#90 Understanding King David in context + Dr. Mallory Chappell

Today I want to talk about King David. He was a man after God's heart. He also abused power.

He committed adultery. He did these horrible things and yet God loved him. So what do we do with that?

I have brought in an expert, Dr. Mallory Chappell. When we read the Bible and we go, huh?

Is a clue that we need to do some more digging. He saw a woman. I want her and that's it. This is a bad one.

He makes Soraya carry the death order for himself. David's already ruled against himself and he was set up that way because of this parable.

What? Why? Like what's going on? Hello, hello.

Welcome to Biblically Speaking. My name is Cassian Bellino and I'm your host. In this podcast, we talk about the

Bible in simple terms with experts, PhDs, and scholarly theologians to make understanding

God easier. These conversations have transformed my relationship with Christ and understanding of religion.

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Thank you so much for listening. Now let's get to the show. Hello, hello. Welcome to Biblically Speaking. I'm your host,

Cassian Bolino. And today I wanna talk about King David. How are we supposed to understand him?

I mean, when you read through all of the scriptures that talk about him, it feels like a movie and then he plays such a prominent role in the future generations that keep kind of alluding to him like they were protected because of King David.

But when we zoom out, what was going on at the time when these crucial moments in his life were taking place?

Because he was a man after God's heart. He also abused power. He committed adultery.

He did these horrible things and yet God loved him. So what do we do with that?

Do we excuse what he did? Do we condemn him? Or is there a part of his story that we're missing out on because we live in 2026?

And if we lived at his time, we would have picked up on that. So in order to ensure that we get all the context around some of the prominent moments in King David's life, as in his adultery, the death of his son and the covenant with God, I have brought in an expert,

Dr. Mallory Chappell. Chappell like a church. You have a PhD in Bible exposition from Liberty University.

You also have a Master of Divinity with a focus in biblical languages from Liberty. And your research areas focus on the translation of the

Septuagint, the Hebrew source texts into Greek and how those words translate, those words used and they suggest how the translation was influenced by classical

Greek literature. So we can add a lot of color here as far as language, history and context.

Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. Okay, cool.

How did you get into King David? So actually I'm a teacher. I love to teach. I have in my brain, one side is scholar brain and on the other side is

I relate to teenagers and young adults and I love to teach. I love to bring the

Bible to people in a way that when you don't have 15 ,000 resources just on your computer, you don't have access to that.

And in teaching, I teach Old Testament survey and I have to teach about King David and he's so central to the

Bible leading up to the monarchy and then coming out of the monarchy and I just like how hard it is.

Honestly, it's a hard topic and I like it because it's important. And when you were learning about King David because he is such a prominent figure,

I think the word central there is such a good use. Was there something that kind of stood out that made you say,

I need to dive a little bit deeper here? Think I didn't get it. Oh. And for me, anytime

I don't understand something, I tell my students this. When we read the Bible and we go, huh, that's not an us problem, like as far as something's wrong with us and that's not a

Bible problem, but it is a clue that we need to do some more digging. So when I read and I have questions or the text doesn't give me the answers that I think it should, that's a clue that I need to look more and I need to study more.

There's so much in David's life. So where did you kind of pause and was it just like right from the get -go of like him kind of being chased after Saul or did you go into it and you're like, hold on, this adultery thing is like really not making sense.

Honestly, so if you read through the story of David, we get military, military, military, military, and that's great because I love that.

Not everybody does, but I do. And then when we get to the story of David, it like, if you listen to it, like on the

Bible app, if you listen to it, you can really tell. It's like the tone changes almost into this, we were talking about battle and now we're gonna tell a story.

And that's a clue in and of itself from the narrator that it's time to change the way we look at it.

And it's time to look at it in a different way. Got it, got it. Okay, so where for you does the story begin?

I think let's start for this one with just the first chapter, first verse in 2

Samuel 11, because like I said, we have in chapter 10, we have this military campaign and then it's like, it switches to a totally different setting.

So we don't really need to go back. A lot of times you do when you're reading through stuff, but in this one, interestingly, we don't.

So we can just pick up right at the beginning of this awful story of David committing adultery with Bathsheba we can just start right at the beginning if you'd like.

Absolutely, do you wanna read it? I have it right in front of me, if not. I can read it. I have the new

English translation up on my screen, which I love because it's this nice blend of like technical stuff, but also making it make sense.

So how many verses? You want me to just read through like the first four? Sure. First four or first five?

Sure, yeah. So in the spring of the year, at the time when Kings normally conduct wars,

David sent out Joab with his officers and the entire Israelite army. They defeated the

Ammonites and besieged Rabah, but David stayed behind in Jerusalem. One evening, David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof in his palace.

From the roof, he saw a woman bathing. Now this woman was very attractive. So David sent someone to inquire about the woman.

The messenger said, isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? David sent some messengers to get her.

She came to him and he had sexual relations with her. Now at that time, she was in the process of purifying herself from her menstrual uncleanliness.

And then she returned home. So when I read that, it's, I guess I'm kind of like colored by today's society where I'm like, this checks out.

He's like a general. He's a man in charge, you know? He is in a palace and he sees a beautiful woman.

He says, her, I want her. And then she comes and he has sex with her and that's it.

Like to me, I don't think I like balk at it because he's got the authority. And to me, that doesn't really stand out.

What are we kind of missing here in these details? Because there's a couple of things with David of like, why didn't he go with his people?

Why is he staying back at the palace? So kind of put this into context with me with what

I'm missing. Sure, okay. Because you're right. This is one of those stories where to get all of the context and all of the background pieces, you need like 500 footnotes, which nobody's realistically gonna read through.

