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11 April. 2 Samuel 22-24
The first two chapters of today’s reading appear to bring David’s life nearly to a close, following his retirement from active military command. First, in chapter 22, there is what is best described as a psalm, in the same tradition as many others in that book attributed to David. This one, which we might term “Psalm Zero”, has been a fertile source of imagery for prayer, hymn and song writers down the centuries. “I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, so shall I be saved from my enemies”; “his chariots of wrath the deep thunder clouds form, and dark is his path on the wings of the storm”; “lighten our darkness, Lord, we pray”; “the Lord liveth, blessed be my rock, and may the God of my salvation be exalted” – these lines and many others owe their inspiration to this song of praise to a God whose presence David had always recognised, in good times and bad.
After that are what are described as David’s last words (23:1-7), again in poetic form and praising God’s inspiration and help. After that comes a tribute to the three military leaders who had formed his immediate ‘cabinet’ and thirty others who had achieved renown – we could think of them as the “Knights of the Garter”. The list must date back to earlier in David’s reign, though, as it includes Uriah the Hittite whom David had arranged to be killed.
But David’s life is not yet over, and he receives what he takes to be God’s instruction to take a census of fighting men. Yet he is then told that this displeases God (presumably as it represents putting one’s trust in military force and not God’s help) and is given an unwelcome choice of three punishments, from which he chooses a pestilence in the land. At the close of chapter 24 he sees the destroying angel on the threshing floor of the Jebusite (i.e. in Jerusalem), where the plaque stops before reaching the capital, and he erects an altar there in thanksgiving. Tradition has it that this is the same site as where Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac before God intervened by providing a ram; and the same site on which the holiest place of the Jerusalem Temple, and later the Al-Aqsa mosque, would eventually be sited. It has therefore become a sacred site both to Jews and Muslims; less so to Christians for whom Jerusalem was the centre of a mission outwards to the world rather than a focus for inward pilgrimage.