February 13th, 2020

This morning I read, 2 Samuel 21 – 22. David has 7 of Saul’s sons slain to make atonement for Saul’s misdeed against the Gibeonites; however, this act contradicts the commandment of Deuteronomy 24:16, “Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.” Also, their bodies should have been buried that same day and not laid out because Deuteronomy 21:22–23 says, “ If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.” David did these things to bring rain because the Lord God withheld the rain because of Saul’s misdeeds against the Gibeonites whom Israel made a covenant with when they entered the land of Canaan. It should be noted that the rain did not fall until the men were buried. Can a wrong be righted by doing a wrong? Our Lord Jesus Christ committed no sin, yet he was hanged on a tree for our sins and he was buried that same day and we know that God excepted his death as atonement for our sins because God raised him from the dead on the third day. Romans 4:25, “He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.” David’s song recorded in 2 Samuel 22 is also recorded as Psalm 18. I wonder if this is to show that the Psalms of David are part of his history; and thereby, his heart-relationship with the Lord our God should be understood both in the history of David and the Psalms that David wrote. It appears that in this Psalm that David is saying that he is righteous and his enemies are unrighteous, but I think that David is righteous in the eyes of God because his trust is in the Lord not because his actions are righteous. God is just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Rom. 3:26) I think that the principle that we can take from this passages is to trust in the Lord. We should not model David’s actions. Though David’s intentions were good, his actions broke the commandments but David’s trust is in the Lord; therefore, he is declared righteous in the sight of God. God could do this regarding the saints of the past and in the present because of the redemption which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.