Friday, November 11, 2016
There was a famine during
David’s reign that lasted for three years, so David asked the Lord about
it. And the Lord said, “The
famine has come because Saul and his family are guilty of murdering the
Gibeonites.” So the king summoned the
Gibeonites. They were not part of Israel
but were all that was left of the nation of the Amorites. The people of Israel had sworn not to kill
them, but Saul, in his zeal for Israel and Judah, had tried to wipe them out. David
asked them, “What can I do for you? How
can I make amends so that you will bless the Lord’s people again?” “Well,
money can’t settle this matter between us and the family of Saul,” the
Gibeonites replied. “Neither can we
demand the life of anyone in Israel.” “What
can I do then?” David asked. “Just tell
me and I will do it for you.” Then they replied, “It was Saul
who planned to destroy us, to keep us from having any place at all in the
territory of Israel. So let seven of Saul’s sons be handed over to us,
and we will execute them before the Lord at Gibeon, on the mountain
of the Lord.” “All right,” the king
said, “I will do it.” The king spared Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth, who
was Saul’s grandson, because of the oath David and Jonathan had sworn before
the Lord. But he gave them Saul’s two sons Armoni and Mephibosheth,
whose mother was Rizpah daughter of Aiah. He also gave them the five sons of Saul’s
daughter Merab, the wife of Adriel son of Barzillai from Meholah. The
men of Gibeon executed them on the mountain before the Lord. So all seven of them died together at the
beginning of the barley harvest.
2
Samuel 21:1-9(NLT)
I do not
question the truthfulness of Scripture simply because of passages like this
one. The truth, whole truth and nothing
but the truth is always truth; sometimes not pretty!
But I often
question my interpretation of Scripture because of passages like
this one. How can you know what is in
the mind of God when He is good with having seven children of a king put to
death because their father/grandfather sinned?
And did God
bring the famine in the land in the first place? That famine certainly killed many more
innocents than a few grandchildren. And
what kind of choice was it that David offered to the Gibeonites? And were they not taking revenge – which is
supposed to be God’s prerogative alone?
Did nobody, including God, understand that none of this is fair? This seems so contradictory to everything I
know Scripture says about the nature of God.
Where does that leave me?
Well, when
you’ve asked the questions about the elephant in the room, what next? Well, you ask those questions about yourself
too. For instance, what about the short-cuts
you’ve taken to get where you are. Were
you always fair? Did you never take
advantage? Did you never even hope for
revenge? No, your hands are not clean,
so it’s impossible to judge God or anyone else’s motives.
So what then? In a phrase:
beg for wisdom!
If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he
will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. James 1:5(NLT)
Indeed I have
asked God to give me wisdom about many things. And I have asked God for
understanding about this case of David’s offer to compensate the Gibeonites because
of the monstrous actions of their former king, Saul. I’m still not settled about why,
and I know that will be something the Lord answers in His own time, or it will
be something I’ll ask Him when I get to see Him face to face.
But for the
meantime I will take lessons from such perplexing conundrums. And the main lesson I see in this event is
that repentance in the midst of crisis can bring more heartache and tougher
choices than you ever imagined.
Coming face
to face with your own sin will do that!
And the
corollary lesson is that it is best to not turn away; face your own sins and follow-through
with obeying God!
For You Today
You don’t have to understand
everything God does; simply trust that He is good.
NOTES
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