So let me do that. Let me work through that for us. So we start off being told it's the spring of the year and this is when

Kings normally do campaign. That's just informational because this is the time of year. It's just, you can't do war in the winter because it's like rainy and cold and blah.

And then you can't really do it later in the year because most of your soldiers are also farmers.

And so they have to be back at home to harvest. Oh, that's crazy.

I thought it was like war. So you just go no matter what. No. And I will say some civilizations, yeah, they push through.

There are examples of that. But in general, your normal cycles of war would pause for harvest.

You have to have harvest. You have to have food. And the people, most of them who are fighting also have to do work for their families and for the developing civilizations.

That's why they're like, hey, go to the front lines. Like, nah, I got a clock in. I've got the thrushing floor.

It is, it's very strange to us because we're so used to, especially here in America, we're so used to some people, that is their job in the military.

That is what they do. That is their job. And they didn't have this double responsibility in the same way that the ancient world did.

And so just right off the bat, we have this almost like a window of opportunity for them to conduct war.

So at this point, David is kind of like in this moment of pause is what you're saying? Yeah, kind of.

So there's like a pause where they can effectively do war without, like they're waiting for their crops to grow.

Got it. The kind of weird thing maybe is that David's not with the army. So up until this point, he'd been,

I actually went back today and read through some of the preceding chapters and he's with the army. It doesn't say specifically where all the time, but he's with them.

And now he's not. So we have to kind of ask why, why do we have a change?

Is there a reason? Is it a bad reason? Is it a good reason? This is one of those areas where what

I do with Bible exposition, I like it and I don't like it at the same time because the text doesn't tell us truthfully.

In what I read, the text doesn't say why he was in Jerusalem. So we have a couple of reasons why. It could be, because there's been a lot of assumption that he was maybe not taking war seriously or he wasn't there and he was abandoning his men, but it doesn't say that.

There's also hints later in the text that his men had asked him to kind of pull back. You know, he's the king, there's only one of him.

If he gets killed, that's a huge problem. So there's some of that going on too. But I think it's best in this instance to kind of read it as this is just information to us as the reader.

This is the time when war is going on so we can expect a battle. David's not there. He's in Jerusalem at home.

We have the setting. The narrator is setting kind of the stage for us so that we can dive into the story.

So we know eventually the fact that he was there is a bad thing. Like we know that because of the decisions that he makes, but the people in the story don't know that yet.

So it's kind of like watching a movie where you know what happens in the end, but the people in it don't. So you gotta kind of wait until you get there in the story.

Right. So. Okay, so we don't know why he was there, but it wasn't a good sign.

But it's definitely during that time of pause during the war because of either it's winter or he said it's springtime, so they're probably farming.

It's spring, yeah. So it's in between time where they could be fighting. So yeah, so it's in that in between of like when other things are going on.

Okay, and then in terms of like authority, is it strange that a general kind of sends for a woman and fetches her?

It doesn't make it right, but like, was it common? I'm gonna say it's common in that it probably happened.

Yeah. We don't, I mean, that's the assumption of king has power or general has power to do kind of what he wants.

That's a true assumption. Obviously the king of Israel was supposed to have a higher standard because he's

God's king. So there's that piece to it that we should probably talk about at some point. But it isn't from a political, just straight, like he was the king.

He could do what he wanted. The weird thing is who he chose.

You know, this isn't like he went to, I don't even know what the ancient equivalent of like a bar.

He didn't just go down and get somebody who was a nobody. He saw someone that he thought was attractive.

The text tells us that. Was told who she is and then still had her brought to him because she's actually the wife of one of his, you remember

David's mighty men, the guys who were like his special squadron who go and been in war with him forever.

Uriah is one of them. So this is one of his guys' wives. And then, yeah, we find out later that she's actually also related to one of his advisors.

It's his granddaughter. Yeah. Okay, and so both of those things, despite the authority, despite being a king, should have given him pause, but he went against his better judgment just because even back then, like that,

I mean, today, obviously, there's many complications there and betrayal, but even back then it was just as bad, if not worse.

Yeah, this is a bad one. The fact that we're given that she's the daughter of Elium and she's the wife, even the fact that we're given two identifications is weird.

Usually someone will be identified, like if it was a guy, son of whomever, it's just how they identify, not a big deal, but we're given two.

She's somebody's wife and she's someone's daughter. So even that is significant because it's further showing us who she is and how this is going to be a problem.

Okay. Yeah, so as the readers, or if we're gonna envision this like a show, like a

TV show, cause it's kind of dramatic. If this is the part in the movie where everyone's like, oh no, this is bad.

This is gonna be bad. If you were in Israel and you heard this, would this be like the biggest scandal ever?

Hesitate to say biggest, cause you know, humanity has lots of, you know, we can do bad things, but yeah, this would be a scandal.

This would be a scandal. And I think it depends too on how you look at kingship.

You know, I mentioned earlier that, you know, David is a king, but he's also put there by Yahweh.

And so there are things kings aren't supposed to do and their standards that they have to uphold.

And so even though he was a king and had all of the power, just like all the other nations, there is this idea of a higher standard because he's

God's king, God put him there. And so there is a higher standard and David is certainly not exempt from the

Old Testament law, which outlaws adultery very clearly. It's in the 10 commandments.

And so this would have been a big no -no, like a big one. Okay. So do we need to talk about like her being like unclaimed because of her menstruation or is that just like a side note that they threw in there?

