2 Samuel Lesson 78

David’s Last Will/His Mighty men – 2 Samuel 23

On military Sunday we encounter one of the passages in Samuel that’s devoted to the military, 2 Samuel 23. Chapter 23 is one of the four chapters at the end of Samuel that is a closing viewpoint of David’s life. Chapter 23 can be divided half, and there are two distinct halves to this chapter. In fact, they’re so distinct they really two parts and should really be two chapters. One ends at the end of verse 7; the other begins at verse 8. Verse 8 and following is a series of famous military exploits by the soldiers of David’s army. Verses 1-7 is David’s last will. “Now these be the last words of David,” verse 1. Now the last words of a great leader are in the Scriptures considered many times to be prophetic, not just inspired but prophetic.

To catch what I’m talking about, turn back to Genesis 9:25 [“And he said, Cursed by Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.”] I want to show you four examples of last words and testaments. These are the last words of Noah, and Noah’s last words outline all of history. In verse 25-27 Noah notes the tripartite division of the human race and that each division of the human race will be responsible for something in history. For example, verse 25 deals with the Hamites, or the Hamitics; these are the people, represented here by Canaan, these are the people who originated physical civilization across the postdiluvian world. The Egyptians were Hamitic, the Sumerians were Hamitic; all the great original civilizations on every continent were Hamitic; the Chinese are Hamitic, the North American and South American Indians are Hamitic; the original inhabitants of the Indian Peninsula were Hamitic. So the Hamitics always acted as a servant of servants, or the best servants, that is, they provided physically for the human race.

Then the second group of humanity in verse 26 [And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.”] the Shemites, consists of the Jews and the Arabs, and from them has come monotheism. Monotheistic religion never occurred with most of our physical ancestors. Most of us come from the Japhetic line and from Europe, and our ancestors were trotting around all over Europe and they didn’t originate anything spiritually. Whatever we have spiritually came from Israel and came through the Shemites, not ourselves. So that’s why only of the three listed here do you find God mentioned by His covenant name, Jehovah, or Lord; He is only mentioned with the second subset of humanity, the Shemitics.

Verse 27, [“God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.”] the third part of the human race, the Japhetics. The Japhetics will be a conquering people and will come along later on, borrowing largely and subsisting largely upon what went before, “he shall dwell in the tents of Shem,” meaning that our spiritual resources are not native to our part of the human race. Since most of us are Japhetic by lineage, that means that whatever spiritual truths we have we have imported from Shemites. Notice it also says that “he shall dwell…and Canaan shall be his servant.” And that’s true because most technological inventions have come from Hamitics, the wheel, the gear, surgery, medicine, the use of herbs, many of these things, in fact, all the basic inventions have come out of the Hamitic line, so we are the great borrowers of history. And this can be traced on every continent. It can be traced on the fact that in the Indian civilization, the Aryans, who are Japhetics, replace the great civilizations which were Hamitic. On the North American continent the white man replaces the Indian; the Indian was Hamitic, the white man was largely Japhetic. It happened in Central America, it happened in South America. So you have vast exchanges of population throughout history that fulfill Noah’s last words. Noah’s last words were prophetic of what would happen to his sons.

Now a second illustration of last words is found in Genesis 27:26, Isaac blesses Jacob, and his last words are prophetic. “And his father, Isaac, said unto him, Come near now, and kiss me, my son. [27] And he came near, and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the LORD has blessed. [28] Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine: [29] Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee: cursed be everyone who curses thee, and blessed be he that blesses thee.” That is the appropriation of the curse clause of the Abrahamic Covenant, Genesis 12:3 applied to Jacob, or as he was later known, Israel. We use the word “Israel” for the nation but just remember, “Israel” originally was a man’s name, this man’s name. And so we have this man blessed by his father with these last words.

A third example, Genesis 49:1, Jacob’s last words to his sons, “And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.” And in Genesis 49 when Jacob speaks to his sons, he blesses each son with a particular blessing. Jacob’s last works are prophetic of the destiny of each of his sons; that’s why verse 3 is about Reuben; this is why verse 5 is about Simeon and Levi; verse 8 about Judah, in particular about the scepter in verse 10, a prophecy that Messiah, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah,” the Messiah will come through Judah. Verse 13, Zebulun; verse 14, Issachar; verse 16, Dan; verse 19, Gad; verse 20, Asher; verse 21 Naphtali; verse 22, Joseph, and so on to verse 27, Benjamin. These are blessings upon his sons that are more than just empty words of a father on his death bed; these are prophecies of what his sons will actively do in history.

