Mounted The Cherubim And Flew

2 Samuel 22:9-14 – Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his canopy around him—the dark rain clouds of the sky. Out of the brightness of his presence bolts of lightning blazed forth. The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded.

Leviticus 16:2 – The Lord said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come whenever he chooses into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die. For I will appear in the cloud over the atonement cover.

Genesis 3:24 – After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

1 Samuel 2:9-10 – He will guard the feet of his faithful servants, but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness. “It is not by strength that one prevails; those who oppose the Lord will be broken. The Most High will thunder from heaven; the Lord will judge the ends of the earth. “He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.”

Application:

• ·         In the Septuagint the word for “atonement cover” is the same one used of Christ and translated “sacrifice of atonement”.
• ·         Only through God’s redemption in Christ does man have access again to the tree of life.
• ·         Hannah’s prophetic anticipation of a king at the time of the dedication of her son Samuel, who was to be God’s agent for establishing kingship in Israel, is entirely appropriate.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Distress

2 Samuel 22:4-8 – “I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and have been saved from my enemies. The waves of death swirled about me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. “In my distress I called to the Lord; I called out to my God. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came to his ears. The earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of the heavens shook; they trembled because he was angry.

Psalm 4:1 – Answer me when I call to you, my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; have mercy on me and hear my prayer.

Psalm 34:6 – This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.

Jeremiah 10:10 – But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King. When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath.

Psalm 75:3 – When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm.

Application:

• ·         David’s distress was the threat of being publicly discredited by the slander of those who blame him for the nation’s troubles.
• ·         “Poor” characterizes not necessarily one who has no possessions but one who is without resources to effect his own deliverance –and so is dependent on God.
• ·         Everything that idols are not, The Lord is.
• ·         When, because of the upsurge of evil powers, the whole moral order of the world seems to have crumbled, God still guarantees its stability.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

My Shield

2 Samuel 22:2-3 – He said: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior—from violent people you save me.

Jeremiah 16:19 – Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, “Our ancestors possessed nothing but false gods, worthless idols that did them no good.

Genesis 15:1 – After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”

Luke 1:69-75 – He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

Application:

• ·         God is dependable and has the power to protect.
• ·         Though Abram was quite rich, God Himself was Abram’s greatest treasure.
• ·         Jesus, the Messiah from the house of David, has the power to save.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Rock

2 Samuel 22:2-3 – He said: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior—from violent people you save me.

1 Samuel 2:2 – “There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.

Psalm 144:2 – He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me.

2 Samuel 23:3-4 – The God of Israel spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me: ‘When one rules over people in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings grass from the earth.’

Psalm 61:2 – From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

Application:

• ·         David had often taken refuge among the rocks of the desert, but he realized that true security was found only in the Lord.
• ·         Rock was a metaphor to depict the strength and stability of the God of Israel as the unfailing source of security for His people.
• ·         God is the source of benevolent acts of love that David could count on—just as God can be called “my salvation” because he is the source of salvation.
• ·         In brief and vivid strokes David portrays the ideal theocratic king—to be fully realized only in the rule of David’s greater son, Jesus Christ.
• ·         Since God is often confessed by the psalmists to be their “rock of refuge”, it may be that God Himself is that higher “rock” that the psalmist pleads for. Or it may be the secure refuge of God’s sanctuary.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

So That The Lamp Of Israel Will Not Be Extinguished

2 Samuel 21:17-22:3 – But Abishai son of Zeruiah came to David’s rescue; he struck the Philistine down and killed him. Then David’s men swore to him, saying, “Never again will you go out with us to battle, so that the lamp of Israel will not be extinguished.” In the course of time, there was another battle with the Philistines, at Gob. At that time Sibbekai the Hushathite killed Saph, one of the descendants of Rapha. In another battle with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jair the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod. In still another battle, which took place at Gath, there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot—twenty-four in all. He also was descended from Rapha. When he taunted Israel, Jonathan son of Shimeah, David’s brother, killed him. These four were descendants of Rapha in Gath, and they fell at the hands of David and his men. David sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior—from violent people you save me.

