5 Nehemiah made a special study of the genealogies in order to find an acceptable priesthood (:5), and perhaps this was the basis for the genealogies written up in the early chapters of 1 Chronicles. So there were Israel returning from captivity, led by a faithful remnant of the priests, looking back through their history, right back to Abraham and beyond, and seeing that their history was shot through with failure. Such self-examination extended even to considering the names parents gave their children.
7:6 Seeing that the majority of the Jews chose the soft life and remained in Babylon, God was especially sensitive to those who returned; and for over 2500 years these names have been recorded in His word. Such is His awareness of all those who respond to the call of the Kingdom and to forsake this world. Note how the numbers are recorded very exactly. God was sensitive to each and every one who returned.
7:7 This describes Zerubbabel as being at the head of twelve leaders of the returning exiles, who are called “the people of Israel” (cp. Ezra 2:2). Whilst it was Judah who had been taken into captivity, it seems that some of the ten tribes [who had been taken into captivity in Assyria some time earlier] also returned with them; it was God’s intention to create a new, unified Israel in the restored Kingdom. But most of God’s people then as today chose not to participate in the unity plan He had desired for His people.
7:54 Comparing the list of names in the list of returnees in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7, we find that a number of names recur in both lists, e.g. Bazluth (Ezra 2:52; Neh. 7:54). It could be that some went from Babylon to Judah with Ezra, then returned to Babylon, and returned with Nehemiah. This hardly sounds like the glorious, positive, confident return of the captives to Zion prophesied in the restoration prophecies. Like us at times, God’s people lost their nerve in quitting this world and dedicating themselves to the things of His Kingdom.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Woiop_fUafE
commentary:
8:1 As one man- Genuine desire to accept God’s word and repent for failure (:9) is what brings unity amongst His people.
8:10 Send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared- The receipt of forgiveness from God should lead to our being materially generous to others. Hence Paul urges the Corinthians to be materially generous to their poorer brethren because of God’s grace to them, thus making a play on the fact that the Greek word translated “grace” essentially means a gift. God’s gift of forgiveness to us leads to our giving to others.
The joy of Yahweh- In the context, this refers to His desire to forgive His people; He actually is joyful in forgiving us, as we should be in our forgiveness of others; not doing it from a sense of grudging necessity.
8:12 Because they had understood the words- The need for correct understanding of God’s word is because it motivates to action in practice. See 10:28.
8:14-17 Ez. 45:25 had specifically prophesied that the feast of the seventh month would be strictly kept in the restored Kingdom. The fact they hadn’t done so until now shows how they didn’t want to fulfil the restoration prophecies because the immediate daily issues of life took them away from obedience to God’s will. Note that Zech. 7:5 criticised the Jews for keeping this feast only externally, and not “unto Me”. Hag. 2:1 records how on the 21st day of the 7th month- i.e. once the seven day feast that began on the 15th had finished- Haggai was sent to rebuke “the prince”, Zerubbabel, for being so slack in fulfilling Ezekiel’s vision. They subconsciously switched off to Ezekiel’s words; just as we can all do. They reasoned that “the time” of which he spoke hadn’t come- even though the temple had miraculously been enabled to be rebuilt, for no human benefit at all to Cyrus (Is. 45:13 “not for price nor reward”). Like us, they failed to see the personal reality of God’s word to their situation.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T9svsYNcXM
commentary:
9:2 The account of Judah’s separation from the surrounding peoples reads similarly to that of the purges from idolatry during the reign of the kings. They separated / purged, and then, within a few years, we read of them doing so again. Initially, the exiles separated from the peoples of the land (Ezra 6:21); by Ezra 9:1 they are in need of separating again; and by Ezra 10:11 likewise; then they separate (Ezra 10:16), only to need another call to separation by the time of Nehemiah 9:2; 13:3. Our spiritual progress often has too much of this kind of pseudo repentance associated with it.
9:6 You are Yahweh, even You alone- There is archaeological evidence that there was another god called ‘Yahweh’ worshipped by the Canaanites; hence the confession here that Yahweh God of Israel was the only true Yahweh. There are in our world many things which can appear as the true God when they are but fake imitations.
9:10 Made a name for Yourself- God’s Name isn’t simply a word, it is His entire personality as historically demonstrated and articulated in human history.
9:19 Yet the pillar of cloud didn’t depart from over them- Even in periods of sin and failure, God still tries to lead His people towards the Kingdom rather than totally disassociating from them.