One last example in the Old Testament of a father’s last words, Deuteronomy 33:1 [“This is the blessing, wherewith Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel before his death”], Moses’ last words. When Moses gave his last words, he too, like Jacob, blessed each of the tribes. It is a tribal blessing; you’ll notice Noah blessed the three parts of the human race; Isaac blessed his one son, Jacob blessed his twelve sons, now Moses blesses the individual tribes and that’s why in verse 6 we begin with Reuben; verse 8, Levi; verse 12, Benjamin; verse 13, Joseph; verse 18, Zebulun; and so on. The blessing is tribal.

Now come to 2 Samuel 23, you have a similar situation but there’s a difference, and that difference you want to watch and watch very carefully. The difference in 2 Samuel 23 is first David is not blessing them by tribes, it is a dynastic blessing. In other words, the blessing has shifted from individual tribe blessings to dynastic blessings. That means Israel’s fortunes from this point forward in history will be linked to whoever is the king, and this sets the nation up for the coming greater son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ. At this point the blessing is wedded in to Mashach, the anointed one, or the Messiah.

David, in verse 1 says, “Now these be the last words of David. David, the son of Jesse, said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said,” this blessing, verses 1-7, is what we call oracular in form, that is, the vocabulary and the structure in the original Hebrew presents it in the form of an oracle. You say so what? So what means that the oracle depicts a special work of the Holy Spirit at this point. Usually the Holy Spirit would prophecy through a prophet. At this point the Holy Spirit does not prophecy through a prophet but David becomes a prophet, just like Isaac was, like Jacob was, like Noah was. Those men were not prophets but they acted as one when it came to their last will and testament, their last words to their son. So when we see it structured the way we do, we have to pick up what is being said. And there are some very powerful things that come out of this passage by way of doctrinal benefits on inspiration of Scripture.

“David, the son of Jesse, said, and the man who was raised up on high,” this is just simply a way of expressing his titles. In an oracle the man who was giving the oracle always repeats his name. If you want to study another oracle in the Bible, Numbers 22-24, Balaam’s oracle, you’ll see it’s written in the same kind of format. “David, the son of Jesse, said,” and it’s not “said,” in the Hebrew it is “the utterance of,” there’s no verb here, there’s a noun, it makes all the difference in the world, naum, the naum, and this word, the significance of this word is that naum occurs only with God in the Scriptures. You always have naum Yahweh, naum Elohim, it is always the utterance of God, except here. Therefore, that knowledge should tell you there’s something important coming up. David is standing in the position of God Himself.

Now the fact that this is unique should force us to raise some questions. David is not just acting like Isaiah or Jeremiah or some other prophet; it’s true he’s prophesying, but none of those men ever says: an naum of Isaiah, or, a naum of Jeremiah. Well, what is the special significance of this rendering in the original Hebrew? The significance is that David takes on the role of God Himself, but significantly as he takes upon himself the role of God, he is also the king. Now does that suggest, in anticipation something that is going to happen; God and man together in one person, the Lord Jesus Christ will come upon history. David, at this moment, in a strange, strange, strange, strange way is somehow acting out of line with all the other prophets of the Bible in actually standing in the chair of God himself and saying this is an utterance of David, ben Jesse, the son of Jesse. So we have an adumbration of what is coming in this line of kings.

“The utterance of David, son of Jesse,” emphasizes David’s lineage, and then again the Hebrew doesn’t say “the man who was raised up on high,” the word here is geber, the geber was a male of draft age, that is, he was able to serve in the military. So you have a male here who is a citizen and citizenship in Israel meant that you were liable to the draft. There was no conscientious objection in Israel. So geber means a young male who is of draft age. So he says, “the young male of draft age who was promoted on high,” that means that after David entered the army… he was under draft age when he shot down Goliath, but when he was in the army he was promoted and promoted until finally God promoted him to king, so that’s what the reference there is too.

Then you see a comma, and another title, “the anointed of the God of Jacob,” that word anointed is the Hebrew word mashach, and that’s the word we get Messiah from, or in the Greek it comes over as Christos, from which we get Christ. Remember “Christ” is not Jesus’ last name. Jesus’ last name was ben Joseph: Jesus ben Joseph, if you want His first and last name; it wasn’t Christ. Christ was his title, and it describes something about His office, not about His genealogy. So here you could say “the Christ of the God of Jacob” and be perfectly legitimate, because this is the first time in history where God is slowly preparing the human race to understand what “Christ” means.

All right, “the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel,” now that sounds sweet doesn’t it, but the word isn’t sweet, it means the word “delight,” and it means literally “the delight of the songs of Israel,” it’s not the word for psalms, it’s just the common noun for songs. “The delight of the songs of Israel.” And this is proof of the David authorship of the Psalms. You’ll have a lot of Christians say when you look at the book of Psalms, Psalm of David, Psalm of David, Psalm of David, it doesn’t really mean that David wrote the Psalms. Yes it does really mean David wrote the Psalms and here’s one of the proofs of it. David was the delight, or he was the one who produced or spilled over his delight through the songs of Israel. And here you have Biblical testimony to that fact.

Now verse 2, “The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His word was in my tongue. [3] The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me,” comma, end of that particular point. I’ve read halfway down into verse 3 because all those verbs are verbs of speaking. You see the first one in verse 2 and you’ll see two at the beginning of verse 3 and if you have a King James it’s translated past and the reason it’s translated past is because when the King James was translated they didn’t understand the oracular form of literature, but this word is simply the word amer, amer means to speak, but when it is used in the perfect it means “he says,” usually perfect does mean the past but not here. So it should be translated, it’s in the present moment, the oracle is not occurring. David writes as though at the moment of the writing the oracle is happening. “The Spirit of the LORD says by me, and His word is in my tongue, [3] The God of Israel says, the Rock of Israel says to me,” so it’s all present. This is an oracle, and it’s his last words, and God is now speaking. The first time, by the way, this ever occurred in David’s life, God never spoke through David.

And may I suggest at this point that we apply a certain point of doctrine and it’s going to take some practice in all of us to apply this consistently. But we have become in fundamental circles very, very sloppy on one point, and that is this business of divine guidance. We are used to saying God spoke to me and said, or God told me this, or God told me that. Technically we’re out of line when we say that because since the close of the canon of Scripture God hasn’t said a word. God leads, yes, through the conscience and through the indwelling Holy Spirit, but the leading of the Holy Spirit is not revelation in the Old Testament sense of the word, and we can’t use… I don’t know what kind of vocabulary, maybe some of you can come up with one that you can fit in here, but what we need is a vocabulary that will express God impressing Himself upon our conscience.

See, what’s happening today in divine guidance is we have our conscience here, and we take in the Word of God; the Word of God comes in and establishes a core of truth in here, of doctrine, and that core is then used by the Holy Spirit to convict. Now the Holy Spirit is not going to convict apart from the Word of God. And don’t think He is because if He is then we don’t have to evangelize, that’s the corollary of that kind of thinking. You see, if God the Holy Spirit were speaking today evangelism would be unnecessary. The reason evangelism is necessary is because God the Holy Spirit is not speaking to people in their hearts; God the Holy Spirit requires somebody else to present a verbal message to the unbeliever, and then according to John 14-16 the Holy Spirit takes that message and makes it real. That’s how God is speaking today, He is speaking through the teaching and presentation of the Word of God.

This is why you observe, often in your Christian life, the following kind of very frustrating experience; the more you get in the Word, you may have coasted along for five or ten years as a Christian and everything was kind of halfway decent, until you started getting into the Word of God in a serious way and you’ve noticed since you started in the Word of God one thing after another has happened in your life and you seem to be on a descending curve, and the more of the Word of God you get the worse you feel, the more depressed you get and everything. Well, what’s happening? It’s because as the Word of God comes into your soul, the Holy Spirit intensifies His work in proportion to the tools He has; you’re simply getting more tools in your mind so the Holy Spirit can start doing His clean-up job, called sanctification, which is a painful job and that’s why you feel depressed and so on. Don’t take it as an excuse to cop out, that’s just an occupational hazard of being a Christian; it means that God the Holy Spirit is trying to get your attention.

