We have now entered the final section of 2 Samuel. It is arranged according to a typical ancient middle eastern pattern: chiastic structure. This first section shows us that the problem of sin is much worse than we usually imagine. It is meant to show us that we have no hope unless God does something to save us. Thankfully, he has, through Jesus Christ.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: http://www.lifetogetherchurches.com/media/sermons/2Samuel/2sam23.mp3

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 2 Samuel Part 23

If you look at 2 Samuel chapters 21-24, they seem, at first glance, a bit messy, and even random. These chapters don’t seem to fit with everything else that has been going on. One of the things that is confusing is that up until now, the life of David has been going on mostly from beginning to end. In this last section, however, things appear to be more random, and there are stories from all throughout David’s life.

Some skeptics use this last section as the basis for claiming that these were all just stories that were embellished and put together more or less randomly over time, rather than a carefully written book by an author who had reliable source material and who wrote close to the time of David.

In fact, I myself believe that the narrative arc (that is, the main story) of 2 Samuel ends at chapter 20. However, in chapters 21, 22, 23 and 24, we have a kind of epilogue, a carefully structured end to the book of Samuel. It is not random or haphazard at all.

In our modern western way of thinking we often use outlines like this:

Introduction

Part I

Part II

Part III

Summary/Conclusion.

In ancient middle eastern  societies, they also had their own practices in making points. One of them is called “chiastic structure.” A chiastic outline looks like this:

Part A

Part B

Part X (Middle Part)

Part B1 (connects back to part B in some way)

Part A1 (connects back to part A in some way)

If you just look at this arrangement on the page, it looks like the left-hand side of an “X,” or , possibly, a “greater than” sign from mathematics, with the wide end on the left, pointing to the right. This is where it gets its name, since the Greek letter “Chi” (pronounced “kai”) looks like an English “X.”

There are variations on this structure, but you get the idea. As it turns out we can see that 2 Samuel chapters 21-24 form a chiastic structure like this:

A. Plague that ends with an atonement (21:1-14)

B. Battles and Warriors (21:15-22)

X. David’s Psalm (22:1-51)

X1 David’s Last words (23:1-7)

B1 More about warriors and battles (23:8-39)

A1 Another plague and atonement (24:1-25)

When we see it like this, it becomes apparent that this material was carefully arranged, not randomly thrown in at the end. It is arranged differently than a modern author might do it, but by looking at the arrangement, we can better understand what this material would mean to the original readers, and then think about how that meaning could apply to us.

So, in the first place, we need to know that this material is not chronological. Meaning, we are now done with the story of David moving from his youth to his older years. These chapters do add to David’s story, but we are not meant to think that all of these things happened in order, or after the rebellion of Absalom. In fact, it is quite clear that the incident in chapter 25:13-17 actually happened before the one described in 21:15-17. In fact, the one in chapter 25:13-17 occurred when David was much younger, during the events described by chapter 5:17-25.

We will take this section piece by piece. The first piece is in chapter 21:1-14. It could have happened any time during the reign of David. I’m inclined to think it happened before Absalom rebelled, mostly because there is no mention of David’s sin with Bathsheba, or any other disturbance in Israel. Also, because it concerns the family of Saul, I expect it was earlier in David’s reign.

The situation was this:

It started with a famine. This is equivalent to a modern-day economic recession or depression. Times were tough, families were struggling. After three years of this, David began to wonder if there was a spiritual reason for the hardship. When he worshipped and inquired of the Lord (probably through the prophet Gad, and through the Urim and Thummim, the “holy dice”) he learned that the famine was because of something king Saul had done.

There was a group of people known as the Gibeonites. They were not Israelites, but when Israel invaded in the time of Joshua, the Gibeonites had tricked the leaders of Israel into swearing an oath that they would not destroy the Gibeonites. So they had lived for more than four hundred years in Israel’s territory. According to the old agreement, they were essentially a tribe of servant-class people for the Israelites. They kept their part of the agreement, working as laborers for the Israelites, and remaining peaceful. But at some point not recorded elsewhere in the bible, Saul had tried to wipe them out. Essentially, he tried to commit genocide, similar to what Adolf Hitler did to the Jews in the 1930s and ‘40s. Apparently he slaughtered a great many of them, but obviously not all.

