Today's treasure: 2 Samuel 10:2
Read 2 Samuel 10: 1-19
For what reasons did David want to show kindness to Hanun?
The Ammonite nobles led Hanun to believe David had sinister motives. What do you think Hanun was trying to accomplish by treating David's men as he did?
who joined the battle according to verse 17?
The account of this battle contains many virtues of David, each further representing the God who chose him and place His Spirit on him. Three outstanding evidences of God's character at work in David.
1. Active sympathy for the suffering. David knew better than anyone that a crown did not make a person void of feelings or oblivious to losses. Though Saul was not his father and had often treated him with malice, David had grieved his death. David's throne had been seasoned with bittersweetness because of the tragedy prompting it.
David believed in showing kindness, especially to those who had shown him kindness.
Read David's word in Psalm 69:20. What happened when he had looked among men for sympathy?
Sometimes not finding what we feel we need from others can ultimately bring us benefit. Two direct benefits can result if we are willing.
First we can become more sympathetic when others are in need. We can become far more sensitive and caring. 1 Peter 3:8
Second, we can reach out to a sympathetic God. David exhibited the character of God as he extended sympathy to someone who had experienced loss. David knew the disappointment of reaching out to others for sympathy and not receiving it, but he learned from his experience that God is always compassionate and sympathetic.
David wrote the following psalms, think how he described the sympathetic heart of God:
Psalm 103:13
Psalm 116:5,15
Psalm 145:9
God is always sympathetic, but His sympathy is not always accepted. David experienced something similar as his extension of sympathy was rejected by Hanun (2 Sam 10:3)
Hanun responded by humiliating David's men. By cutting off their garments and half their beards, he was symbolically making them half the men they see.
According to Hebrews 4:15, how is Christ able to sympathize with us?
God sent Christ as the delegate of His sympathy to the misery of men somewhat like David sent delegates of sympathy to Hanun. Christ was also met by those who stirred up misunderstanding among the people, just like the Ammonite nobles.
2. A fierce protectiveness toward his own. David sent messengers to meet the men so they would not be publicly humiliated. In effect, he threw a cloak around their exposed bodies and formed a plan to spare their dignity.
To a Hebrew, such humiliation as being exposed was virtually worse than a fate of death. Their enemy preyed on their worst nightmares. David fiercely protected the dignity of his men. God is even more protective of us. (Ezekiel 16: 8-14)
Ever since Satan exposed shame in the garden of Eden, God's redemptive plan has been to cover it and relieve man of shame's chains. He did so by His own blood.
3. Vengeance toward the enemies of his people and mockers of his mercy.
David did not just formulate a plan to spare the dignity of his men. God takes on our enemies when we've been shamed.
Verses that prove God's defensiveness toward those who hurt or shame His children:
Lamentations 3:58
Isaiah 35:3-4
Matthew 18:6-7
God can take on your enemy with far more power and might than you ever could.
When someone persecutes you, your Father takes the oppression very personally, especially when you are treated ill for obeying Him, as David's men were.
God has extended mercy to every member of the human race. Pray for your enemies. Pray they will accept God's delegate of mercy toward them. Pray for a willingness to be a vessel of God's mercy in their lives. A battle is coming and all captives will be kept eternally.
David was humble, accountable, and worshipful. He was cooperative, hopeful, dedicated and just. He was a righteous king and an effective administrator. He was an initiator of relationships: kind, loving, accepting, restoring, and welcoming. He was sympathetic, protective and defensive against the wrongs done to his people. For a time, he was the greatest king who ever lived---the apple of God's eye.
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