I think that's just a side note personally, because I mean, we can kind of touch on it a little bit, but so the way that after menstruation, women had to be ceremonially clean.

It was just part of the Old Testament law. But as far as the fact that he saw her bathing, that's just how baths worked then.

Like they were outside, they didn't have running water inside. So she wasn't doing anything wrong.

I will say there has been some talk in certain like preaching circles about how maybe she was enticing him or she was outside hoping he would look because she was bathing where she was.

And there's just nothing in the text that even remotely supports that. She was doing her thing.

She was bathing the way she was supposed to, upholding the Old Testament law, which is interesting because David's about to break it.

So we have that weird juxtaposition. And she gets called to be privy to him breaking the law when she was just minding her own business.

Is this something that like she was supposed to? Could have gotten her killed for cheating on her husband? Yeah, so adultery, the penalty for adultery was death for, yeah, that was the penalty, was death.

Could she have been like, no, I don't wanna sleep with you, David. Like, was that even like an option on the table? I don't think so.

I mean, the text, I will say this, and this is, I mentioned before we came on recording that there were gonna be some topics.

So kind of a quick disclaimer to people listening, if little ears are around, maybe pause for a second.

The text doesn't say she was raped. It doesn't say that. There is a word for that and it does not say that.

So we can't just say that's exactly what happened. We do though have to ask the question you just did.

Could she have really said no? And the answer is not really. He's the king, he's a man, and in that society, men had power and women didn't.

And she was sent for by people of the king. That's not something that you would realistically say no to.

It's just not culturally. So while the language doesn't in any way say rape, the culture and the way that that idea of taking, there's nothing anywhere in the text that suggests that she wanted this.

There's nothing that says it was rape, but there's nothing that says she wants it. And so that's when we have to kind of go back to the culture of could she say no?

And no, she probably could not have said no. Got it, okay. Okay, so then if we go further into the text, she went back home, the woman conceived and sent word to David, I am pregnant.

So many weeks have passed now. Yes, they don't have pregnancy tests like we do.

So yeah, it's been a bit, yeah. Yeah, and then right from there, he kind of makes the decision, send me the

Hittite and Joab sent him to David. And so that's kind of where we go into that next decision that David makes, which is

I'm gonna take my boy and I'm gonna send him to the front lines and I'm gonna tell the other guys to step back so he can die at the front line.

And again, just like as a Sunday school reader, like when you go to church and you hear this, you're like, oh my gosh, like lethal, that's diabolical,

David, oh my gosh, like I have a problem and I'm just gonna get rid of it. So it kind of shows, but again, like I don't live back then.

So is this just like how brutal you have to be as a king to kind of protect your crown and your dignity and kind of justify now making her your wife and kind of make the pregnancy look a little normal, you know, whatever it is.

I guess like I just put ancient times as kind of like, well, they had their own rules, but like today that would be just as diabolical.

So do the same rules apply or like what is happening there that we're missing? No, that was diabolical.

I actually, if you don't mind, I pulled a quote that I wanna read. I pulled something because I read it and I went, whew.

Okay, let's see. And I do wanna talk to you about some of the things that happened with David's, his order to put him in the front lines and then to pull back because there's stuff there too that gets at the heart of what you're asking about.

Is this okay even back then? But the quote that I wanna read, and it's from a commentary, the evangelical exegetical commentary.

And I read it and I went, ooh. And it says, if at first you don't succeed, dot, dot, dot,

David's first attempt to cover up his adultery was benign. Right, he tried to have Uriah come back and sleep with his wife to cover up the fact that she was pregnant.

Oh, yeah, we skipped that. Yeah, we skipped that. But that's, I mean, that's just kind of a side note here, but now he will turn to more drastic measures.

If Uriah will not cooperate in the deception, there are others who will. And so I read that and went, ooh, because it's not just David at this point, it's his general who he's ordering to change their military organization to put

Uriah here and then to order the men to step back so he can die. So it's not just David anymore.

He's now including other people in his sin and in his deception. It's getting a little, like, sinister.

Yes, yes, it's getting a little sinister. And that's crazy, because, like, David's so protected in the future.

Like, his, like, future generations are, like, on behalf of David, like, I'm not gonna punish you. And, like, this is horrible what he's doing.

Yes, it is. And so you just think, like, why is he getting all these free passes? I know, and that's, it gets worse before it gets better.

It does, I will say at the end, when we get to kind of where we're headed, there is one of those, again,

I keep coming back to a movie because this is so, from a narrative standpoint, it's so put together as a narrative that at the end we have some kind of absolution at the end.

And I don't know that it's an ending we like, but it's a good ending nonetheless. Yeah, so I have a quick question.

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Take a breath, slow down, and dwell in the good things. Now, back to the show. So why do you think

Uriah did not comply? Because, so David sent word to Joe up, sent me Uriah, Uriah, and then basically said, so he's like, okay, well, go down to your house and wash your feet and like sleep with your wife.

And he didn't. He slept at the entrance to the palace with all of his master's servants. He did not go into the house. And then somebody's like, he didn't sleep with his wife.

He like, didn't you just go home? And then Uriah says, the ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents.

He's basically like, why would I go home and make love to my wife if like everyone else can't do that either? So like, again, being so much more honorable than David.

And so David is like, why don't we go get dinner? And why don't we have some drinks?

And you know, trying to make him drunk. But then he also did not go home after that. So sorry for skipping over this, but that's when he then made that.

So do you have any insight as to like why Uriah was like so honorable? I think that's just the, when you're looking at this story from a narrative perspective, along the way, almost every time we move forward in the story, we're getting more and more picture of how

David is the problem here. And I think that's the point. And so we're able to compare

Uriah to David and be like, oh, he looks even worse. Yeah. Looks even worse.