9:30 Your Spirit through Your prophets- The prophets, whose words we have in the Bible, were inspired by God through the process of Divine inspiration (2 Tim. 3:16). Their words which we read in the Bible are thereby God’s words and a channel of His Spirit to us.
9:37 Faithful men like Nehemiah felt so identified with the sinful people that they could speak of “our sins”. If we are true members of His people then we will feel the state of the community as being our state, rather than seeing ourselves as somehow separate from them. Nehemiah was therefore the first to seal the covenant of repentance (10:1).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3udf_fKoK-U
commentary:
10:28,29 The people “separated themselves from the peoples of the lands unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters… they joined with their brothers”. Close fellowship with our brethren arises from having gone out from the surrounding world and being separated unto the things of God’s word. The Hebrew idea of “holiness” carries the idea of being separated from the things of this world unto the things of God. We see that happening here; separation isn’t a merely negative idea. The separation is positively unto other things.
Each one who had knowledge, and understanding- See on  8:12.
10:32,33 The Mosaic Law had required a half shekel temple tax, but this was reduced here, apparently with God’s blessing- such was His desire to work with them and have them as His people (Ex. 30:11-16).
10:39 They divorced their Gentile wives, and then took more (in the times of Ezra, Nehemiah and Malachi). They vowed not to forsake the house of their God, and yet Nehemiah concludes with the record that this is exactly what they did (13:11). They were slack paying the tithes, then they paid them, they slacked again, then they paid them, then Malachi records how they again didn’t- several times this cycle is recorded. Likewise the withholding of agricultural blessing occurred several times- in 5:2,3 (as prophesied in Is. 51:19), in Haggai’s time, and later in Malachi 3:10,12; when the restored Zion could have been as the garden of Eden, i.e. paradise restored on earth (Is. 51:3). Here we see frightening similarities with ourselves. We know, but often don’t do. We sense this cycle of failure, crying out for mercy, receiving it, failing again, crying for mercy, receiving it, failing again...we see it in Israel, in our brethren and those around us, and in ourselves. We can expound it, lament it, feel the shame and tragedy of it all...and yet continue to have a part in it. Eventually, the people stayed in this groove so long that they degenerated into how they were at the time of Malachi- self-righteous, with no sense of failure any more, living self-centred lives of petty materialism, earning wages as they did in Haggai’s time, to put into pockets with holes in, life without satisfaction, achieving nothing, passively angry. This is what Malachi clearly portrays. It’s a terrible picture, and one which we at times can sail dangerously close to identifying with.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNSJLyHinfs
commentary:
11:1 Neh. 7:4 obliquely comments on the tragedy- that the city was large and great, but the people who returned from Babylon were few who lived in it, and the houses weren’t rebuilt there. When “the time to favour Zion” came, at the end of the 70 years, God’s servants were to “take pleasure in her stones, and favour [even] the dust thereof”; and then, “when the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory” (Ps. 102:13-16). But the few Jews who returned chose not to live in Jerusalem, preferring to carve out for themselves farmsteads in the countryside, and the strength of those that shifted the rubble in Jerusalem decayed… they saw her dust and scattered stones as a nuisance, and didn’t take pleasure in them (4:10). And so the Lord could not then appear in glory. Short term attitudes, satisfied with our little lives and homes, rather than the bigger picture of God’s glory, a failure to perceive our potential as individuals and as a community- this is what limits so many possibilities which God has potentially enabled. God was therefore especially sensitive to those who had the faith to live in Jerusalem, and for millennia He has recorded their names and brought them before Bible readers- hence the detailed list of their names in this chapter. Note that the list of names of those who lived in the towns outside Jerusalem isn’t so detailed (:25-33).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp4KPQ4f0b4
commentary:
12:30 Those who purify others must firstly purify themselves. Whatever spiritual work we try to do for others must be based upon our first having achieved it in our own lives; otherwise our appeal to others will lack integrity and power of persuasion. In our context, our purification is through baptism into Christ.
