Bathsheba goes to David by Francesco Salviati (1510–1563)
These two chapters mark the turning point in David’s story.
They offer vital clues also to how we “read” biblical narratives.
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“The fall of Israel” is a theological (not historical) title. This five covers almost the whole history of the Israelite kingdoms from David to the destruction of Jerusalem. The Deuteronomistic History (Joshua-Kings) from which they all come (cf. remarks on Judges) tell the story with the end in view, one important goal of these books is to explain the fall of Jerusalem and the exile.
So this is a good selection to understand what is going on:
by didbygraham
Bible stories, with a few exceptions (maybe some parables for example) do NOT have nice neat “morals”. If you want to say “and the moral of the story is…” don’t read the Bible. But by contrast if you want people with real depth, who make it difficult for us to work out what their motives are, and therefore hard to simply place them in appropriate “boxes”, the Bible is the book for you :)
In this reading we’ll notice depth and complexity in two of the less central characters, Michal and Nathan. In that complexity we may find clues to living our own, often also complex, lives…
This is the first part of a short series (it might only be two parts, who knows ;) on passages where God exegetes his own words.
In this part we’ll look at 2 Samuel 7, where David wants to build a ‘house’ = temple for God, since he already has a nice ‘house’ = palace for himself (‘house of cedar’ means a palace with expensive wood panelling). I’ll look at how God gives a four word speech and then explains in detail what it means. And in the process starts the punning and wordplay that lead to the superb promise to David, later in the chapter.