Maybe for five or ten years you’ve gone on and He’s tried to get your attention through less drastic means and you haven’t listened, you’ve tuned Him out. In fact, you’ve become an expert at tuning out your conscience, you can rationalize your way through anything and everything to anyone. You’re an expert on this, so as the saying goes, to get our attention God has to use a 2 x 4 and the 2 x 4 God uses to clobber us is our emotions, and if that doesn’t work, physically He will clobber us, anyway to get our attention. Now God doesn’t say ha-ha, I’m going to get you, it’s not that kind of a God that we worship in the Bible. But God does love us enough that He demands change be made and if it hurts at the moment, so it hurts for the moment; the long range is what God has in mind, not the short range, and so if you have pain and agonize and seem to have all sorts of problems the more you’ve been getting into the Word of God, just chalk it up, about 50% of the rest of the people here are in the same boat. That’s the depression and that’s what the Holy Spirit is working with; the trick is to find out where it is that He wants the changes made as fast as you can, and make them, and then you’ll be out of the woods on this kind of thing.

That’s how the Holy Spirit is guiding us, He is guiding us through our conscience in proportion to the Word of God, and we know this from 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14 because there the Holy Spirit was not directly speaking to believers about eating of food and Paul said, look, follow your conscience to the extent of the doctrine you know, just apply what you know, don’t worry about what you don’t know. Work with what you know, and then as you learn more you’ll find out you’re going to change in certain things. Fine, but always respect your conscience, and Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 is that argument.

That’s all divine guidance, that’s what’s occurring normative today, but what is happening in verse 2 is not what I just talked about. What is happening in verse 2 is something absolutely different from your experience and my experience of day to day divine guidance. What is happening in verse 2 is real hotline revelation, and direct revelation is occurring in verse 2 and is going to be spoken of in a very particular way so we know it’s direct revelation. When he says “The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me,” it is the Hebrew preposition, it’s the Hebrew “b”, Beth; it can mean inside of or by means of. And when it is used with the word to speak it is talking about the most intimate kind of communication. There is no stronger vocabulary available in the Hebrew language to express what David’s trying to do for us in verse 2. He has ransacked the Hebrew vocabulary to get it as clearly as he can that something special, this is an oracle, something special is happening here.

“The Spirit of the LORD spoke in and through me,” he is saying, “and His word was in my tongue.” And when that word is used, “in my tongue,” that is the word that direct revelation is occurring, not the indirect sort that we experience since the close of the canon.

Verse 3, “The God of Israel says,” present (comma), “the Rock of Israel,” the Rock was used, Zur, it’s a word like in the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, you have these caves high up on the walls here, and that’s the kind of rock that you seek protection in, and it’s also pictured that when armies would invade the people would run up and stay inside these caves and they’d be protected, they could rain rocks on them. When God is said to be “the Rock of Israel” it is a spiritual analog that God is that Rock and when there’s enemies we flee to His character, or His essence, God is sovereign, God is righteous, God is just, God is omniscient, omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, go through the essence, we flee to that and that gives us protection. “…the Rock of Israel says,” now from this point down through the end of verse 7 is the content of the oracle. It’s a fascinating oracle because this oracle gives you in a nutshell what is often looked for in contemporary political circles, the norm and standard of a ruler. In one simple nutshell this is the Biblical norm of a leader of a nation.

[3b] “…He that rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.” Now this is poetry and poetry can be variously translated. And probably a better way of putting it is: “the ruler,” who understood, “is just, the ruler” with understood, “submission to God,” the word “fear God” means submit to His authority. And so this is the two characteristics of a ruler according to God. You see David was a ruler, and so as he is about to die, and the Davidic dynasty is to begin you have to somewhere in Scripture have it clearly spelled out what is the norm and standard of a dynastic ruler. This was unnecessary before; why was it unnecessary before? No king before. So now there’s going to be a series of kings so you’ve got to have a law to control them, to define their kingly character. And here’s that oracle law, the norm. “The ruler over men must be just,” the word “just” means to adhere to a norm or standard, the norm or standard being the Law of God. So the ruler must adhere in his own soul, it is his own soul first, to the Law of God, then he can worry about adhering to it elsewhere.

