Do you remember reading Joshua. Joshua is about walking by faith and obedience. We now are reading about young David, a man after God’s own heart and that is exactly what he is doing. A verse caught my eye, actually a word.
Whatever Saul sent him to do, David did it so successfully (18:5)
Success according to the Lord means to be Wise, and prudent, to achieve a favorable outcome . I want you to underline a Key Verse. 18:7:
“Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands.”Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. “They have credited David with tens of thousands,” he thought, “but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?” 9 And from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David.
This is a really big turning point for Saul. Both Saul and David reign as King for the same amount of time (40 years) but Saul spends practically all of his in a jealous rage looking to kill David. What a sad sad life. I guess we do the same thing. We can spend our lives too being jealous of others.
Since we have men reading the blog this year I will choose not to comment on the price set for David to marry Michal. 😉
So now I want you to Read the Psalms in the context of which they were written. We now see David, alone, sad, fearful, hunted, running to save his life and He didn’t do anything wrong! YET we will see him Trust the Lord through his poetry. The character!
David has written 73 Psalms and probably even authored some of the anonymous ones too. Read them as closely as you would read a letter you got in the mail from a loved one.
Psalm 11: is a Declaration of Faith! No matter what the danger, if we trust in God there is no need to panic!
Psalm 59: Prayer for protection and punishment: Wow.
Reading the Bible in 365 
The price for Michal? The reading was enough, you did not have to discuss more – thanks. Anytime I read about circumciced vs. not circumcised – I’m just reminded that it was a physical symbol of their committment to God and his to them. Everytime an Isrealite man goes to relieve himself, it should have been a reminder about the relationship they have with God. That’s about 6 to 10 reminders a day – they needed that, because clearly from the readings, they would forget God and move forward without him. God knew they would still follow the laws, which meant they did circumcise their sons, which may have been a reminder to that young man later of the relationship he was meant to have with God – which brought them back to God. It brings a whole new meaning to the term “He has got no skin in the game”.
You crack me up. I love this story because Saul said 50 thinking that was impossible. But with God everything is possible. With God he came back with 5 times the amount!!!!!! And to show off they counted out each and every foreskin just to show Gods glory!!!!
1 Sam. 18: 10 The next day an evil[a] spirit from God came forcefully on Saul.
This bothers me some. I thought only satan sent evil spirits. I know that God allowes him to do so, but I don’t ever remember reading that ‘God’ sent an evil spirit. I’ve looked in seveal translations, and they mostly say the same thing. However, the New Genevea Study Bible says, ‘destressing’ spirit. I’m more comfortable with that translation. Any thoughts on why so many translations say…evil spirit?
When I leave a comment, it comes up listing me as ‘lhbcsoma2008.’ I have no idea where that is coming from, but it’s me…Tedi Cromer who is making the comment above…:)
I would love to water it down and just chalk it up to saying “Well, it proves that God even has control over evil spirits” and he is, but the reality is, it is more than that. I just came out of Revelation last week and I saw it too as “God is control of everything” BUT it also shows Justice and Consequence on our disobedience. Saul Sinned. And with sin comes consequence. Now God knew Saul was going to sin when he picked him. Think about it….Saul is a Benjaminite. Our KING will come from the Line of Judah, thus we will see God make the change here to David. Saul was not a mistake choice for King, he was a king that would fail so we would see the whole plan unfold.
We love to see God as a God of Love, and HE IS. But we need to see him rule JUSTLY.
With all that said, I pray many of us are being spoken to about the disobedience in our life right now and will repent.