Because if Uriah had come back and like gone and had sex with his wife, which they're not supposed to be doing, you know, because they're supposed to be out fighting, then it'd be like, well, he's not that great either.

And then it's easier to give David a pass. But now we have an even higher standard to hold him to.

Yeah, I do feel like God does that, like in a very realistic, like modern sense. Like, I feel like you're like,

I'm really struggling, God, but it's okay. You try to like justify with him. And he's like, no, we're not playing about this one.

Actually, no. Yes, absolutely. This is a hundred percent, I think, the way that God works in humbling us a little bit or a lot, like in this case.

Okay, wow. And then I think one of like the craziest parts, like sometimes I read the Bible and I'm just like, oh, this is like lethal, is the fact that he makes

Uriah carry the death order for himself. Insane. That is,

I looked into that. He did. So I looked into that. And here's the crazy thing. There are no other instances of this in scripture.

This is the only instance where someone has to carry their own death warrant like this. Oh my gosh.

There's also not a lot in the other literature from the cultures who are around Israel to say that that was a normal practice.

Yeah, not a normal thing. It's almost like David, like brand new, like it's not even him. Like it almost feels like something very, very bad was happening specifically in this moment that only applied to this.

This was a common practice. And like, it makes me think like David was possessed with something to like do something so unordinary and evil.

I think that's a good way to put it. I think what we see here is the depths that we will go to to hide our sin when we don't want it found out.

And we turn into people who aren't us. And we do things that normally we wouldn't think we would ever do.

Yeah. But it just highlights, I think, the grace of God in this.

We know where this is going. David doesn't know at this point.

He's still in the depths of that pit of, I'm going to win this, kind of.

I'm going to get away with this. This is going, I'm gonna, whatever it is that he was thinking. But we have this weird perspective because we know the end of the story, not just his, but we also know the end of with Christ coming and there's grace.

And so we get to look at it and at one time hold, wow, he's being awful in one hand.

And at the other time going, how is God going to give him grace for that? Because we know he's going to. So it makes it hard for a reader in the modern world,

I think, to approach this text. I really do. I mean, at this point, he's king. Why didn't he just take your eye out back and take him out?

At this point, why is he going through all the theatrics of putting him at the front lines and involving all these people and doing a death note thing?

He could have just, you're out. You're out and I need you off the earth. And interesting.

That's a great question. That's a great question, really, because he could have, you're right. He's the king. He had the power to do that.

I read through some of the sources on this and not that this works, but it's possible that maybe he had this idea of, well,

I'm not actually killing him. So if Uriah is killed in battle, technically David didn't do it.

So technically he didn't murder him. Oh. But he definitely did. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, like he definitely did. And God definitely holds him accountable for that. But maybe there's this bit of like,

I'm not gonna get my hands dirty. So I'm gonna have my general do it. Yeah. And then

I'm gonna have the guys around him step back and not protect him. And then I'm gonna have the people

I'm trying to fight actually kill him. So David's almost removed multiple steps in this particular scenario.

Right, he's like, I didn't shoot him, but I did put him right in the line of fire. Right. So, I mean, when this is happening, do people know about this in real time?

Like we're reading about it as it's happening and we're watching that movie, but like, is there like, how much lore is this at that time?

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Thank you so much. Now back to the show. Probably not. Realistically, that letter would have been sealed.

So the only person who would have known would have been the general. And the general doesn't even follow what

David says to do. He doesn't even obey him, actually. He does something totally different. I missed that.

What did he do? So instead of putting him in the front and then calling the guys back so that he definitely dies, what he does, he does put him in front.

So he listens there, but he puts him with a group of people and they don't come back.

They don't pull away from him. What they do is, and this is where one of those context things helps.

So they're besieging this city, okay? And in ancient warfare - I'm sorry, which verse are we at? Are we at 16?

Let's see. Yes, verse 16. Okay. So it's in verse 17 where it says, in fault with Joab, some of David's soldiers fell in.

So it just sounds like he's up front. But when we go further down into the report that is given or being told to give to David, we get this weird question in verse 20.

If the king becomes angry and asks you, why did you go so close to the city to fight? Didn't you realize they would shoot from the wall?

So we get more battle details here. We get more battle details. So without going back through, because anytime we get battle details in a text, it's kind of confusing to like kind of read through because we got to piece it together.

So play by play, here's how it went. So Joab is told, put him in the front lines, have the guys pull back so he can die.

That's not what he does. He puts Uriah in the front, but he's with this force that, and it doesn't say this in the scriptures, but what we know of siege warfare, we know that this is where he would have been.

It's this group who would have fought up close to the walls against some of the defenders who would have come out from the siege because they're trying to keep the army from coming through the gates.

You know, they're trying to like break into the gates. And so it's this clash between the defenders and David's army, you know, without David, but David's army, and then they push.

So they being Uriah and the Israelites push them back towards the wall, which is why they're in range of the archers.

And so, you know, Joab didn't even do what David said to do. He didn't have the guys pull back.

They just, in the course of battle, did the thing that they would have done. This is how battle was fought.

Got it. It wouldn't really make sense to like push everyone up against the wall and then like 90 % of people back up. Like you're just, you're in it at that point.

Exactly. Yes. So this doesn't even play out how David wants it to, and yet the end is still achieved.

