David's Fragile Kingdom

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Previously on the chosen people. 00:00:03 Speaker 2: Silence here now the judgment of the Lord, oh giant slayer. 00:00:10 Speaker 3: The sword shall never leave your house. Blood shall answer blood. 00:00:16 Speaker 2: Because you have dealt in violence, so too shall violence rise in your own walls. 00:00:24 Speaker 4: I will raise evil against you from your own kin and your wives. Those you thought secure in silence will. 00:00:34 Speaker 2: Take lovers before all Israel to see you. Send in secret, David, but your punishment will stand in the sun for everyone of. 00:00:46 Speaker 3: You with their own eyes. We have no inheritance with David as our king. 00:00:55 Speaker 5: We have no claim with the son of Jesse. 00:01:00 Speaker 6: Gold him. 00:01:01 Speaker 7: Take the mighty man, sue him before he disappears into the hills. If Sheba crosses the fortified cities. 00:01:08 Speaker 6: One. 00:01:11 Speaker 3: Reminded them out the blood every endors. The Shiba may not have an army, but he's clever. 00:01:18 Speaker 4: He's got the poor, the angry, and the desperate. 00:01:21 Speaker 3: That may be worse. 00:01:23 Speaker 6: Man dog with old age, cut off the head quickly and clean the storm blood just one strike. 00:01:32 Speaker 1: She was eyes widened when he saw Joe ab and David's Mighty men waiting below the city's warriors caught up moments later. They didn't hesitate one stroke clean and final. 00:01:50 Speaker 8: When judgment came, it wasn't because of power, but because of repentance. Shell, Oh, my friends, from here in the holy Land of Israel, I'm lxd with international Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and welcome to the Chosen People. We're near the end of David's story now, and if you've been with us this far, you know it's been complicated. From shepherd boy to fugitive to King, David's life has been anything but tidy. And here in two Samuel twenty two through twenty four, we don't get a grand finish, no parades, no polished legacy. Instead we get a song, a sin, a field, and something unspeakably holy. This isn't a victory lap. It's something far more vulnerable and more important. Let's get into it. 00:02:42 Speaker 1: Peace in Israel was like morning missed. It never lingered. No sooner had one rebellion been buried than the old enemy rose again. The Philistines had not forgotten their hatred. Quiet as a snake in tall grass, they had rebuilt their strength, waiting for the old lion to grow slow, waiting for his pride to thin. Abishai and David stood over the. 00:03:12 Speaker 2: Map Philistines are pressing at our borders, small raids in the farmlands. 00:03:18 Speaker 3: They're testing our strength. 00:03:21 Speaker 1: Who leads them? 00:03:23 Speaker 3: They call him Ishbi benob is the king of Goliath. 00:03:29 Speaker 1: David paused, clenching his jaw. Another giant, but he was no longer a young man. Everything in his aching bones wanted to hold back and let his men march for him. But he was the giant slayer. 00:03:47 Speaker 6: We march. 00:03:49 Speaker 1: David was not a man to cower in his palace, even aged and aching. He donned his armor and took to the field. David marched with his men to the Jagin valley. Abshi rode close to the king, watchful and mindful of the king's importance. Across the field, the Philistines assembled, with the thunder of drums and the clash of spears. From the parting crowd, strode a shadow, towering, armored in forged bronze, a giant freeborn from the ashes of Gath ish by Beanog. They called him kin to Goliath, a mountain with a spear in hand and murder in his heart. 00:04:41 Speaker 3: Boy Uslukeliath, you were the champion, not I. 00:04:48 Speaker 1: He turned to his army voice, strong though his body faltered for. 00:04:54 Speaker 3: The glory of God and the love of Israel. 00:04:57 Speaker 1: Then he ran alone, at first, mad with the fervor of war. But his men followed, and the valley shook with their cry. Steel climbed on steel, fresh torn. The screams of dying men echoed through the rocks. David no longer felt like the younger man. He was more calculated and sparing with his swims, leaning on experience. His sword found counts in philist armor, and for a time he held his own. Then came to strike. A blow from wish by beanobs sent the came flying, crashing onto the rocks, his armor split at the shoulder, blood leaking into the dust. The giant roared, was just in time to raise his shield, but the force of the blow sat of his elbow. 