2 Samuel, Chapter 21 - The Lamp of Israel | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] Shalom friends. Welcome to the Prophets of Israel Daily. This is the second book of Samuel, chapter 21. My name is Ari Bramson and I'm here with Jeremy Gimpel. Shalom Jeremy. >> Hey, how are you? >> Good, good, good. It's good to see you. Good to have you here. Okay, let's dive in because I want to open up with something every farmer knows in his bones. Now, I'm not trying to make it seem like I'm some great farmer. I know very little about farming. I'm learning and I have my crops and my whatever. But just, you know, we've been out here in Judea for a while now. Just imagine watching the skies and nothing comes. The first year, the wheat comes up thin. The second year, the vines struggle and the wells start dropping. And by the third year, the entire nation understands this is not the weather. This is a message. And that is exactly how our chapter opens. Verse one. made shaloo shim. And there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David sought the face of Hashem. And Hashem said, "It is for Saul and for his house of blood, because he put the Gibbeonites to death, the Givonim to death." Now, stop in and let's just remember what David does here. Three years of famine and David doesn't convene an agricultural committee, right? He doesn't blame the climate. He seeks the face of Hashem because David understands something that we living in this land today are relearning every single season. That in the land of Israel, the soil itself is spiritual. The rain is a relationship. When the land closes up, the first question is never what's wrong with the clouds. It's what's wrong with us? And the answer that comes back is shocking. The famine is about the Gibeonites, the Givonim, about the injustice from a previous generation, right? Saul in his zeal had put the Gibeonites to death, violating the ancient oath Israel swore to protect them. You know, Ari, I just we just got to stop here for a second because rereading this, I was honestly taking it back because this wasn't even anything about David. I mean, first, we have to remember who the Gibbeonites are. We met them all the way back at the beginning of our journey in the book of Joshua in chapter 9. And the ones who showed up with moldy bread and cracked wine skins, they tricked Israel into a treaty. And then even after the deception was exposed, Joshua refused to break the oath because it had been sworn in the name of Hashem. And so fast forward now 400 years later since Joshua, four centuries, kingdoms have risen and fallen and heaven is still holding Israel accountable to that promise. And just think about what that means in the eyes of Hashem. The word of Israel has no expiration date. A covenant is a covenant. And the text doesn't explicitly tell us that King Saul betrayed the G on before this chapter. We only know that because what's written right here. And even though the oath was ancient, sworn under false pretense to a Canaanite people, Hashem held Israel to it centuries later to the point of sending a famine when a king broke it. And so the sanctity of an oath sworn in God's name and the obligation to protect those you've promised to protect outlasts generations. That is the power of the word and the importance of the truth in Israel. And that's really the moral engine of this whole chapter. When Sha when Saul violated that oath oath, he was he wasn't just committing a political wrong against a small minority. He was tearing something at the spiritual fabric of the nation in the land itself. The expression of the covenant God has with Israel, expressed it outwardly. That famine, it wasn't random weather. It was the covenant demanding that Israel confront a broken promise. no matter how many generations had passed. >> That's right. Exactly. And so David summons the and listens carefully to listen carefully the language that he uses. Right. Verse three. What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement that you may bless the inheritance of Hashem? Atonementap not compensation or settlement. Here, David is speaking covenant language because he knows this is a wound that can't be paid off, right? You can't cut a check here. It has to be made right before the eyes of Hashem. We're talking about a covenant. And indeed, the Gonim refuse silver and gold. Instead, they ask for something something terrible. Seven descendants of Saul to be given over and hanged before Hashem. They say, "Before Hashem, in Sha, Saul's own hometown." And listen, I don't think this is easy to digest for anyone. It isn't. It It's a very challenging incident, but watch what David does inside this dark decree. Right. Verse seven. Moamel al-Hib. But the king spared me, the son of Jonathan, the son of Sha, because of the oath Hashem has between them, between David and Jonathan, son of Saul. Right? Because you could think, well, is he going to give over mechett to the Givonim, right? But he says no, he spared him. Do you see the symmetry here? The the entire crisis began with a broken oath. And right inside its resolution, David honors a kept oath, right? His ancient covenant of love with Yonatan. This entire event is really a powerful demonstration of the gravity of a promise. One oath broken brings famine on a nation and one oath kept saves a life. Right? And then then comes the part of this chapter that really that could really break your heart. Ritzpa Batain a mother of two of the executed sons. Verse 10. Ritzpahaya and Ritzpah, daughter of Ayah, took sackloth and spread it for herself upon the rock from the beginning of the harvest until water poured down on them from the heavens. And she did not allow the birds of the sky to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. Right? From the beginning of the barley harvest. That's around Pesak, Passover time, right? Until the rains came. Do the math. Do the math here, Jeremy. That's months. I think it could be up to 6 months, half a year, whatever it was. Month after month, this mother sat on a rock on the hillside, waving off the vultures by day and driving away the jackles by night. She had no army, no power, no legal standing to change anything. All she had was a mother's love that absolutely refused to let her children be treated as if they were forgotten. >> And you know, Ari, what I want to point out here is that again, nobody sent her. There's no verse where God commands her. No prophet who appoints her. She simply climbs onto the rock and refuses to come down. And in her vigil becomes a it becomes a protest more powerful than any petition ever brought before the royal court. She can't reverse the king's decree, and she can't bring her sons back. But she can insist that their humanity be seen with such unwavering dedication that she's willing to endure the unimaginable pain of seeing the corpses of her sons day after day for months on end, not leaving that place. And that quiet insistence travels all the way up to the throne of the king himself. And it's the same pattern that Tahila, my wife, teaches in the women's fellowship. the women of valor. Last year, she taught a whole series on the biblical heroins in the Tanakh. And she points out that when the moment demands something without waiting for permission or a command