“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
So in verse 3, David gets right to the point and asks the Gibeonites…
“‘What should I do for you?“
What’s David really asking here?
Let’s break this down.
Basically, he’s asking the Amorites what he can do for them so that Israel can be forgiven for the massacre committed under Saul’s leadership about 30-40 years ago.
David wants to know how to make up for Israel’s past sins so that the Amorites would bless them instead of curse them.
That’s what he means when he says…
“With what should I make atonement,
so that you will be able to bless Adonai’s heritage?”
Now, what exactly would the blessing be?
It would be that the Amorites would request the God of Israel to forgive His people (referred to as Adonai’s heritage) for their blood guilt.
And how would the Amorites make their request?
I’m guessing through prayer.
Okay, let’s just stop right here for a second and think about what David is really saying.
He’s asking these uncircumcised Gentiles what he can do to appease Israel’s God.
David’s request is based way more on the superstitious beliefs and pagan traditions of the time than on Scripture.
This is not how the Lord would have asked David to solve this issue.
And it shouldn’t surprise us that the Gibeonites met David’s unscriptural request with an unscriptural solution:
“Turn over 7 of Saul’s descendants to be hanged before Adonai in Giv’ah, and we will be satisfied,” they reply.
What did the Amorites mean by saying these descendants of Saul are to be hanged before Adonai?
Well, first of all, that’s because Adonai chose Saul.
Second, this also indicates that there was a worship site dedicated to the God of Israel located in Gibeon.
In Hebrew, this is called a BEMAH.
Now again, for those who are well-versed in Torah, you should know that this is expressly forbidden.
Yet we’re told many of these unauthorized worship sites were all over the place in Israel.
And archeologists have discovered a good number of them.
Alrighty, let’s stop here for now as I think it’s best to examine the complexity of this situation chunk-by-chunk.
Oh and by the way, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m using the terms “Amorites” and “Gibeonites” interchangeably.
They are the same people group and Scripture also switches back and forth between calling these men Gibeonites and Amorites.
Alrighty, so what’s the takeaway here.
Well, right here, we’ve just encountered how David and the Amorites are attempting to come up with a solution for the famine based on completely unscriptural ideas steeped more in culture than God’s Word (and it’s about to get worse).
So a good question to ask is, how do we do the same thing in our day and age?
What unscriptural practices does your congregation engage in?
I’m not talking about the obvious stuff like the pagan Christmas and Easter celebrations.
Try to go deeper than that and dig into your biases and theological assumptions that, upon second examination, are not Biblical at all.
How about the ridiculous idea of the trinity?
Or the practice of confession that goes on in the Catholic world?
By the way, Catholicism is filled with a ton of idolatry and blasphemous teachings if you ask me.
Or treating the New Testament as if it’s Scripture when it is anything but that.
I could go on and on, but I gotta run, man.
So I’ll stop here.
Consider this post to be some good food for thought for you.
Later!
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