Read Time: 5 minutes2 Samuel 8–9
David subdues the enemies on every side, and the spoil is dedicated to Yahweh. Philistine, Moabite, Syrian, Edomite — Yahweh preserved David whithersoever he went — and the silver and gold of the nations he dedicated unto Yahweh. This is the King ruling in the midst of his enemies (Ps 110:2), subduing the surrounding peoples and laying their wealth before the house of Yahweh — a glimpse of the kingdom, when the Son of David puts all enemies under his feet and the wealth of the nations comes up to Zion (Isa 60).
The measuring of Moab carries the sword and the sparing in one act. David measures Moab with a line — two lines to put to death and one full line to keep alive. Judgment and mercy in the same stroke, the line that kills and the line that spares; the King who conquers also preserves a remnant. And David executed judgment and justice unto all his people — the rule of the righteous king is the pattern of the reign to come.
Then the King turns from war to chesed, and seeks out the last of the fallen house. Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan’s sake? The question is pure grace — the new king looks for someone of the old rival house, not to destroy but to bless, and for the sake of a covenant made with Jonathan. The covenant-friend’s love reaches past his own death to his crippled son.
Mephibosheth is lame on both feet, hidden in Lo-debar, and he is brought to the king’s table. Lo-debar means no pasture, no word — the barren place where the lame heir of a dead house was hidden, and grace finds him there. He calls himself a dead dog; David restores all Saul’s land and sets him to eat bread at my table continually… as one of the king’s sons. Here is the gospel told in a story: Mephibosheth at the table is every saint — weak in the flesh, dead in himself, of a condemned house, sought out by grace for the mediator’s sake, lifted from the place of no-word and seated as a son.
The King subdues the nations and then seeks the lame heir of his enemy’s house, to seat him as a son — grace finds the dead dog in the place of no pasture and sets him at the table.
Jeremiah 13
Yahweh tells Jeremiah to wear a linen girdle, then ruin it by the river. The prophet buys the girdle, wears it against his skin, then hides it in a hole in the rock by the Euphrates; after many days he digs it up marred… profitable for nothing. The sign is acted, not spoken — the girdle that once clung to the prophet’s loins is now rotted useless by the foreign river. Israel was meant to cling as that girdle clings.
For the girdle is Israel, made to cleave to Yahweh for his glory and ruined by the far country. As the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused… Israel and… Judah to cleave unto me… that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear. The intimacy was the whole point — a people worn close to Yahweh like a garment — and pride, hidden away by the Euphrates, rotted it to nothing. What will not cleave is fit only to be discarded.
The bottles filled with wine become a figure of stupefied judgment. I will fill all the inhabitants of this land… with drunkenness, and dash them one against another. The cup that should have been joy becomes the cup of staggering; the nation drunk on its own pride is broken like crockery. Give glory to Yahweh your God, before he cause darkness — the last call before the lights go out.
Then comes the hardest word: the flesh cannot change itself. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. Sin worn so long has become nature; the leopard cannot wash off its spots, and Judah cannot do good by trying. This is sin in the flesh at its starkest — the need is not for reform but for a new nature, a heart Yahweh himself must give (Jer 31:33; Ezek 36:26).
Israel was made to cleave to Yahweh like a girdle for his glory; pride by the far river rots it useless — and the leopard cannot wash off its spots, for the flesh cannot change itself.
Matthew 24
The disciples admire the temple, and the King foretells not one stone left upon another. There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. The house Jeremiah said would go the way of Shiloh, the house Christ has just called desolate (Matt 23:38), is now sentenced to rubble — fulfilled within the generation, in the year 70. The house has become the leprous house of Leviticus 14, whose plague would not depart: the priest who inspected it and found it defiled now gives the law’s last verdict — break down the house (Lev 14:45). On the mount of Olives they ask the double question: when, and what is the sign of his coming and the end of the age.
The King answers with the long shape of the age and its end. False Christs, wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes — the beginning of sorrows; persecution and apostasy and the love of many waxing cold; the gospel of the kingdom carried into all the world; the abomination of desolation in the holy place and a tribulation such as was not since the beginning. The pattern runs from the fall of the temple through the long centuries to the great trouble at the end — Daniel’s time of trouble such as never was (Dan 12:1).
His coming will be unmistakable, and the gathering universal. Not in secret chambers — as the lightning cometh out of the east… so shall the coming of the Son of man be. The powers of the heavens shaken, the sign of the Son of man, the tribes mourning, and the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory (Dan 7:13) — and the angels gather together his elect from the four winds. The clouds are the company of the glorified; the elect are summoned to their King.
The fig tree and the days of Noah set the posture: read the season, and watch. When the fig puts forth leaves, summer is near — and the fig is Israel, whose reviving marks that the summer of the kingdom is at the doors. As in the days of Noah they ate and drank and knew not until the flood came, so the coming finds the world unready; two in the field, one taken; watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. The faithful and wise servant is found feeding the household when the Lord returns; the evil servant who says my lord delayeth is cut off.
Read the fig tree and watch: the King is coming in the clouds to gather his own, and the only safety is to be found faithful at the post when he comes unannounced.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The day moves from the King’s table to the King’s return. David subdues every enemy and then stoops to seat a lame man of the fallen house as a son; the Son of David, having subdued sin and death, comes in the clouds to gather his elect from the four winds. Mephibosheth lifted from Lo-debar to the king’s table is the elect gathered to the marriage — the weak and the dead-in-themselves brought near by grace and seated as sons.
Jeremiah holds the warning between. The girdle that would not cleave is cast off marred; the leopard cannot change its spots; and the temple’s stones will not stand. What will not cleave to Yahweh, what cannot change its own nature, is fit only for the rubble — unless a new heart is given. The faithful servant watching at his post and the saint clinging like a girdle to Yahweh’s loins are the same figure; the marred girdle and the evil servant cut off are the same warning.
So cleave and watch. Cleave to Yahweh as a girdle to the loins, for the people that will not cling is discarded; watch at your post, for the King comes in the clouds at an hour you do not know. And remember Mephibosheth — you came to the table not by strength but by grace, a dead dog sought out in the place of no-word; eat as a son, and be found faithful when the King returns.
You were brought to the table from the place of no pasture, seated as a son by grace alone; cleave to him like a girdle and watch at your post, for the King is coming in the clouds to gather his own.