Psalm 51 – Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.
Not One Man In Israel!!! Not One of God's People!!! Where is your Faith? Where is Your God?
Samuel invites the elders and Jesse along with his sons to the sacrifice (16:5). Before the meal takes place Jesse has his sons pass before Samuel. Samuel looks at the eldest son and thinks surely this one will be the king over Israel. However, the Lord makes it clear to him that God does not look on the outside as man does but to the heart. All seven of Jesse’s son are there at the feast and each pass by Samuel but none of them is selected by the Lord. Why on earth would Jesse have all of his children there except the youngest? It is not everyday that you got to dine with a prophet, let alone one as well known as Samuel!
Perhaps, the elders had covered this sin up for Jesse and now Jesse was attempting to hide David from the prophet, in order that, his sin and shame might not be revealed? In this culture at this time it was custom for the eldest son to receive the highest honor since he would receive the double portion of his father’s estate. Yet, it was the youngest in which you would dote on being the last of your line. Why then would David, the youngest who should have been a delight to his father not be present unless there is cause to hide David from the prophet?
Could David’s humility stem from the fact that he was born in the iniquity of adulterous relationship between his father and his mother? Take in to account that during those times it was culturally acceptable to have multiple wives. Therefore, what David is describing is not that his father had another wife but that his father Jesse went outside of marriage to have a sexual relationship.
Yet, this act of sin brought forth a son of shame to Jesse and his family who would ultimately be one of the most humble kings in all of Israel and a great source honor to the nation of Israel! In God’s grace, He selected for Himself what that society considered a source of shame and dishonor and made him king over all of His people!
The book of Psalms is filled with the songs and prayers offered to God by the nation of Israel. Their expressions of praise, faith, sorrow, and frustration cover the range of human emotions. Some of the Psalms dwell on the treasure of wisdom and God’s Word. Others reveal the troubled heart of a mourner. Still others explode with praise to God and invite others to join in song. This diversity is unified by one element: they are centered upon the one and only living God. This Creator God is King of all the earth and a refuge to all who trust in him. Many of the Psalms are attributed to King David. The writing and collection of the Psalms into their present form spans the fifteenth to the third centuries b.c. Psalm of David.
Psalm 3: Save Me, O My God
1 O Lord, O how many are my foes!
Many are rising against me;
2 many are saying of my soul,
q“There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah1
3 But you, O Lord, are ra shield sabout me,
my glory, and the lifter of my head.
4 I cried aloud to the Lord,
and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah
5 I xlay down and slept;
I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.
6 I will not be afraid of many thousands of people
who have zet themselves against me all around.
7 Arise, O Lord!
Save me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
you break the teeth of the wicked.
8 Salvation belongs to the Lord;
your blessing be on your people! Selah
Psalm 54: The Lord Upholds My Life
1 O God, save me by your name,
and vindicate me by your might.
2 O God, hear my prayer;
give ear to the words of my mouth.
3 For strangers have risen against me;
ruthless men seek my life;
they do not set God before themselves. Selah
4 Behold, God is my helper;
the Lord is the upholder of my life.
5 He will return the evil to my enemies;
in your faithfulness put an end to them.
6 With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you;
I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good.
7 For he has delivered me from every trouble,
and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.
Psalm 142: You Are My Refuge
1 With my voice I cry out to the Lord;
with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord.
2 I pour out my complaint before him;
I tell my trouble before him.
3 When my spirit faints within me,
you know my way!
In the path where I walk
they have hidden a trap for me.
4 Look to the right and see:
there is none who takes notice of me;
no refuge remains to me;
no one cares for my soul.
5 I cry to you, O Lord;
I say, “You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living.”
6 Attend to my cry,
for I am brought very low!
Deliver me from my persecutors,
for they are too strong for me!
7 Bring me out of prison,
that I may give thanks to your name!
The righteous will surround me,
for you will deal bountifully with me.
David Was Despised by His Family (Psalm 69)
They say that the Psalm is full of pain, rejection, and hardship because David was an outcast among his family.
They say that David grew up in a family in which he was despised, rejected, shunned, and outcast. He was treated with scorn and derision (Psalm 69:7-8). The community followed the example of the family, and assumed that David was full of sin and guilt (Psalm 69:11-12). If something turned up missing, they believed he stole it, and forced him to replace it (Psalm 69:4). He was often the object of jokes and pranks, filling his plate with gall and his cup with vinegar (Psalm 69:20-21).
