Abner,
whose son is that young man? (1
Samuel 17:55)
In chapter
16, Saul is looking for a musician/therapist to ease his troubled mind. He
hears about David, and Saul has the young man brought to him. David interviews
with the CEO who takes a liking to him, and Saul offers David the job.
Then comes
chapter 17 and a little altercation between Israel and Philistia, which is more
commonly referred to as the story of David and Goliath. Once the outcome is
decided, Saul asks his general to do a background check on David, whom Saul
apparently does not know. Then in chapter 18, after Abner has
found out about David's family and where he comes from, Saul offers David
a job. Wait...
Just one more
of those things that makes me say, Hmmm...
In 2 Samuel
21:19 it’s Elhanan (another son of Bethlehem) who is credited with Goliath's
death (I mean how many giants named Goliath does Philistia have anyway?),
although the parallel passage from 1 Chronicles 20:5 reports that Goliath's
brother is killed by Elhanan, and not Goliath himself.
Hmmm...
Of course if
it was Elhanan who
killed Goliath, (and not David) that would explain why Saul needed to be
introduced to the giant killer in chapter 17, even though David was already a
trusted member of his court.
What
do we do with difficulties like this? Must we reconcile every jot and
tittle before we can sense God in the text?
Why did God send an evil spirit to torment Saul? And how did people figure out that if someone plays the lyre, it would help Saul feel better? Did they believe in music as therapy?
ReplyDeleteIt may be that when people saw Saul acting out of character, their explanation was that God must be sending an evil spirit to afflict him, even though their assumption could have been incorrect. On the other hand, maybe that's exactly what happened. At another juncture in the Old Testament we read about God putting a lying spirit in the mouths of false prophets. When David counted the fighting men, the writer of 2 Samuel says God incited him to do it, and the writer of 1 Chronicles says Satan was the instigator. It is difficult to say with any certainty, but this may be a case of trying to explain unexplainable behavior with limited understanding and unlimited imaginations.
ReplyDeleteAll I know about the therapeutic instrumental music is that the prophet Elisha also needed a musician when he got worked up. It helped him cool down so he could think (and prophesy) straight (2 Kings 3:15).