David

Samuel goes to Bethlehem with a horn of oil and a heifer for a sacrifice, because Saul is still king and the errand is dangerous. Jesse's older sons pass by. The LORD says He does not look on the appearance. The youngest is out with the sheep. David is anointed, and the Spirit rushes on him from that day. 1 Samuel 16:7 1 Samuel 16:13

He plays the lyre in Saul's court. He kills Goliath with a sling and a word about the battle belonging to the LORD. He does not take the kingdom by killing Saul, though he has the chance twice. Saul's spear, Saul's hunt, Jonathan's covenant, the wilderness. Saul and Jonathan die on Gilboa. David does not rejoice. He writes a lament. 2 Samuel 1:19

Judah anoints him king at Hebron. He reigns there seven years and six months. The north comes later, after Abner and Ish-bosheth are dead, and they anoint him king over Israel. He is thirty years old and he reigns forty years, seven in Hebron and thirty-three in Jerusalem. 2 Samuel 5:4 2 Samuel 5:5 He takes the stronghold of Zion. He brings the ark up, and he dances, and Michal despises him. He wants to build a house for the ark. Nathan says the LORD will instead build a house for him. His seed will build the temple. The throne will be established forever. 2 Samuel 7:12 2 Samuel 7:16

The sin the book refuses to hide

It is the spring, when kings go out to battle, and David stays. He sees Bathsheba. He takes her. She conceives. He calls Uriah home and tries to cover it, and Uriah will not go down to his house while the ark and the army are in the field. David writes Joab to set Uriah in the hardest fighting and pull back. Uriah dies. David takes the widow. The thing displeases the LORD. 2 Samuel 11:27

Nathan tells a story about a lamb. David sentences the rich man. Nathan says, you are the man. 2 Samuel 12:7 The child dies. David fasts and then worships. Solomon is born later, and the LORD loves him. The sword does not depart from David's house. Amnon, Absalom, a rebellion, David weeping on the road out of his own city. The promise of a throne forever is not a promise that David will be clean. It is a promise that the sin will not be the end of the line.

He numbers Israel, and a plague follows, and he buys the threshing floor of Araunah and offers there. That floor is the place the temple will stand. 2 Samuel 24:24 2 Chronicles 3:1 His last words call the everlasting covenant ordered in all things and secure. 2 Samuel 23:5

The year, and the stone

Forty years, seven and thirty-three, is the text. The BC years, about 1010 to 970, are stepped backward from the divided kings, whose dates lean on Assyria. They are an estimate. What a find has actually said is later and narrower. The house of David is named in the 9th century. The year he took Jerusalem is not on that stone.

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