Read Time: 5 minutes2 Samuel 11
At the season when kings go to war, David stays home, and the idle eye finds Bathsheba. At the time when kings go forth to battle… David tarried still at Jerusalem. The king who once would not lift his hand against Yahweh’s anointed now sends and takes another man’s wife — the same verb that once marked his restraint now marks his sin. The unwatched hour, the roof, the wandering eye: sin in the flesh works in the gap left when the king steps out of his calling.
Uriah the Hittite, the foreigner, proves more faithful than the king of Israel. Uriah means Yahweh is my light, and the Hittite carries the Name better than David keeps it. Brought home to cover the sin, Uriah will not go to his house while the ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents and his comrades camp in the open field; he sleeps at the palace door. Even made drunk he will not break faith with his fellows. The loyalty of the uncircumcised soldier is the mirror that exposes the anointed king’s treachery.
David turns adultery into murder, and writes the death-warrant in the victim’s own hand. The letter to Joab — set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle… that he may be smitten, and die — is carried by Uriah himself. The shepherd who gathered his people now spends a faithful man’s life to hide his lust; the king who would not shed blood to gain a throne now sheds innocent blood to cover a sin. The thing David had done is named at the close with terrible plainness: the thing that David had done displeased Yahweh.
The contrast with the greater Son is the whole point. Here the son of David takes a wife not his own and sends a man to death; the Son of David will refuse every shortcut, take no wife but the bride he buys with his own blood, and go himself to the death he will not lay on another. David needs the very covenant of an everlasting Son (2 Sam 7) — a throne that cannot fall to the flesh — because the first David, for all his heart, is flesh.
The best of kings is still flesh: David takes the wife and spends the faithful man’s life — and the Son of David must come, who lays down his own life rather than another’s.
Jeremiah 15
Yahweh will not relent, though the greatest intercessors should stand before him. Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people — the two men who had turned away wrath in their day (Exod 32; 1 Sam 7) could not turn it now. The breach has gone past intercession; the destroyers are appointed — sword, dogs, fowls, beasts — and the cause is named: the blood Manasseh shed, that filled the cup.
Then the prophet breaks, and pours out his own grief. Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife — hated though he has neither lent nor borrowed, alone because the hand of Yahweh is on him. The man who carries the word carries the world’s hatred with it; the true prophet is a man of strife to a people who only want to be soothed.
But the same word that isolates him is the word that feeds him. Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart. He ate the word — as Ezekiel and John would eat the scroll (Ezek 3; Rev 10) — and it became his joy even as it made him an outcast: I sat alone… for thou hast filled me with indignation. The prophet who is the Word’s mouth lives on the Word he speaks.
Yahweh answers the lament with restoration, not rebuke. If thou return… thou shalt stand before me… if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth. The prophet is remade into Yahweh’s mouth and set as a fenced brasen wall the people fight against but cannot overcome: I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee. The man of strife is made unbreakable — not spared the battle, but kept through it.
The man who carries the word carries the world’s hatred, eats the word as his only joy, and is made a brazen wall the people cannot break — for Yahweh is with him to save him.
Matthew 26
The plot and the alabaster box stand side by side — the hate and the love. The chief priests scheme with Caiaphas to take him by subtilty, while at Bethany a woman breaks a box of precious ointment over his head, and he reads it as preparation: she did it for my burial. Her extravagant love and their cold conspiracy frame the chapter; wheresoever this gospel shall be preached… shall this… be told for a memorial of her. Then Judas goes out and sells him for thirty pieces of silver — the price of a slave (Exod 21:32; Zech 11:12).
At the Passover the true Lamb gives the bread and the cup of a new covenant. Take, eat; this is my body… this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. The Passover that delivered Israel from Egypt finds its substance here; the bread and the cup are the memorial of the new covenant in his blood — the last of the great covenant-promises (Jer 31:31), sealed at the table. I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until… I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.
In Gethsemane the Son who bore our nature meets the cup, and the flesh recoils while the spirit submits. My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. This is no painless deity playing a part, but a man in our nature, pressed in the oil-press that is what Gethsemane means, choosing obedience against the dread. The sleeping disciples hear the word that judges us all: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
The arrest, the false trial, and the threefold denial close the chapter in the dark. He refuses the twelve legions of angels — thus it must be — and tells Caiaphas they will see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven (Dan 7; Ps 110, the very psalm of his Lordship). Peter, who swore he would die with him, denies him three times before the cock crows, and went out, and wept bitterly. The Shepherd is smitten and the sheep are scattered, exactly as it was written.
The first David spent a faithful man to save himself; the Son of David drinks the cup himself — not my will but thine — and is led as the smitten Shepherd to the death by which the new covenant is sealed.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The day sets two gardens of decision side by side. In Jerusalem the first David, idle when he should have been at war, takes the wife and writes the death of the faithful Uriah; in Gethsemane the Son of David, pressed in the oil-press, takes the cup himself and lays down his own life. The one shortcut and the other obedience are the whole distance between the man after Yahweh’s own heart and the sinless Son the covenant promised — the first David fails exactly where the second prevails, not as I will, but as thou wilt.
Jeremiah stands between them as the man of strife — the true prophet hated and alone, eating the word as his only joy, made a brazen wall the people cannot break. He is a figure of the One in the garden: the faithful witness whom his own would silence, kept through the strife rather than spared it. Moses and Samuel could not turn the wrath; only the obedience of the Son, drinking the cup, opens the new covenant Jeremiah’s own book had promised.
So stay at your post, drink your cup, and let the word be your joy. David’s fall began in the idle hour outside his calling — keep yours. When the cup is set before you, pray not as I will, but as thou wilt, as the greater David did, rather than spending another to spare yourself. Feed on the word that makes you an outcast, for it is the joy of the heart and the wall that cannot be broken — and the smitten Shepherd has sealed the covenant that holds you.
Do not stray from your post into the idle hour; take your own cup and say not my will but thine; and feed on the word that isolates you, for it is your joy — the Shepherd was smitten to seal the covenant that keeps you.