One day while browsing in my seminary library, I found the collected sermons of John Donne. After readying a number and since the were edited historically, I turned to his last one. It was on one verse. “Behold the Man!” Starting with Nathan words to David, it was an excellent sermon on the consequences and the weight of sin.
Donne point was behold you and I are the ones whose guilt led to the cross. And like David, we are offered forgiveness at that cross. It is like Nathan confrontation to our wayward souls.
(1) According to H.H. Rowley, the Psalter was constructed in such a way that the concepts of personal and corporate were separated by a very opaque line. Some Psalms were written by a Psalmist whose job was composing songs for the community. These likely developed over time, and were likely composed in FIRST PERSON -- reflecting the authorship. So, on the one hand, a personal Psalm could be sung by the congregation as a whole, reflecting their experience as a whole. A personal Psalm could ALSO be sung by the congregation as a whole in solidarity with the individual who wrote it. This is particularly applicable, say to Psalms 142-143, likely written when David hid from Saul in a Cave. I certainly hope that Psalm 51 was not used widely during David's lifetime, but that such a significant work would come to be used corporately makes complete sense. Recall Jesus' recitation of Psalm 22 from the cross, same thing.
(2) Oddly, although the Psalm is attributed to David, it almost certainly was NOT written by David ALONE. Verses 5-6, for example, were probably written by SOLOMON, and the closing about the restoration of Jerusalem makes no sense in the context of David's lifetime. This reinforces the corporate nature of the Psalm itself. The text blends words from multiple authors as if it were written by one author -- because the Israelite tradition did not see a worthwhile distinction between persons in this genre. The attribution to David is almost certainly historical, but more than that, it is liturgical. God's people share a sort of continuity across history, as well as a unity at specific points in history, and this is reflected in the writing of the Psalms.
(3) As I'm sure you noticed, there is a fairly clear distinction in the division of Samuel into two books. In the first, David is portrayed as the mighty hero who can do no wrong. In the second, he is portrayed as a fallen and broken human being who cannot hold his family together no matter how hard he tries -- and he suffers because of it. Brueggeman wrote a fair bit about how Israel tried to balance their view of David as a hero of legend with the reality of the man and his legacy. On that note, there is that strange passage in 2 Samuel 16 where David allows himself to be mocked by Shimei. Although David is portrayed as a failure in that passage -- he has been kicked off the throne by his own son, and now he is being mocked by the family from whom David took the kingship -- he is also repeating the same pattern of behavior for which he was praised in 1 Samuel 24-26, accepting mockery and defeat without retaliating that God might be glorified. There is also the fascinating opening line in 1 Samuel 27: "And David said to himself, 'Now I shall surely die at the hand of Saul.'" Immediately after the two-fold account of his noble deeds in the cave, David seems to have a deathwish. So we see echoes of David's heroism in the book about his humanity, and we see shadows of David's humanity in the book about his heroism.
(4) When it comes to the story of Bathsheba, we are supposed to notice that the damage it does to David's family is NEVER healed. When Absalom takes the throne from David, he brings David's wives and concubines onto the roof and does in public what David did in secret, just as Nathan prophesied, not to mention Amnon's prior abominable misconduct towards Tamar. Although Solomon is an extraordinary ruler, it is as if a hint of his Father's sexual misbehavior "rubbed off" on Solomon, which leads to the division of the nation into North and South. Nothing seems to be able to end the cycle of failure in David's descendants... at least, not at first. This also fits beautifully beside the inclusion of Rahab in Jesus' ancestry. Our Lord is descended from adultery.
Points I always find helpful when approaching this aspect of Scripture. David's story is extraordinary!
My morning time on the sunporch began with reading the introduction to this Lenten study and ended not only with gratitude for the passage but gratitude for your ability to write in a way that resonates so personally and brings scripture alive. Praying also for your continued recovery from surgery.
One day while browsing in my seminary library, I found the collected sermons of John Donne. After readying a number and since the were edited historically, I turned to his last one. It was on one verse. “Behold the Man!” Starting with Nathan words to David, it was an excellent sermon on the consequences and the weight of sin.
Donne point was behold you and I are the ones whose guilt led to the cross. And like David, we are offered forgiveness at that cross. It is like Nathan confrontation to our wayward souls.
I never forgot it.
A couple of comments worth noting:
(1) According to H.H. Rowley, the Psalter was constructed in such a way that the concepts of personal and corporate were separated by a very opaque line. Some Psalms were written by a Psalmist whose job was composing songs for the community. These likely developed over time, and were likely composed in FIRST PERSON -- reflecting the authorship. So, on the one hand, a personal Psalm could be sung by the congregation as a whole, reflecting their experience as a whole. A personal Psalm could ALSO be sung by the congregation as a whole in solidarity with the individual who wrote it. This is particularly applicable, say to Psalms 142-143, likely written when David hid from Saul in a Cave. I certainly hope that Psalm 51 was not used widely during David's lifetime, but that such a significant work would come to be used corporately makes complete sense. Recall Jesus' recitation of Psalm 22 from the cross, same thing.
(2) Oddly, although the Psalm is attributed to David, it almost certainly was NOT written by David ALONE. Verses 5-6, for example, were probably written by SOLOMON, and the closing about the restoration of Jerusalem makes no sense in the context of David's lifetime. This reinforces the corporate nature of the Psalm itself. The text blends words from multiple authors as if it were written by one author -- because the Israelite tradition did not see a worthwhile distinction between persons in this genre. The attribution to David is almost certainly historical, but more than that, it is liturgical. God's people share a sort of continuity across history, as well as a unity at specific points in history, and this is reflected in the writing of the Psalms.
(3) As I'm sure you noticed, there is a fairly clear distinction in the division of Samuel into two books. In the first, David is portrayed as the mighty hero who can do no wrong. In the second, he is portrayed as a fallen and broken human being who cannot hold his family together no matter how hard he tries -- and he suffers because of it. Brueggeman wrote a fair bit about how Israel tried to balance their view of David as a hero of legend with the reality of the man and his legacy. On that note, there is that strange passage in 2 Samuel 16 where David allows himself to be mocked by Shimei. Although David is portrayed as a failure in that passage -- he has been kicked off the throne by his own son, and now he is being mocked by the family from whom David took the kingship -- he is also repeating the same pattern of behavior for which he was praised in 1 Samuel 24-26, accepting mockery and defeat without retaliating that God might be glorified. There is also the fascinating opening line in 1 Samuel 27: "And David said to himself, 'Now I shall surely die at the hand of Saul.'" Immediately after the two-fold account of his noble deeds in the cave, David seems to have a deathwish. So we see echoes of David's heroism in the book about his humanity, and we see shadows of David's humanity in the book about his heroism.
(4) When it comes to the story of Bathsheba, we are supposed to notice that the damage it does to David's family is NEVER healed. When Absalom takes the throne from David, he brings David's wives and concubines onto the roof and does in public what David did in secret, just as Nathan prophesied, not to mention Amnon's prior abominable misconduct towards Tamar. Although Solomon is an extraordinary ruler, it is as if a hint of his Father's sexual misbehavior "rubbed off" on Solomon, which leads to the division of the nation into North and South. Nothing seems to be able to end the cycle of failure in David's descendants... at least, not at first. This also fits beautifully beside the inclusion of Rahab in Jesus' ancestry. Our Lord is descended from adultery.
Points I always find helpful when approaching this aspect of Scripture. David's story is extraordinary!
My morning time on the sunporch began with reading the introduction to this Lenten study and ended not only with gratitude for the passage but gratitude for your ability to write in a way that resonates so personally and brings scripture alive. Praying also for your continued recovery from surgery.
David, the Bible verse is
2 Samuel 11-12, not 1 Samuel.