2 Samuel 23:3-4 – The God of Israel spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me: ‘When one rules over people in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings grass from the earth.’

1 Samuel 2:1-2,10 – Then Hannah prayed and said: “My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance. “There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God…He will guard the feet of his faithful servants, but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness. “It is not by strength that one prevails; those who oppose the Lord will be broken. The Most High will thunder from heaven; the Lord will judge the ends of the earth. “He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.”

Application:

• ·         In brief and vivid strokes David portrays the ideal theocratic king—to be fully realized only in the rule of David’s greater son, Jesus Christ.
• ·         The supreme source of Hannah’s joy is not in the child but in the God who has answered her prayer.
• ·         Rock was a metaphor to depict the strength and stability of the God of Israel as the unfailing source of security for His people.
• ·         Hannah’s expectation finds fulfillment in Christ and His complete triumph over the enemies of God.
• ·         David had often taken refuge among the rocks of the desert, but he realized that true security was found only in the Lord.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

God Answered Prayer In Behalf Of The Land

2 Samuel 21:10-16 – Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest till the rain poured down from the heavens on the bodies, she did not let the birds touch them by day or the wild animals by night. When David was told what Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, Saul’s concubine, had done, he went and took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh Gilead. (They had stolen their bodies from the public square at Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hung them after they struck Saul down on Gilboa.) David brought the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from there, and the bones of those who had been killed and exposed were gathered up. They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the tomb of Saul’s father Kish, at Zela in Benjamin, and did everything the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer in behalf of the land. Once again there was a battle between the Philistines and Israel. David went down with his men to fight against the Philistines, and he became exhausted. And Ishbi-Benob, one of the descendants of Rapha, whose bronze spearhead weighed three hundred shekels and who was armed with a new sword, said he would kill David.

2 Samuel 24:25 – David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the Lord answered his prayer in behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped.

Numbers 13:32-33 – And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

Application:

• ·         Reconciliation and restoration of covenant fellowship were obtained by the king’s repentance, intercessory prayer and the offering of sacrifices.
• ·         The promised land was a good land, a gracious gift from God.
• ·         By speaking bad things about it, the faithless spies were speaking evil of the Lord.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

All Seven Of Them Fell Together

2 Samuel 21:2-9 – The king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not a part of Israel but were survivors of the Amorites; the Israelites had sworn to spare them, but Saul in his zeal for Israel and Judah had tried to annihilate them.) David asked the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? How shall I make atonement so that you will bless the Lord’s inheritance?” The Gibeonites answered him, “We have no right to demand silver or gold from Saul or his family, nor do we have the right to put anyone in Israel to death.” “What do you want me to do for you?” David asked. They answered the king, “As for the man who destroyed us and plotted against us so that we have been decimated and have no place anywhere in Israel, let seven of his male descendants be given to us to be killed and their bodies exposed before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul—the Lord’s chosen one.” So the king said, “I will give them to you.” The king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath before the Lord between David and Jonathan son of Saul. But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, whom she had borne to Saul, together with the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab, whom she had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite. He handed them over to the Gibeonites, who killed them and exposed their bodies on a hill before the Lord. All seven of them fell together; they were put to death during the first days of the harvest, just as the barley harvest was beginning.

Amos 2:10 – I brought you up out of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness to give you the land of the Amorites.

Numbers 35:33 – “‘Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.

1 Samuel 15:23-24 – For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.” Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the men and so I gave in to them.

Application:

• ·         God’s great blessings to Israel in the past added to her guilt, and in Amos they are recalled as part of the Lord’s indictment against His people.
• ·         The crime of murder is not only an offense against the sanctity of life but also a pollutant to the Lord’s sacred land.
• ·         A king who set his own will above the command of the Lord ceased to be an instrument of the Lord’s rule over His people, violating the very nature of his theocratic office.
• ·         Saul’s confession retains an element of self-justification and a shift of blame. Previously he had attempted to justify his soldiers’ actions.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV