THE RECORD OF THE KINGS 4 [ANSWERS]

We set off in this series to ask hard questions, with no expectations as to answers. But as God would have it, we keep receiving interesting feedback that either have set us on a path of attempted answers and perspectives we never thought of for all the years we have been reading these same stories! Last week, we asked two difficult questions.

Would any reasonable king have done differently from what Saul did in Chapter 13 of 1 Samuel? Why had God been so hard on Saul when it was Samuel who had delayed? ‘Cos after all, it appeared Saul only offered the sacrifice because ‘the Philistines were ready to march against the Israelites at Gilgal’, and he hadn’t ‘asked for the Lord’s help!’

I had this conversation with someone on our way home from work a couple of months ago when I’d first re-read this scripture and was incensed on Saul’s behalf. Earlier that morning, I’d shared my frustration with a colleague at work, because for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why this God I knew as fair and just would be so crass. We were both pretty frustrated by the end of that conversation. So in this second conversation, I genuinely was looking for some refreshing perspective to justify this injustice, and as though he’d prepared to take an interview with me that evening, this second conversation came with a perspective I probably may never have come to. The funny thing is, I went back for a recap of that perspective last week and he couldn’t remember what he’d said that day! Lol! The summary of his perspective though was that Saul’s act was a usurpation of the roles of prophet, priest and king, which were meant to be three distinct roles which only the Christ had the authority to occupy. 

So I went searching, and as though God needed these questions answered Himself, the first blog I ended up on provided the exact perspective! At the risk of plagiarism, here we go:

“Kingship in Israel was supposed to be different from kingship in the surrounding nations.  Israel’s king was not to be considered divine.  In the law of Moses, God carefully distinguished the priesthood from the kingship and gave future kings careful instructions [in episode 2 here] that put them under the law.

So it was vital that Israelite kings not usurp any priestly or divine prerogatives.  The precedent that Saul set as Israel’s first king would influence all of his successors. Saul was held to a strict standard.”[1]

So why could David eat consecrated bread of the Presence that had been offered and placed before the LORD [1 Samuel 21]? Jesus even ‘defends’ him in Mark 2:23-28] as though he had done an honourable thing. Why did God reject Saul for this one ‘tiny’ mistake, especially when David committed ones that seemed even more outrageous?! 

“It was extremely important in ancient Israel that the monarchy and the priesthood not be combined. So we do need to account for why Saul is punished for his actions while David is not.

This issue arises again during the reign of Uzziah, and in his case, the nature of the offense is made very explicit: “But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God, and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. Azariah the priest with eighty other courageous priests of the Lord followed him in. They confronted King Uzziah and said, ‘It is not right for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. That is for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who have been consecrated to burn incense. Leave the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful; and you will not be honored by the Lord God.’” [2 Chronicles 26]

For crossing the royal/priest boundary, Uzziah was struck with leprosy and he lived out his reign in seclusion, with his son acting in his place as regent.  For the same offense, Saul was rejected as king. So you’d think that God would have had as much of a problem with David eating the consecrated bread as He did with Saul offering sacrifices or Uzziah burning incense.  But instead, Jesus cites David’s actions as a precedent for his own disciples lawfully plucking and eating grain as they travel through a field on the Sabbath.  In Matthew and Luke, this incident is paired with a Sabbath healing episode, suggesting that David also provides a precedent for Jesus healing on the Sabbath.  In other words, his actions are seen as positive and exemplary, not negative and dangerous. What’s going on here?

I think the best explanation is that there is a distinction between the privileges of a priest and the functions of a priest.

One of the privileges of a priest is that “those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and . . . those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar,” as Paul observes in 1 Corinthians when arguing for his own right to be supported as an apostle. In other words, as Leviticus explains, once consecrated bread has been replaced with fresh bread and removed from God’s presence, it “belongs to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in the sanctuary area, because it is a most holy part of their perpetual share of the food offerings presented to the Lord.”  So no one but the priests had a right to this bread, as it was part of the priests’ support.  But Ahimelek the priest was nevertheless free to share this bread with David and his hungry companions – to “do good,” as Jesus put it, with the food at his disposal.  David was not arrogantly demanding priestly privileges for himself as king; he wasn’t even king yet at this point.  He was simply a hungry man asking for food and receiving it from God’s sanctuary.

By contrast, both Saul and Uzziah were usurping priestly functions, and in both cases it seems they were doing so as an assertion of their own expanded powers.  This threatened to assimilate the Israelite monarchy to the Canaanite priest-king or god-king model, and it could not be allowed.”[2]

I thought these were interesting insights. I recognize that it does not cover the other sins of David, most popularly the Bathsheba-Uriah sin. I may be treading on dangerous grounds to distinct those as ‘individual sins’ that did not touch the order of rulership like Saul and Uzziah’s, but it is worth pointing out at the very least. It is important though to point out that David and his bloodline did suffer repercussions for those ‘other’ sins.

I have read other commentaries that suggest that David also committed the sin of Saul by making burnt and peace offerings and even wearing a linen ephod in 2 Samuel 6 when the Ark of the Covenant was being moved (an ephod was a garment worn mostly by priests, although theirs came with very specific instructions on the colours, etc). Some have tried to justify it by insisting that he was a typology of the Messiah and of grace, and so may have gotten away with more than he should have. What’s interesting though is to recognise that David never [not to the best of my knowledge at least] made any offering on any other person’s behalf, as was the responsibility of Levite priests. In several places in scripture, we see ordinary men make sacrifices for reasons and in places very different from the role the Levite priests played.

With that said, let’s jump into the last question we asked last week. The writer of that amazing blog, Christopher R. Smith does an amazing job answering the question:

If God gave Saul a “new heart,” how could Saul disobey and be rejected?

So this definitely seems to be genuine spiritual rebirth – both regeneration and Spirit-filling.  And there is evidence of it in Saul’s subsequent conduct.  At first Saul was so timid that when Samuel wanted to proclaim him king to all the Israelites, Saul hid among the supplies!  But soon afterwards, galvanized by God’s Spirit, Saul boldly led a successful campaign to rescue an Israelite city that was being besieged by a long-time deadly foe, the Ammonites.  In the wake of this success, Saul was given the opportunity to put to death all those who had opposed his kingship.  But he insisted that their lives be spared.

So what went wrong?  After Saul had been king for many years, he was facing another dangerous foe, the Philistines.  Samuel agreed to come and offer sacrifices to seek God’s favor on Israel’s army, but when he didn’t arrive at the appointed time, and Saul’s army was so intimidated by their enemies that the soldiers began to desert, Saul decided to offer the sacrifices himself.

Why was offering the sacrifices such a severe violation that it cost Saul his kingdom?  Because God had carefully separated the kingship from the priesthood in the law of Moses.  The kings of the surrounding nations, by contrast, were priests; some were even revered as gods.  But God wanted the Israelites always to understand that He alone was their God, and He wanted them always to seek him through the priests who were descended from Aaron, whom He had chosen as Israel’s first high priest.

But Saul, most likely influenced by the example of the kings of the nations around him, did not hesitate to try to concentrate the roles of king and priest together in his own person, contrary to God’s design for the nation.  This led to disobedience and a break with Samuel’s godly influence, and it was all downhill from there.

The lesson is that a new heart and the filling of the Spirit are necessary but not sufficient conditions for a life that remains true to God.

We also have to be very careful of the examples around us that we allow to influence our thinking and conduct.  We need to pick our friends and role models carefully, and be careful what we watch and what we think about it.  We also need to be aware that the temptations we encounter in a position of power and influence are much greater than ordinary temptations. Otherwise, even genuinely reborn and Spirit-filled people like Saul – or ourselves –can be led down the wrong path.[3]

Fantastic perspective, if you ask me. Hope this helped you somehow! Next week, God being our helper, we will attempt to look through a microscope into Saul’s heart and mind and try to figure out how even God’s help didn’t steer him from self-destructing. Until then, stay ‘Bereaning’!

Love,

Rad!💖

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[1] https://goodquestionblog.com/2013/04/17/0417/

[2] https://goodquestionblog.com/2014/05/15/if-saul-wasnt-allowed-to-offer-sacrifices-why-could-david-eat-the-consecrated-bread/

[3] https://goodquestionblog.com/2014/05/12/if-god-gave-saul-a-new-heart-how-could-saul-disobey-and-be-rejected/