2 Samuel, Chapter 3 - Growing Stronger | Prophets of Israel Daily

Shalom friends. Welcome back to the second book of Samuel, chapter 3, brought to you by the land of Israel network at the land of Isisrael.com. Shalom, Jeremy. >> Shalom. >> Good to see you. >> Good to see you, too. Um, I don't know if you're emotional about this, Jeremy, but you know, I I felt like Saul in some ways was like evil in his life and I struggle, but now that he's gone, I sort of miss him on some level. He was an important player in the whole thing. And so, he's gone and David's been anointed. And you'd think that the story would simply leap to a coronation. Like we said, trumpets, the whole nation, bowing is one, but that's just not what happens. Instead, chapter 3 opens with a sentence that tells you everything about how kingdoms and like you said before, Jeremy, redemption itself is actually born. And the war was long between the house of Saul and the house of David. And David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker. growing and growing stronger and stronger. Not and David became king, right? It's a process, a slow, grinding, drawn out climb. And right there in the very first verse, we're handed one of the one of the secrets of the whole story. Right? The kingdom of David, the seed of Messiah himself, does not arrive in a flash. It arrives the way dawn arrives over these Judeian hills gradually almost imperceptibly and then suddenly you realize that the whole sky is light. So the chapter lists the sons born to David and right six of them. The household of a future dynasty is taking shape in the very city where Avam's first purchase acquisition where he first bought a plot of earth in the land of Israel and then it shifts towards Aer Shaul's powerful general the man holding the rival house together by sheer force of will. You know, it's just so interesting that there's this war that happens between the kingdom of Saul and the kingdom of David. I mean, David is anointed king. In seven and a half years, he reigns over Yehudah alone. And like the northern tribes, they like cling to the house of Sha. I mean, David has the promise. He has the oil on his head. He and he still has to wait. He has to fight. He has to build. I mean, that's not a flaw in the story. That is the entire lesson of the story. And I know we mentioned this idea before, but it's really the heart of the prophetic message to us. I mean, we have a fantasy that the moment heaven chooses redemption, reality is going to instantly rearrange itself. But David teaches us the opposite. Being chosen is the beginning of the work, not the end of it. And if you open your eyes, that is the exact tension we're living in Israel right now. The promise, it's undeniable. We are back in the land against all odds. It makes no sense. We are a miracle of God manifest in the world today. Period. But anyone who thinks the kingdom arrives complete, it's like they haven't been paying attention. We are in the stage of Hazek. We are growing and getting stronger, going and growing, still becoming who we were chosen to be. >> Yeah, that's right. You know, and when I hear this, I wish I could just scream this from the rooftops to so many of my brethren throughout the exile that say, "No, Israel is not perfect. It's not per I'm going to stay here because look at Israel and it's so flawed." You know, listen to the words of the prophets. It puts things into perspective. But anyways, watch how the breakthrough comes. Not through a battle, but through a fracture inside the enemy camp. Ishbett, Saul's surviving son, accuses of overstepping. uh he he laid with uh Saul's concubine. And Avare, who's insulted by this, decides he's done propping up a fallen house. So, he turns to David and offers to bring all of Israel over to him. And David agrees, but on one condition. Mikall, Sha's daughter, and David's rightful wife must be returned to him. In the meantime, in a terrible injustice, Sha had given Mikall to another man, Paltiel bin Lish. And and yet the sages tell us that Palty Paltiel was a righteous man who never consummated the marriage because he knew that Mikall was in truth still David's wife. And there's this aching, heartbreaking image of Paltiel walking behind her weeping until Aer simply just tells him to go home. Right? And even in the greatest machinery of national reunification, there are real human beings, real broken hearts, real tears. That that character Paul has always been in my heart, Jeremy, because since I'm a kid, because he had such self-sacrifice. Imagine just being him in his journey. and he's a real person and and just in this greater plot that's so much greater than him, but at least he rose to the occasion in righteousness. I just have always remembered that because he seemed like the perfect example of a man caught in a story that's just bigger than him and um and just, you know, it it just touched me. Anyways, then Aer goes to the elders of Israel and says something really remarkable, right? Verse 18, For the Lord has spoken to of David, saying, "By the hand of my servant David, I will save my people Israel from the hand of the Philistines and from the hand of their enemies." Think about that. Aare, a man who spent years fighting against David, admits openly that he he already knew, right? What he he already knew it. He knew David was the chosen one the whole time. He just resisted it probably primarily for ego reasons and control and power. He's a human being. But he resisted it until resisting it became impossible. How many people, how many nations know the truth long before they're willing to be true to that truth, before they're willing to actually live by it? So comes to um to David makes him a feast and they part in peace shalom. He went in peace. The reunification of Israel is at that moment one handshake away. And then Yav, right? Yo, David's fierce, blood loyal general, comes home. He hears what happened and he's furious. He warns David that Avanir came to deceive him. And then behind David's back, he lures Aar to the gate of Hevron and murders him. avenging his own brother Asael whom Avner had killed in battle. He tried to not kill him. He tried to impart wisdom but Asael wouldn't hear about it. He was young and impetuous and bold and that's what happened. And so Yov never got over it. A personal vengeance dressed up as loyalty at the precise moment the nation was about to become whole. >> You know Ari, I need to stop here. I mean, this is one of David's most important moments as he transitions to mal to being the king over the entire nation. I mean, David's entire response to this murder is to violently distance himself from it. I mean, he tears his clothes. He curses Yo's house. He leads the funeral procession himself. He weeps at the