2 Samuel, Chapter 23 - No King Stands Alone | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] Shalom friends and welcome back to the Prophets of Israel Daily. This is the second book of Samuel chapter 23 brought to you by the Land of Israel Network at the land of Israel.com. Shalom Jeremy. Good to see you in the United States of America. It's good to be here and it's good to be connected to Judea. Let me tell you, I really miss Israel. >> Yeah. I wish I could take the camera and show you outside just to let you your eyes behold the hills of Judea. Okay, my friends. Yesterday in chapter 22, David looked back across the entire life that he had lived on this earth and he sang. He told us who delivered him, Hashem, his rock, his fortress, his deliverer. And today we see how that salvation so often arrived. Through people, through loyal friends, through warriors who stood their ground when everybody else ran. Today we are standing at the deathbed of the greatest king in Israel's history. I mean, not not literally. David does have one chapter left. But the text tells us what we're about to hear are David's final prophetic words, his parting testimony. And then right after those words, the chapter does something very interesting. It hands us a list, a roll call of the Gibborim, the mighty men, the warriors who stood with David through everything. So this chapter is really two things woven together. the last song of Israel's greatest king and the names of the men who really who really carried him there. Right? Let's open with verse one. These are the last words of David. The utterance of David, the son of Jesse, the utterance of the man raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet singer of Israel. Right? Listen to the order of those titles. David doesn't begin with king of Israel. He begins with Davidid Benishi, David the son of Jesse, the the forgotten younger brother from Bethlehem, the shepherd. Nobody even bothered to call in from the field when the prophet Samuel came looking for a king. He's still in there, right? Only after remembering where he came from does he say what Hashem raised him to become. The crown never erased that young shepherd boy, right? And then look at the title that closes the list. Not warrior or conqueror, but the sweet singer of Israel. The man who gave us the book of Psalms. Because that is David's deepest legacy. Empires crumble, borders shift, but 3,000 years later in every synagogue and in millions of homes around the world, Jews and non-Jews alike, people are still praying with David's words. And then verse two, the spirit of Hashem spoke through me. His word was upon my tongue. David is telling us plainly, this final message isn't his own poetry. This is prophecy. This is the spirit of Hashem. So, so lean in, right? What does the dying king with the spirit of God on his tongue, what does he choose to say? Verse three and four. Moshelle Sadik Mosheim. He who rules over men must be righteous, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be like the light of morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, when from the sunshine after rain, the tender grass springs out of the earth. My friends, I just want to point out right here because this image isn't abstract for me. In a lot of ways, this is my mornings, right? Anyone who has stood on the Judeian hillside in early winter after the first rains, right, when the sun is like breaking over the mountains in the east, you know exactly what Davidid is describing, right? The hills that were brown and dead all of summer suddenly start to glow with this beautiful hint of green, right? It's like it's like a a promise of of oncoming life and vitality, right? And that David says is what righteous leadership looks like. Not thunder or domination, but the righteous ruler is like sunlight on rain soaked earth. He creates the conditions in which everything under his care grows and flourishes. David knew kings who ruled like storms. He served under one, right? Saul. And here at the end of his life, he's telling us that's not it. The king may sit above the nation, but the fear of Hashem must sit above the king. Power rooted in the fear of God brings life. It makes grass grow. Then comes verse five. And here David gets deeply personal. For it is for is not my house established with God. For he has made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and secure. Will he not bring to fruition all my salvation and all my desire? an everlasting covenant, right? Abream. You hear what he said there? Abre olam. David looks back at his own house and let's be honest, after everything we've read in these past weeks, his house has been a mess. Omnon, abshalom, rebellion, heartbreak. And yet, David says, "The covenant stands. It's ordered and secured because it never depended on my perfection. It depended on God's faithfulness." Even during these harrowing chapters in which David's house shook to its foundations, Hashem's promise never did. You know, Ari, and if you really think about it, that phrase, an everlasting covenant, that's really the theme of all of history. Because David isn't only talking about his family, he's talking about the dynasty of Messiah. He's saying that from his house will come the ultimate