12:39 Ez. 48:31-34 envisaged the 12 gates of Jerusalem being named after the 12 tribes of Israel. But it seems no accident that twelve separate gates of the city are mentioned in the restoration record- but they weren't renamed after the tribes of Israel. Here are the names of the city gates in Nehemiah: valley (3:13); horse (3:28); east (3:29); Miphkad / muster (3:31); water (8:16); dung (12:31); fountain (12:37); Ephraim, old, fish, sheep and prison gates (12:39). No wonder some wept when the rebuilt temple was finally dedicated- the pattern of Ezekiel's vision hadn't been followed, even on such basic matters as the names of the twelve gates of Jerusalem. They could have renamed them, but lacked the willingness to see God’s prophetic word as relevant in detail to their lives, just as we can wish to constantly place a distance between God’s word, the black print on white paper, and our lives today.
12:43 They... rejoiced; for God had made them rejoice with great joy- God is able and willing to confirm us in the mental attitudes we choose to have.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlcy-z92TYk
commentary:
13:1 Their ignorance of God’s word seems amazing (cp. 8:17). This may partly be because in an illiterate society, access to God’s word depended upon the few literate ones reading it and faithfully explaining it to them. We note that despite ignorance of parts of God’s word, and thereby disobedience to them (and sins of ignorance were still counted as sins), God still accepted them. This shouldn’t lead us to personal complacency, but to tolerance and patience with those who are disobedient to and even ignorant of parts of God’s word.
13:7-9 In the restored Kingdom, there were to be “holy chambers” in the temple for the Levites (Ez. 46:19 and very often in Ezekiel 40-48). The uncircumcised Gentiles were not to be brought into the sanctuary (Ez. 44:7). It was God’s intention that when Judah returned from Babylon, the uncircumcised would not come into Zion (the temple), and the Kingdom would be established (Is. 52:1,11). There was to be no Canaanite in the house of Yahweh (Zech. 14:21). Yet Tobiah the Ammonite was given a chamber in the temple for him to use as an office for undermining God’s people. All this wasted potential is so tragic; and if it is to us who read from such a great distance in time and understanding, how much more was it for God. We can therefore sense His eagerness to work with us who have vowed to be His new Israel and become the seed of Abraham through baptism (Gal. 3:27-29).
13:8 It grieved me severely- Hearts that bleed will feel not only for the world, but for our brethren too. His grief led him to discipline Tobiah. Grief should likewise be the motive for ecclesial discipline today (as in 1 Cor. 5:2). The same word is translated "sad" in 2:3. The King observed that his "sorrow of heart" was written all over his face, even though he was trying to conceal it. His sadness for his weak people was engraved in his body language. Instead of being naggingly critical of our brethren, there should be this genuine grief.
13:17,18 The house of the restored Kingdom was not to be profaned (Ez. 44:7); but Judah profaned the Sabbath and profaned the temple by their marriage with Gentiles and their “weariness” with the temple ordinances (Mal. 1:12; 2:10,11). They got bored with the things of the Kingdom, and so they had no part in it.
13:19 Is. 60:10,11 had foretold: “And the sons of strangers shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister unto you [as happened in the decree of Cyrus]...Therefore your gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night”; and then as Ez. 43 had also described, “I will glorify the house of My glory” (Is. 60:7). But due to the Jews’ abuse of the Sabbath and their refusal to believe Yahweh would be the promised wall of protecting fire to them, the gates could not be open continually, and had to be shut at night (see too 7:3). And Antiochus quite soon after Nehemiah’s time destroyed them [which shows how the spirituality involved in what we do, e.g. the building of the wall, is the essential thing, rather than the achievement of anything in itself]. The implication of the prophecies about Zion’s open gates was that whosoever wished could then come at any time to seek Yahweh. But men were potentially turned away from Him, and His Kingdom not realized... just because greedy, materialistic Jews wanted to have a few more coins in their pocket as a result of their trading on the Sabbath. And so with us, our meanness towards God’s word, our selfishness, our desire to have more than we need to cover us in the case of any eventuality, all this effectively shuts up the Kingdom against men. If the Pharisees could do just this, it is possible for us to do it. The salvation of others has been delegated into our hands.
13:19,20 Ez. 46:3 had predicted that “The people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate before the Yahweh in the Sabbaths and in the new moons”. But encouraged by the materialism of the Jews, “the people of the land” hung around the gates of the city on the Sabbath in order to do some trading of goods. Petty materialism was one factor which led even to Christ’s betrayal; and it so easily does so time and again in the lives of God’s children.
