BOLD Daily Devotional: Discerning Kindness

So as I mentioned, we are going over 2 Samuel chapter 10, uh, David defeats the Ammonites.

2 Samuel 10 · chapter mention

Um, so before we go into this chapter, as I typically tend to do, I do want to do a little bit of going backwards to just to see how we got to this point.

So we won't go back necessarily too far, but um with this chapter being specifically focused on the Ammonites, I did want to just kind of dig in um to where they came from and then who King Nahash was.

Um, so if you would, um, I just wanted to go to back to 1 Samuel, and this would be chapter 10, um, just so we can kind of get a general understanding of the man and at the man I'm talking about Nahash.

So this is right after the time that Samuel anointed Saul as king.

So we all should remember the kind of not necessarily controversy because this is the word of the Lord, but um the conflict, because really um, you know, they should have trusted the Lord and you know, just kind of dealt with how the system was going before, but they wanted a king.

But one of the um situations around this time was Nahash.

So Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had been grievously oppressing the people of Gad and Reuben who lived east of the Jordan River.

He gouged out the right eye of each of the Israelites living there and didn't allow anyone to come and rescue them.

In fact, all of the Israelites east of the Jordan there, of all of the east, uh, of all of the Israelites east of the Jordan there, there wasn't a single one whose right eye and the hash had not gouged out.

So I just want to kind of get that, you know, just out the way because uh initially, if you just read um the beginning of chapter 10, and I'll go ahead and read a bit of it verbatim, you're just like, oh man, well, this this guy was nice to David.

So, you know, dang, how did where'd all of this come from?

Um, but I did uh a little bit of digging, and the hash actually just in Hebrew to straight up means serpent.

It just means snake, serpent, reptile, reptilian, etc., etc.

So just with that little bit of backstory we got of who this man was versus what's gonna happen in this chapter, it'll kind of help open our eyes.

So that's why I wanted to just take us back there instead of just kind of reading it flat based off of whatever, because you know, all of these things are tied in together with scripture, of course.

So, David, the feast of Ammonites.

Sometime after this, King Nahash of the Ammonites died, and his son Hanun became king.

Now, Hanun actually means blessed, and you know, whatever happy, blessed, favored, etc.

But Hanan is the son of the serpent, basically, if we if we kind of just take the way they uh place the names together.

Um, but Hanan became king.

David said, I am going to show loyalty to Hanan just as his father.

Nahash was always loyal to me, so David sent ambassadors to express sympathy to Hanan about his father's death.

So this is one of those times where it doesn't really say that um David, you know, prayed about this or the Lord came to him and told him to do this.

Um, it is in a similar um style as what he has been doing.

You know, he has been, you know, kind of settling debts and you know, looking for people that have helped him in the, you know, in the past, etc., like we see in the previous chapter, where he's like looking towards, you know, just kind of um, you know, lifting up someone from you know, Jonathan and Saul's align just out of respect for uh for you know who Saul was.

Saul was the anointed one.

We have we've seen all over and over again how David still honored that regardless of their personal conflict.

And then obviously, you know, he had a very strong friendship bond with Jonathan.

So this is kind of in that same vein.

Um, but as I just mentioned, it doesn't really say that he prayed about this, it doesn't really say that the Lord told him to do this.

So, you know, we do have to be careful, and I won't dig too deep in this, but we do have to be careful with kind of extending ourselves and doing acts of kindness that do not directly align with um the word of God or something that we've that's been spoken to us, you know, specifically by the spirit.

Um, so, anyways, so David sent ambassadors.

But when David's ambassadors arrived in the land of Amon, the Ammonite commander said to Hanan, their master, do you really think that these men are coming here to honor your father?

So, you know, we have a new king, we have, and then, but we still have his advisors, and we've kind of seen this throughout the scripture so far.

But these people that are able to whisper into the king's ear, they have just about as much or sometimes more influence than you know the king himself, because he's he's looking to them and then kind of just carrying out things that they're telling him to do.

So, and then also just one bit of historical thing that I did look up the Ammonites, they are actually direct um descendants of Lot and his younger daughter.

I know we went through that a few months back, so you know, there's just some other stuff going on here.

There's some other stuff going on in this kingdom and who they're descended from, and et cetera, et cetera.

So, you know, not saying that that's the be all end all and um, you know, of you know, of the story, et cetera, et cetera, but there is some stuff in the background going on here.

But no, David has sent them to spy to the city so he can come and conquer it.

So Hanan seized David's ambassadors and shaved off half of each man's beard and cut the robes at the buttocks and sent them back to David and Shane.

When David heard what had happened, he sent messages to tell the king, hey, stay at stay at Jericho, stay at Jericho until your beards fully grow out, then come back.

For they felt deep shame uh because of their appearance.

I thought, for some reason, though it might not be totally politically correct, but I kind of thought about Eddie Murphy and like, hey, nobody wants to see all of that.

Because he kind of seems like he stopped them halfway, like, hey, yeah, y'all don't y'all don't have to come back here like that.

Y'all just y'all, you know, get it together, then I'll I'll check on y'all a little later.

But it's was what happens here is um once they realize what they did um to anger uh David, once they realized or remembered or that, you know, and a lot of times what one thing I talk took from this is you know, people can offend you or do something that's obviously offensive, obviously wrong, but there's a sobriety that comes after that act.

Because um just looking at verse six, it is kind of interesting to me, like, oh, when they realize they, you know, they how much they angered the king, and I'm like, well, this is a king that you know has extended himself.

He has um you know come you know to you peacefully, and you've rebuked his ambassadors in an embarrassing way.

So of course, you know, he would be offended.

But anyways, they have the revel, they they have the um realization that they offended David, and they go ahead and hire um, they go ahead and hire like um uh what's that word?

Uh mercenaries, basically people that you pay to fight for you.

So they know they're in the wrong, they know that they they basically put themselves in in danger just with their, I guess just with a bad idea, with the wrong influence from the wrong person.

So that's a lot, that's something that we could also take turn, because as we you know say often, um, these are human stories, and we'll obviously continue that as we continue to learn more, you know, just inscription in general and really close to you know the stuff that's gonna follow in the chapters after this.

But these are human stories.

These are things that maybe we think that we're above, maybe we think that we would never fall into.

But ultimately, um, we all could, you know, fall victim to these things.

And you know, obviously we're not, you know, none of us here, you know, are you know sending soldiers here and there, or you know, we may not be, you know, dealing with you know diplomacy, maybe not yet, but this is these are lessons that we can apply to our actual life.

But I'll go ahead and just kind of finish things off from here.

When the people of Amon realized how seriously they angered David, they they hired and sent 20 Aramean foot soldiers from the land of Beth, Rehob, and Zobah from the king of Makai, and 12,000 from the land of Tog.

When David heard about this, he sent Joab, his nephew, and we'll hear a lot more about Joab kind of going forward.

Um, but Joab was a very, very um powerful man in David's army.

Obviously, him and David's relationship has been, so far from what we've seen, it has been complicated, but it'll kind of get further more complicated.

But he was somebody that's very important to David's rule because of his skills in battle.

But when David heard about this, he sent Joab and all of his warriors to fight them.

The Ammonite troops came out and drew up their battle lines at the entrance of the city, while the Arameans from Zobah and Rehab and the men for Tob and Makkah positioned themselves to fight in open fields.

When Joab saw that he would have to fight on both the front and the rear, he chose some of Israel's elite troops and placed them under his personal command to fight the Arameans in the field.

He left the rest of his army under the command of his brother Abishan, who was to attack the Anamonites.

If the Arameans are too strong for me, then come over and help me, Joab told his brother.

And if the Ammonites are too strong for you, I will come help you.

Be courageous, let us fight bravely for our people and the cities of God.

May the Lord's will be done today.

And ultimately, um, you know, as you could assume, because you know, we know that David's rule was was long, um, they did defeat this enemy.

But ultimately, I would say here, the biggest thing that I just got from this is um, you know, David viewed Nahash as potentially an ally, someone that was kind to him.

But ultimately, as we saw back in 1 Samuel, it seems to me that his kindness or his support may have more so been rooted in his dislike for Saul and his preceding view.

So sometimes, um, and I think this is a theme that I've kind of um went over a couple of different times, but you know, kindness is good, receiving kindness is good, but ultimately, you know, we know that our gifts and our you know our blessings come from the Lord.

So we do want to have just a bit of discernment when you know there's an act of kindness.

Um, we don't want to overextend ourselves, we don't want to, you know, just assume you know the heart of someone just because they're kind, because there may be altern alternative motives.

But with that, I will yield.