Do You Take Prayer for Granted? (2 Sam 14.17)
The LORD your God be with you!
Background
Almost seven chapters pass before we come to the next prayer in 2 Samuel. Since the last prayer—David’s praise of God for His blessings upon him—a lot has happened. The first series of events are examples of God keeping His promises to David. Chapter 8 describes many of David’s military conquests and his consolidation of Israel. Chapter 9 shows David’s compassion for Saul’s family once again: he provides for the invalid son of Jonathan, Mephibosheth. Chapter 10 continues the stories about David’s victories over Israel’s enemies. God’s promises come true: David is a powerful and blessed king, and Israel has benefited from his leadership.
It is said that power corrupts. This is no less true for the people of God than anyone else. David’s incredible successes, his wealth, and his status made him less than cautious. While he was never arrogant and defiant of God (like Saul), his sins came through lack of discipline and attention to important matters. The phrase “a man after God’s own heart” never stopped being true about David. That phrase means that God chose him and that David continued to trust him. It is not literal; “a man according to God’s own heart” does not mean that David always trusted God or did the right thing. David never consulted other gods or pagan seers like Saul did. This did not mean he did not fail in his faith, for he did so with terrible consequences. After all the successes recounted, we see the first example. While is army is off at battle (why is he no longer with them?), David relaxes at his palace. He sees a woman, and he takes her for his own and makes sure that her husband is killed in battle. His sin results in the death of a baby. We also learn that his interactions with his children are fraught with a lack of discipline—he does not act when he should, and he acts when he should not. His sin results in the eventual murder of two of his sons.
The prayer above is part of one of the stories about his sons and David’s lack of authoritative action. The story involves three of David’s children: a brother and sister named Absalom and Tamar, and their half-brother (by another of David’s wives), Amnon. Amnon as the eldest child, and he desired his half-sister Tamar—a relationship that was forbidden under Jewish law. Amnon pursues her anyway, and after being rebuffed many times, he raped her. When David found out, he was furious, of course. But he did nothing—quite a contrast to his decisiveness in politics and war. Absalom waited two years for his father to punish Amnon. Finally, Absalom lured him away from Jerusalem and had him murdered, and then went into hiding.
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