00:05:53 Speaker 6: Ah, your giant, sell, where is your seat? And stars? 00:06:02 Speaker 1: Another kick drove David back, armor grinding on stone. David had little time to feel the pain, but he already knew that a few broken rigs were stabbing at his lungs. He had to slay this giant quickly before his breath failed. The king rose, his blade flashed, catching the giant's leg. 00:06:24 Speaker 6: Where who's the legendary warrior King David. 00:06:30 Speaker 3: Wish By being not growled. 00:06:32 Speaker 1: And hurled himself forward at David. He was relentless and raining down strikes like the thunder. A final downward swing shattered David's shield completely. David recoiled and swung sidewaist. The giant slapped the sword away with his gauntlet and laughed. The Giant's hand found David's throat and lifted him high into the air. David clawed at the fingers. The world narrowed to shadows as his legs dangled. 00:07:03 Speaker 6: I change your giant snail for my brother, for jars. 00:07:12 Speaker 8: Your name dies with you. 00:07:16 Speaker 1: The giant raised his sword to finish David, but a flash of steel bit into his leg. Hish By Banob's grip loosened when David fell gasping. Abishai stood behind the giant, blade drawn fury in his eyes. 00:07:34 Speaker 3: I'm your opponent, now, Giant, come at me. 00:07:38 Speaker 1: The giant advanced, and the two clashed in a storm of steel. Abishai's movements were quick, too quick for the giant to track. He drove the giant back, strike after strike, his shield ringing out like a war drum. Ish By Banob stumbled over a crack in the ground in an attempt to regain the upper hand each by Beanob struck down with a heavy blow. Abershi dodged, leaped forward, vaulted from a stone, and drove his sword on the giant's shoulder, down into his chest. The colossus howled in pain, gagged their wealth and with him. The shadow of Goliath felled to Abishi did not pause. He yanked the blade free and rushed to his king. 00:08:28 Speaker 3: David, can you speak? 00:08:31 Speaker 1: David lay there, bloodied and breathless. His body had been crushed. It took everything in David, justin Rod the King would never ride again. 00:08:43 Speaker 3: Ni King, this may have been your final pedal. 00:08:49 Speaker 1: David said nothing, He knew it was true. From behind the rocks, they watched the mighty men finished the route, the Philistines scattering like leaves in a wind. The war was one that David would not march again. His battles were over. The torch had passed to younger hands. No longer a warrior, the thought echoed through David's skull like the toll of a funeral bell. He limped through his chamber, hand pressed to his side, where Ishbei Binov's wrath had nearly ended him. Every breath ached that one battle seemed to age him decades. He stepped onto the balcony, his brow damp with sweat, and looked out upon the city he had taken with blood and iron, Jerusalem, the city of David. It was his crown jewel. Below him, the streets buzzed full of life and laughter, unaware that the king no longer felt whole without battle, What was left a withered king, a relic of war in a time of peace. In that quiet temptation crept in subtle and wicked. The enemy whispered, not in shouts, but in gentle reason. 00:10:22 Speaker 5: If you were no longer a warrior, be a ruler of renown. Count your strength not in battles, but in people. Let the number of your subjects be your crown. 00:10:33 Speaker 1: And so the seed took root. David turned back into the chamber, his jaw clenched with resolve. A reckless sort of pride had taken hold, the kind that can corrupt even the chosen of God. He summoned Joab, the old commander entered with his usual grim expression. 00:10:56 Speaker 7: The Philistines had been prodding us to test our strength. It's only a matter of time before our other enemies do as well. 00:11:04 Speaker 3: Go from Dan to Beersheba. 00:11:07 Speaker 7: Number the men of war, those fit to bear arms. I want to know the measure of Israel's strength. 00:11:13 Speaker 1: Joe Ab blinked, his eyes narrowed, and for a moment the room fell into uneasy silence. 00:11:21 Speaker 3: Do you seek to measure israel strength with yours? 00:11:26 Speaker 7: Are they not the same? May the Lord your God add to this people a hundredfold now you live. 00:11:33 Speaker 6: To see it. 00:11:34 Speaker 3: But why does this bring you joy? 00:11:37 Speaker 7: Have we not fought the Lord's battles? 00:11:40 Speaker 6: It's not the hu Graant's victory? Prophet? 00:11:43 Speaker 3: Is there a number in what is not yours? 