2 Samuel 5:10 marks a major shift in the Bible’s story of God’s interaction with humanity. It is subtle however, and the words, “And David became greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him,” may not convey the enormity of the shift.
To begin to get at that, and to engage the very sticky part of the other reading we had from 2 Samuel, we’re going to start by taking a look at the scene where the priest Uzzah dies because he touches the Ark of the Covenant. The story shocks us. Is God so mean, so terrible, as to instantly kill someone who simply touches the Ark? We start to think of the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie where the bad guys get what’s coming to them for not treating the legendary ark with respect.
Remember, this Ark of the Covenant is rooted in the story of Moses leading the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and into the promised land. According to accounts Moses built this ark, which was a decorative wooden box. Accounts vary as to what it held. Usually it’s the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments on them and sometimes Aaron’s rod and a container of manna. The box had a lid. On the lid where sculptures of two cherubim facing each other. Significantly was the belief that the literal presence of God was to be found just above the ark. So, where the ark was, there God was too.
The ark shows up here and there in biblical texts but its appearances are spotty and fragmented. That such a box actually existed historically is very likely. But beyond that little can be said with any reliability.
The people of Israel coming out of slavery were a nomadic people. They didn’t have homes and they didn’t have houses of worship. The ark was similarly mobile. It was usually housed in a tent. Where the tent was moved it was moved too. It represented God’s presence with the people as they traveled.
Perhaps significantly, and especially for today’s text, when the ark was moved it was not to be dumped onto a cart and towed from place to place. If you remember the scene from the Raiders of the Lost Ark, the good guys never actually touch the ark. And they move it the proper way: carried by people supported by two wooden poles.
Now, has Uzzah, the priest who had charge of moving the ark been following those instructions? No. Whether with ceremony and care or not, he’s loaded it into a cart and is having animals tow it around. That is not proper treatment! So when it slips and he has to reach out and stabilize it you kind of get the sense that God’s already pretty upset about the sloppy service; and zap – dead Uzzah.
Indeed it is harsh. King David gets upset. He also gets scared. The story adds to the ark’s legendary powers. Theologically we run ourselves into a ditch really fast if we make too much of it. However, I do think we can soberly say that God is not to be mocked. People trivialize God’s power, or they make God into a sweet and gentle tame little deity to be called upon in need.
Whatever the historic reality behind the text, we do well to learn from this story and take God’s power seriously. God is loving, yes. God’s grace is powerful, yes. But don’t get arrogant and sloppy. God is God, always and forever, period. It is wise to respect that.
All of this leads to the significant shift that happens in the Bible’s story of God’s interaction with humanity. If you remember the stories of Adam and Eve, their descendants, Noah, the Tower of Babel story, and others you know that God’s relationship with humanity starts off with God wanting to be directly connected to humans. Humans mess up. They mess up over and over again. Sometimes God’s approach is merciful – like not killing Adam and Eve. But humans don’t improve with mercy. So sometimes God’s approach is stern. God punishes – think of the Noah’s Ark story. Does humanity learn? Does it improve? Nope. It seems that whether God is kind or stern humans just don’t improve.
Then God tries a different approach as we reach the Abraham stories. There God decides to pick one person who God will make as a model of faithfulness for others to follow. Abraham has a son Isaac, who has a son Jacob, who has twelve sons; and we begin to see that God’s relationship with one person has now moved to God’s relationship with a chosen family.
The family grows into a group of tribes and God then works through them as a chosen race – an example for the world.
Do they obey or improve? Are they satisfied? Nope.
You remember the stories. God frees them from slavery in Egypt, leads them to the Promised Land. God helps them to conquer and develop it. Are they faithful? Are they satisfied? Nope.
Notice the path that’s developing. We go from a person to a nation, and we go from nomadic tribes to a landed people. By the time we get to the texts of 1st and 2nd Samuel they are asking for a king and a government. The Ark of the Covenant was the presence of God to the chosen nomadic people. Now they are a landed people creating a nation.
The Ark of the Covenant has dropped out of the storyline. But now it reappears. King David has conquered the city of Jerusalem and decided to make it his capital. It was a wise political move for a number of reasons. And David, whether because he truly felt called by God, or whether he saw it as another wise political strategy, decides to bring the ark – the central symbol of Jewish belief in God – into his capital city. Biblical scholars debate what David’s motives really were. I suspect it was a mix.
Whatever the case, David now has a political capital and a religious capital. The ark, which has been traveling around for centuries, will now have a permanent home.
It will be Solomon who actually builds the temple but it is David who decides to make it the central religious symbol of Jerusalem. And with that, we realize the major shift that has occurred in 2 Samuel 5:10. “And David became greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.”
God’s relationship with humanity is now no longer with: a nomadic people, the laws through Moses, and the Ark of the Covenant. God’s relationship with humanity is now with a landed nation and its king. Jerusalem as a city takes a central role. The line of David as God’s chosen leaders is God’s new promised relationship.
Theologian Bruce Birch notes, “…God has raised up David. Just as the ark represented God’s presence in Israel, so also God is with David. Significantly in the next chapter David brings back the ark to Jerusalem, but it will no longer be the chief sign of God’s presence. God’s presence in Israel is now seen in David, who grows stronger and stronger.” (New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 2, Pg. 1237)
Jerusalem and a Davidic king come to be understood as God’s eternal promise to the Israelites. If you know the stores well you’ll know that 400 years later Jerusalem is destroyed and the temple along with it. Most all the leaders in the bloodline of David are killed. Most Israelites of any significance are hauled off to Babylon and live in exile. Then decades later the Israelites are allowed to return. The stories say their first task is to rebuild the city and the temple. There is no mention of the destroyed ark. No mention is made of recreating it or of mourning over its loss. It was no longer seen as important. The city and David were central.
Whenever we read the stories of Jesus conflicting with the religious leaders it is much more than just whether Jesus is an orthodox teacher. What Jesus presents is a challenge to their entire way of understanding God and God’s relationship with people. The religious leaders knew of how God’s promised interaction with people had changed over the centuries: directly with people, then a chosen person, then a chosen nomadic race, then a landed people. And… they knew God’s “permanent” promise of presence and the center of interaction with humanity, was the city of Jerusalem and a king in the bloodline of David as ruler.
Think about what people really expected of Jesus as Messiah. Remember, David was considered a messiah as well, for messiah simply means God’s anointed.
David created the nation, established the religion, drove out enemies, and set the country on a solid path. Thus, the expected messiah would certainly do the same.
Jesus is challenging the entire understanding of God that the Jewish leaders had. Jesus was ushering in a new age, another step, of God’s relationship with people.
We didn’t read it today, but it isn’t an accident that when John’s gospel records the resurrection of Jesus it sets it in a garden. And there a woman is in the garden and talks to someone she thinks is the gardener. Turns out she wasn’t entirely wrong. For the garden echoes Eden. There God and the man and the woman tended it together. In the resurrection God-with-people-in-the-garden is back.
Our Lord Jesus, set up as being in the blood line of David, fulfills all the requirements and the promises. And he moves things forward, which is actually a restoration to the beginning. For as Christians we do not hold to Jerusalem as an essentially sacred place. We do not hold that one blood line is above any other blood line in God’s great work. We believe that we can also connect directly to God, just as in the Adam and Eve story.
May we feel and live that connection always.
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