So it just, it's very interesting that Joab doesn't do what he said to do, really. And in so doing, interestingly, doesn't implicate the men who are -

Oh, you're right. He stops that cycle because if David is gonna tell

Joab to do something wrong and then Joab tells the men to do something wrong and then they listen, we have all of these layers of people who are, in a way, part of this.

Yeah. But it stops. It stops with the change in formation. It stops.

It's like a Godwink of like this, I'm gonna like circumstantially remove the possibility that these people can be implicated.

Yeah. No, it doesn't, no, the text doesn't say, but that is a very, it is an observation that we can make that David's attempt was kind of thwarted in this way.

And in so doing, doesn't include all these other people. Because just imagine you're with your men fighting and you're all of a sudden told, all right, pull back and let him die.

They're not gonna do that. They're not gonna do that. When we're looking at verse 20, so 18 and 19 and 20 kind of reads like Joab is instructing the messenger on how to talk to David, knowing that, like, hey, just so you know, when you tell

David that some of our guys were killed, he might get angry. But Joab knows full well that like, this is what

David wants to hear. He wants to hear that people died. So it's almost like Joab is kind of like playing into it of like, hey, and when you finish giving the king this account, he might get angry and he might ask you, why did you guys get so close to the city to fight?

Don't you know they'd shoot arrows? Who killed Abimelech? I mean, Abimelech, son of Jerubishah.

Sorry. Yeah. So is that just kind of Joab playing into this or is there, like, that's how

I'm reading it. It's definitely possible. See, and this is one of the really, really cool things about reading the text with that kind of exposition, which is just pulling the text apart.

That's really all that means. Big, fancy word for pulling the text apart, looking at words, background, that kind of thing. The text doesn't tell us his motive, but we do get to observe his kind of character in this where he's out fighting.

He gets this awful message that we know nobody wants to, you don't, these are your men. You don't want to do that.

And then doesn't actually listen to David and then sends this kind of weird cryptic message that we as the audience know is crazy because David did want this.

So it does make us question what his motive was. And it does kind of paint him in a better light than David in this.

How does it paint him in a better light? I feel like it makes it seem like he's a little, like, skeevy and a liar.

I think, well, possibly. I think it, I think what it does is it shows that Joab maintained some level of integrity in the way that he fought war because he didn't require his men to pull back to let this guy die.

And so there's this level of integrity of, you gave me this order that I don't like, probably.

I mean, it doesn't say he didn't like it, but, you know, he got this order that we can probably assume he wouldn't have loved.

He didn't follow it, but he still obeyed the king a little bit, but he did it in a way that wasn't as bad as what

David was asking. And so then he's sending a message back saying this is what happened, knowing that it's not how

David told him to do it. Got it. So he's sending, he's sending it back saying, I didn't, basically,

I didn't do what you told me to do, but your outcome still came out of this. So I wonder, I also wonder if maybe that's why he's afraid that David's gonna be mad because he wasn't obeyed.

I don't know, it doesn't say. Okay. Okay, should we move on to the covenant in chapter 12?

Sure. Okay, so the covenant, this is like classic. I feel like when I read the

Bible, it's like, and then out of nowhere, a prophet comes out from the Lord and rebukes somebody and like tells them something.

Like so many stories in the Old Testament are so great because it's like, and then a prophet was like, hey, if you don't pay that man, he's screwed.

And the king's like, yep. And he's like, you're that man. You know, like they come out with this like riddle lore and it's like a message from the

Lord. And so Nathan comes out because the Lord sent him. Like, do you think it makes the most sense to start just from chapter or verse one?

Yeah, I think so. Okay, so the Lord sent Nathan to David and then he gives him this riddle.

There are two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except for one ewe lamb that he bought.

He raised it. He grew up with him and his children. He shared his food, he drank for his cup. He mislapped it in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now, a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him.

Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one that had come to him. He says all that and David burns with anger against the man and says to Nathan, as surely as the

Lord lives, the man who did this must die and he must pay for that lamb four times over because he did such a thing and had no pity.

And he's like, that's you. Yes. Yes. And it's just funny that like, they clock them so well.

Like when - Oh my goodness. The prophet's just like, yeah, exactly. Like you, you feel that. That's how the

Lord feels. And you're like, no, he saw it. I'm laughing, but that is kind of like, that's how

I take it. It like, God is so smart. He sends his prophet, you know, David gets called out.

What am I missing here before we kind of get into it? The covenant. I think, you know, I think the big thing is

Nathan. So the office of prophet, they could do this.

You know, we talked earlier about how David was king and he can kind of do what he wants. Not supposed to because he's God's, you know, king.

So he's not supposed to do whatever he wants, but realistically he could have. And so then you get this prophet who is a prophet, he's just a prophet.

And he comes in and he calls David out. And that's what they did. You know, in the modern world, we have this idea of prophet.

Anytime we hear prophet, we think foretelling or future telling. And they did that, but they did other things too.

They spoke for God. You know, this right here isn't fortune telling or future telling or anything like that.

This is just, hey, here's a parable. And what do you think?

How are you reacting? And David reacts correctly. That's right. And Nathan gets to, really without fear of dying, be like, you are that man, you did this.

And gets to call David on it when nobody else could. Was that common? That like prophets would tell, oh really?

They would just get like cut down right there and be like, ah, you didn't tell me what you wanted. Yeah, happens a lot.

When you see prophets. And it's not always quite so blunt. And I think a lot of that has to do with because we're in the middle of this like two chapter kind of story where it's flowing in a way that sometimes the

Old Testament doesn't flow. Sometimes it's kind of broken up. And so it's a little, it's not as obvious, but we definitely get it here in this particular instance.

Got it. Why wasn't Nathan afraid of dying then? Because this is pretty brutal. It is pretty brutal. I guess truthfully,

I mean, David's king, he could have ordered it, but there's some level of protection that's supposed to, there's some lines you're not supposed to cross, which is killing the

Lord's prophet. Like you're not supposed to do that. So there was definitely protection there in that.

I mean, feasibly, sure, he could have had him killed. Yeah, I mean, we can't ignore that, but there is a confidence and a protection there because you don't kill

God's prophet. Is there like a societal rule that they're following by starting with a story before he kind of tells him like it?

No, this is just a technique. Everything that I researched into this is not required.

This is just, I think, a really great way to make someone who doesn't have to see their own shortcomings because of their social position see their shortcomings.

Yeah. Because he now can't go back and be like, oh, well, that doesn't apply to me.

He's already said that this is, surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die.

David's already ruled against himself and he was set up that way because of this parable.

I do feel like that happens quite often with prophets in the Old Testament. Okay, so Nathan keeps going and he's like, well, you're that man.

This is what the Lord of the God of Israel says. I anointed you King of Israel. I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you master's house to you and your master's wives into your arms.

I gave you all of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you more. This is like so much.

Did you, why did you despise the Lord of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own.

You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore the sword will never depart from your house because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the

Hittite to be your own. What's crazy to me is that that's the sin that kind of like curses him.

Because like, I can't imagine that this is the worst thing King David did. And I don't know if that's bad to say, you know, like he's murdered people, you know?

Like that's like pretty well documented how much he like slain down like towns. Like he was so victorious. And it's crazy that God is like, this is the thing that will like ruin the bloodline.

This is the thing that you'll be remembered for. And I feel like that's really hard as a Christian to be like,

I, in my judgment, if I have like good and evil in my head, murder is worse than adultery.

But that doesn't really seem to be the case for God here. Right. It is hard.

I think it's very hard. And this is one of the reasons why I like this story so much but also dislike it at the same time.

Because it is hard. What we see here is, and it's that, it's that phrase for you have despised me by doing this.

Some of them, some of the translations say something like you have forsaken me, something like that. They kind of rendered a little differently.

You know, David has ignored the 10 commandments. He has ignored two of the 10 commandments here.

And even more than that, one of the things we find out all the way back in Deuteronomy, the Kings were given special requirements all the way back then, before they even had

Kings. And one of them was they had to read the law, you know, so they remember it.

And here he is breaking in one fell swoop, two of the laws, abandoning

God's requirements, not upholding them. And to be fair,

I was thinking through this, there are a lot of laws that I think would be easy to break unintentionally.

In fact, there's a sacrifice specifically for unintentional mistakes. You know, things like don't eat shellfish, right?

You could be somewhere and eat something and not realize, right, that could happen. You don't unintentionally sleep with someone's wife and then plot their murder and then send them off to battle to have them murdered.

That's not an unintentional, that's not, he didn't just stumble into that. Yeah, that's fair.

Okay, so it's hard. That's hard as a Christian, that's hard. It is hard. And I can see that where it's like, that is where we see that God does look at our heart, is that, you know, you could argue that like, the murders and the wars were like for God's name.

And God's like, that's a duty, that's what you're supposed to do, that's what I called you to do. Is it murder?

Yes, but like, that's what I called you to do and I'm God. This is like David going rogue. Yes, yes, that's a great way to put it.

This is David going rogue. And I mean, he opens this, you know, Nathan's, after, you know, you are that man, the

Lord says all of these things. I chose you to be king over Israel. I rescued you from Saul. I gave you this,

I gave you that. And if that hadn't been enough, I would have given you more. And yet what

David wanted was something he couldn't have, somebody else's wife. And so he took it because he could.

And so we have this abuse of power. We have this abuse of the position that God put him in, even though God would have given him realistically whatever, you know, he would have given him so much more.

It's just, you can't have that and so he abused it. Yeah, I feel like this is why David is so like beloved because it goes on and he's like, out of your own household,

I'm gonna bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes, I will take your wives. I'll give them to one who's close to you. Like, do what you did to him,

I'm gonna do to you. He will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I'll do this thing in broad daylight. And then

David confesses. I don't know why I'm getting emotional right now, but God's hitting me.

Because it's hard. Because this is hard. It's a lot.

It's so much and it's so hard because it feels like this is the breaking point of David being like, I have sinned against the

Lord. It's so quiet. And then Nathan replies, the Lord has taken away your sin. So immediately forgiven, you are not going to die.

But because by doing this, you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, your son born to you will die. So is that the covenant then, right there?

So the weird thing with this, so if we back up, David gets this covenant with God where his line will be perpetuated forever.

And we know ultimately that fulfills in Christ. We know that. He doesn't know that yet, but we know that.

But it is interesting that the area where his punishment comes is in the covenant promise.

It's in his offspring, because it's not just this child who's going to die. It's other children of his who will eventually die, not by the

Lord's hand, like in this one, in this case, but by each other's hands later. And so it is interesting that one of the covenant promises, which is your line will perpetuate eventually,

Christ comes through that line. That's the area where David suffers. Okay, so what you're saying is that the covenant made with David is that your line will perpetuate forever.

But, and so David's like, my lineage is strong. My kids will have kids. Those kids will have kids.

And now he just found out that his kid's going to die. So he probably has a bit of confusion of like, but you said that my line would be perpetuated forever, but you're telling me right now that my, what is this, his first born son is going to die?

This isn't his first born. It would be his first born with Bathsheba, but it's not his first born child. So he does have other children, but it is one of those things,

I think, as my kids say - But you're just saying it's like the same area. It's the same area.

