Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

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...