from above or a promise that everything will be okay, the righteous women of the Tanakh change things, they shift the world. They bring literal redemption when they rise up to meet it just from their own inner intuition. And that really is the power of the biblical heroins of the Bible. >> Yeah. Not only the Bible, but today. You know, I can think of your wife Tahila responding in such a way to various things. My own wife Shaina, you know, it's the strength of the spiritual power of Beina of the woman. But anyways, here's what I kind find comforting about it. Ritzpah's visual works, right? Word reaches David of what this dedicated and loving mother has done. And it awakens something in the king. And he sends for the bones of Shaul and Yonatan, which had been resting in Yavesh Gilad ever since those brave men rescued them from the Philistine wall. If you remember that, right? And he buries them with full honor in the tomb of Kish, Saul's father in the land of Binyamin. And so [clears throat] Jeremy, just like think about that for a moment. David, the man whom Saul hunted through the wilderness for years, the man who slept in caves because of Saul's spear and torment. David personally ensures that Saul is gathered to his fathers with dignity. And only then, verse 14, and God responded to the plea of the land after that, right after that, read it carefully. The reigns do not return after the executions. They return after the kindness, after the honor, after a king that was humble enough to let a grieving mother on a rock teach him that the land was actually waiting for something else. The famine began with cruelty towards the powerless and it ends with compassion towards the dead. That is what unlocked the heavens. And I think that um spiritually attuned farmers in the land of Israel recognize that the land of Israel doesn't respond to force. It responds to faithfulness. And here it is written in black and white 3,000 years ago. The land of Israel is not just soil. It's a covenant partner. The land itself remembers. And now, right, this chapter closes with the sudden shift back to the battlefield. War with the Philistines again. And this time we meet the giants. David goes out to fight. And the text tells us plainly, David is wary. He is not the shepherd boy anymore. and a giant named Yishbi Benov armed with a massive new sword closes in to kill the king of Israel. And at that very moment, Avishi Benuya strikes the giant down and saves David's life and and then the men uh you know, they take David aside and they make a vow and they refer to David with one of these one of the most beautiful titles I think that's ever been given to anyone perhaps. And I feel like it really reveals the deep love that they have for him. Verse 17, you shall not go out to to us with battle anymore, they say, lest you extinguish the lamp of Israel. N Israel, the lamp of Israel, not the sword of Israel, not the champion of the nation, the lamp. Because David's greatest legacy was never ultimately about his military skills or political acumen. It was about his light. Right? The psalms, the yearning, the living soul of the nation. His men are telling him, "Oh beloved king, we can swing swords. We can do it. We're on the fighting for now on." But no one but you, your majesty, can carry that flame. And now watch what happens next. And I don't think it's a coincidence. Three more giants fall in this chapter. And not one of them falls to David. Sibbeai strikes down one. Elhanan defeats another, the brother of Goliath himself. And Yahonatan, Davidid's own nephew, takes down the giant with six fingers on each hand. Right. The generation that David built is rising, >> you know. And right there, Ari, that right there is one of the signatures of David's greatness. As a boy, he stood completely alone in the valley against Goliath the giant while the entire army watched, just frozen in fear. And now, a generation later, under his leadership, giants are falling all around him, and he doesn't even have to draw his own sword. The shepherd boy became a king who raised up an entire generation of giant slayers. That's what real leadership can inspire. And I feel like we are watching that exact transition in Israel today. the founding generation that drained the swamps and fought impossible wars. They're passing the lamp to the children and grandchildren who were born into the miracle of Israel. And I think that every single person in Israel would agree that this young generation has proven on every front through everything in these past few years, all that has been demanded that the light is burning brighter in them than ever before. And somehow every soldier in Israel has a touch of the spirit of King David. And it's a spirit that we haven't experienced within the people of Israel in thousands of years. And we're seeing it now more than ever. >> We certainly are. We certainly are. Beautifully said. You know, so many of the weathered veterans of Israel's wars have testified to the inspiring courage and the valiant and the self-sacrifice with which this young generation of sold of soldiers have answered this very intense, powerful calling of of the generation, right? And perhaps that's the message of this chapter for our generation. Israel survives not because we've never failed, but because we're willing to remember and to repair and to rise again, right? We remember the promises made before we were born. We we confront wounds that others would just rather bury in the past and forget, right? We honor those the world has forgotten. And when one generation grows wary, another rises to face those giants. That's what we've seen in this land. I'm just so proud. Just we just had lunch with your nephew the other day, Jeremy. He's a one of them. Just these valiant soldiers, these young guys. I'll I'll admit I thought they were going to be Tik Tocked and and into like social media that they weren't ready to go out and to really fight and I was so wrong. They've really been impressive. Anyways, it was it was true in chapter 21 and it's true today. David is no longer standing alone in the valley. The curry the the courage that has once burned inside one shepherd boy from Bethlehem has now spread throughout an entire nation. Young men and women who never imagined themselves as heroes have stepped forward with the faith of David, the devotion of Ritzpa and the courage to stand between Israel and those who seek to extinguish her light. Right? The sword may pass from one hand to another. Kings rise and fall. Generations come and go, but the ner is the lamp of Israel continues to burn. It has survived exile, famine, war, and centuries of darkness. And it burns today because every generation has chosen to guard it and to carry it and to pass it forward. And now, my friends, that sacred flame has been placed in our hands. May we be worthy to carry it and to see it all the way through to the times of redemption. Friends, if you're enjoying this message, please consider joining our fellowship. There's a lot of different tiers. There's ways to connect to what we're doing. It strengthens us. It connects you. And it's really a calling of our generation right now to come together in this way. We hope to see you. Looking [music] forward to the next chapter, Jeremy. See you tomorrow. [music]