13:27 Nehemiah stridently criticized Israel for yet again marrying Gentiles. He described their action as "breaking covenant with our God in marrying strange wives"; the Levites likewise "defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood" (:29) by their marriages. Marriage out of the Faith is this serious; it is a breaking covenant with God.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXaQvHMxz-E
sermon: https://youtu.be/ceEMS1a2bts
commentary:
1:6 The language here is exactly that used about God’s tabernacle and temple. The cups used in :7 may well have been those taken from Yahweh’s temple in Jerusalem (Jer. 52:19; Dan. 5:2). The Persian empire is therefore being presented as a fake Kingdom of God on earth. God’s people living there had to break from it and obey the command to return to the desolate land of Judah and rebuild God’s true Kingdom there. We have the same call in responding to the Gospel today, in leaving this world, which appears to be God’s Kingdom but isn’t, and take the hard, self-sacrificial journey in life towards His true Kingdom which will be re-established on earth at Christ’s return. "His glorious kingdom" (:4) uses the same two Hebrew words as in Ps. 145:11,12, where we read [in a Psalm that may well have been written or used by the righteous remnant in Babylon] that it is Yahweh God of Israel who has a Kingdom of glory, and who ultimately hears the cry of His people in distress, as Ahasuerus did. The Kingdom of Media and Persia had books in which the good and bad deeds of the citizens were written (10:2); and so in the one true Kingdom, there are ‘books’ from which the ultimate King will judge His people. Clearly, the Kingdom of Ahasuerus is being set up as an anti-Kingdom of God, with an antichrist figure ruling it, faking the Kingdom of God.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K96AnLnDkwM
commentary:
1:6 The common idea that Satan in Job was a sinful cosmic being who brought evil upon Job against God’s will and tried to make him sin is wrong. “Satan” is only mentioned in the first two chapters of Job and nowhere in the book is he defined as a fallen angel. The word means ‘adversary’ and of itself has no negative connotation; it can be used about good people (Mt. 16:21-23). “Sons of God” can refer to believers (Rom. 8:14; 2 Cor. 6:17-18; 1 Jn. 3:7). Angels do not bring false accusations against believers “before the Lord” (2 Pet. 2:11). It cannot be conclusively proved that Satan was a son of God - he “came among them”. Satan is described as “going to and fro in the earth”- but there is no implication that he was doing anything sinful; Zech. 1:11 implies that this is a Hebraism for observing. How can Satan be in heaven and also on earth in Job’s time when, according to popular belief, he was thrown out at the time of Adam, or in 1914, according to some? There cannot be sin or rebellion against God in heaven (Ps. 5:4-5; Hab. 1:13; Mt. 6:10; Ps. 103:19-21); Angels don’t sin (Lk. 20:35,36 cp. Rom. 6:23). The major theme of the book of Job is that God brought the problems into Job’s life and eventually they made him more righteous (2:10; 16:11; 19:21; 23:16; 42:11). Job did not believe that only good things came from God; he nowhere complains about Satan bringing the problems. Job realized that his sufferings had made him come to know God in practice rather than just in theory (42:5). Seeing that problems make us more righteous people if we respond correctly to them (Heb. 12:5-11), why would a sinful, wicked being, who wants to turn us away from God, bring these things into our lives, when actually they only make us more righteous and closer to God? The fact that Satan and the sons of God were in “the presence of the Lord” and presented themselves “before the Lord” (2:7; 1:6) does not necessarily mean that they were in heaven. The representatives of God carry the name of God, e.g. the angel which led Israel through the wilderness was called “the Lord” because it carried God’s name (Ex. 23:20-21), but it was not God Himself in person (Ex. 33:12,20). Similarly, priests represent God (2 Chron. 19:6) and to come before them was to come “before the Lord” (Dt. 19:17). Cain “went out from the presence of the Lord” (Gen. 4:16) - not out of heaven but probably away from the presence of the angel - cherubim. Jesus was presented as a baby “before the Lord” (Lk. 2:22)- i.e. before the priest. Satan had to get power from God (2:3-6); he had none in his own right, indeed, God brought Job to Satan’s notice (1:8). Job often comments about God being the source of his sufferings (9:24). Job didn’t believe anyone apart from God was responsible. There is no indication that anything Satan did was sinful. Satan never actually says or does anything wrong; he simply makes the observation that there may well be a relationship between Job's service of God and the material blessing which God has given him. He is then empowered by God to bring calamities into Job's life. Time and again it is stressed that God brought the problems upon Job, not satan independently (1:12,16; 2:3,10; 6:4; 8:4; 19:21; 42:18). Even if the “satan” (adversary) to Job was an angel, there is no reason to think it was sinful. An angel asked Abraham to offer Isaac to find out exactly how obedient Abraham would be (Gen. 22:12; see too Dt. 8:2).A righteous angel was called a “satan” in Num. 22:22. If we follow through the argument of the book, the orthodox view requires that the logical answer of Job to the friends' allegations would have been "I'm suffering because Satan has it in for me! He's doing this, not God!". For the friends were reasoning that God was bringing such affliction into Job's life because Job was a sinner. The fact Job doesn't make this obvious retort indicates that "the Satan" wasn't understood by either Job nor the friends as a personal supernatural being of evil. The “sons of God” - the believers at that time - presented themselves before a priest or angel, perhaps at a religious feast. Someone there, maybe one of the worshippers, reflected that it was not surprising that Job was such a strong believer, seeing that God had so richly blessed him. God gave that person the power to afflict Job, to demonstrate that Job’s love of God was not proportionate to the blessings God had given him. Maybe the Satan was composed of Job’s three “friends” - they are rebuked at the end of the book (notice that “satan” is not rebuked there by name). Their discussions with Job indicate that they had their doubts as to his integrity and suspected that his faith was now weak because God had taken away the blessings from him (4:5,7). The prologue to Job is a literary device to place theological problems before us, e.g. of the relationship between service of God and receipt of blessing, and sin and suffering. The friends insist that "the destroyer" [by which they surely meant an early equivalent to 'the devil' of popular belief today] had touched Job- whereas Job insists that it is God who had destroyed him (15:21 cp. 19:10; 13:21). In some ways the book of Job is a deconstruction of the popular Persian and Canaanite myths about a 'satan' figure. Job, both in the story of his sufferings and his specific words, seeks to demonstrate that the essential issue in life is being "just with God", and not whether or not we are touched by the hand of an evil being; for the hand of God which touched Job (19:21) is the hand of 'satan' into which God delivered Job temporarily (1:12). Job says that the attitude of the friends is wrong- they should be looking into themselves, rather than fantasizing about the action of some unseen evil being they imagined (19:28,29). The book of Job is a dialogue concerning evil and suffering, with three popular views being represented by the three friends. These views are examined and corrected by the personal history of Job, as well as by the epilogue and prologue to the book. Eliphaz seems to be representative of the idea that Job is being hit by supernaturally controlled evil- Eliphaz speaks of a force of darkness (22:10,11) and sinful or faulty Angels living in an unclean Heaven (4:18; 15:15). Yet the answer to all this is that the Satan figure is under God's control, all Job's misfortunes come from God, and His Angels- one of whom may have been called 'the adversary' ('Satan')- are in fact perfectly obedient to Him and not disobedient. And finally, Eliphaz and the friends are rebuked for their various wrong understandings, with God declaring Himself supreme and ultimate sovereign. Bildad's view of Angels in 25:5 "The stars are not pure in God's eyes" is corrected by God in Job 38:7, when He says that "the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy".


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8flgrGgrz4
commentary:
2:3 To ruin him without cause- We learn here that God can bring suffering into the lives of His children for reasons other than because they have sinned. There is no direct relationship between sin and suffering in this life; for the wicked often prosper. The day of judgment and reward for how life has been lived is ultimately at the final day of judgment when Christ returns. As Job struggles with the question of ‘Why suffering?’, he is progressively driven to a clearer understanding of the future day of judgment and resurrection of the dead to get the reward which God’s justice requires. Thus he was driven by experience and reflection on life to the doctrinal truths which are made explicit in the New Testament. Job begins the book presented as a complete spiritual person and he ends the book presented the same way. The reason for suffering isn’t always so that we personally may develop through it; in Job’s case, it was so that others would learn principles, not least the friends and the ‘satan’ character, and us the readers of subsequent generations. Some experiences and sufferings we have are perhaps more for the benefit of others who are observing, rather than for our own development.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOwZHQ3vxeY
commentary:
3:3 Job’s depressive lament and desire to die in this chapter is quoted and alluded to by Jeremiah when he too was in severe depression and struggling with suicidal tendencies (Jer. 15:10; 20:14). Depression happens to God’s people; one simple lesson from all this is that depression itself isn’t a sin. It’s how we respond to it which can become a moral issue. Jeremiah’s way of coping was to associate himself with the words of a depressed faithful believer like Job. Our familiarity with Bible characters will pay great dividends in our hard times, as we see that history- spiritual history, God’s patterns of working with men- is repeating; and the sense of existential loneliness, utter aloneness, which is part of the nexus of depression will to some extent be alleviated. Note too that Job’s suicidal tendencies here and bitterness that God wouldn’t take away his life are not criticized by God; He comments at the end that Job spoke what was right (42:7,8). Yet Job says many hard things about God as the story proceeds; but by grace, God imputed righteousness to him; or made allowance for the pressures upon Job. This isn’t to justify any kind of situational ethic- ‘I did it because the situation forced me to and I had no choice’. Rather does it simply show God’s compassionate, gracious appreciation of situational pressure; and we should bear the same in mind in our consideration of others’ words and behaviour under pressure.
