David’s Last Song

The king sent for the Gibeonites. They were not Israelites but what was left of the Amorites, and Israel had sworn an oath to them. Even so, Saul had set out to kill them, because he was so devoted to Israel and Judah.

“What should I do for you?” David asked them. “How can I make this right, so that you will bless the Lord’s own people?”

“Silver and gold can’t settle this between us and Saul or his family,” the Gibeonites answered. “And we have no right to put anyone in Israel to death.”

“Whatever you ask, I will do it for you,” said David.

They answered the king, “The man who crushed us plotted to wipe us out, so that we would have no place left in Israel. Hand over seven of his sons to us, and we will hang them in the Lord’s presence at Gibeah of Saul, the Lord’s chosen one.”

“I will hand them over,” said the king.

But the king spared Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth, because of the oath David and Jonathan had sworn to each other by the Lord. He took the two sons Rizpah daughter of Aiah had with Saul, Armoni and another Mephibosheth. He also took the five sons Saul’s daughter Merab had with Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite.

He handed them over to the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain in the Lord’s presence. All seven died together. It was the start of harvest time, the first days of the barley harvest.

When David was told what Saul’s concubine Rizpah had done, he went to the men of Jabesh Gilead for the bones of Saul and Jonathan. They had stolen them from the street of Beth Shan. That was where the Philistines had hung up the bodies on the day they killed Saul on Gilboa.

David brought the bones up from there, and the bones of the hanged men were gathered too. Saul’s and Jonathan’s bones were buried in the land of Benjamin, at Zela, in the tomb of Saul’s father Kish. Everything the king ordered was done, and after that, God answered prayer for the land.

But Abishai son of Zeruiah came to help David and struck the Philistine dead. Then David’s men swore to him, “Don’t go out to battle with us any more, so that the lamp of Israel doesn’t go out.”

Later there was war with the Philistines again, at Gob. There Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, another of the giant’s descendants.

In another war with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim, from Bethlehem, killed the brother of Goliath of Gath, whose spear had a shaft like a weaver’s beam. A weaver’s beam was the heavy wooden bar of a loom.

There was war again at Gath, where there was a very tall man with six fingers on every hand and six toes on every foot: twenty-four fingers and toes. He was another descendant of the giant. He taunted Israel, and Jonathan son of Shimei, David’s brother, killed him.

All four were born to the giant in Gath. David and his men killed them.

The book of Chronicles tells about the last three of these battles too. It says the first of them was fought at Gezer, that the man Sibbecai killed was Sippai, and that afterward the Philistines were beaten. It calls Elhanan the son of Jair and names the man he killed: Lahmi, Goliath’s brother. And it calls Jonathan’s father Shimea.

Waves of death had surrounded him, he sang, and floods of wickedness had made him afraid. The ropes of Sheol, the place of the dead, were around him, and death’s traps had caught him. When he was in trouble, he called to the Lord his God, and God heard him from his temple. His cry reached God’s ears.

He rode on a cherub and flew, and he was seen on the wings of the wind. He made darkness a shelter around himself, with gathered waters and thick clouds. Coals of fire blazed from the brightness in front of him. The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High raised his voice. He shot arrows and scattered them. His lightning threw them into confusion. The channels of the sea came into view. The foundations of the world were uncovered at the Lord’s angry word, at the blast of the breath from his nostrils.

The Lord had rewarded him for doing right, he sang, for keeping his hands clean. He had kept the Lord’s ways and all his laws, and had not done evil by turning away from his God. He had been blameless and kept himself from sin, so the Lord had rewarded him for doing right, for being clean in the Lord’s eyes.

God’s way is perfect, he sang. The Lord’s word has been tested, and he is a shield to all those who take refuge in him. Who is God, except the Lord? Who is a rock, except our God? God was his strong fortress and made his way perfect. He gave David feet like a deer’s, set him on the heights, and trained his hands for battle, so that his arms could bend a bow of bronze. God gave him the shield that saves, and God’s gentleness made David great. He made room for David’s steps, and his feet did not slip.

He chased his enemies and destroyed them, he sang, and did not turn back until they were wiped out. He struck them down, and they fell under his feet and could not rise. God armed him with strength for battle, brought down those who rose against him, and made his enemies turn and run, so that he could destroy those who hated him. They looked for someone to save them, but there was no one. They even called to the Lord, but he did not answer them. David beat them as small as dust, crushed them like mud in the streets, and scattered them.

God had rescued him from the quarrels of his own people and kept him as ruler over nations. A people he had never known would serve him. Foreigners would bow to him and obey him as soon as they heard of him. They would fade away and come trembling out of their hiding places.

“Isn’t my family like that with God?” he went on. “Yet he has made an everlasting covenant with me, set in order in every way, and secure. It is all my salvation and all I desire. Won’t he make it grow? But the wicked will all be like thorns to be thrown away, because no one can pick them up by hand. Anyone who touches them must be armed with iron and a spear’s shaft. They will be burned up with fire right where they lie.”

Next came Eleazar son of Dodai, son of an Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with David. Once they taunted the Philistines who had gathered there for battle. The men of Israel had gone away, but Eleazar got up and struck down Philistines until his hand was worn out and stuck to his sword. That day the Lord won a great victory. The army came back after him, but only to take the plunder.

Next was Shammah son of Agee, a Hararite. When the Philistines gathered in a troop by a field full of lentils, Israel’s men ran from them. But Shammah stood in the middle of the field and defended it. He killed the Philistines, and the Lord won a great victory.