Stop for a moment here. The famine came along years later. Saul was dead. The whole nation had repudiated Saul’s family, and chosen David. David had never done anything like Saul’s slaughter. David is now leading the nation, and he had never hurt the Gibeonites. But the entire nation was still punished, years later, for what Saul did.

My first response to this is to think that it was not fair. Why should David’s kingdom pay for something David did not do? Why should the people suffer for a crime they had no part in?

But there is another question here also, and it is equally valid: Why should the Gibeonites suffer? Why should they be denied justice? Would it be right to ignore the crimes that were done to them?

When David heard what the problem was, he spoke to the Gibeonites directly.

He asked the Gibeonites, “What should I do for you? How can I make atonement so that you will bring a blessing on the LORD’s inheritance? ”  (2Sam 21:3, HCSB)

There is a key concept here: atonement. The idea is that harm done must be made right; justice must be appeased. When you break a window, you atone for it by paying for a new window. But how do you atone for something like genocide? It would be appalling and offensive to simply suggest we should “just forget about it.”

The Gibeonites told David that they would like to execute seven of Saul’s descendants. David made sure to protect Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan. The seven who were executed were Armoni and Mephibosheth (a different one) – sons of Saul by his concubine Rizpah. The other five were sons of Merab, Saul’s oldest daughter (thus, they were Saul’s grandchildren). If you remember, Merab was  originally supposed to be David’s wife. They were hanged, and their bodies were left exposed.

I think there is an important cultural difference between the ancient world and our own. We think of the individual as the most important unit of society. So, we defend the rights of individuals to be free. Our laws primarily protect individuals. But in the ancient world, a person’s family identity was much more important than their individual personhood. So, even though the individuals who were executed did not themselves, murder the Gibeonites (at least we don’t know for sure that they did), both the other Israelites, and they, themselves, would recognize that guilt upon their family is the same as guilt upon them. The execution would not have seemed as unjust to ancient Israelites as it does to us. Family identity, and family honor and shame, was much more important to them than the rights of individuals.

Does this story disturb you at all? I hope so. In such passages, we are meant to be shocked, horrified and put off. This is how bad sin is. This is how completely unattainable holiness is.

In many areas of our lives, we accept that things must add up. If we want lunch from a restaurant, we must pay for it. If we aren’t willing to pay the price, we do not get the food. If we work for x number of hours, we should get paid for those hours. If our employer is unwilling to pay what was agreed,  the employment contract is broken. The only way to fix it is for the employer to give what is owed. If we break something that doesn’t belong to us, we must pay for it to be repaired, or replaced.

For another example, we sometimes say, “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” Someone pays for it, even if it isn’t you. The food had to come from somewhere. Someone had to work to grow it, harvest it and cook it.

We understand that similar things are true in the laws of physics that govern the universe. If you jump off a cliff, you will fall to the bottom of it, and if the cliff is high and the bottom is solid, you will die. No one says, “That’s not fair. I want to be able to jump off this cliff without dying.” We understand physical actions have real world consequences.

But for some reason, we seem to think that in terms of moral actions, nothing must be paid for, and nothing has to add up, nothing has to have consequences. We readily accept that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but do we know that there is no such thing as a free lie, or free adultery, or free robbery? Why in the world would we think that moral behavior is exempted from the laws that are so clear in the rest of the universe? Immoral behavior incurs a “moral cost” that will be paid, one way or another.

Imagine you get drunk, and crash your car right into my living room. That action incurs a physical cost. Someone will bear the cost of that accident. If you, or your insurance company don’t pay, then I must bear the cost. If I say, “I’m not paying,” and you also refuse to pay, then I will bear the even greater cost of watching my house become unlivable because the front wall is open to the weather. The cost is there, whether we want it to be or not. It will get paid, one way or another.

