Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

It seems that David can’t hide out with Samuel the whole time, and probably because he wanted to go home to his wife and he knew he wouldn’t be able to do that if Saul still hated him, so he sneaks in to see Jonathan and ask what he had done wrong to make Saul hate him. Jonathan does a little bit of gaslighting here because in response to David’s “what is my sin before thy father, that he seeketh my life?” Jonathan responds, “God forbid; thou shalt not die.” This isn’t really an accurate statement because Saul has tried to kill David repeatedly and has also sent multiple groups of armed men to kill him as well. It is probably difficult for Jonathan to see his father as a murderous monster so his reaction is understandable, plus he thought that he was able to reason with Saul earlier, maybe he counted on being able to do that again. He also knows that Saul consults him on all matters and all his plans, “he will shew it me: and why should my father hide this thing from me?” But again, th...

Even though Saul had just had David marry his second daughter Michal, he STILL told Jonathan and all his servants, “that they should kill David.” What’s interesting to me is that David was doing lots of good things for Saul, he soothed him with music when he was upset, he could not be defeated in battle against Saul’s enemies, he was loyal, and all that and Saul STILL wanted him dead because he was jealous. Human psychology is so interesting because why would you want to kill someone who could not be defeated in battle, and what makes someone think that they even could. Like if David could kill 200 Philistine men and not die, what makes Saul think that HE could kill him. Either David is so skilled in fighting that he could defeat that many professional soldiers, so Saul stood no chance at killing him, OR David was protected by God and then Saul not only couldn’t kill David but risked pissing off that God that protected him supernaturally. I personally wouldn’t play with that fire, but ...

This whole time the marriage that Saul is trying to arrange for David to marry one of his two daughters, everyone else can look at it from the outside and think that Saul is just fulfilling the obligation to David that was promised when he defeated Goliath but the reality is that Saul is hoping to set David up to be killed because Saul is threatened by his success and popularity. Saul sends his servants to David with a very specific script, he wants David to think that he’s very pleased with him and all the people love him and that David will marry Saul’s daughter soon. I don’t know if David has caught on to Saul’s alternative plan here, but it seems like it, possibly because Saul tried to kill him by throwing spears at his twice, maybe that was the giveaway that this might be a precarious situation for him. Saul’s servants come around saying what Saul told them to and David responds, “Seemth it to you a light thing to be a king’s son in law, seeing that I am a poor man, and lightly es...

Saul knows that he’s lost God’s favor and that God has promised to replace him as king with someone else who is righteous. Saul probably didn’t really believe that God would do that or he didn’t believe that God could do that or he just didn’t care and was determined to not go down without a fight. David is not only clearly being favored by God militarily with all his victories, but he’s very popular among the people, even his own son Jonathan. At this point Saul is very wary of David as a rival and a threat to his own power and starts to plot his downfall. He’s having this mood swings and David is able to soothe him with music like was his role before but now Saul is carrying a “javelin” in his hand while at court. TB notes that always carrying a weapon “this was not usual for a king; normally a king held a royal scepter as the symbol of his power. But for Saul his spear had become his scepter. This weapon of death was Saul’s emblem.” Twice Saul used that spear that he was carrying a...

The unfortunate part about the sectioning of scripture into chapters and verses is that it was done… not as precisely as we would have hoped, at least in English. TB says that chapter 18 should really start in chapter 17 verse 55 which is where Saul, Abner, and David discuss who David’s father is so that he can be given the rewards of not having to pay taxes or have his family serve in the military because of David’s victory over Goliath. Apparently, Jonathan must have been in the room for that conversation because during this discussion “the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his won soul.” I always took this to mean that Jonathan fell in love with David, whether or not it was mutual, I couldn’t say. TB vehemently disagrees and disparages that belief for sone time, yeah maybe. He also says that the Hebrew word for love used here was “ahab” which he says, “carries a sort of political or even mystical context to it, or even better it denotes a se...

David and Goliath have both just shouted threats to each other, and I was thinking about it this today because I was listening to the Book of Mormon, the part where Abinadi is teaching Noah and his priests and exuding the power of God, and all the power in his words is similar to David shouting to Goliath and the entire Philistine army “I cone to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.” Imagine the kind of power that comes with those words and the conviction that they are true. It’s wild to think of the faith and Spirit involved in shouting them to the whole Philistine army while preparing to engage with their mightiest warrior. That we could all have that faith. The power if the same, Abinadi, David to Goliath, what would it take to get there for us? David hadn’t seen God, he hadn’t had any supernatural visitations that I am aware of, he probably didn’t even have an unusually deep study of the scriptures, he didn’t have any forma...

