Sunday Devotions: A Just Ruler
2 Samuel 23
Today’s Old Testament reading presents itself as “the last words of David” (2 Samuel 23:1), given in two parts. First, the aging king speaks as a prophet, for God:
The spirit of the LORD speaks through me; his word is upon my tongue. The God of Israel has spoken; the Rock of Israel has said to me: “One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land.” (vv 2-4)
Then David speaks for himself, as a king anxious to secure his legacy: “Is not my house like this with God? For he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure. Will he not cause to prosper all my help and my desire?” (v 5)
We’ll come back to the oracle, but the second half of David’s speech is what initially caught my attention. See, I’ve never been all that impressed with him as a ruler.
At his best, David seems like a Renaissance prince: by turns pious and conniving; equally handy with a sword and a lute. It’s not just that he abused his power in the infamous case of Bathsheba and Uriah; he was at least repentant when confronted with his wickedness. But don’t forget that that story started with David taking his country into yet another war, for no stated reason other than the fact that it was the time of year “when kings go out to battle” (2 Sam 11:1). That is, this king sent Uriah and other soldiers out to do battle, while he stayed home to rape Bathsheba.
And what follows that story in 2nd Samuel further belies David’s claim that “my house” is anything like “the light of the morning” — or “ordered in all things and secure.” One of his sons, Amnon, rapes one of his daughters, Tamar, prompting her brother, Absalom, to arrange Amnon’s murder… then later to attempt a coup, garnering popular support that may have reflected dissatisfaction with a lack of justice under David (cf. 2 Sam 15:2-6).
It’s also worth noting that David’s “last words” aren’t actually those he speaks in today’s lection; there’s still one more chapter of 2nd Samuel to tell the story of one last transgression that kindles God’s anger against his anointed king. It’s perhaps a final reminder of what may be the overriding theme of the books named for Samuel: the folly of humanity entrusting power to one of their own, rather than trusting in the one true God. When Israel’s elders ask Samuel to appoint a king, God recognizes that “they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Sam 8:7). When Samuel warns them of all the exploitative “ways of the king who will reign over you” (v 11), he isn’t just talking about Saul, but David and his line, whose diminishing, divided power eventually falls into the hands of men as cruel as Amnon and as vain as Absalom.
The best rationale Israel could offer for demanding monarchy was its need to be “like other nations” (1 Sam 8:5). But what makes Israel important in the biblical narrative is the way that God’s covenants made it unlike other nations — and that for the ultimate sake of all nations. The chief reason we remember David is not that he was all that great or good, but that he testified to God’s greatness and goodness in words that have been translated into all tongues and entered the literatures of all peoples.
At its strongest, David’s kingdom was perhaps a third-tier regional power at the mercy of bigger players in Ancient Near Eastern geopolitics. The Jerusalem of King David — the tiny capital of a land toyed with by the likes of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon — is nothing as compared to the Jerusalem of the prophets — the holy mountain to which all nations will one day stream and renounce war (e.g., Isa 2:2-5).
But then David is nothing as compared to the true king in his line, the branch of Jesse whose reign we celebrate this Sunday. The “One who rules over people justly” is not David himself — nor any ruler we anoint ourselves in our own time — but Jesus. David matters because he points us to the Lord whose rule is actually “like the light of morning”: the child whose birth will break “the dawn from on high… upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,” whose life and teaching will guide “our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:78-79) — not down the path of yet more wars fought for the sake of ambitious men.
Amid uncertainty about the future of what amounts to just one more kingdom of this world, may the season of Advent remind us American followers of Jesus not to trust in earthly government, but in the heavenly rule of the King of Kings.
Next week’s lectionary readings: Psalm 25:1-10; Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 21:25-36; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13.