Psalm 69 also addresses the misery David endured growing up. Because of his mother’s sin, David’s childhood was full of loneliness and rejection. He speaks of hours spent crying because of the rejection (v 3). He explains his frustration of being punished for a sin he did not commit (v 4) – his mother’s sin. Worse, he became the object of mockery as the drunkards sang about his plight (v 26). David’s life also became a byword or proverb — literally a living warning — of what happens to those whose mother commits adultery. “When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. Those who sit in the gate talk about me…” (v 11b, 12a)
What was particularly hurtful was those who “sit at the gate” used him as an example (v 12) of what happens when people sin. The term “sit at the gate” refers to the elders of the city who sat at the gates and made judgment on cases (see Proverbs 31:23; Deut 21:19; 22:15). These would be the same elders of Bethlehem who did not think it necessary to include David when Samuel wanted to meet with Jesse and his sons.
If this is true, it somewhat explains why Jesse did not have David present when the Prophet Samuel came to choose a man to be God’s anointed king (1 Samuel 16:1-13), and also why his oldest brother Eliab reacted the way he did when David later showed up at the Israelite camp when they were being mocked by Goliath (1 Samuel 17:28).
After Jesse had been married for many years, had fathered seven sons with Nizbeth, and had gained honor as a righteous man and spiritual leader in the community, doubts began to fill his mind about whether or not his line and seed were permanently polluted by his Moabite blood. It was at this point that he resolved to cease all sexual relations with Nizbeth. He did this out of love for her, because she, as a pure Israelite, would be sinning to be married to someone who was of impure Moabite ancestry.
Furthermore, Jesse began to doubt the legitimacy of his seven sons. If he was impure, then his children were illegitimate and impure as well.
So Jesse, wanting a legitimate heir, came up with a plan to have a son in the same way that his forefather Abraham had done: through relations with his wife’s Canaanite maidservant. Whether Jesse was viewed by God as a true Israelite or just as a Moabite convert to Judaism, the law allowed him to marry a female convert to Judaism. If he obtained a son from this union, this son would be recognized by all as a legitimate heir, thus securing Jesse’s family line.
When the Canaanite woman was told of this plan, she did not want to participate, for she loved Nizbeth, and had seen the pain that she had gone through by being separated from her husband for so many years. So she told Nizbeth about Jesse’s plan, and the two of them decided to do what Laban had done so many years earlier with Leah and Rachel. So on the night that Jesse was to have relations with the Canaanite maidservant, she switched places with her Nizbeth. On that night, Nizbeth conceived, and Jesse remained ignorant of what had taken place. (My wife says that for this to work, Jesse must have been drunk. Same goes for Jacob.)
But several months later, Nizbeth began to show that she was with child, and her seven sons, as well as her husband, all believed that she had committed adultery. The sons wanted to kill their adulterous mother by stoning (as the law called for) and her illegitimate baby with her, but out of love for his wife, Jesse intervened. Nizbeth did not reveal to her husband that the child was his, for she did not want to embarrass him by revealing the truth of what had happened. Instead, she chose to bear the shame of their son, much as her ancestress Tamar was prepared to be burned rather than bring public shame upon Judah, her father-in-law and the father of her child (Genesis 38:24-25).
As a result, David grew up in a family in which he was despised, rejected, shunned, and outcast as described in Psalm 69. He was treated with scorn and derision. The community followed the example of the family, and assumed that David was full of sin and guilt. If something turned up missing, they believed he stole it, and forced him to replace it. He was often the object of jokes and pranks, filling his plate with gall and his cup with vinegar.It was said that all the great qualities of Boaz were to be found in Jesse and his seven sons, while all the despicable traits of Ruth the Moabite were concentrated in David. The tradition is that this is also why David’s family forced David to be the shepherd in the fields by himself … they were hoping a bear or lion might kill him.
David then adds he carried the personal shame of his mother’s sin.
You know my reproach and my shame and my dishonor; All my adversaries are before You. Reproach has broken my heart and I am so sick And I looked for sympathy, but there was none, And for comforters, but I found none. (v 19, 20)
No one cared that David was the innocent byproduct of his mother’s sin. It was Jewish belief children could be punished for the sins of the parents. We see a hint of this in the gospels, when the disciples — after stumbling upon on a blind man — asked Jesus if he was being punished for the sins of his parents or his own sins (John 9:2,3).
