“David said to the Giv‘onim, ‘What should I do for you? With what should I make atonement, so that you will be able to bless Adonai’s heritage?‘”-2 Samuel 21:3
David now understands the source of the famine.
The 3-year-long drought wreaking havoc on his land was the ripple effect of what Saul did to the Amorites about 400 years earlier.
To rectify the situation, he calls for representatives of the surviving Amorites from Gibeon to come before him and present their case.
And boy, I gotta tell ya, man.
From this point on, things are gonna get really wild and wacky.
All that the Lord has told David is that the cause of the famine is the curse of blood guilt hanging over Saul’s household.
That’s it.
No specific instructions on how to remedy the situation were provided.
So keep in mind, we’re about to witness the implementation of an unscriptural solution cooked up between the King of Israel, who possessed hardly any Torah knowledge, and these uncircumcised gentile Amorites.
Think about that for a sec.
If you’ve been following my blog faithfully from the beginning, starting with verse one from Genesis chapter one, you know more about the Torah than the great King David himself.
There’s another point I gotta clarify.
These Amorites were heathen gentiles.
In modern speak, they never became Israeli citizens.
They were what we’d call “permanent resident aliens” in our day.
How do we know this?
Because these homies kept their Amorite identities intact.
See, here’s a truth that a lot of folks don’t understand.
If a foreigner became a citizen of Israel, it meant they also became a worshiper of Israel’s God.
And once they did that, they were seen as Hebrews.
They were now a part of God’s people.
So there was no such thing as an “Amorite Hebrew.”
Ya feeling me here?
You could only be one or the other.
If an Amorite joined Israel by pledging allegiance to the God of Israel, he stopped being called an Amorite.
And the same principle applies to you.
If you have accepted Israel’s God through faith in the Jewish Messiah…
You are a citizen in the Lord’s Kingdom…
Of which the capital is Jerusalem.
So that’s your takeaway for today.
If you’ve been born again…
Get hip to your new legal status…
Even if that status is currently only restricted to the spiritual realm.
Because in due time, your citizenship in Israel will extend to the political, social, and geographical realms as well.
Done.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“But our citizenship is in heaven,
and we eagerly await a Savior from there,
the Lord Messiah Yeshua.”
— Philippians 3:20
“So then you are no longer
foreigners and strangers,
but fellow citizens with the
saints and members of
the household of God.”
— Ephesians 2:19
“For you are all sons of God
through faith in Messiah Yeshua.
For as many of you as were baptized
into Messiah have clothed
yourselves with Messiah.
There is neither Jew nor Greek…
for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua.”
— Galatians 3:26–28
Another thing so many people who profess to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as say they believe Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah, do not understand is that when foreigners (i.e., not Jewish by blood) join with Jews in worshipping God, they are expected to worship God the way God said to do it, and not the way some gentile religion says.
As you say, you can’t worship the God of the Jews (for lack of a better term) and at the same time not worship as a Jew.
It’s simple: God has no religion, only his instructions how to worship him and treat each other, and if anyone chooses not to obey those instructions, they can say they worship and believe, but they aren’t living and worshipping the way they should, and saying so don’t make it so!
“When foreigners (i.e., not Jewish by blood) join with Jews in worshipping God, they are expected to worship God the way God said to do it, and not the way some gentile religion says.”
Excellent point, Steven!