Read Time: 7 minutes2 Samuel 23
The chapter opens with a heading that asks to be weighed: these be the last words of David — the sweet psalmist of Israel said, The Spirit of Yahweh spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. What follows is not the oracle of a private man but inspired prophecy, the dying king carried by the Spirit to see the King who is to come.
And what he sees is the just Ruler as the morning without clouds. He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. This is the portrait of Christ in his reign — the Sun of righteousness (Mal 4:2), the bright and morning star (Rev 22:16), the King under whom the earth grows green like grass after rain. Every failed son of David in chapter 22’s neighborhood is answered by this one cloudless morning.
David knows his own house does not match the vision, and he rests on the covenant anyway. Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire. His house is not so — Amnon, Absalom, the blood, the failure — and his hope is not in his house but in the covenant Yahweh ordered and sealed (2 Sam 7). The everlasting covenant carries the dying man over his own ruin. But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away — the rebel seed, Sheba’s kind, cleared from the field the King will reign over.
Then comes the roll of the mighty men, and the roll is the multitudinous King in miniature. The chief slew eight hundred at one time; Eleazar fought the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clave unto the sword; Shammah stood alone in a plot of lentils and Yahweh wrought a great victory. These are the saints gathered around the anointed — each one’s exploit credited to the King’s victory, the body of valiant men through whom the head conquers.
The deepest moment is the water of Bethlehem. Three of them break through the Philistine host to draw water from the well of Bethlehem — house of bread — at the gate, and David will not drink it. Is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? He pours it out unto Yahweh as a drink offering, too costly to swallow. The water won at the risk of life, drawn from the house of bread and poured out before Yahweh — the figure leans hard toward the One born at the house of bread who would pour out his own life as a drink offering, the bread and the poured cup together.
The list runs on through Benaiah, who slew the lion in the pit in the time of snow and killed the Egyptian giant with the man’s own spear, down to the thirty and seven — a roll that stands beside Hebrews 11 and reads as the fulness of the Redeemed, headed by the antitypical son of Jesse of the opening verses. And the last name on the roll of the King’s honored men is Uriah the Hittite — the man David wronged unto death — kept in the record to the end. Grace does not scrub the roll clean of the man it failed; it writes him in, and the failure with him.
The dying king sees the cloudless morning of the true King, rests it all on the covenant ordered and sure, and the roll of valiant men around him is the body through which the head will conquer.
Jeremiah 26
The prophet is sent to the temple court to speak the whole word, diminish not a word, and the word is a knife: if you will not hearken, then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth. Shiloh was where the tabernacle once stood and was forsaken (Jer 7); to threaten the temple with Shiloh’s fate is to say the holy place is no protection when the heart is gone. The word is true and it is unbearable, and the response is immediate.
They lay hold on him: thou shalt surely die. The priests and the prophets and all the people seize the man for the word he spoke in the house of Yahweh, and the charge is the charge of a capital crime. A faithful prophet, speaking the true word in the temple, is arrested by the religious leaders and threatened with death — the Ox seized for the very burden he was set to bear — and the scene is a rehearsal four centuries early of the trial of the greater Prophet, in the same city, in the same temple, on the same kind of charge.
The princes hold a hearing, and the people’s verdict turns. This man is not worthy to die: for he hath spoken to us in the name of Yahweh our God. Certain elders rise and cite precedent — Micah of Morasheth prophesied Zion would be plowed as a field, and Hezekiah did not kill him but feared Yahweh, and the city was spared. The true word once heard had once saved them; let it be heard now.
Against that stands the dark counter-case. Urijah the son of Shemaiah prophesied the same things, fled to Egypt in fear, was hunted down, brought back, and slain with the sword. Two prophets of one true word: one fled and was killed, one stood and was spared. Together they hold open both outcomes the word can meet — and both meet in Christ, who was both slain like Urijah and vindicated like Jeremiah, killed and then raised.
