2 Samuel, Chapter 16 - Trust Through Trials | Prophets of Israel Daily

Shalom friends. Welcome back to the Prophets of Israel Daily. This is the book of 2 Samuel chapter 16. I'm Jeremy Compel here with my long lost friend Arya Bramitz. Actually, I don't think he's lost. I'm lost. >> Yeah, you're the one wandering the exile. I'm here in Judea. I'm found. >> All I'm like wandering through the United States. I'm on the road. And it's not easy to broadcast a chapter a day of the prophets of Israel, but with the help of Hashem, we keep on keeping on. And as you already may know, this series is brought to you by the Land of Israel Network at the land of Israel.com. And I just want to take a moment. All of the team at the Land of Israel Network, thank you all so much. This would not be possible without you. All right. So, we are now learning about David really at the lowest point in his life. Ab shalom's rebellion has erupted. The people have turned to his son. In chapter 15, David fled Jerusalem on foot, barefoot, weeping, his head covered, climbing the Mount of Olives in just humiliation. The king who danced the ark into the capital of Israel is now running for his life out of it. And in chapter 16, this is what happens when a man on the road is just down and out. And then the test comes when you're already broken. And just watch how David meets them. First comes, the servant of Mephibosed, Jonathan's crippled son. He arrives with donkeys, bread, fruit, and wine for the fleeing king. And when David asks where Mephibbochett is, TA says he stayed behind in Jerusalem because he thinks today the kingdom of his grandfather Sha will be restored to him. It's a betrayal. Or so it sounds. And David, exhausted, believes him on the spot. I mean, he's already being betrayed by his son. Why not the son of Jonathan? and he hands everything Miffy Bosshit owns. >> Jeremy, I want to point out something here because it's easy to skim past this, but this is one of the few moments where it quietly shows us David stumbling even as he's being so heroic elsewhere in the chapter, right? SA shows up with food and a story and David makes an instant sweeping judgment. He transferred Mephib Boschett's entire estate to the servant on the strength of one man's word with the accused Mephy Boschett nowhere in the room to defend himself. Right? It talk about like the power of initial bias. The first story you hear, right? And here's the thing. Later in chapter 19, Mephibos will come to David and tell the opposite story that Ca slandered him. that he wanted to go with David, but SA took the donkeys and left him stranded, crippled as he is, and David never fully resolves it. And he ends up splitting the estate between them. Something I was never comfortable with and always bothered me that he sort of left it that way. But I think there's a real lesson there. Even David, even the man after God's own heart, when he's exhausted and frightened, running for his life, makes a hasty judgment based on a one-sided story from someone with an obvious motive. See, had everything to gain. And that's exactly when we're most vulnerable to it, right? When we're depleted, under pressure, kids are crying, and you're just wiped out. That's precisely when we grab the convenient version of events and just act on it too fast. The Torah's insistence on hearing both sides on not judging until you've stood the two parties together. David in his lowest moment forgets it. It's it's a very human. It's a very honest portrayal of David. >> Yeah, that's true. You know, that's the the Tanakh is so honest and it's just giving over the story as it is. It's not trying to hide anything. And then comes a harder test, I think, and one that just shows us what David is truly made of. He may make mistakes, but he is such a man of emuna. This is verses 5 and six. David reaches Bahurim and a man from Saul's tribe named Shimmy Benger comes out and starts cursing him, pelting him with stones, all his servants. I mean, walking alongside the procession, just harassing them. And listen to what he screams. And thus said Shimmy as he cursed, "Be gone. Be gone, you man of blood. You base man." It's like, you man of blood, God is repaying you for all the blood of the house of Sha. You've been driven out because you're a murderer. I mean, he's kicking David when he's utterly down, blaming him for Saul's fall, calling him a man of blood. And Avishi, David's fierce nephew, has had enough. Verse 9, like, why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and cut his head off. And here David's response is just one of the most spiritually beautiful moments in his life. >> And Jeremy, before you even give David's answer, I want to share how I felt about this. Maybe you felt this way too because the greatness of what David is about to say lands really lands in your heart if you feel how easy the other choice was. Right? David has every excuse in the world to kill this guy. Shimmy is committing open treason, cursing and stoning the anointed king of Israel in public during a national crisis by the law of the land. Avisha is completely right. This is a capital offense. David has the power, the justification, the loyal soldier standing right there begging to do it. And honestly, the raw emotional reason, he's been humiliated, betrayed by his own son, and now this. Every instinct screams, "Make him stop. Make an example of him. You are still the king." And instead, David does something almost unimaginable. He stops Avishi and says, "Leave him. Let him curse." And then he says words that reveal the depth of King David. Exactly. And that's verses 10 and 11. Hashemloid. Let him curse for the Lord has said to him, "Curse David." That's um that's just the truth. David accepted it as from Hashem. Leave him alone. If God has told him to curse me, who am I to stop him? My own son who came from my own body seeks my life, how much more this Benjaminite came to curse him, let him curse, for God has told him to. And then verse 12, perhaps God will look upon my affliction and repay me with good for the cursing I receive this day. And so friends, don't push past that. At the lowest, most humiliating moment of his life, David refuses to silence the man screaming at him and says that he deserves it. He doesn't lash out. He receives it. He wonders if maybe maybe there's something in it he needs to hear and prays that God will see him bearing it and turn it to the good. >> Right. And Jeremy, this is the summit. The summit, the paramount moment of David's soul. Maybe not, but I there's so many moments I feel like that about, but this is a strong one, right? And it's worth taking really a close look at what he's doing because it's the opposite of how almost anyone else would act. David takes an insult, an unjust, cruel, public insult, and instead