Sunday Sermonette: Yet more of that good old Biblical morality

We ' re getting to the end of Samuel: just four more chapters after this. But it doesn ' t get any less ugly. In this chapter David shuts his concubines up in the house because they ' ve been raped. I don ' t know if they ' re particularly put out that he doesn ' t have sex with them, but the idea is that women who have been raped are spoiled.  Since these women are already slaves, however, it ' s not that big of a change in status. There ' s yet another rebellion, but this one seems to depend entirely on the individual who incites it. Once they get rid of him, they ' re all set. And Amasa gets murdered in a very cowardly manner, for no apparent reason other than he took longer than expected to complete a task. At the end, David appoints a guy to be in charge of forced labor. That ' s one of the principal cabinet offices, it seems.20 Now there happened to be there a worthless fellow, whose name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjaminite; and he blew the trumpet, and said,“We have no portion in David,    and we have no inheritance in the son of Jesse;    every man to his tents, O Israel! ”2 So all the men of Israel withdrew from David, and followed Sheba the son of Bichri; but the men of Judah followed their king steadfastly from the Jordan to Jerusalem.Again, we have the idea of the two kingdoms. It ' s kind of like Great Britain, evidently.3 And David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten co...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs