Read Time: 5 minutes1 Chronicles 10
The first king Israel chose dies on his own sword, and the kingdom is turned to the king Yahweh chose. After all the genealogies, the narrative opens with a death: Saul routed by the Philistines at Gilboa, his sons slain, the king wounded and falling on his own blade rather than face the uncircumcised. The Philistines strip him, put his armour in the house of their gods, and fastened his head in the temple of Dagon — the chosen-of-the-people displayed as a trophy in an idol’s house. Only the men of Jabesh-gilead recover the bodies for honorable burial.
The Chronicler gives the verdict plainly, and it is about the heart, not the battle. Saul died for his transgression which he committed against Yahweh, even against the word of Yahweh, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it; and enquired not of Yahweh. He sought the dead and the forbidden rather than the living word, and so the kingdom was taken from him. The last act of the king who would not enquire of Yahweh was to consult a medium. He was renowned for not enquiring at the hand of Yahweh — the very fault of all who neglect the living word that will itself judge at the last day (Jn. 12:48); and his end, falling on his own sword, is the suicide of the flesh that rebels against the Spirit, the same despairing exit Judas would later take.
And the chapter ends with the turn the whole book has been moving toward: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse. The rejected king falls; the chosen king rises. The crown that Saul wore by the people’s asking passes to the man after Yahweh’s own heart — the throne moving toward the line that will hold it for ever.
The king the people chose dies for not enquiring of Yahweh, and the kingdom is turned to David. The rejected crown passes to the chosen king.
Ezekiel 23
Two sisters, two cities, one long betrayal — Samaria and Jerusalem played the harlot with every empire they should have feared. The allegory is deliberately coarse, because the sin is coarse: Aholah (Samaria) — her own tabernacle, for she set up a worship of her own making — and Aholibah (Jerusalem) — my tabernacle is in her, the sister who held the true sanctuary — are wives married to Yahweh who give themselves to their neighbors. Aholah doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, and was given into their hand. And her sister saw it — saw the elder sister destroyed for her harlotry — and was yet more corrupt in her inordinate love, doting on the Assyrians and then the Babylonians, sending messengers to court the very powers that would devour her.
The horror of it is that Jerusalem learned nothing from Samaria’s fall. She watched her sister carried off for the same sin and ran harder after it. Her adultery is spiritual — trusting in foreign alliances and foreign gods, leaning on Egypt and Assyria and Babylon for the security only Yahweh could give. And the judgment fits the crime: the lovers she courted become the executioners, the Babylonians she doted on the instrument of her ruin.
It is the marriage covenant of Ezekiel 16 read again in its breaking. Yahweh is the husband; Israel and Judah are the unfaithful wives; and the long, sordid history of the two kingdoms is the story of a bride who would not be kept. The allegory is ugly because betrayal is ugly — and because the people needed to see their politics and idolatry for what they were before the husband’s eye.
Jerusalem watched her sister destroyed for harlotry and ran harder after the same lovers. The bride who courts every empire but her husband is devoured by the lovers she chose.
Luke 20
The builders reject the beloved son and the heir is killed — yet the rejected stone becomes the head of the corner. In the temple they challenge his authority — by what authority doest thou these things? — the same accusation the adversary pressed in the wilderness against his divine sonship; and he turns it on John’s baptism, the baptism at which heaven owned him as Son, which they dared not answer. Then he answers with the parable of the vineyard: a man lets out his vineyard and sends servants for the fruit, and they are beaten and shamed; last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But the husbandmen say, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours — and they cast him out and kill him. The vineyard will be given to others. And the Lord quotes the psalm: The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner. The Son the builders throw out is the very stone the whole house will be built on.
The questions come thick. Tribute to Caesar? — Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s. The Sadducees’ riddle about the woman with seven husbands, meant to make resurrection absurd? — they err, not knowing that the children of the resurrection neither marry nor are given in marriage, and that the resurrection itself is sure, for God is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him. The covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob guarantees their rising — Yahweh does not call himself the God of men he means to leave in the dust; in his purpose they live, and so they must be raised.
And his own question silences them: how is the Christ both David’s son and David’s Lord? The King is greater than his ancestor — the Son of David who is also David’s Lord, the heir the builders are about to reject and Yahweh is about to make the cornerstone.
The builders kill the beloved heir, and he becomes the head of the corner. Render to Yahweh what is his; and the God of Abraham is the God of the living — the patriarchs will surely rise.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The day turns on rejection — the king rejected, the husband rejected, the heir rejected — and the chosen one who is vindicated through it. Saul, the people’s king, is rejected for not enquiring of Yahweh, and the kingdom is turned unto David. The harlot sisters reject their husband Yahweh, courting every empire but the One they were married to, and are devoured by the lovers they chose. And in Luke the husbandmen reject the beloved Son — this is the heir: come, let us kill him — and the stone they throw away becomes the head of the corner. Three rejections; one purpose driving straight through them all.
The thread is the inheritance and who finally holds it. Saul forfeits the crown by seeking the dead instead of the living word; Jerusalem forfeits her husband by trusting the nations instead of him; the husbandmen try to seize the inheritance by killing the heir — and lose it. In every case the flesh grasps at what it will not hold, and Yahweh’s chosen receives it instead: the crown to David, the vineyard to others, the cornerstone-place to the rejected Son. And the God who governs the whole turn is not the God of the dead, but of the living — the covenant that carried the line through every rejection guarantees the rising of all who are his.
So the exhortation is to render Yahweh what is his and to build on the stone the builders threw away. Do not be Saul, enquiring of the dead instead of the living word; do not be the harlot bride, leaning on every security but the husband; do not be the husbandmen, grasping the inheritance by force. Render unto Yahweh the things that are his — beginning with yourself — and rest the whole weight of your hope on the rejected Son who became the cornerstone, and on the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who is the God of the living. The flesh that grasps loses the inheritance; the chosen who is rejected receives it for ever.
The king, the bride, and the heir are all rejected — but the rejected Son becomes the cornerstone. Render to Yahweh what is his, build on the stone the builders threw away, and trust the God of the living.