00:11:47 Speaker 7: I am King joe Ab? 00:11:48 Speaker 5: Why must I keep reminding. 00:11:50 Speaker 6: You of this unto as you command? Too weary to. 00:11:55 Speaker 1: Challenge you anymore, Joab's lips tightened, but he said no, nothing more. He bowed low and turned to leave, though his footsteps were heavy with displeasure. The command went out like a curse. Israel was scoured from east to west. The captains of the army passed through the fields and mountains, through the forests of Ephraim and the hills of Judah, Aurora, God, Jasa, Gilead, Kadesh, the rural call of a kingdom. Every able bodied man was counted, no house untouched, no tribe forgotten. It took nine months and twenty days. When they returned, Joab stood again before the King, his face grim as ever. 00:12:43 Speaker 2: There are eight hundred thousand men of war in Misery, five hundred thousand more in Judah. 00:12:49 Speaker 1: David nodded. The number pleased him, though he said nothing, a kingdom vast, strong, worthy of song. But the pleasure was short lived. Even as Joab departed, a chill fell over David's heart. The Lord had seen his vanity. He had counted what was not his to count, and Heaven does not ignore such sins. Judgment was coming. The morning was soft with hayes, the light pale and uncertain as it bled through the canopies of the palace garden. David walked slow and stiff. A scroll clutched in his hands. David delighted in the law of the Lord. He craved it. The Law of Moses sat heavy upon his conscience. He had read it a thousand times. But this day one line cut through him like a blade, the words of Moses, when you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the law when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. David stopped walking, his fingers curled around the parchment, knuckles white. His breath caught in his throat. A ransom, and he had taken none. The king's knees buckled beneath him, and he dropped to the earth among the lilies and olive roots. The once mighty warrior bowed low, I've seed. 00:14:31 Speaker 5: Greatly, I've acted with pride. 00:14:35 Speaker 6: Take away my iniquity. 00:14:37 Speaker 1: Ah I am but dust, but repentance. Though honest could not unbind what had already been loosed, the Lord's King was held to a higher standard. The next dawn found David wandering again, unrest thick in his blood. The garden was alive with the sense of spring. Yet he takes listed only guilt. His sandals crunched over dry leaves as he neared the oldest tree in the garden. There, beneath its twisted boughs stood Gad the seer, withered as bark, with eyes like burnt coals. David fell to his knees. Without a word, God placed a calloused hand upon the king's shoulder. 00:15:26 Speaker 5: As the Lord spoken to you, Gad, what does. 00:15:30 Speaker 6: He say he has mikey, Thus says the Lord, three judgments I lay before you. Choose one that justice may be fulfilled. 00:15:47 Speaker 1: God held up three fingers crooked as roots. 00:15:52 Speaker 6: One three years of famine across the land. 00:15:59 Speaker 1: He lifted another finger. 00:16:02 Speaker 6: Two three months fleeing from your enemies, or they strike without mercy. 00:16:13 Speaker 1: Another finger lowered. 00:16:15 Speaker 6: Three three days pestilence from the lords. 00:16:23 Speaker 1: Old God let the final finger linger, then curled it closed. David bowed his head, trembling. 00:16:36 Speaker 5: I cannot decide. 00:16:38 Speaker 7: Do not let me fall into the hands of men, into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great. 00:16:45 Speaker 1: And so the Lord sent death. The morning after it began, it swept through the valleys and hill country like fire, across dry wheat towns, emptied fields, turned to graves. The pride David once counted vanished with the wind. Seventeen thousand lives, men, women, children the land mourned beneath the sun. On a third day, David climbed the high hill outside Jerusalem and stretched out his arms. The wind howled around him like a chorus of ghosts. 00:17:28 Speaker 9: I have said, I have got wickedly in your site, but these sheep water later strike me. Instead, let a raft fall upon my house. Not there. 