I hurt my knee at the gym last night and work was busy so my time here is limited and I’m in some pain so I’m not sure how this is going to go which is a bummer because I wanted to spend some time on this part of the story. Saul has agreed to let David be the one to fight Goliath which is probably has a lot of reservations about, David is small, young, and inexperienced, he probably sees this as a suicide mission for David and inevitable defeat for Israel. But he was kind of looking at that right now anyway because no one else would fight him and time was ticking away before the army abandoned him and the Philistines attacked anyway, so it was probably a lose/lose situation here. Thinking he was going to at least give David SOME advantage, Saul puts his own armor on David, because as TB says Saul surely wasn’t using it. The armor is too big and unfamiliar to David so he takes it off, picks up his staff “and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put the in a shepherd’s bad ...

The Israelites are being constantly taunted by Goliath and time is running out for them because the Philistines have a professional army and have the resources to sit around for weeks or months but the Israelites do not. They are citizen soldiers, as TB pointed out they aren’t being paid to be there, and they don’t have the infrastructure in place to support a sustained engagement or for their men to be away from their work in the fields. Here we circle back to David. David’s three oldest brothers are in the army at this point and with the rest of the Israelite soldiers. It’s been at least 6 weeks and David’s father Jesse is getting concerned about their well-being and tells David to take a bunch of goods to his brothers out on the battle encampment. Just a couple of notes here, first is that it notes that David is the youngest of his father’s sons, which I’m pretty sure that we learned in the last chapter. Second note is that verse 15 says that “David went and returned from Saul to fe...

Now we come to the most famous story in the Old Testament, that of David and Goliath. This is a really long chapter and the lectures about it from TB are really good, so I will probably take some time with it. We’ve heard about the Philistines encroaching on Hebrew lands quite a bit before and they seem to be doing it again. The option that both the Philistines and the Hebrews seem to have settled on was that of both sides sending out a single fighter to battle to the death and whoever wins, that side is considered the victor and the other side has to admit defeat and surrender that portion of their lands to the winner. The Philistines’ ultimate fighter was a man named Goliath who was about 9 feet 9 inches tall. It makes sense that this guy was the one who they chose because he’s enormous, and clearly he’s an experienced fighter, he’s probably done this challenge thing several times before and won. This isn’t Goliath’s first rodeo. The scriptures are specific that his armor weighed abo...

At this event or sacrifice or dinner afterward, I’m not sure which, Samuel is looking at all of Jesse’s sons because he knows that one of them is supposed to be the new king but there’s a lot of sons there, so he’s trying to figure out which one. Samuel looks at the first son Eliab and just knew that he was the right one. He was the first born, tall, good looking, Samuel thought for sure he was the one God had chosen, but then God makes a statement demonstrating a very important gospel principle, “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; ;for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” I remember asking this very question when I was like 13 years old, I was thinking about something about how God knows us or what was important to Him, and my answer was “I look at the heart.” So imagine my surprise and delight when I heard this truth taught from God’s own mouth in the scr...

Even though Samuel has informed Saul that God has relieved him of the kingship, Saul isn't going to let it go easily and as far as anyone else knows, Samuel and Saul were just seen sacrificing together at the religious celebration of Saul's victory, so really, Saul is still king in everyone's eyes and only those two know what happened. The question is way would Samuel go with Saul to the sacrifice for the victory celebration knowing full well that the people would take that to mean business as usual? TB says that some possible reasons include that Samuel didn't know what else to do. If he were to tell all the people that Saul was no longer king, but without having the replacement king ready to go, then civil war could start as each tribe tried to sit their own king on the throne in the power vacuum. Another reason could be because even though Israel had just defeated the Amalekites, there were still several other nations surrounding Israel that could have seen a king-le...

I was getting ready to get into chapter 16 today that is an introduction to David, but while listening to the lectures about it, something was mentioned about a Psalm being written about David’s earliest experiences and I remembered that I think David wrote most of the book of Psalms. So I started wondering how much better it would be if I studied about David and 1st and 2nd Samuel and then studied about the Psalms that David wrote during the corresponding events, if that makes sense. So like instead of doing all of Samuel, Kings, and whatever comes next, studying Samuel, which events, and then reading the Psalms that David wrote about such events. For me, I think that would be the most fulfilling, I think I would like that the best but the problem is that both TB and the IM don’t do their studying like that so I would have to stay right on top of the order of everything and go back and forth between the different books and chapters, reading and studying and putting everything together...

I’m kind of confused about how some wars are decided on versus others. For instance, with the Philistine war in the previous couple of chapters, Jonathan just seemingly went and instigated them himself, but God aided Israel in their victory and Jonathan was praised by both TB and the IM as being inspired. Now we see Samuel coming to Saul and telling him that God wants him to go fight the Amalekites. Samuel says specifically that this is revenge for how the Amalekites treated the Israelites when they were coming out of the land of Egypt because back in Exodus 17:8-16 the Amalekites attacked Israel in their rear column which would have been the weak, old and ill people of Israel which was a coward move. The war now commanded was retribution for that offense, even though Israel won back then too. I’m not sure about the logic there but I’m not in charge. God commanding this war makes is a holy war, meaning that the laws concerning the spoils were to be kept, and God reiterates that all men...