See, he's getting clocked here, basically. That's the current term. He's getting clocked with this, because he's getting hit in the area where he was supposed to have surety and security.

And where he does have it, God didn't take that away. He didn't. He still had a son who ruled.

Solomon rules after him. Jesus does come out of his line. So God didn't take away the security, but he did take away something that was in that same realm, in that same area.

He didn't show that like, this entire section is bulletproof. He's like, I can take and give as much as I want.

Because God is sovereign. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so then what does

Nathan do? Because basically, Nathan's like, okay, so that area that you thought was secure is not so secure, because you're gonna have a son, and the son's gonna die.

And after Nathan and I got home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife had born to David.

He became ill. He fasted. We know that on the seventh day, the child dies. And then so we kind of go into the death here, and this is where David acts, in my opinion, as like a

Sunday school Christian in the modern day, he's fasting, he's not eating, he's mourning for seven days. Everyone's very concerned.

They're like, what's gonna happen when the kid dies, if this is how he's acting before the kid dies? Yes. And then the kid dies, and like David locks in, and he like washes up, he eats, he mourns, he moves on.

And he's like, well, what am I gonna do? It's not gonna bring him back. What? 100%. It feels weird. Like, I can understand it, but why?

Like, what's going on? Yeah. So one of the things when we look at David's reaction, so after he's told your son is gonna die,

David goes into this period of almost mourning. We don't know for sure if it's exactly the mourning period, like technically, because they had a certain amount of time they were supposed to mourn, or if this is him just, if it's definitely that, it could be fasting and laying on the ground and like pleading with God, please change your mind, please change your mind.

That could be going on. And then when it doesn't work, because it doesn't, he gets up and he goes about his business.

And that's very strange because normally you mourn after the death and you do those things after.

But you're right in that there's nothing to do at this point. God's judgment was named.

David asked for it to be taken away, in a way, right? He didn't like verbally ask, but he's fasting and he's praying. And so we can kind of assume that there's some level of like, please don't, please don't do that.

And God's answer is no. And he does the thing he said he was gonna do.

And David apparently accepts that, gets up and continues doing the thing

God called him to do, which is to be king. And as a modern audience, that is so hard. Yeah.

Because let's just remove it from the fact that this is a child for a moment.

Let's just kind of put that aside for just a moment if we can and say, okay, let's say you pray for something, you pray for something, and God says, no.

How many of us in that moment just go, okay, and go back to our lives? We don't do that.

We don't. We ask, we keep asking, we keep harping, we keep doing those things.

We keep asking questions. We don't have or show what I would say is that unyielding submission to God.

To just say, okay, and accept what he said and what he did and move on.

But we see that here with David, which is that weird ending that I mentioned earlier, where we have awfulness, awfulness, awfulness.

And then we see David embrace one of, I think the hardest things that a human can experience, the loss of a child.

And he goes, okay, God, you're God. And he goes back to the thing God told him to do. And that is awfully hard, awfully hard to accept.

Do you think this is where we kind of see that like redeemable, like, well, this is why David was chosen?

I do, I do. Because David messed up, royally,

David messed up. And when he was called on it, he immediately repented of that and said, yep, you're right, sure did.

He had a consequence and then submitted to God in that. And then carried on with the mission that God gave him.

And it is, I know, and it is this picture that I think, especially as Christians, it's hard for us to imagine being able to even do that.

But I think it's one of the reasons why we can look back at this story and say, look at how bad this was.

Look at how bad everything was, not just in the sin against God, but the sin against people, the murder of people, the loss of a child.

This is bad all around, no matter how you look at this, this is not a good story. But then look at how he responds to God in submission.

And we even see in verse 24, so David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he then turns and comforts someone else, even though he just experienced this as well.

So it's, I do think there's some level of this is why we look back at David and go, oh, okay.

Because he was super messed up, but he also was super submissive to God and he adjusted course.

Yeah, it is almost like a masterclass on the failure of human and how to repent and kind of come back to God, even after this is the worst thing that he's known for.

Yes, yes, very much so. And also I think it's key to note that he worshiped. It reminds me of Daniel, of like, how did

Daniel worship before going into the den when he knew he was going into it? Like, I've had conversations with scholars and I'm like, what could he possibly have been like, thank you, going to die.

Like, what did David say? Like, thanks so much for taking my son. Like, how do you find like a heart of worship after that?

Like, what could he have possibly been grateful for? Again, like very modern and like literal sense, but like,

I'm sure he just, he found it in his heart to worship something. I think, and this is total conjecture, right?

Because the text doesn't say. Yeah. Total conjecture. I think David understood who he is compared to who

God is. And that is, he is an instrument being used by God and there are blessings that come out of that.

But at the end of the day, God is God. And this is God's show. And I just, and this is how

I view, you know, my ministry and what I do. I just want to do what you want me to do. Like, I just want a seat at the table.

Like, I just want you to include me. It's your show. It's your thing. Like, submit to you no matter what.

Submit to God. And I think that's what we see here. I think we see that heart of, he understands.

And we don't like this in the modern world. Wow, we don't modernize that. I really don't know what I'm about to say. We don't like it. No. We don't like it. We don't like it.

Like, he knew his place and we don't like that in the modern world because we live in a world where you can do whatever you want.

You can be anything you want. But when it comes to God, you can't. Yeah, or I've earned a certain level that shouldn't subject me to this.

Correct. I love what you just said, because like, I think somebody asked me the other day, they're like, what are you going to do with the podcast?