Why we are in trouble today as a nation in both local, state and federal levels, is because the men who are in the offices have simply not taken the time, those who are Christians have not taken the time before they got into political office, to subdue their own souls. And we have a lot of highly unsanctified believers holding offices for which they can’t control, the pressure of the office is too much for them and they’re cracking under it. The pressures of a public office are fantastic, and it’s something you never want to seek unless God kicks you through the door; it’s terrific because no matter what you do you’re going to get criticized for it. That’s just the occupational hazard. But before a believer ever ought to seek office he ought to be an expert in every single basic doctrine, at least that; as a leader he should also be a specialist in Bible prophecy so that he has an understanding of the geopolitical picture. These are minimums for a Christian ruler today. It’s too late once you’re in the office, you don’t have time to do any fundamental study while you’re in a public office; you’ve got to do your fundamental studies before you get there, because you’re going to be swamped with day to day decision making once you’re in it.

So God is saying through David, “the one who is going to be ruler ought to be just,” in other words, he ought to have a sanctification before he gets into the position of having to make daily decisions. He must also respect ruling, “ruling” and “ruleth” are just simply two ways the King James is handling exactly the same original, it’s the Hebrew participle, the one who rules. “The one who rules with,” or “in the fear of God,” that simply means he recognizes the proper chain of command, that God is over the nation, that among the divine institutions we have the picture like this. We have the first divine institution, the second divine institution, the third divine institution, the fourth divine institution and fifth divine institution. The first one is volition, the second one is marriage, the third one is family, the fourth one is judicial authority, fifth one is tribal diversity and you can’t take one of those divine institutions and put them over another. And the favorite human viewpoint of almost every politician today is to redraw these. Now obviously they don’t use the same vocabulary I’m using but this is what they’re doing. They’re completely distorting these divine institutions, they’re taking the fourth divine institution, which is governmental authority and they’re placing it over all these others, and that is deification of the state, it is unwarranted and every time you have it you have a crushing of all the other institutions. It always works that way, always has, always will.

So what he is saying, the one who rules must rule under God’s authority; that means no matter how tempted he is, he is never going to deify the state, and never going to turn the state into a messianic role.

Verse 4, when that happens, God says, and there’s a series of analogies made, when that happens “And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.” It’s a picture that you should know, when we get rain the response; the response is tremendous and what he’s doing is taking the sun plus the rain and he’s saying the sun and the rain are analogous to the ruler, the ground and the seed are analogous to the people, and the ruler provides the sun and he provides the rain and when he provides that the people will produce. See, this cuts down the whole concept of a totalitarian state because you see, who’s doing the production? The sun doesn’t, the rain doesn’t. Where’s the production? It’s in the people. All right, the people are going to produce but they can’t produce if they’re not furnished with the sun and the rain.

Now to show you that this was used as a norm and standard in the kingdom in the Old Testament, turn to Psalm 72:6; this is a Psalm of Solomon; Solomon was David’s son, he was taught by David, and somehow does it seem strange that here he’s talking about the role of a king. Now where on earth do you suppose Solomon ever got the analogy of verse 6, “He shall come down like rain upon mown grass, showers that water the earth; in his day shall the righteous flourish and the abundance of peace, so long as the moon endures.” You see that analogy? Where did Solomon get that? From his father. See his father’s oracle; Solomon was there when his father gave that oracle, and so Solomon is just carrying this out, and this is the mental image that Solomon had and carried in his mind though he never applied it consistently because he made it a totalitarian state. But the real ruler will always let the people produce to the utmost and he won’t have to do it. You won’t have the government doing this, the government doing that, the government doing something else. Solomon uses these words of his father in 2 Samuel 23.

Then a prophecy is given in 2 Samuel 23, after God gives the general rule that the ruler who is just, who rules in the fear of God shall stimulate production, notice the agricultural analogy, it goes back to creation. What was Adam to do? To produce. What do you have to have produce? Sun and rain. What’s going to do that? A just ruler, the ruler can provide the environment but the ruler doesn’t do the producing; citizens do that.

Verse 5, now the King James has made a mistake at the first part of verse 5 and the last part, those of you with a more modern translation you’ll see it corrected. The first part of verse 5 is a question, the last part of verse 5 is a question, it makes better sense that way. Instead of saying “Although my house be not so with God;” what it should say: “Is not my house so with God?” and you should put a question mark there, “Is not my house thus with God?” (question mark). Then at the end of verse 5 it should be, instead of “although he make it not to grow” is: “will he not make it to sprout up?”

