Weekly Recap #13 - I Samuel 22-31 and II Samuel 1-10

 Happy Good Friday, Everybody!!!

We're on Week #13 of our Friday scripture recap....that sorta seems hard to believe....that we've come so far in such a short span of time.  We've already covered 9 books of the Bible and started into #10.

So....here are some highlights of what we've read this week.....

~~~Saul continued to hunt down David, but God didn't let Saul find him.  David's chief advantage was access to divine guidance and resources....which Saul didn't have. 

~~~David and his men were hiding from Saul and his army far back in a cave.  Saul entered the cave "to relieve himself".  David had an opportunity to kill Saul...but instead he crept up on him and cut off a piece of of the hem of Saul's robe.  David felt guilty because he had dishonored the king....so when Saul left the cave, David ran out and shouted to him, asking why he wanted to harm him.  Then he showed Saul the piece of his robe he had cut off as proof that he meant him no harm.  David recited a proverb to Saul....

"from evil people come evil deeds".

After David finished speaking, Saul told David that may the Lord reward David for the kindness he had shown.  Saul told him that he realized that David would be king and made David promise no harm to his family, or his descendants....and David made this promise.

~~~The prophet Samuel died

~~~David moved from the wilderness to Maon and sent word to a wealthy sheep and goat owner to please provide for him and his men.  Nabal was very mean in his response to David and refused his request.  David and his men went to attack Nabal...but meanwhile, Nabal's servants told Abigail, Nabal's wife, what Nabal had said.  These servants had spent time with David and his men and vouched for their honesty to Abigail.....and they asked her what to do.  Abigail immediately got provisions for David and his men and sent them by her servants.  She rode her donkey to meet David and she convinced him to not kill Nabal.  Abigail was a very kind woman and her words touched David.  The next morning she told Nabal everything that had happened and he had a stroke and lay paralyzed on his bed....and died about 10 days later.  When David heard of Nabal's death, he took Abigail for his wife.  She had already shown herself to be a woman of good sense and she was also beautiful.

~~~We decided that some of the "scenes" must have been a bit out of sequence because of being repetitive...and things David and Saul knew in one chapter....were a revelation in another chapter.

~~~Saul had came after David again despite his earlier remorse.  He wasn't able to act rationally, or to speak truthfully.

~~~As Saul slept, David took Abisha with him into Saul's camp.  They took Saul's spear and a jug of water from near Saul's head.  Then David called to Abner, commander of Saul's army, and told him that he didn't do a very good job of guarding Saul, asking where the spear and jug of water were.  Saul once again confessed how wrong he was to hunt down David and asked him to come home and he would no longer try to harm him.  David's response was that may the Lord value his life as he had valued Saul's.  David and his men fled and lived among the Philistines because David knew that Saul would not give up trying to kill him.

~~~The Philistine king expected David to fight with his army.  He told David he would make him his personal bodyguard for life.  The Philistines were angry that "these Hebrews" (David and his men) were fighting with them.  So...King Achish insisted they turn back.  When they reached Ziklag, where they had been living....the Amalekites had burned the city to the ground and carried off the women and children and everyone else without killing anyone, including David's wives....Ahinoam and Abigail.  David and all his men wept....his men were angry with David...."but David found strength in the Lord his God".  (I love that phrase....so many times when I felt others were against me....the Lord was my ONLY strength!!!)   The Lord told David to go after them, and the raiders were slaughtered and everything recovered....including David's wives.

~~~The Philistine attacked Israel and killed 3 of Saul's sons, including Jonathan.  Saul was injured by the Philistine archers and rather than allow them to taunt and torture him....Saul took his own sword and fell on it.  His armor bearer did the same thing when he realized Saul was dead.  The Philistines cut Saul's head off and stripped off his armor.  They fastened his body to the wall of the city along with his sons.

~~~When David found out about the death of Saul and Jonathan, he and his men grieved and David wrote a funeral song for them.

~~~Per the Lord's instructions, David and his wives and his men moved to Judah.  There, the men of Judah came and anointed him king over the people of Judah.

 ~~~Jonathan had a son named Mephibosheth who was crippled because when he was 5 years old....and the news came that Saul and Jonathan had been killed....his nurse dropped him as she picked him up and ran.  Later on, David showed kindness to Mephibosheth because he was Saul's grandson....and the son of David's best friend.  David sent for him and he bowed low to the ground in deep respect (very hard to do in his condition).  David gave him property that once belonged to Saul and a place at David's own table.

~~~David was anointed king of Israel (he was already king of Judah).  He was 30 when he began to reign...and he reigned 40 years in all.

So....there are a few highlights of what I got out of our reading.....until next Friday.....

Blessings to you!!!

In His Most Precious Love....and with mine!!!