redemption. and that nothing which happened, none of the failures, the rebellions, nothing can break that promise. And that's exactly the claim. The whole world has been arguing for about 2,000 years. Every theology that tried to replace Israel had to first declare that covenant was broken to insist that God moved on. He left Israel. He replaced Israel. And then you look at what's happening today. the children of David's people back in David's land praying David's psalms in David's own language and suddenly the everlasting covenant isn't theological it's not a debate anymore it's reality it's the evening news playing out before the eyes of all mankind and so an old king prophesied that his house was secure forever 3,000 years of empires tried to falsify that prophecy and here we are the living testimony to it. >> That's right. Here we are. And I love that the covenant isn't a debate. It's the evening news. Beautifully said, Jeremy. Right. But then the chapter shifts from the king to his men. Because David's story cannot end as a solo performance. Starting in verse 8, we get the roll call of the Gibborim, right? The heroes. And these mighty men are not trained in the art of war in some military academy. These are men who were with David in the caves and in the wilderness in the years when he was a hunted fugitive with nothing to offer but danger. Danger for himself, danger for them. There he put their lives in danger, right? And they were with him no matter what. There's the chief of the three, Adino, who stood against 800 men. And then there's Elazar Benodo who when most others fled stood firm and fought the Philistines until verse 10. His hand grew weary and his hand clung to the sword. His hand clung to the sword. He literally could not open his fingers. He gave everything he had until his body literally fused with the mission. Right? And then there's Shama ben. The Philistines invade. The entire army flees and Shama takes his stand in the middle of a lentil field. Right? Verse 12. But he stationed himself in the middle of the field, defended it, and struck down the Philistines. And Hashem brought about a great victory, right? A lentil field, not Jerusalem, not the Temple Mount, a field of beans, right? Everyone else looked at that field and said, "It's not worth dying for. Retreat." And Shama understood something that they didn't. That there's no such thing as an unimportant piece of the land of Israel. You don't abandon the lentil field because every step in the land is holy. Even a lone lentil field. Because today it's the lentil field and tomorrow it's everything. And that's why as a farmer in Judea, Shama Ben A is he's my guy. Jeremy, he's your guy, too. I can't tell you how many of these young hilltop Judeans have his spirit within them. Every dunham, every single acre matters. Every every vineyard now, every chicken coupe, right? It's all matters. And then comes the story that for me is the emotional heart of the entire chapter. David is in the stronghold. The Philistines have a garrison in Bethlehem, his own hometown, occupied by the enemy. And in a moment of exhaustion and longing, David sigh. Right. Verse 15. Oh, that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate. Right? He's not just issuing an order. He's he's just expressing a parched thirst from the depths of his soul. One could even say that maybe it's even homesickness, right? The the taste of waters of Bethlehem, the waters of his childhood. I'm not sure he needed to say, "I needed water from there." He chose there specifically, right? But three of his mighty men hear it and they look at each other and they break through the Philistine lines. They fight their way into occupied Bethlehem, draw water out from that well, fight their way back out and hand their king a cup of water from home. And what does David do? He doesn't drink it. He poured it out to Hashem. And he says verse 17ot far be it from me Hashem to do this. Is this not the blood of the men who went at at the risk of their own lives? He pours it on the ground as an offering to God. Because the moment that water is purchased with the willingness of his men to die, it became too holy for him to drink. It became like the blood of an offering. And in the eyes of King David, that offering can only belong to God. You know, Arian, I think really right there, that is the test of leadership because those three warriors gave David the most dangerous gift a leader can ever receive. The proof that his men were risking their lives for his own personal desires. And most kings in history, they drank the water. That's the story of every tyrant who ever lived. They discovered that human devotion can be spent on their own comfort. And they kept on spending it over and over again. And here, David tasted that power for just one second. and he was humbled by it and he took the most precious drink of his life and what did he do? He turned it into an offering because he understood that the devotion of your people is something you pour and offer up to Hashem, never something you consume for yourself. And so honestly, we know this in Israel today. This country runs on young men and women who volunteer, who break through the lines for the rest of us. And the only leadership worthy of