of asking, "How do I make this stop?" he says, "What is God saying to me through this?" He turns a curse into a mirror. Right? And I don't think there's like an objective way that this could be judged, that David did the right thing. He was simply reacting to a feeling that was in his heart that this is something he needs to be going through right now. Right now, was Shimmy righteous? Shimmy Benger, was he righteous? Not at all. He's a coward kicking a king he thinks is finished. And David even knows it. But David separates the messenger from the message. He says, "Even if this man is wrong, even if his motives are vile, and they are, maybe God is using him to humble me, and I'd rather receive the humbling than defend my pride." Right? Right? That's King David himself says in the book of Psalms, he lowers the arrogant and he raises up the lowered. So maybe David's saying I need to be lowered here and then maybe God will raise me up. And that friends is one of the hardest and highest spiritual practices there is. When someone criticizes us, especially unfairly, especially when we could crush them, especially in like a mean and vicious way, they didn't need to do it that way. Everything in us rises up to defend ourselves, to strike back, to prove them wrong. And David teaches us to pause and ask a different question. Is there a grain of truth here that God wants me to hear? Even if it's wrapped in cruelty and coming from someone with no right to say it. The strong man silences his critics. The truly great man asks what he can learn from them. David has lost his throne, his dignity, and his city. But in that moment, he showed his true greatness because he still ruled over the one thing that mattered most, himself. That's beautiful, Ari, you know. And then the chapter cuts away from the broken king on the road back to Jerusalem to his son sitting on the throne he stole. And what happens there is chilling because it's the exact fulfillment of the prophecy. Absalom asks his father's old adviser, Akito Tophel, the wisest counselor in the kingdom, whose advice, the text says, was treated like the very word of God. That's how wise he was. What should I do now? And Akitol gives him monstrous counsel. Go to your father's concubines, the one he left to keep the palace. Do it publicly so that all Israel knows you've made yourself utterly repugnant to your father. And I was wondering what does that mean? Utterly repugnant. So Rashi says Akito Tophel's advice was to help Abshalom solidify the revolution. He knows the nation knows that David and Abshalom have a rocky relationship that has ups and downs. And they would understandably be concerned that David and Abshalam would ultimately patch things up about the ones who had supported him. David would surely see them as traitors and be less forgiving than he would for his own son. So in taking David's concubines, he's signifying to his potential followers that Abshalom is all in. This rebellion is here to stay. There's no going back. After doing something so public, so humiliating, so utterly unforgivable, they're going to be with him. And they can be sure of that. And this would give them the courage to lean toward ab shalom to know it's not just a fleeting family spat. Verse 22 of shalom o al-hag. So they pitched a tent for ab shalom upon the roof and ab shalom went into his father's concubines in the sight of all of Israel. >> Yeah. And Jeremy, I I think we really all need to feel the weight of this because this is not a random act of vindictiveness or cruelty. Go all the way back to chapter 12 to Natan's prophecy after David sinned with Bacha. God said through Natan the Na'vi, he said, "Because you did this in secret, I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to another, and he will lie with them in the sight of this son before all Israel." And here it is. Word for word. David sinned with a woman in secret up on a rooftop. And now his son on a rooftop in broad daylight before all Israel does this. The very sin David committed in the shadows is now being visited upon him in the full light of day. Right? The mid kg mida measure for measure of justice of heaven here is exact and unmistakable. Yeah, it's true. I mean, measure for measure. And David sees all that's happening for him as a part of the divine plan and accepts his fate with Amuna. After he sinned with Bacheva, his child died. His son was murdered by another son who now stole the throne. I mean, this chapter teaches us something really profound for our own lives. This is the chapter of how a person behaves when they're broken. And it holds up two mirrors. In the CA scene, we see that even David fails, exhausted and afraid, he judges too fast. And on one biased account, and it cost to an innocent man. And that's a warning. Our lowest moments are exactly when we're likeliest to be unjust and we have to guard against it. And in Shimmy Benger, in that scene, we see David taking these unfair curses and insults. And instead of striking back, he seeks what God might be teaching him through it. David experiences the challenges in his life. As coming directly from Hashem and instead of fighting his circumstances, complaining, taking out his anger and revenge, he completely accepts his fate and puts it all in Hashem's hands. And so this whole chapter is about a nation that's forgotten what's true. A people who turned on David because a charismatic son told them a more exciting story. And so David is being cursed and cast out by his own people in his own land. And he doesn't rage against them or against God. He absorbs it. Stays humble. He trusts that Hashem is still writing the story. per perhaps God will see my affliction and repay me with good. And that is the posture that carried the people of Israel through every exile and every curse hurled at us across 3,000 years. Not to be broken by the abuse, not to abandon our faith when we're driven from our place, but to trust that the humbling is not the end of the story. David will return to Jerusalem, and so will we. And we have to carry that humility and that unstreakable trust all the way home. And so before we know, I want you to know I'm traveling across America now and I'm meeting so many people from so many backgrounds and they're plugged into the prophets of Israel daily. It's really remarkable. So many have joined our global community at the Land of Israel Fellowship and this is an invitation to join us as well. It's a global community that gathers together every week. And if you're enjoying learning together here, you will love the experience at the land of Israel fellowship. You can join by click on the link below or you can just go to the landofisrael.com. I look forward to meeting you. Kazakat my friends. Tomorrow we will be chapter 17. Shalom from the road in middle America.