grave. And like, why does he go to such extraordinary lengths? Because the throne of David can't be built on a foundation of political murder. I mean, every other dynasty in the ancient world was built exactly that way. You kill your rival, you seize the crown, nobody blinks. But the Davidic line, the line meant to carry the throne of heaven into this world, has to be born with clean hands. The moral and spiritual DNA of the messianic kingdom is being laid down right in front of us. Later, David won't even be permitted to build the temple because there was too much blood on his hands. And it starts here. A kingdom of priests and a holy nation can't be founded the way the nations found their kingdoms. The means have to be as holy as the goal. >> Exactly. That's that's part of the mis message of the entire Torah that it's the journey that matters. The ends do not justify the means. And and and David understands that and he understands something also profound. The appearance of guilt is almost as dangerous as guilt itself. Right? If the northern tribes believe for one second that David ordered Aer's death to clear his own path, the civil war never ends. So David doesn't just feel innocent, but he allows that the depth of that mourning, that feeling to manifest in the world. He doesn't hide his emotions. He puts it out there, even if it seems vulnerable. He makes his innocence visible to the entire nation. He follows the beer, his he lifts his voice over the grave. Verses 33 and 34. Should Avir die as a scoundrel dry dies. Your hands were not bound. Your feet were not put into fedters. As one falls before wicked men, so you fell. This is David grieving the man who led the army against him and he means it. He even turns to his servants and says in verse 38, "Do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day in Israel?" You know, Ari, I just want to note, look at what genuine grief actually accomplishes. I mean, the text tells us that the people took notice and it pleased them. Everything the king did pleased them. That day, all of Israel understood the king killing of Amnner, that didn't come from King David. I mean, David conquered the entire northern kingdom, not with a sword, but with his integrity and his sincerity. He won their hearts. And that's the prophetic model for how Israel is ultimately meant to be unified. There's going to come a leader that's so transparently honest that even those who fought against him come to trust him. I mean, David's integrity was made public and his grief was made real. I mean, it's like the opposite of every politician where everything is on Instagram and everything is a show and everything is a fake. It's like we saw what real leadership is meant to be and it made a divided people finally believe like they could really be one. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's what it is about David and and really about all of us on some level. Who we are speaks so much louder than what we say. Right. And then comes the verse that for me is really the beating heart of this whole chapter. David, he's freshly anointed, already victorious, already on the rise. Says this about himself. Verse 39. And I am this day weak, though anointed king. And these men, the sons of Turya, are too harsh for me. Right? Ra, like soft, weak. The last words you would ever think about King David and for him to say that about himself at this point, right? An anointed king. In the same breath, he's soft, weak, and he's anointed king. In the same breath, David holds both truth at once. I am chosen by God and I am not yet strong enough to fully control even my own men. The zealots around him, the sons of Shuya are harder than he is and they constrain him. How honest is that? I mean, how human. And I'll tell you, my friends, sitting out here in the when in the Arugote farm raising my children in these mountains, that verse really touches my heart because this is exactly where we are as a nation. We are anointed. There's no honest way to look at the return of Israel to this land and not see the hand of Hashem in it. But we're also ra soft, unfinished. We're constrained. We're pulled in a hundred different directions, often by the loudest and harshest voices among us. We're anointed and incomplete at the very same time, just like David was inv. And here's what gives me. Here's what gives me strength. David didn't despair over that gap. He didn't pretend the kingdom was already perfect and he didn't give up because it wasn't. He simply kept going, growing stronger, building trust, refusing to let his crown be stained, refusing to let his nation stay divided. He understood that the throne meant to last forever could only be built on one act of integrity at a time. And the war between the house of Sha and the house of David, brother against brother, is the same war we're still being asked to end in our own generation. Right? The the enemies outside our borders are real. But the redemption David models begins with the courage to mourn the fallen on the other side of our internal divides and to build a kingdom whose hands are clean. Varav a clean heart and clean hands as King David says in Psalms. So as we close the question of the second book of Samuel chapter 3 is the question of our times. Will we wait for the kingdom to arrive finished and complete magically all at once? Or will we like David accept that we are anointed and unfinished and keep building anyways with strength and with integrity and with faith all with the love that turns 12 scattered tribes back into one people. It needs to be from a place of love because the uh the dawn is already breaking over these hills. You when you feel it, you feel it. You just know it. You know it, my friends. We are we are going and growing and and becoming and and and friends, if there's one thing that this chapter is teaching us, it's that the kingdom of of David was built on one act of integrity at a time by a people willing to become one. And that's what we're trying to do here also in our network, the land of Israel network. Gather the scattered from every corner of the earth back into one family rooted in this land. And the heart of it is really our fellowship. all over the world, people come together and we're praying for each other and growing together. It it's really a beautiful thing and um and it we're not really spectators of this story. We're part of it. You're all a part of it wherever you are in the world. You're a part of it just by connecting in the way that you are at this very moment. You're h these right alongside us. So come find us at the land ofisrael.com and find your place with us. My friends, we'll see you tomorrow for the second book of Samuel, chapter 4 with you, Jeremy. It better be good. It'll be good. Please God.