I'm like, I will keep doing this until God tells me not to, because this was God's idea.

And you know, I would never equate my life to King David's life. But you kind of just now did of like, but that's the test that God gave

David. This is the test that God gave me and he can take it away and he can bless it. And I'm just happy to be here.

Yes. And I think we see that in David. Yeah, it makes me think that like, if and when, you know, hopefully not,

I go through something as bad as what David did, I still react the way he did. Just be like, okay, God, I'm human.

That's my hope. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. My hope is that I would react the way that he did. That's my hope.

I think you like completely turned David on its head for me. Because before it was like, wow,

David did the worst. He had an affair, he murdered, and yet he's still God's favorite son.

And I think that you've changed the story for me into like, oh, I can look and model this as a

Christian. Like, isn't that what the Bible is meant to do? Not just like - It is. Like, we did the thing.

We did that exposition. Wow. We did the thing. Yeah. Where do you go with David?

Because David's like continually talked about after this. What, like, is there something that happens after this that you love about David's life that we didn't capture today?

I'm not gonna say about David's life, but I do have another quote. I love me some quotes. Okay. And I read this, and I'll be honest,

I sat here at my computer and I looked at my screen for quite a few minutes because it's one of those times where I hear something and I can never unhear it.

I know, I know, I really wrote it down. So remember the thing where he said, you're gonna be the house, your house is gonna be with the sword and all of that, right?

Okay. Here's a quote, same commentary as before.

The ultimate son of David, on the eve of his own unjust execution, refused the use of the sword to defend himself, saying, all who take the sword will perish by the sword.

That's in Matthew. And thus diffuse in himself the curse placed upon the house of David.

You gotta connect those dots for me, girl. I'm gonna kick those dots, okay. So David's house is cursed with the sword, right?

Because of his decisions. Yes. And in Jesus's death, he tells the disciples, put the swords away, we're not doing that.

And he, the descendant of David, ends up squashing that curse and ending it in the times leading up to his death and his crucifixion.

Wow. It's almost like - Sorry, go ahead. No, I'm just in awe of, you know, we always hear

Jesus fulfilled all of the things. Yeah, he did. But when I can see something where there was a curse placed on the house and Jesus overcame that, at the time he was getting ready to die for us,

I'm like, man, look at our savior go, look at that. Because I keep finding things where God is doing things.

And I'm like, I didn't even realize. When a sword is the most justified is if not when

Jesus could have used it. Right, right, yes.

And also, again, like, what a God and what a Bible and like, what a faith that we get to be a part of.

My gosh, I'm getting emotional again. Is that God lets this thing happen with David.

That's horrible. And maybe that's just like the worship angle of like, and now that Jesus gets to overcome that, that we get to see that this, he can conquer.

Even that thing that we thought was, you know, justified. And like what David did was horrible and he is cursed. And like, how could you ever like outrun that?

Jesus outrun it. This had to happen to show that Jesus could outrun it and that he could squash it, he could overcome it.

I love that. And like, a God thought of that, he implemented it and like, we get to witness it.

And then we get to serve it and worship it. Yes, and this goes back to what would

David have to worship about? Because I think that's a fair question. Like your child has just died and it's because of the action that you did.

Like, how do you worship in the midst of that? It's by focusing on who you're worshiping and not the situation you're worshiping in.

Yeah, wow, yeah. Yeah, it's keeping eyes on the creator and not on your situation.

Because situations change a lot of times because we're dumb and make bad choices. But keep eyes on the creator, keep eyes on God.

And you can worship him because he doesn't change. The fact that he carried out the judgment doesn't make him a bad

God. It makes him a trustworthy God, which is hard. We don't like that. We don't like that because it was bad from our side.

We don't like that. But he is a trustworthy and a reliable God and he doesn't change.

And we can worship that even though our circumstances do. Yeah. Oh my gosh, this is hitting really heavy,

Dr. Jamal. It's very heavy, it's heavy. Wow, is this the...

So right now, what are you doing with King David? Is it like the crux of your teachings? Are you writing a book on it or?

Interestingly, it is about, I'm actually teaching through it at the moment. I'm teaching through it with my students and we'll be having a very similar conversation in the next couple of weeks.

And because when I teach, I don't... We read the Bible, like we read it. So if it's in there, there's gonna be a question about it and we're gonna talk about it.

So we will be reading this in the next couple of weeks and we'll be talking through it, so yeah.

So for Liberty University, if somebody like, here's this and they wanna get involved, do you have classes coming up?

Do you have a book coming out? Are you going to an event that you're speaking at? How does somebody kind of connect with you? So not at this moment.

So I just finished my PhD like six, seven months ago, something like that. And so I took a little bit of a break.

As most who finish their PhDs know, your brain's a little bit mush. So I took a little bit of a break and I'm just doing my teaching, which

I love. But I am in the process of kind of getting back into maybe I'd like to write some.

So I've sent out a couple of feelers for areas where I might be able to write. So if there's anyone listening who wants something written, by all means, please let me know.

I love to write. I love to research. I love to dig. Yeah, clearly we dug deep.

This was amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I mean, when we talked about doing an exhibition on King David, I'm like,

I don't know what we're gonna find, but this was amazing. Like you turned everything that I thought I knew and what

I had listened in church and the stories that I like heard growing up, you've added so much depth.

So thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This was so much fun. This is what I love to do.

I love to dig and I love to show people what we don't know.

And I love it. Well, you're always welcome back to do an exposition on the next,

I don't wanna say character, but you know, the next topic that you wanna go a little bit deeper in. So thank you so much.