This is also true of moral behavior. When we sin, it MUST be accounted for. The balance must be reconciled. Deep down, we know this. It would be a permanent obscenity upon the human race if no one had tried to bring justice upon the perpetrators of the Jewish holocaust. We know that. If someone entered a school and shot dozens of schoolchildren, it would be an insult to all humanity if we simply let the murderer go free. In the case of both of those incidents, however, the moral cost is even more than can be paid by the perpetrators. Executing the school shooter will not eliminate the horrible burden of grief and loss that he caused all of the families of his victims. Such a person cannot make up for his actions. The cost is too great.

If sin isn’t atoned for, it lasts. The cost is too great, and the consequences last. There is no statute of limitation. In the case of the Gibeonites, the atonement required was gruesome and was itself full of tragedy.

This passage shows us the futility of what some religions call “karma.” If it is true that “what goes around, comes around,” then we are doomed. If we need to make up for all of our sins not only in this life, but also for past lives, we will never find rest for our souls. If the sins of previous generations are on our heads, there is no hope. If even “only” our own sins are accounted to us, there is no hope.

Now, if you read this passage, and you think about what I’m saying, there are two possible responses. One response is to say, “Wow! I really need to straighten out my act and get serious.” If that’s your response, you still don’t get it. If this makes you think you need to get it together, you still don’t understand how bad this is.

The only appropriate response to this passage is: “If this is the way things are, I’m dead meat.”

We are all dead meat.

Saul’s sons and grandsons were dead meat. There wasn’t anything they could do to avoid a shameful death. According to the moral law – according to God, if we understand this passage correctly – they deserved it. Nothing would be right until they got what was coming to them.

This is how it stands in the universe. The moral equation must add up. The only way to make it add up is for you to suffer and die. But even though that is the most any of us can pay, that is not really enough. Too many Christians don’t take it seriously enough. When someone tries to straighten out her life and live morally, to be a good person for God, she isn’t taking this seriously.

Imagine a homeless bum who is stupid-drunk. In his intoxication, he kills a woman – someone else’s wife and mother. Now imagine he sobers up, and realizes he’s done something bad. In response, to try and make up for it, he offers the family all the money he has, which amounts to $17.

“I’ve given them everything I have,” he says. “It’ll just have to be enough.”

It’s an insult. It is offensive that he would even offer it, let alone that he would try to pretend that it could make up for what he did, even if it is everything he has. That is just how ridiculous and offensive it is to suppose that we can be good enough to make up for the times when we sin. We are dead meat.

That is what this passage is all about. You have no hope. You have no options. You deserve to die and your attempt to make up for things is so pathetic that it is offensive.

Thankfully, these are not the only verses in the bible. Thankfully, the Lord loves us too much to leave us without hope. But get this straight: there is no hope in your behavior. There is no hope in you straightening out and doing better next time. You can’t dig yourself out of this pit – the walls will come crashing in and bury you.

Too many churches give the impression that Christianity is about getting your act together. It isn’t. That’s entirely false. If you think you can get your act together enough to make up for your moral failings, you aren’t a Christian. Sometimes I think Christians don’t get excited about the “Good News” because they haven’t taken the bad news seriously enough.

The accounts of morality must be balanced. But we can’t do it. And that is why Jesus came to earth. The most appropriate response should be profound gratefulness.

Jesus took our sins upon himself. The balance was paid out through his torturous death. Through faith in him, we were punished by his death. That is what we call atonement. There is no other hope of settling the score.

But in Jesus, that hope is real and true. There isn’t anything you can do. And so he did it all. Our part is to trust that, and accept it with gratitude, and live like it’s true. When we truly believe both the bad news and the good news, Jesus changes us from the inside out. When we know we truly don’t have to measure up, there is a tremendous freedom and joy that brings us even closer to God. We will actually start to live better lives, but not to try and make up for something, rather because we trust that God has already done it,

Pause now, and let the Holy Spirit speak to you today.