One harvest time, three of the thirty chiefs made their way down to David at the cave of Adullam. A troop of Philistines was camped in the valley of Rephaim. David was in the stronghold then, and the Philistines had soldiers posted in Bethlehem. David said with longing, “If only someone would give me water to drink from Bethlehem’s well, the one by the gate!”

The three mighty men broke through the Philistine army, drew water from the well by Bethlehem’s gate, and carried it back to David. But David would not drink it; he poured it out to the Lord.

“Lord, I could never do this!” he said. “Isn’t this the blood of the men who risked their lives to go?” That is what the three mighty men did.

Abishai, Joab’s brother, the son of Zeruiah, was chief of the three. He fought three hundred men with his spear and killed them, and he made a name for himself among the three. He was the most honored of the three and became their captain, but he was not one of the three.

Then there was Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the son of a brave man from Kabzeel, who had done great deeds. He killed the two sons of Ariel of Moab. Once, when snow had fallen, he went down into a pit and killed a lion. He also killed a huge Egyptian who held a spear. Benaiah went at him with a staff, pulled the spear from the Egyptian’s grip, and killed him with his own spear.

These were Benaiah’s deeds, and he made a name for himself among the three mighty men. He was more honored than the thirty, but he was not one of the three. David made him head of his guard.

Then the list names the thirty. Among them were Asahel, Joab’s brother; Eliam son of Ahithophel the Gilonite; Zelek the Ammonite; and, last of all, Uriah the Hittite. There were thirty-seven in all.

The book of Chronicles tells this story too. It says that Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to count Israel.

The king said to Joab, the captain of the army, and to the leaders of the people, “Go back and forth through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan all the way to Beersheba, and count the people, so that I know how many there are.”

“May the Lord your God make his people a hundred times as many as they are,” Joab said, “and may my lord the king see it with his own eyes. But my lord the king, aren’t they all your servants? Why does my lord the king want this? Why make Israel guilty?”

But the king’s word won out over Joab and the army captains, and they went out to count Israel. They crossed the Jordan and camped at Aroer. Then they went on to Jazer, and to Gilead and the land of Tahtim Hodshi. They came to Dan Jaan, went around to Sidon, and came to the stronghold of Tyre and every town of the Hivites and the Canaanites. Last of all they went to Beersheba, in the south of Judah.

After going back and forth through the whole land, they came back to Jerusalem nine months and twenty days later.

Joab gave the king the total: in Israel, eight hundred thousand brave men who could fight with the sword, and in Judah, five hundred thousand.

The book of Chronicles gives other numbers: one million one hundred thousand swordsmen in Israel and four hundred seventy thousand in Judah. It says Joab did not count Levi and Benjamin, because the king’s order disgusted him.

In the morning, when David got up, the Lord spoke to the prophet Gad, David’s seer: “Go and tell David that the Lord says, ‘I offer you three things. Choose one of them for me to do to you.’”

So Gad went to David. “Should seven years of famine come on your land?” he asked. “Or will you run from your enemies for three months while they chase you? Or should there be three days of plague in your land? Now think about it, and tell me what to say to the one who sent me.”

The book of Chronicles gives the choices this way. The first was three years of famine. The second was three months of being destroyed by his enemies, with their swords catching up with him. The third was three days of the Lord’s sword, a plague in the land, with the Lord’s angel destroying all through Israel.

“I am in deep trouble,” David told Gad. “Let us fall into the Lord’s hands, because his mercy is very great. Don’t let me fall into human hands.”

The Lord sent a plague on Israel. It lasted from the morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand men died, from Dan to Beersheba.

God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As the angel reached out his hand toward the city, the Lord saw it and held back the disaster. “That is enough,” he said to the destroying angel. “Now pull back your hand.” The Lord’s angel was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, whom Chronicles calls Ornan.

David looked up and saw the Lord’s angel standing between earth and sky, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, dressed in sackcloth, bowed with their faces to the ground.

David saw the angel who was striking the people, and he said to God, “Wasn’t I the one who ordered the count? I am the one who sinned and did this terrible wrong. But what have these sheep done? Please, Lord my God, turn your hand against me and my father’s family, not against your people with this plague.”

So David went up, doing what Gad had told him in the Lord’s name, just as the Lord had commanded.

Araunah was threshing wheat. He turned around and saw the angel, and his four sons, who were with him, hid.

Araunah looked out and saw the king coming toward him with his men. He went out of the threshing floor and bowed down to the king with his face to the ground.

“Why has my lord the king come to me?” Araunah asked.

“To buy your threshing floor,” said David, “and build an altar to the Lord on it, so that the plague on the people will stop. Sell it to me for the full price.”

“Take it, my lord the king,” said Araunah, “and offer whatever seems good to you. Here are the cattle for the burnt offering, the threshing sledges and the oxen’s yokes for wood, and the wheat for the meal offering. I give it all to the king. May the Lord your God accept you.”

“No,” King David told Araunah. “I insist on buying it from you, at the full price. I won’t take what is yours for the Lord, or offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God which cost me nothing.”

So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver, about a pound. The book of Chronicles says David paid for the place with gold weighing six hundred shekels, about thirteen pounds.

David built an altar to the Lord there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. He prayed to the Lord, and the Lord answered him from the sky with fire on the altar of burnt offering. At the Lord’s command, the angel put his sword back in its sheath. So the Lord answered prayer for the land, and the plague on Israel stopped.

When David saw that the Lord had answered him there, he offered sacrifices on Araunah’s threshing floor. The Lord’s tabernacle, which Moses had made in the wilderness, was at the high place at Gibeon then, and so was its altar of burnt offering. But David couldn’t go there to ask God what to do, because he was afraid of the Lord’s angel and his sword.