Episode 19 – King David and the Unity of Scripture

Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script Notes:

‘I [the Lord] declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you: When your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.’ ”

1 Chronicles, Chapter 17, verses 10 through 14, New International Version

But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 1, verses 30 through 33, New International Version

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VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome you to another episode of Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In some past episodes we’ve been focusing on the historical details of the story of David and Goliath to see how the story is supported by historical and archaeological records. Today we are continuing our conversation about the confrontation with the Founder of Crystal Sea Books and author, RD Fierro. RD, I think that you said that today you wanted to pay particular attention to David and see how his life is such a great illustration of the Bible’s remarkable unity. As you see it, David’s life is a perfect illustration of the Bible's records of history and prophecy are always fully integrated with the Bible’s overall message. Am I right?

RD: That is exactly right. As we often mention on Anchored by Truth the Bible is a remarkable book – which is what we would expect from a book that is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. The Bible’s central story is all about creation, fall, and redemption and since it only uses the first 3 chapters of the first book to discuss creation and fall the vast majority of the Bible tells us about God’s incredible plan of redemption. And since Jesus is the central character in that plan – in a very real sense – the entire Bible is about Jesus. So we would expect to be able to trace a link between every part of the Bible, including the historical narratives, and find a connection between them and Jesus. Of course, it’s a little easier to do that with some parts, like the story of David and Goliath, than with others – like the details of the Levitical Code. But even in the more esoteric parts there is a direct connection to Jesus if we know where to look.

VK: Well, as we like to say around here that’s why the Boss is so famous. But before we get into the serious stuff, let’s take a lighter look at David’s encounter with Goliath using another of Crystal Sea’s Life Lessons with a Laugh. This is the final lesson out of a series of five. Today we’re going to see that persistence is an essential element of the Christian life.

RD: True dat. To quote a line from our Life Lessons on Noah you have to “persist to exist till the mists are dismissed.”

VK: I wonder how many rhymes are in today’s lesson…

---- David and Goliath, Lesson 5

VK: Hmmm. Not so many rhymes but a lot about pie. I guess there’s a lesson in there too. So, on to David. The Bible actually pretty much contains David’s entire life story.

RD: The Bible actually devotes just about as much space to David’s life as it does to Jesus. David is quite unusual in that way. I think part of the reason is because David’s life is a great illustration of the unity and coherence of scripture. David was what some people used to refer to as a “Renaissance Man.” He was not only a warrior but also a poet and musician. But – even more importantly for the Bible’s purposes David was simultaneously a prophet, the subject of prophecy, and his name is attached to one of the most important covenants of the Bible, the Davidic Covenant. The Davidic Covenant was an essential element of the overall Covenant of Grace.

VK: Well, this does sound interesting. But let’s address one important element first. Is there any extra-Biblical confirmation of David as a king of Israel?

RD: Actually, there is. In 1993 at the site of Tel Dan in northern Israel, in an excavation directed by Israeli archaeologist Avraham Biran an inscription was discovered that’s called the Tel Dan inscription, or “House of David” inscription.

It’s an inscription that commemorates the victory of an Aramean king over his two southern neighbors: the “king of Israel” and the “king of the House of David.” The text is written in Aramaic characters and in it the Aramean king boasts that he, under the divine guidance of the god Hadad, vanquished several thousand Israelite and Judahite horsemen and charioteers before personally dispatching both of his royal opponents. Unfortunately, the recovered fragments of the don’t tell us the names of the specific kings involved in the encounter, but most scholars believe the inscription recounts a campaign of Hazael of Damascus in which he defeated both Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah. (https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/the-tel-dan-inscription-the-first-historical-evidence-of-the-king-david-bible-story/)

VK: Well the fact that a foreign king would take the trouble to record a victory of a king of the House of David would tell us that that foreign king was well aware of a dynasty founded by someone named David. So that is consistent with the Bible’s account of history. What does the Bible say about prophecies concerning David?

RD: The Bible tells us that David was both a prophet and the subject of prophecy. For instance, in the Book of Acts, chapter 2, when the Apostle Peter was addressing a crowd in Jerusalem after Jesus’s resurrections, he told the crowd that as a prophet David had foreseen that the Messiah’s body would not remain in the grave to suffer decay or corruption. In that part of his speech Peter was citing Psalm 16 verse 10 when he called David a prophet but in other speeches to other groups Peter cited portions of other Psalms as examples of prophecy. So under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit Peter clearly labels David as a prophet.

 

VK: When Peter said that David was a prophet, though, he was not attributing any special abilities to David though was he. I mean in a Biblical sense a prophet was someone who represented God before the people whereas a priest was someone who represented the people before God.

RD: Yes, and I think that’s a key point. When the Bible says that someone is a prophet it’s not stating or implying that that person has some inborn ability or talent or some skill they worked up by their own effort. It would be better to view a Biblical prophet as simply a person that God chose to use in a particular way, almost always to carry a particular message. But to ensure that the people knew that God had legitimately chosen the person God would frequently give the person messages about future events, so the people could check to see if their prophecy would come true. A great example of this was when the prophet Isaiah told King Hezekiah – one of David’s descendants – that when the Assyrian King Sennacherib was besieging Jerusalem that Sennacherib would fail. Isaiah told Hezekiah that not a single Assyrian arrow would fall into Jerusalem – so when the city of delivered and the prophecy was proven true it was a graphic representation that Isaiah was an authentic prophet.

VK: You have also said that David was not only a prophet but that he was the subject of prophecy. Can you give us an example of what you’re thinking about?

RD: Well, unfortunately two of the best known examples aren’t very happy ones. In 2 Samuel, chapter 12 the prophet Nathan gave David both a short term and a longer term prophecy after David’s well known instance of adultery with Bathsheba. The short term prophecy was Nathan told David that the child that resulted from the adultery would die and that came true shortly after the child was born. The longer term prophecy was that Nathan told David that the “sword” would never depart from his house. In other words there would always be conflict in David’s family.

VK: And there was. One of David’s sons, Amnon became obsessed with his half-sister, Tamar, and ultimately raped her. Sadly, David was a neglectful father and didn’t do anything to punish Amnon so Tamar’s full brother Absalom murdered Amnon. David did do something about that and banished Absalom but that wasn’t the end. David ultimately let Absalom return to court but after he did Absalom led a rebellion that almost ended David’s reign before one of David’s generals killed Absalom – though that was contrary to David’s instructions.

RD: Exactly. Put a little poetically the sword devoured Absalom even though David tried to prevent it. And even on David’s deathbed there was a conflict between Solomon who ultimately succeeded David and Adonijah another one of David’s sons. Even though David designated Solomon has his successor Adonijah tried to regain the throne surreptitiously so Solomon ordered Adonijah’s execution. So right up until the end of David’s life there was conflict among his children.

VK: Well, let’s move away from that and focus on what’s probably the most famous of the prophecies that pertained to David and in fact one that became enshrined in what we call today the Davidic Covenant. That was the prophecy given in 2 Samuel, chapter 7, verses 10 through 16 and repeated in 1 Chronicles, Chapter 17, verses 10 through 14 – which we used as one of our opening scriptures.

RD: Precisely. God promised David that God would raise up one of his descendants and I will secure – quote – “his royal throne forever.” Even more powerfully, God said that God would be this descendant’s father, and he would be God’s son. Those of us who live on this side of Jesus’ life know that this promise was fulfilled literally in Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection. No small amount of the New Testament is devoted to showing how this prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus’s life.

VK: Can you give us a couple of examples?

RD: Sure. There are two genealogies given for Jesus in the New Testament. One in Matthew, chapter 1 and the second in Luke, chapter 3. Those genealogies are instructive in both their similarities and their differences, but a key part of them both is that both demonstrate that Jesus is a lineal descendant of David, although Matthew traces his descent through Solomon and Luke traces Jesus’ descent through another son Nathan.

VK: That would seem to be a discrepancy in the Bible.

RD: And some critics attempt to portray it as such but there is a simple way to resolve the seeming discrepancy. Many scholars believe the Matthew genealogy traces Joseph’s – the father’s heredity whereas the Lucan genealogy traces his mother Mary’s ancestry. Early church fathers also saw another possibility which had to do with the Hebrew custom of Levirate marriage where Jesus’s biological grandfather may have been Jacob but he was legally reckoned as the grandson of Heli because Heli may have died without leaving any children. It’s a little too complicated to get into fully today, but if Jacob had married Heli’s widow Joseph, Jesus’ father would have been considered Heli’s son for certain purposes of inheritance. Whichever solution is the correct one, one thing we know for sure is that the Jewish leadership in Palestine after Jesus died could have disputed with the early church over Jesus’ ancestry if they wanted to disqualify Jesus as the Messiah and they didn’t. So they knew that Jesus was both biologically and legally the descendant of David.

VK: Fulfilling the prophecy that the Messiah would be a descendant of David. Of course that was the point that the Jewish leadership didn’t want to acknowledge, that Jesus’s life fulfilled all the prophecies that had been made about the promised Messiah. He was born in Bethlehem of a virgin. He would be preceded by a forerunner who turned out to be John the Baptist. He woul die among criminals but be buried in a rich man’s tomb. He would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. Even that his executioners would gamble for his clothing.

RD: Yes. And a lot of those prophecies that came true in the life of Jesus were made by David when he wrote his portion of the Psalms such as the method of his death and that his executioners would gamble with dice for his clothes. So Jesus and David were linked together by an even stronger connection than biological ancestry. It’s not too strong a statement that despite the fact that David lived 1,000 years before Jesus David’s entire life was a key link in God’s long and unfolding chain of salvation.

VK: So the story of David and Goliath helps lead us into one of the most complete biographies present in the Bible, David’s. And as the second king of Israel – and in many ways its most successful – from a human standpoint David is an incredible illustration of the Bible’s unity. David lived 1,000 years before Jesus but David gave us important details about Jesus’ life, death, and eternal kingship. David both uttered prophecy but fulfilled prophecy also marked his life. Of course the big difference between David and Jesus was that Jesus was sinless and David was not.

RD: But David’s many failings didn’t stop God from using David as an important part of his plan of salvation or even from calling David a man after God’s own heart. That should be incredibly encouraging to the rest of us. We can stumble and fail – often repeatedly – but God can still use us. And God can still truly call us sons and daughters as long as we continue to seek his face, confess our sins, and pursue His goal for our life which is holiness.

VK: And that’s one of the big reasons we launched Anchored by Truth. To help everyone remember that God has given us a special revelation to help us we seek to accomplish His will for our life. Sounds like a good time for a prayer. Since we’ve just started or are starting a new school year how about if we take some time today to pray for our children who are just beginning to start school.

---- Prayer for Looking for Children starting school

VK: Next time on Anchored by Truth we’re going to continue with our study of the of David and Goliath. We want to start to make a direct connection with how scripture is so beautifully constructed that no matter where you look you see a picture of some facet of God’s amazing love. We hope you’ll be with us then and we hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show.

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quotes from the New International Version)

1 Chronicles, Chapter 17, verses 10 through 14, New International Version

The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 1, verses 30 through 33, New International Version

https://scientistsforjesus.wordpress.com/2013/11/02/david-and-goliath-factual-evidence/

https://patternsofevidence.com/2018/10/26/david-battles-goliath/

https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/8/4/1

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/the-tel-dan-inscription-the-first-historical-evidence-of-the-king-david-bible-story/