Jeremiah is delivered by one man’s hand: the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, that they should not give him into the hand of the people to put him to death. The prophet of the word is preserved through the trial by a single faithful protector — Ahikam standing for Jeremiah as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea would stand for the greater Prophet — the word is not silenced, the witness is carried through.
The true word threatens the temple with Shiloh’s fate and is answered with a death-charge; one prophet flees and dies, one stands and is spared, and both outcomes meet in the Prophet who was slain and raised.
Romans 15–16
Paul gathers the long argument into the manner of the body: we then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. And he grounds even the reading of the old Scriptures in the saint’s present hope: whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. The whole typological labor of these readings is here given its warrant — the old writings were written for us, to carry us in hope.
Then the inflow the whole letter has been driving toward. Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God… and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy — and Paul stacks the old texts that promised it: the Gentiles rejoicing with his people, praising Yahweh, and at the head of them the root of Jesse — there shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust (Isa 11:10). The Branch of Jeremiah 23, the head of the nations in David’s song, the olive root that bears the wild graft — all one figure, now bearing its Gentile fruit.
The promise then reaches back to the very first promise. And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. This is Eden answered — it shall bruise thy head (Gen 3:15) — the serpent’s head crushed not under one heel only but under the feet of the whole body of the saints, the multitudinous Christ treading down the adversary, sin in the flesh put under at last. The two-seeds conflict that ran from the garden through Absalom and Sheba and the giants closes here under the feet of the redeemed.
Chapter 16 is the roll of names that answers the roll of David’s mighty men — Phoebe the servant of the ecclesia, whose name means ‘radiant’ and whose presence was that to those she served, Priscilla and Aquila… who have for my life laid down their own necks, and a long file of fellow-laborers greeted one by one. As David’s valiant men were each named in the King’s record, so the King’s servants here are each named in the apostle’s; the body is not a mass but a company of named members, each exploit and each labor remembered.
And the letter ends in the doxology where the whole purpose is revealed. Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel… according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest… to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. The mystery hidden from the ages — the Gentiles fellow-heirs, the body gathered, the serpent crushed — stands open, and the only fit close is glory to the only wise God.
The old writings were written for our hope; the root of Jesse reigns over the Gentiles, the serpent’s head is crushed under the feet of the whole body, and the named servants of the King fill the roll.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The day closes the long arc on the King and the body gathered around him. David’s last words see the cloudless morning of the just Ruler and rest everything on the everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure; around him stands the roll of mighty men, each named, the body through which the head conquers. Romans answers with its own roll — Phoebe, Priscilla and Aquila, the long file of fellow-workers — and names the King they serve as the root of Jesse risen to reign over the Gentiles. The small picture of David and his valiant men opens into the great one: Christ and the multitudinous body, named member by named member, gathered to the morning without clouds.
Between the two rolls stands the trial. Jeremiah in the temple court, seized for the true word, threatened with death, and delivered — with Urijah’s grave beside him to show the other road the word can travel. It is the rehearsal of the greater Prophet’s trial in that same city, the One who was slain like Urijah and raised like Jeremiah was spared, and whose death and rising is the very thing that secures the covenant David rested on. The word that threatened the temple with Shiloh’s fate is the word that was written aforetime for our learning, that we might have hope — and the hope it carries is the crushing of the serpent under the feet of all who are in the King.
So the arc that began with a rebel son hanged on a tree under the curse ends with the serpent’s head crushed under the feet of the redeemed. The flesh that grasped and divided and swelled into giants is thrust away like thorns; the King reigns as the morning after rain; and the saints are not spectators of his victory but the feet under which the old enemy is broken. The covenant is ordered and sure; the mystery is made manifest; the body is named and gathered. Although my house be not so — yet the covenant stands, and that is all our salvation and all our desire.
Rest it all where David rested it — on the covenant ordered and sure — and stand in the body under whose feet the God of peace will bruise the serpent shortly.