Though despised and rejected by his family and humiliated by those in his home town, God saw David’s heart and how he responded to the rejection and the ugliness that filled his childhood and chose this boy as the next king of Israel.
This may also help explain why later in life, when David was fleeing from a murderous Saul, David asked the King of Moab to harbor his mother and father (1 Samuel 22:3-4, according to tradition, one of his brothers was also protected there). Of course, a couple of years later when David becomes king of Israel, he slaughters two-thirds of the Moabite army. Why? Well again, according to Jewish tradition, this was because after David left his three family members under the protection of the King of Moab, the King killed David’s father and mother, but left his brother alive (The Pulpit Commentary, 2 Samuel 8:2).
So when David becomes king, he retaliates by killing two-thirds of all the soldiers of Moab. Finally, this may also explain why David, when he was confessing his own adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, he says “In sin my mother conceived me…” (Psalm 51:5).
David and Bathsheba (Bathsheba and David's Adultery Led Him to Greater Sins)
Bathsheba was King David's most famous wife because their marriage came after an illicit extramarital affair at the height of David's reign (circa 1005-965 B.C.). The story of Bathsheba and David has proved so enduring that its plot has been borrowed for countless romance novels, movies, and daytime dramas.
Who Seduced Whom?
The relationship of Bathsheba and David centered on one question expressed by the Women in the Bible website: Who seduced whom?
Their story is told in 2 Samuel 11 and 12, set against the backdrop of David's war against the Ammonites, a tribe from a region east of the Dead Sea that is now part of present-day Jordan. 2 Samuel 11:1 records that the king sent his army out to wage war, but he himself stayed behind in Jerusalem. Obviously, David was secure enough on his throne that he no longer had a need to go to war to prove his military power; he could send his generals instead.
Thus King David was relaxing on a palace balcony above the city when he spied a beautiful woman taking a bath. Through his messengers, David learned that she was Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite, who had gone to battle for David.This raises a key question: did Bathsheba set her cap for the king, or did David force his lust on her? Traditional biblical scholarship holds that Bathsheba couldn't have been ignorant of her home's proximity to the palace, given that David was close enough that he could see her taking a bath outside. What's more, Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, had left her to go fight for David.
Although feminist biblical interpretation contends that Bathsheba was a victim of David -- after all, who can say no to a king? -- other scholars find a clue to Bathsheba's complicity among King David's wives in 2 Samuel 4:11. This verse says unequivocally that when David sent messengers to fetch her, she came back with them. She wasn't coerced, nor did she use any of the many excuses she could have for not seeing another man, even a king, while her husband was away. Instead, she went to David of her own free will, and thus bears some responsibility for what happened afterward.
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going.
Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.
David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”
Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents,[a] and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”
Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home. In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”
So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
Joab sent David a full account of the battle. He instructed the messenger: “When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle, the king’s anger may flare up, and he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the wall? Who killed Abimelek son of Jerub-Besheth[b]? Didn’t a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then say to him, ‘Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.’”
The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance of the city gate. Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”
David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab.”
When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.
King David Isn't Innocent, Either
Even if Bathsheba had decided to seduce King David, scriptures deem David's sin in their affair to be greater for two reasons. Once he found out Bathsheba's identity, he knew that:
she was married and
he had sent her husband off to war.
Clearly, a liaison with her would violate the seventh commandment against adultery, and a king of Israel was supposed to be a religious leader as well as a political leader.
Nonetheless, David and Bathsheba engaged in sexual intercourse, and she returned home. The whole thing might have ended there were it not for a subordinate clause in 2 Samuel 4:11: "she [Bathsheba] had just purified herself after her period."
According to Jewish purity laws, a woman must wait seven days after her menses end before purifying herself ritually in a mikvah, a special immersion pool, so that she and her husband may resume sexual relations.
The biblical text implies that this ritual purification was the bath that David saw Bathsheba taking. Depending on the length of a woman's period, this seven-day injunction before purification virtually guarantees that a woman will most likely be ovulating, or close to ovulating when she resumes having sex.
Consequently, Bathsheba and David had sex at one of the best possible moments for her to conceive -- which she did, with tragic results.
David Connives Uriah's Death
Not long after Bathsheba and David committed adultery, Bathsheba sent a message to David telling him she was pregnant. Now the pressure was really on the king, who might have concealed his affair with Bathsheba, but couldn't hide her pregnancy for long. Instead of owning up to the liaison and making restitution, David took an even more sinful approach to the crisis.