00:17:41 Speaker 1: He tore his robe and collapsed to the earth. And when he rose again, he built an altar on the threshing floor of all the jebbersite, and he made wood and stove poured the blood of beasts who prayed. Not the empty words of a tiet came, but the broken plea of a man who knew he had failed. This was what God saw when he chose a boy from the pastus, not a perfect king, but a penitent one, a heart that bled, repented, and returned again, a heart after God's own. 00:18:29 Speaker 8: This isn't the David we met back in the valley of Ella. This is the man near the end, weathered, haunted and painfully aware of what power costs, And yet somehow more kingly than ever, God doesn't abandon him. In the field that David insists on buying, that becomes holy ground. It becomes the ground, the place where God's presence will one day dwell among our people. That's the part that undoes me. David doesn't die a hero. He dies humbled, and that somehow feels even more honest and more real. Today we find David's song of praise for the countless times God delivered him from his enemies and from Saul. Its words are nearly identical to those found in Psalm eighteen, and they may have been written near the end of David's life during a time of peace. You can almost imagine David looking back and reflecting on how God watched over him through all of the trials and tribulations that we've seen from his life. But I just want to look at how David illustrates God's protection in his song. God is a rock which cannot be moved by anyone who wants to harm us. He is a fortress, a place of safety where our enemies can't go. God is a shield coming between our enemies and us. He is the horn of salvation, a symbol of power and strength. God is a stronghold, a defense, fortified structure that cannot be breached. And finally, God is a refuge, a place of safe keeping where we are free from harm. In the early days of the Zionist movement, there was an argument that broke out Among the two factions of those longing for the Chosen People to return to the Promised Land, one side favored accepting Guganda's offer of a temporary refuge for persecuted Jews, but the other side refused, saying only one place was truly a safe haven for Jews, and that was Israel. For the Jewish people, the only place of refuge and safety is Israel. It's the place that we call home. It's where we are free from persecution, from pregromes, and from antisemitic laws. And it is where we are free to worship our Rock, our shield, our fortress, and the horn of our salvation. As historia, I want to reflect on one verse in King David's Beautiful Song, which contains his final words to us, Verses twenty nine and thirty say you, my Lord, are my lamp. The Lord turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop, and with my God I can scale a wall on the face of it. David is thanking God for helping him defeat the Chosen People's enemies. The Jewish sage is focused on the first of these verses, and as we finish the Book of Samuel. I want to focus on this verse too. Our sages suggest that darkness symbolizes distress and adversity, while the lamp and illumination represent deliverance and salvation. What their teaching is this, When someone realizes that the Bible is God's lamp to illuminate the world and dedicates themselves to its study, God responds by removing that person's spiritual darkness. I feel that our Bible study together does just that for me, and I hope for you as well. All of us experience darkness in our lives from time to time, but this Bible study we share lights each of our lives. This light of faith in God has kept the Chosen People alive for all these years, and it has returned us to our ancient homeland where I'm speaking to you from right now. So as we move on to the Book of Kings, may God continue to shine his light upon each of us Christians and Jews as we continue to follow the light of His word. 00:22:37 Speaker 1: You can listen to the Chosen People with Isle Exstein add free by downloading and subscribing to the pray dot Com app today. This prey dog com production is only made possible by our dedicated team of creative talents. Steve Katina, Max bod Zach Shellavaga and Ben Gammon are the executive producers of the Chosen People with Yeile Exstein, edited by Alberto Avilla, narrated by Paul Coltofianu. Characters are voiced by Jonathan Gotten, Aaron Salvado, Sarah Seltz, Mike Reagan, Stephen Ringwold, Sylvia Zaradoc, Thomas Copeland Junior, Rosanna Pilcher, and the opening prayer is voiced by John Moore. Music by Andrew Morgan Smith, written by Aaron Salvado, bre Rosalie and Chris Baig. Special thanks to Bishop Paul Lanier, Robin van Ettin, kayleb Burrows, Jocelyn Fuller, and the team at International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. You can hear more Prey dot com productions on the Prey dot com app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. If you enjoyed The Chosen People with Yil Eckstein, please rate and leave a review,