3:23 There are many connections between Isaiah and the book of Job; those in Is. 40 are especially marked. Is. 40:14 = Job 21:22; 40:17 = 6:18; 40:22 = 9:8; 40:23 = 12:21; 40:24 = 14:8; 40:26 = 25:3; 40:31 = 29:20. The link between Is.40:27 and Job 3:23 is most significant: "Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgement is passed over from my God?". These are the words of Job here. Thus Job is the prototype of the suffering servant and represents Israel. Israel in captivity in Babylon (which is the context of Isaiah 40) are being bid look to Job, whose family and home were also destroyed by the Chaldeans (1:17) because of their sin. As Job sat in grief and perplexity, so did Judah by the rivers of Babylon. The message of the book of Job to the faithful remnant in captivity was therefore that God had ultimately brought this calamity, and finally He would restore the fortunes of His people. We too in our exiles can see in Job the essence of our own pain, and thereby the sure, ultimate hope of restoration. See on 4:7; 5:14; 21:7; 30:26; 33:27.
3:26 Job complains that although he didn’t have a peaceful life anyway, now yet more trouble had come upon him. And yet the impression given by 1:14 is that the animals were quietly grazing and Job was at peace. The simple lesson is that those who appear to others to have a calm, quiet life often have issues going on which are very


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLKztyi9lN4
commentary:
4:7 Whoever perished, being innocent- The friends were reasoning from the position that suffering only comes as a punishment for sin; and therefore, they concluded, Job must have been a huge secret sinner. Therefore they laid false guilt upon him, and urged him to repent for things he hadn’t done. We too live in a world which often loads us with false guilt. We must take guilt for our actual sins, and allow the reality of our personal relationship with God to free us from the false guilt others wish to place upon us. The righteous remnant in exile had struggled with the question of how the righteous had perished in the Babylonian invasion (Is. 57:1), and the book of Job was an answer to their struggle over this (see on 3:23).
4:8 According to what I have seen- Eliphaz appeals to personal experience and secular history and wisdom- hence he asks Job to “remember”, to think back and realize, that only the wicked perish (:7). One theme of the book of Job is that God’s ways, as revealed in His word and in His history, contradict human wisdom and traditional conclusions.
4:18 He charges His angels with folly- These are Eliphaz’s words, and God at the end says that he didn’t speak what was right about God (42:7,8). There cannot be sin or rebellion against God in heaven (Ps. 5:4-5; Hab. 1:13; Mt. 6:10; Ps. 103:19-21); Angels don’t sin (Lk. 20:35,36 cp. Rom. 6:23). The book of Job actually deconstructs such notions, revealing God as the ultimate source of suffering.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHZW42Dv7-k
commentary:
5:4 His children are far from safety- The friends often allude to Job’s situation in describing the fate of the wicked. They assumed that because Job’s children had been killed, therefore he was wicked. This kind of indirect hitting on a person is very hurtful; when we experience it, we can think of Job.
5:7 The sons of Resheph- Significantly, it is the friends who make allusion to the ‘Satan’ figures and gods as if they are real, whereas Job in his responses always denies their reality and sees God as the direct source of His sufferings. Eliphaz here blames Job’s troubles upon the “sons of Resheph”; Bildad speaks of how Job’s troubles are to be associated with “the king of terrors” (18:14); but Job’s response is that the source of the evil in his life is ultimately from God and not any such being. Resheph was known as "the lord of the arrow" and the Ugaritic tablets associate him with archery. Job's response is that "The arrows of the Almighty are in me" (6:4), and he laments that God is an archer using him as His target for practice (7:20; 16:12,13). Job refuses to accept Eliphaz's explanation that Job is a victim of Resheph's arrows. For Job, if God is "the Almighty" then there is no space left for Resheph. Each blow he received, each arrow strike, was from God and not Resheph.
5:12,13 The New Testament references to Job suggest that he was seen as a symbol of the Jewish system of reliance on human status, self righteousness and works, which all has to be humbled and no longer trusted if we accept God’s grace. Thus Paul quotes these verses in 1 Cor. 1:19: "For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent". Eliphaz is explaining why he thinks Job and his view of life have been brought to nothing. Thus Paul read Job as a type of those who were influenced by the pseudo-wisdom of the Judaizers. Paul continues: "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world?" (1 Cor.1:20). Job's constant desire to dispute with God and the friends, and the claims both he and they made to possessing wisdom, show Job was clearly in Paul's mind. "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" he concludes, maybe thinking of the humbled Job. Job was the greatest of the men of the east (1:3), people who were renowned in the ancient world for their wisdom (Mt.2:1; 1 Kings 4:30). Thus Job would have been full of worldly wisdom, and this is maybe behind Paul's words of 1 Cor.3:18,19: "If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written [quoting Job 5:13, which is Eliphaz speaking about Job], He takes the wise in their own craftiness".
5:14 Darkness at noon was understood as Divine judgment; hence when this happened at Christ’s death, we are invited to understand His death as being the judgment of this world (Jn. 12:31). To come before Christ on the cross is to come before our judgment; hence the connection between self-examination at the breaking of bread and at the last day. There are also links between Job and Deuteronomy 28, as if Job was the personification of Israel suffering for their sins (see on 3:23). Yet he was personally spotless to God (1:1,2). Thus he was a type of Christ, who although personally sinless was totally identified with sinful humanity. Suffering darkness at noon and groping in the daytime as in the night = Dt. 28:29; Job’s fits of blindness (22:10,11) = Dt. 29:29; boils from head to foot (2:7) = Dt. 28:35; made an astonishment (= Dt. 28:37) and a byword (17:6; 30:9) = Dt. 28:37; wishing for night in the morning and for the morning at night (7:4) = Dt. 28:67; Job’s of children and cattle = Dt. 28:41,51.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLABJu7QZWc
commentary:
6:3 Therefore have my words been rash- Job excuses himself by saying that his rash words were an inevitable result of the situational pressure upon him; he likens himself to a donkey who inevitably neighs when there is no grass (:5). Yet seeing the situations came from God, this was effectively blaming God for his failure. We must recognize that sin isn’t inevitable. We can only blame ourselves, not the situations which we have caved in to.
6:4 See on 5:7.
6:25,26 Job seems to be saying that there is nothing tangible for him to be reproved over apart from some rash words (:3). Thus he minimizes poor speaking; whereas Christ taught that by our words we are justified or condemned, so important are they (Mt. 12:37).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68KEZ65VY_k
commentary:
7:17 That You should set Your mind on him-  The Hebrew for ‘to set the mind on’ is also translated “consider” in 2:3, where God asks the ‘satan’ whether he has “considered My servant Job..?”. Thus Job sees God as considering him, whilst we are told earlier that satan / the adversary was told to do this. Thus whoever the ‘satan’ or adversary figure was, Job saw this being as ultimately representing God.
7:18 Test him every moment- God’s level of involvement in our lives is amazing, considering His greatness and our smallness.
7:20,21 Job makes several wrong statements here. In his depression, he wonders why God should be so worried about sin, seeing He is so great. But this is exactly the point- God despite His greatness is so highly sensitive to human behaviour. Job takes comfort in his idea that death will as it were hide him from God (:21), and as he doesn’t want to live for ever (:16), therefore, Job thinks, he will not. But he totally underestimated God’s grace, His desire for us, and to live eternally with us. These things were said by Job in depression and in the grip of suicidal desires (:15); yet at the end, God doesn’t rebuke Job but rather justifies him (42:7). This shows the extent to which God does accept depression as a state which leads to a person saying things which aren’t reflective of the real person, the one whom God sees, loves and judges. It also reflects the extent of the righteousness which God imputes to those He loves.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcupADX4344
commentary:
8:6 If you were pure and upright- The words of the friends suggest that their view was in fact that of the satan in the prologue; a case can be made that they are in fact the ‘satan’ / adversary figure. Satan quibbled with God's pronunciation of Job as perfect and upright (1:8). And here Bildad likewise seems to allude to this when he comments that if Job were indeed pure and upright, then God would help him.
8:8-10 Bildad emphasizes the view of traditional wisdom; and one theme of Job is that traditionally accepted ideas about God are shown by His word and by actual experience to be wrong. Bildad insists that Job must have sinned because traditional wisdom taught that calamity is always the result of sin. We see here how wrong understandings lead to damaged personal relationships and tragic misjudgements in practice.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZZQ2lX5E_8
commentary:
9:16 I wouldn’t believe that He listened to my voice- In times of depression, even clearly answered prayer fails to spiritually register with us. And the ending of the book of Job shows that God in His grace understands that.
9:21 See on 21:7.
9:24 The G.N.B. puts it: “If God didn’t do it, who did?”. This is a key verse in understanding the book of Job. After all the theories of ‘Who’s responsible for all this evil in Job’s life?’, Job concludes that the source simply has to be God- and not anyone else. If He truly is all powerful, then who else could ultimately be responsible? Job states that “the cohorts of Rahab [a Canaanite ‘Satan’ figure] shall stoop under [God]” (:13), clearly alluding to the helpers of Tiamat in the Babylonian myth. “God alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the back of Yam”- the sea, or sea-monster (:8). Job believed that it was God who was seeking to swallow him up in death (10:8)- surely alluding to how Mot, the god of death, was thought to have jaws encompassing the earth and swallowing up people at their death into the underworld. But Job rejected that myth- he saw God as the swallower, and death as a return to the dust, albeit in hope of bodily resurrection at the last day (19:25-27).
9:28 I know that You- Note the change of pronoun. As Job talks about God as “He” in replying to Bildad, he moves on to address himself directly to God (see too 16:5-7). Dialogue with others about our faith and turmoils often leads to our direct approach to Him in a way which would never have happened if we’d not bothered to have that dialogue but stored all these things up internally.
9:32 Come together in judgment- The prologue opens with the court of Heaven. The ‘Satan’ figure is not in itself evil, but could refer to an Angel [a 'good' one, as there are no 'sinful' Angels], or an Angel representative of a fellow worshipper on earth. The debates in Heaven between the Angels are reflected and carried out on earth- rather like how in Daniel 1-6 we have events on earth described in historical terms, and then we are given an insight into what's been going on in Heaven in Daniel 7-12. Yet the court / legal language continues throughout the book- e.g. Job is “perfect”, i.e. legally blameless. Job appeals for ‘witnesses’ (:33-35; 16:18-22; 19:20-27), an advocate in Heaven (:33), denies his guilt and demands a legal list of his sins (13:19), wishes for God to come to trial (:3), and thus Job is described as a man who has taken out a ‘case’ with God (23:4; 40:2). Job 29-31 is effectively Job’s declaration of legal innocence and an appeal to God to hear his case more sympathetically (31:35). God pronounces a final legal verdict at the end (42:7). It’s as if the whole experience of Job was [at least partly] in order to test out the Canaanite theories of ‘Satan’, suffering and evil in the court of Heaven. The friends represent the traditional views of evil, and often make reference to the myths of their day about ‘Satan’ figures. They speak as if they are the final court- Eliphaz speaks of how the judges and elders of their day, the “holy ones”, had concluded Job was guilty, and that they, the friends, were right: “To which of the holy ones will you appeal [legal language]?... we have [legally] examined this, and it [Job’s guilt] is true” (5:1,27). This is of great comfort to those who feel misjudged by man- above them in Heaven the ultimate Heavenly court is considering our case, and that is all that matters. Job perhaps perceived this, even though the vision of the court of Heaven in chapters 1 and 2 was presumably unknown to him as he endured his sufferings; for in response to the friends’ wrong judgment of him, he comments that “God covers the faces of the judges of the earth” (9:24). The final summing up speeches from both God and Job simply emphasize the omnipotence of God; how ultimately He has been the adversary to Job, and there is no room in the cosmos of His creation for any other power, especially any of the various personal ‘Satan’ figures believed in by the worlds of both Canaan and Babylon. The heavenly court of "sons of God" is paralleled with all the stars in 38:7. Bear in mind that the stars were understood as pagan deities. The whole pagan understanding of the cosmos is being deconstructed. The stars are paralleled with the Angelic sons of God who are all totally under God's control; they are His Heavenly court.
9:33 There is no umpire between us- Job’s sufferings and mental torments led him to perceive the need for a mediator; he was led through it all to understand his need for Christ. And our experiences are designed the same way. See on 10:4.