Now here’s an interesting thing, notice in verse 5 the house is the dynasty of David promised in 2 Samuel 7. That’s the Davidic Covenant, and God promised in 1000 BC that there always would be a Davidic dynasty. Though my dynasty, “isn’t my dynasty so with God?” What’s David saying? Isn’t my dynasty going to be the sun and the rain to the people, that’s what my dynasty will be. Isn’t my dynasty with this, in other words he claims that as a model for all his sons, though we know there’s only one greater sons of David who ever fulfilled the mode. “… yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant,” this is obviously the covenant explicitly mentioned, “ordered in all things,” now that’s an interesting word, it comes out of legal terminology and it means a legal document with the terms spelled out clearly. That’s what it means. “It is ordered,” in other words the covenant is legal and clear, and it is sure, “and sure,” the word “sure” is literally made sure, it’s passive, “it is made firm” or “it is made sure,” and that refers to the fact that the Davidic Covenant is eternal security. If you want a model of eternal security use 2 Samuel 7 because you’ve got one right there when God says I will not take away My spirit even though your son disobey, I still will not take My spirit away from him. Now this is not eternal security for salvation, this is eternal security for dynastic succession. It’s a little different but the principle is the same.

Taking away the Spirit, somebody had a question about Saul and why the Spirit was taken away. The taking away of the Spirit in the Old Testament had nothing to do with salvation; the taking away of the Spirit in Saul and David’s case had to do with king functioning, that is the Spirit empowered them. If you want an example of that, the men who were the carpenters and the tailors who worked on the tabernacle had the Spirit of God while they were doing the carpentry and while they were doing the tailoring. That’s the kind of Spirit working, that’s what you want to think of when the Spirit comes on someone it’s to do something, it’s not to save them. The coming of the Spirit and the leaving of the Spirit has to do with empowerment for a particular job.

And so here we have the eternal security for dynastic succession. That’s what it means to be sure. “…for this is all my salvation, and all my desire,” better translated it is: “for all my welfare and good pleasure,” in other words David is saying that if God doesn’t do what He promises to do, then all the saving experiences I’ve had in my life are just down the drain, forget it, they don’t mean anything. If there’s not some sort of continuity, if God hasn’t… you know, He’s delivered me out of this mess, out of this mess, out of this mess, and then He’s going to dump the whole dynasty later on, what has been accomplished? Nothing has been accomplished. So what David is saying, for the sake of what He has done in my life won’t He make this to go? And he’s talking about the dynasty growing in history.

Then in verse 6-7 he has a very, very interesting point. And I was interested in the remark several people made after they looked at some of the photographs from Russia and some of those posters that means that the Russians mean business, and they pointed out that whenever any people or any individual gets to a position of power and skill and supremacy, the tendency is always to take advantage of it. You know that as well as I do because you know it from your own soul.

[tape turns] One of the things we have asked for and one of the reasons we have asked for this is because of the next truth that David gives in verses 6-7, a truth that is never recognized by any major politician today. “But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands: [7] But the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place.” Now he’s continuing with his agricultural analogy. You see, here’s the ground and the plants are sprouting out of the ground; that is the godly people of a nation that sprout under the conditions of a good government, but also sprouting since you have a fallen world, you will have the thorns and the thistles, the curse of Genesis. And the thorn is a thorn and you don’t just go grabbing it. You don’t grab a thorn, you come to them with tools to grab them with. And David says it’s the same thing when you’re a leader, you are going to have people in a national entity that don’t understand freedom; they don’t understand anything except force. When you have people like that in a nation there’s only one thing they respect and that is armed force, good, quick, solid and brutal force.

Now people don’t like it, but David recognizes it here when he said “the sons of Belial,” these are people on negative volition who are always troublemakers; this is a Biblical synonym for troublemakers, and if you are a leader of a group you are going to have to understand someday in your group there are going to be troublemakers. You can reason with them at first, but if they don’t respond to your authority you have to throw them out. And that goes for churches, it goes for national entities. And few are the people that understand it. You should understand this, you see verse 6, verse 7, it is not just David’s words, it is an oracle from God; God said that, not David, and God said to David there are going to be people and troublemakers in your country and what you’re going to have to do is used the armed force, that’s what the “iron and the staff of a spear” are here, in the agricultural metaphor that is the military, you are going to have to use military force to put these kind of people down, and you’re going to have to burn them with fire, this is an adumbration of the final advent when Jesus Christ Himself separates the wheat and the chaff, or the grass and the thorns. And how does Jesus do it? By armed force; people aren’t going to be willingly separated that way, Christ is going to use force.

The theology of many liberal theologians concerning the person of Christ is going to receive a tremendous shock when they see Christ come back again because He’s not going to be holding a lamb in his hand, he is going to come as the book of Revelation says, “in garments soaked in blood,” and the blood isn’t His this time. The first time it was, the second time it isn’t. The blood on Christ’s garment in the book of Revelation is the blood from the people that He kills. Jesus Christ is a killer, and when He comes back He’s going to be in the killing business. That’s what He’s going to do, and He’s going to have to do it because this is the only kind of language the “sons of Belial” understand.

Now, at verse 8, we’ll just go through this quickly, there’s no need for detail on it, verses 8-39 you can get the detail for yourself by simply reading it. This is a list which originally didn’t occur here. Remember chapter 21, 22, 23 and 24 is the work of an editor as he finished writing 2 Samuel. Now why do you suppose he chose this list of David’s military men to append to the back end of this oracle? Very simple; how did the oracle end? With the iron and the spear. So very appropriately what does he do? He takes the military honor list and he appends it; in effect he is saying see, when David was king he used the iron and the spear too and here are some of the great men in his ranks, and there follows, and I’ll just break it down roughly so you can make the corresponding marks in the text, but this is broken down in triad form.

Armies in the ancient world were organized on the triad system; the Greeks in the Homeric era were organized in the triad system, the Egyptians were organized in the triad system, the Hebrews were organized in the triad system, and today the Marines are still organize don the triad system. This is where you have one man always over three. And then you have these men and you have them over three and so on; that’s the triad system of order. Now this is the way David organized his army, and the top three men are given in verses 8-12. Three great men, and now notice why these men are great. They are great because they were killers.

In verse 8, “These be the names of the mighty men whom David had: The Tachmonite” and his name is given in Chronicles in another form, “that sat in the seat, chief among the captains; the same was Adino the Eznite: he lift up his spear against eight hundred, whom he slew at one time.” Now if you can think of holding a spear up and slaughtering 800 people, David killed more than that, but this man was known because he slaughtered 800 men, and the Holy Spirit, who writes this list, commemorates this man because he was a good killer; he killed 800 sons of Belial, 800 troublemakers this man eliminated, and for that he gets promoted and is recognized by the Holy Spirit. Now it’s not that the Bible worships violence; that’s not the point, you lose the point if that’s what you think the point of the text is. The point of the text is that in a fallen world force is necessary and these men did their job.

Verse 9, “And after him was Eleazar, the son of Dodo the Ahohite, one of the three mighty men” there’s your triad structure, “with David, when they defied the Philistines that were there gathered together to battle, and the men of Israel were gone away,” in other words, they took off. And it was some battle during David’s life and David was standing there and this guy, Eleazar was standing there, and David said hey, where are the rest of the boys; oh, they took off. That’s great, they’re all behind you… you know that phrase, we’re all behind you, yeah you sure, 100 miles, right behind. Well, these two guys were left out and here come the Philistines. And so this man rose up, verse 10, “He arose, and smote the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clave unto the sword: and the LORD wrought a great victory that day; and the people returned after him only to spoil.” In other words, he killed so many people and was holding onto this sword, because obviously the impact even with a sharp sword you’re going to get it on your wrist when you hit somebody with the thing, unless you spear them and even then you feel it, so even if you go around killing people with a sharp sword after a while your hand does get tired. And his hand got so tired that his muscles just got tense and he couldn’t get the sword out of his hand. The point was his hand froze on the sword, and that was a famous event that people remembered, and for that reason he is remembered by the Holy Spirit. Please notice, “the LORD wrought a great victory that day,” that doesn’t mean God worked in a miraculous way, it just means that God had a good killer that He could use and He used him, that’s what it’s saying.

Verse 11, “And after him was Shammah the son of Agee the Hararite. And the Philistines were gathered together into a troop, where was a piece of ground full of lentils: and the people fled from the Philistines. [12] But he stood in the midst of the ground, and defended it, and slew the Philistines,” in other words, again he was a great killer, “and the LORD wrought a great victory.” Now again the victory was not a miraculous victory, it was used providentially through a man who was skilled in the art of killing.