First, 2 Samuel 11:7-11 says that David tried to attribute Bathsheba's pregnancy to Uriah. He recalled Uriah from the front, supposedly to give him a report on the battle, and then told him to take some leave and visit his wife. But Uriah didn't go home; he stayed within the palace barracks. David asked Uriah why he didn't go home, and loyal Uriah replied that he wouldn't dream of having a conjugal visit when David's army at the front has no such opportunity.
Next, in 2 Samuel 12 and 13, David invited Uriah for dinner and got him drunk, figuring that intoxication will arouse Uriah's desire for Bathsheba. But David has foiled again; drunk though he was, honorable Uriah returned to the barracks and not to his wife.
At this point David was desperate. In verse 15, he wrote a letter to his general, Joab, telling him to put Uriah on the front lines where the fighting is fiercest, and then to withdraw, leaving Uriah undefended. David sent this letter to Joab by Uriah, who had no idea that he was carrying his own death sentence!
David and Bathsheba's Sin Results in Death
Sure enough, Joab put Uriah on the front lines when David's army attacks Rabbath after a long siege, although Joab didn't withdraw the army as David instructed. Despite Joab's action, Uriah and other officers were killed. After a mourning period, Bathsheba was brought to the palace to become the latest of King David's wives, thus assuring the legitimacy of their child.
David thought he pulled off this caper until the prophet Nathan came to visit in 2 Samuel 12. Nathan told the powerful king a tale of a poor shepherd whose lamb was stolen by a rich man. David flew into a rage, demanding to know who the man was so that he could exact judgment on him. Nathan calmly told the king: "You are the man," meaning that God had revealed to the prophet the truth of David's adultery, deceit, and murder of Uriah.
Even though David had committed sins worthy of execution, said Nathan, God instead exacted judgment upon David and Bathsheba's newborn son, who subsequently died. David consoled Bathsheba by getting her pregnant again, this time with a son they name Solomon.
Bathsheba Became Solomon's Closest Adviser
Although she seems passive at the beginning of her relationship with David, Bathsheba became King David's most famous wife because of the way she secured David's throne for their son, Solomon.
By now David was old and feeble, and his oldest surviving son, Adonijah, attempted to usurp the throne before his father died. According to 1 Kings 1:11, the prophet Nathan urged Bathsheba to tell David that Adonijah was preparing to take the throne by force. Bathsheba told her aged husband that only their son Solomon remained loyal, so the king named Solomon his co-regent. When David died, Solomon became king after executing his rival Adonijah. The new King Solomon valued his mother's help so much that he had a second throne installed for her so that she became his closest adviser until her death.
Life Lessons:
Women had few rights in ancient times. When King David summoned Bathsheba, she had no choice but to sleep with him. After David had her husband murdered, she had no choice when David took her for his wife. Despite being mistreated, she learned to love David and saw a promising future for Solomon. Often circumstances seem stacked against us, but if we keep our faith in God, we can find meaning in life.
God makes sense when nothing else does.
In Existence Everyone and Anyone is screwing One Another and it's Politics...
Little Johnny goes to his dad and asks, “Dad, what is politics?” Dad says, “Well son, let me try to explain it to you this way. I’m the breadwinner of the family, so let’s call me ‘Capitalism’. Mummy is the administrator of the money, so we’ll call her ‘The Government’. We’re here to take care of your needs, so we’ll call you ‘The People’. The nanny… well… consider her ‘The Working Class’. Your baby brother, we’ll call him ‘The Future’.”“Now go and think about this and see if it makes sense.”
So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what his Dad has just explained. Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying and runs to his room only to find that his diapers are very soiled. So the little boy goes to his parents’ room. Mom is sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny’s room. Finding the door locked, he looks through the peephole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed.
The next morning, Little Johnny says to his father, “Dad, I think I now understand what politics is.” “Good son, tell me in your own words then what politics is.” “Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit,” says Little Johnny. (Source: the Internet)
No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
And no one knows What it's like to be hated
To be fated to telling only lies
[Chorus:] But my dreams they aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free
No one knows what its like
To feel these feelings
Like i do, and i blame you!
No one bites back as hard On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through
No one knows what its like
To be mistreated, to be defeated
Behind blue eyes
No one knows how to say
That they're sorry and don't worry
I'm not telling lies
No one knows what its like
To be the bad man,
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes....