Mike Blogs

Anthropologists have reported for every society that stories are used to build a people’s worldview. Of course, there are compelling stories and then there are competing stories challenging the main vision of reality. Social organization often emerges from this struggle over whose story captures the meaning of people’s existence. Leaders work mightily to protect their power by controlling which story gets heard. We see this all around us.   Social psychologists have shown tha

Elijah has been carried away in a chariot of fire in a whirlwind (II Kings 2); but Jezebel still reigns as queen of Israel and her son Joram is king. Why do the evil rich and powerful live long? Well, not too long. Actually, the end is nearer than Jezebel imagines.  Elisha, Elijah’s successor, has sent a young member of the company of the prophets to anoint Jehu to remove and replace Ahab as king of Israel. Here is what Elisha told that young prophet to say. “ Thus says the L

After the confrontation with Jezebel’s prophets of Ba’al and Asherah, Elijah fled the country. Jezebel put out an all-counts bulletin for her lackeys to find Elijah so she could kill him. Ahab continued in his wayward ways.   One day Ahab was gazing out his palace window (too much time on his hands) when he saw a nice plot of land not far away. He discovered that the vineyard, for it was a productive farm, was in the possession of a man named Naboth. So, Ahab made an offer to

Last week we saw that Jezebel was at work trying to establish new gods as the central belief and trust of Israel. She went about it with vengeance and violence as well as with money and propaganda…pretty much as the elite does today.   Jezebel not only sidelined the prophets of YHWH, but she also hunted them down, took away their rights which had been given them by God, and carried out political executions. Ahab’s own palace steward, Obadiah, was secretly faithful to YHWH. Ob

For such an apostate king as Ahab and his wife Jezebel, at this time the great prophet Elijah shows up in Scripture (I Kings 17). For their sins, Elijah warns that there will be a drought in the land over the next three years. Then God sends Elijah to the wilderness where ravens bring him bread, hiding out from Ahab’s threats on his life. Later God sends him on to a town called Zarephath where a widow and her son sheltered and fed him while he was in hiding.   When the drough

That pretty much says it, doesn’t it? Jezebel! That name has become a symbol of evil that begins in the Bible and weaves its way through Jewish and Christian folklore. Jezebel has become a symbol of a woman who is sexually aggressive yet shameless. We will examine that turn at the end of this mini-series about Jezebel.   Who was Jezebel? Does she have a story of her own? Does she deserve the meme that she has become? Let’s start at the beginning and work our way through the m

Bathsheba’s son Solomon’s birth name was Jedeiah, ‘beloved by Yahweh’. In some ways he was like his father David, and in other ways he was not like his father. David came from the bottom of society up, Solomon was born royalty. David fought many battles and even had to fend off attempts by his sons to usurp the throne. Solomon was not a warrior but more like a sage, a wise man collecting wise sayings and writing poetry. Of course, David wrote poetry too as he composed many of

This will conclude the sub-series about the many wives of David. Let’s back up for a bit of perspective on this darker side of David’s life, his relationship with his wives and children. David was not much of a family man, it turns out.  Let’s clarify the chronological order. I presented episodes according to the particular wife I was writing about. However, the stories do overlap as do the wives. So, what order did they come in and what difference did it make? Michal  was

As you no doubt have guessed, I have a reason for putting the word ‘merry’ in quotation marks for this subseries. So far, the wives of David have not always been merry, and David has not always been thoughtful and kind. Seems that David was always lusting, rarely loving.    The affair with Bathsheba, including the killing of her husband, Uriah, seems to have been the tipping point that exposed David’s weakness as a husband and as a father.    Last week we read that God’s prop

“ Thou art the man! ”   “Everyone keep cool; nothing going on here, no deception. We’re just the people of God sitting around talking, right?”  “ Thou art the man!”  “Who keeps saying that? And why is he speaking King James English? Maybe we will wake up; it’s a nightmare, right?”  Yes, David and Bathsheba, it is a nightmare, but you are not asleep. Instead, Nathan the prophet is here in the king’s court, and he has been telling a story. Wind it back a little. Listen again to

“ Thou art the man! ”   “Everyone keep cool; nothing going on here. We’re just the people of God sitting around talking, right?”  “ Thou art the man!”   “Who keeps saying that? And why is he speaking King James English? Maybe we should wake up; it’s a nightmare, right?”  Yes, David and Bathsheba, it is a nightmare, but you are not asleep. Instead, Nathan the prophet is here in the king’s court, and he has been telling a story. Wind it back a little. Listen to the story that

One would think that David has enough wives; but his attitude and behavior toward women is his weakness. His character flaw carries over into the next generation; it is also Solomon’s weakness. We saw some of the results because we followed the woes of David’s wife Maacah to its end, that is, until Scripture stops telling her story. That tragedy happened after this affair with Bathsheba. In fact, this case of adultery unwinds David’s life.   Who was at fault? Scripture is not

We return to the conclusion of the story of Maacah, the only royal princess among David’s wives. She was in grief over the rape of her daughter Tamar by one of David’s other children, a son by a different wife. Amnon had tricked David to send Tamar to him. He faked being sick, but then overpowered Tamar. It was a deceitful and violent rape. However, King David, the leading judge over the land, did nothing to comfort Tamar and Maacah nor did he punish Amnon. The text says th

Thanks to Luke, we have more insight into Mary’s thoughts, wishes, and suffering than we do for most other women in the Bible. Luke says that he “ investigated everything carefully from the very first.” My own guess is that, among his informants, that is, among the “ eyewitnesses and servants of the word” that he consulted, was Mary. Mary was young when Jesus was born, perhaps just 15, and we know that she lived into the AD 30s because she was at the cross. She could have li

Did you ever feel like you are not getting the respect that you deserve? Other people are emerging as the big players on the field while you remain on the sidelines. It may be that this wife of David felt that way. Or perhaps early in her lifetime, she was in the game, maybe even cherished by David at one time, but we don’t read much about later in life. Her name was Maacah. She was the mother of Absalom, Tamar, and Hanan. And therein lies the tale.  After Saul and his son Jo

Abigail you may have heard of, and David you know; or at least you think you do. Maybe you know the good parts with that one big mistake with Bathsheba. There is more, though, as you will see later.  While David was on the run, King Saul took back his daughter Michal and gave her to another man as his wife. From the devotionals for the last two weeks, we know that during this time he took a widow named Abigail as his wife. We actually know something about her.  However, at ab

Did I say that Abigail was clever? Actually, Scripture says “ The woman was clever and beautiful”  (I Samuel 25: 3). David said that she had good sense. At least one person in the marriage had good sense; Nabal did not.   Nabal failed in the basic community responsibility of hospitality to strangers and visitors. Nabal failed to discern God’s hand in the struggle of David against Saul. Nabal gave harsh treatment to David’s young men without a thought about the possibility of

David was on the run from his maniacal father-in-law, King Saul. He left his wife behind. Michal was Saul’s daughter, as we are often reminded in I Samuel 18. That relationship got more complex as Michal was pulled between her father and her husband. David’s first wife was not so merry after all. Eventually, Saul gave her to another man.  David was hiding out in the wilderness of Paran in southern Israel, west of the Dead Sea. I Samuel 25 describes a rich man who was living t

A disclaimer right up front, maybe two disclaimers. First, I just stole a title from Shakespeare; there is no evidence that David’s wives were merry. Some were downright sad, at least part of the time.  Second, in the story as told in the Bible, David is the main character; the wives ranged from little voice to no voice. They were in the midst of internal political strife in Israel; and they were often pawns or peripheral to the disputes (no surprise there!). Yet, they had a

Hannah had a promise to keep.  “ When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine. She brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh, and the child was young. Then they slaughtered the bull and brought the child to Eli. And she said, “Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence praying to the LORD. For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me the pet