RE-RUN : A reminiscence 3 ~ Gad's Epitaph
I love the way the book of II Samuel ends. At first glance, it seems odd. It is the end of David's story, the last two chapters of two books that recount the rollicking tales of Samuel, Saul, and David. It almost seems like who ever wrote it ... I think it was Gad ~ Gad, the seer who had been with David absolutely since David's days in the cave of Adullam, and perhaps {and I believe} since the day Samuel anointed David as the king ... "forgot" to write a conclusion. He just got to the next to the last chapter, or the chapter before the one next to the last chapter and ... got busy and never quite finished. We do not get a story of David on his death bed, we do not get a story of David handing over the kingdom to Solomon...that is in other books. We get a few stories that happened at the end of David's reign after the failed coup by Absalom, we get a final Psalm written by David, we get David's "last words" ... a very short psalm, we get a list of David's mighty men and a couple of stories from the 'old days' (which I will write about later) . . . and II Samuel just stops. As I read and re-read it, I suspect that David's friend Gad wanted to finish David's story exactly this way. This is what I think happened...
In my mind's eye, I picture Gad sitting at a desk near an open window gazing out beyond the hills to where Adullam sits nestled in the past. Somewhere nearby, in the King's quarters David is sleeping and near death. Waking before the sun, Gad had gone early to check on his old friend. He had spent the misty early morning hours with David sorting through their memories. They munched on bread, softened with milk, laughed a lot, and prayed. Now Gad, sitting in the swirl of those memories resurrected by his time with David, puts pen to paper ~
These are the last words of David:
"The oracle of David son of Jesse,
the oracle of the man exalted by the Most High,
the man anointed by the God of Jacob,
Israel's singer of songs:
2 Sam 23:1
I love this epitaph as much for what it does NOT say, as for what it does. Gad does not say, "great king of Israel", or "mighty warrior", or "champion of Israel who slew Goliath". Gad calls him, "son of Jesse"... I know it is the common way to refer to a man, it is in fact the way Israel denoted what we might call a 'last name' ... David son of Jesse = David ben Jesse.
But I wonder if Gad wasn't remembering that day when David, Jesse's youngest son
~ the son who had been left out tending the sheep when Samuel arrived and invited Jesse and his family to the sacrifice ~
David, with a harp clutched protectively against his chest, with hair still wet from a hurried bath, is bustled into the room where dinner is sitting now cold, where his brothers are glowering and muttering, in the shadows of Samuel's rejection of each of them. Did he, as he wrote, see the oil pouring from Samuel's vial soaking David's hair, dripping from his chin and then running in ribbons down the strings of his harp? David, Jesse's son...who would have suspected he would be the king?
I suspect that this is what he was thinking because the next thing he says about David is
the oracle of the man exalted by the Most High,
the man anointed by the God of Jacob,
2 Sam 23:1
Gad wrote the next line, which in the NIV is translated:
Israel's singer of songs
2 Sam 23:1 NIV
I am sure he wrote it with eyes blurred by tears because literally,
Yisraa'eel zªmirowt uwnª`iym 1
means
"the sweet, or the beloved singer of Israel".
This ending could not have been written by some officious court scribe. This ending is the exclamation point at the end of the account written by a friend who loved David. These are chapters worth reading...you should go read them now:
2 Samuel 23 - 24.
1. (Interlinear Transliterated Bible. Copyright © 1994, 2003 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
In my mind's eye, I picture Gad sitting at a desk near an open window gazing out beyond the hills to where Adullam sits nestled in the past. Somewhere nearby, in the King's quarters David is sleeping and near death. Waking before the sun, Gad had gone early to check on his old friend. He had spent the misty early morning hours with David sorting through their memories. They munched on bread, softened with milk, laughed a lot, and prayed. Now Gad, sitting in the swirl of those memories resurrected by his time with David, puts pen to paper ~
These are the last words of David:
"The oracle of David son of Jesse,
the oracle of the man exalted by the Most High,
the man anointed by the God of Jacob,
Israel's singer of songs:
2 Sam 23:1
I love this epitaph as much for what it does NOT say, as for what it does. Gad does not say, "great king of Israel", or "mighty warrior", or "champion of Israel who slew Goliath". Gad calls him, "son of Jesse"... I know it is the common way to refer to a man, it is in fact the way Israel denoted what we might call a 'last name' ... David son of Jesse = David ben Jesse.
But I wonder if Gad wasn't remembering that day when David, Jesse's youngest son
~ the son who had been left out tending the sheep when Samuel arrived and invited Jesse and his family to the sacrifice ~
David, with a harp clutched protectively against his chest, with hair still wet from a hurried bath, is bustled into the room where dinner is sitting now cold, where his brothers are glowering and muttering, in the shadows of Samuel's rejection of each of them. Did he, as he wrote, see the oil pouring from Samuel's vial soaking David's hair, dripping from his chin and then running in ribbons down the strings of his harp? David, Jesse's son...who would have suspected he would be the king?
I suspect that this is what he was thinking because the next thing he says about David is
the oracle of the man exalted by the Most High,
the man anointed by the God of Jacob,
2 Sam 23:1
Gad wrote the next line, which in the NIV is translated:
Israel's singer of songs
2 Sam 23:1 NIV
I am sure he wrote it with eyes blurred by tears because literally,
Yisraa'eel zªmirowt uwnª`iym 1
means
"the sweet, or the beloved singer of Israel".
This ending could not have been written by some officious court scribe. This ending is the exclamation point at the end of the account written by a friend who loved David. These are chapters worth reading...you should go read them now:
2 Samuel 23 - 24.
1. (Interlinear Transliterated Bible. Copyright © 1994, 2003 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
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