them is leadership that treats their sacrifice as nothing less than holy tashem. >> Amen. That's so true. Their sacrifice is holy. And uh and and that should be engraved above the door of every leader in the world, but particularly the leaders of Israel, particularly today, right? And my friends, standing here at the very end of David's story, as we're approaching that, this moment lands really hard, right? Because we saw the opposite. Chapter 11, right there. David consumes the life of a loyal soldier to cover his own desire. And here is Davidic kingship fully repaired. The king who will not satisfy even a thirst with water brought at the risk of his own men's lives. After all, there he is in the field fighting with them. He learned that lesson. And that is the reason it's so critical we don't cover up the sins and failures of our ancestors. That's why it's so important that the Tanakh preserves both pictures, not to destroy Davidid, but to teach every leader who would ever come after him the distance between using people and honoring them. And so, let's hold on to that for a second, right? Because the end of this chapter is about to bring it home in a way that that I think is hard to forget. This chapter continues with more names. Aishai and Beno Yhoyad. My friends, look at verse 20. this man, right? He went down and killed a lion in the middle of a pit on a snowy day, right? A lion in a pit on a snowy day. The most dangerous enemy in the worst possible position in the harshest conditions and Benaya went down to do it. He didn't wait for the lion to come out. Right? Our sages saw in this a picture of spiritual courage descending into the coldest, darkest place and coming up victorious. And this is the man who will one day command Solomon's army. Right? And then the list rolls on. Name after name after name. 37 warriors, men from all over the land and even from beyond it. Select the Ammonite is on this list. This wasn't an exclusive ethnic club. It was a brotherhood of everyone who bound their destiny to the God of Israel and to his anointed one. Right? And then the very last name, verse 39, Uraiti Kohlima, Ura the Hitittite, 37 in all, Ura. The text could have buried his name in the middle of the list, but it doesn't. It places at last the final words of the entire chapter. The man whose loyalty David betrayed. The man David sent to die. David's last words open this chapter and Ura's name closes the chapter. How powerful is that, Jeremy? You know, that's exactly the divine beauty of this book. Ari, every other ancient kingdom produced literature that airbrushed the king. Victory, monuments, flattery. That's because that's what the royal scribes were paid to write. And here, the official record of Israel's greatest dynasty. The final word of David's tribute chapter is the name of David's worst sin. No spin, no cover up. The Bible loves David, but it refuses to lie frame. On the contrary, it ends off with Uriah the Hitittite. And it's just like only a document that answers to God rather than to the public relation interest palace could do that. And in a strange way, that's what makes David's hope trustworthy, too. Because if it's so honest about the failure, when it comes to tell us the covenant still stands, we can believe it. That's so beautiful. And like you said, Jeremy, that honesty is exactly what makes the hope believable. So, my friends, let's take this home because I really believe this chapter conveys some critical messages for us today. One is that a righteous leader is like morning light that makes the grass grow. Right? The covenant stands forever. Not because we're perfect, but because Hashem is faithful. And and no king rises alone. Redemption is carried by mighty men in lentil fields by three friends with a jug of water uh by name after name that heaven refuses to forget. And I look at our generation and I see the gioreim of our own day, right? the boys who broke through the lines of these past years, the farmers holding the hilltops, the mothers holding the homes, and the righteous of the nations who have chosen to stand with Israel in her darkest hour. The increasingly fewer around the world, but those that are with us are stronger than ever before. Right? David's mighty men even included those who came from beyond Israel's borders. And we see those same mighty warriors today. Hashem is raising up faithful men and women from the nations who have joined their hearts to the story of Israel. And I truly believe that one day there will be lists and every single name will be written. So the question facing each of us is whether our names will be on those lists. That's our question. Each of us can only answer that as we stand before Hashem. But friends, if this journey through the prophets of Israel is strengthening you, come join our global family at the land of Isisrael.com. Help us continue bringing these words back to the hills where David walked and fought and prayed and failed and repented and became the sweet singer of Israel. Join us my friends. We'll see you tomorrow for the final chapter of 2 Samuel chapter 24 when David counts the people and we discover the danger of forgetting the difference between [music] a nation of sacred names and a number. Shalom, my friends. Oh, heat.