Verse 12, “And three of the thirty chief went down, and came to David in the harvest time unto the cave of Adullam,” now this little episode will teach you why men so love David, this is a little common incident that happened one day in a big battle, and it was an incident that shows you the heart of David and some of the famous things. “… and the troop of the Philistines pitched in the valley of Rephaim.” Whether that was 2 Samuel 5 or another battle, we don’t know. [14] “And David was then in an hold, and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. [15] And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!” Now the Hebrew indicates… David wasn’t longing in the sense of oh, give me a drink, it wasn’t anything like that, it was just he was tired and he was sitting down with some of his officers, and he said boy, wouldn’t you like some of that nice cold water that comes from that well outside of Bethlehem? And it was just that kind of casual remark. Well, these three guys got going and here’s what they did.

Verse 16, “And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David,” in other words, they so respected the guy, if he wants a drink we’ll go get it, if we have to clobber the whole Philistine fortress, if David wants a drink of water we’ll get it, “nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the LORD. [17] And he said, Be it far from me, O LORD, that I should do this: is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it. These things did these three mighty men.” Now that’s the kind of camaraderie David had with his men, and you can obviously see that this builds men’s loyalty one to another, to have this kind of thing.

And then it goes on and lists the various men and what they did; that’s the honor roll and it lists the first ten of the thirty mentioned, they’re all from Judah. [18, “And Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief among three. And he lifted up his spear against three hundred, and slew them, and had the name among three. [19] Was he not most honorable of three? therefore he was their captain: howbeit he attained not unto the first three. [20] And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man, of Kabzeel, who had done many acts, he slew two lion like men of Moab: he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow: [21] And he slew an Egyptian, a goodly man: and the Egyptian had a spear in his hand; but he went down to him with a staff, and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian’s hand, and slew him with his own spear. [22] These things did Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and had the name among three mighty men. [23] He was more honorable than the thirty, but he attained not to the first three. And David set him over his guard.”]

The thirty begin at verse 24 with Elhanan, “Asahel the brother of Joab was one of the thirty; Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem, [25] Shammah the Harodite, Elika the Harodite, [26] Helez the Paltite, Ira the son of Ikkesh the Tekoite, [27] Abiezer the Anethothite, Mebunnai the Hushathite, [28] Zalmon the Ahohite, Maharai the Netophathite.” And it terminates in verse 29 with Heleb, those are the first ten, all those men are from Judah, which fits history because David fought first where? In Judah, remember the cave of Adullam and so on with his army, where he trained them, Psalm 34.

Then verse 29 begins the second thirty and these come from northern areas, indicating as he grew and his army increased he drew personnel from many parts of the land. “Heleb the son of Baanah, a Netophathite, Ittai the son of Ribai out of Gibeah of the children of Benjamin, [30] Benaiah the Pirathonite, Hiddai of the brooks of Gaash, [31] Abi-albon the Arbathite, Azmaveth the Barhumite, [32] Eliahba the Shaalbonite, of the sons of Jashen, Jonathan, [33] Shammah the Hararite, Ahiam the son of Sharar the Hararite, [34] Eliphelet the son of Ahasbai, the son of the Maachathite, Eliam the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite, [35] Hezrai the Carmelite, Paarai the Arbite, [36] Igal the son of Nathan of Zobah, Bani the Gadite, [37] Zelek the Ammonite, Naharai the Beerothite, armourbearer to Joab the son of Zeruiah, [38] Ira an Ithrite, Gareb an Ithrite.”

And finally the list ends in the last verse, and it ends with Uriah for a very interesting reason, “Uriah the Hittite: thirty and seven in all.” Now why do you suppose that the Holy Spirit ended that list with Uriah? Because it’s a reflection that David was a great soldier but he never was perfect. David’s picture in Scripture is always marred deliberately. The Holy Spirit exalts David and then always puts a deflating clause with him. And the reason for that is for you, so that you won’t become discouraged in the battle of sanctification in your life, because if you just think of David as a great hero, and you think of these other Biblical characters as heroes, since you’re going to know your own faults, even if you won’t admit them to someone else, you know them, and you know those faults and they nag you, and you always start comparing yourself with these heroes and you always come out at the low end of the line and it produces a tremendous discouragement. Well, the Holy Spirit has tried to insulate you from that discouragement with such notices as this one, to remind you, hey, these people were fallen humans too, if they can do it you can do it.

Father we thank You for…..