Gilbert House Fellowship

IMAGINE AN ORCHESTRA of 4,000 musicians playing hymns of thanksgiving and praise! That’s what David envisioned when he organized service for the temple that would be built. This week, we read through the detailed description of the plans made by David for temple service. It may seem like a boring section of scripture, but it illustrates the central role of God in the lives of His people—at least f...

DAVID SAW into the throne room of God—a vision used by Jesus himself to reveal his divinity. Psalm 110:1 reads: [Yahweh] says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” Jesus used this verse to teach that “my Lord” (Hebrew adoni ) was not David, since David was the author of the Psalm (see Matt. 22:44, Mark 12:36, Luke 20:42, and Acts 2:34). The conclusion is tha...

A PLAGUE that spread through the kingdom of David led to the consecration of a 35-acre piece of ground that is fought over to this day. This week, we discuss the sin of David in ordering a census of his kingdom. If God “incited” David, why was the census a sin? And why is there is a difference between 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles, which names Satan (or “an adversary”) as the one who incited David to...

A DAY is coming when Jerusalem becomes “a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples.” This is a prophecy of the Day of the Lord, or the Day of Yahweh, which culminates at Armageddon. Zechariah saw the coming of Messiah, and the key verse in our view is Zechariah 12:10: “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that,...

THE CONFLICT between Israel and Hamas continues with a ground assault of Gaza apparently imminent. We continue our review of scriptures that appear to prophesy a coming destruction of the territory around Gaza that was Philistine from the time of the Judges until the Persian conquest of the region in the 6th century BC. We learned this week that the chief god of Gaza, Dagon, continued to be worshi...

YOU KNOW by now that Israel was surprised by an attack from Gaza Saturday morning, which was essentially the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. We set aside our scheduled reading for today to discuss the events in Israel, which as of this recording have left some 600 Israelis and 370 Palestinians dead, with thousands injured on both sides. Instead, we look at the books of Amos and Zephan...

ONE OF THE JOYS of Bible study is discovering layers of meaning that you’d missed on your first reading. This week, we run into another instance of the English phrase “worthless idols” (Ps. 97:7b). We think the context indicates that the Hebrew word elîlîm refers to supernatural beings (angels, if you like), not carvings of wood and stone. This is emphasized by the exhortation to the unseen realm...

GIVING THANKS in the middle of trouble is difficult, even contrary to our nature. But David did it again and again, even when he was surrounded by enemies—not all of which were human. This week, we discuss a preview of the last words of David juxtaposed with a psalm he probably wrote while hiding from Saul at the cave of Adullam. The “lions” and “fiery beasts” of Psalm 57:4, while linked to “the c...

DAVID WAS not perfect, but he recognized his failures. More importantly, he acknowledged that God was the source of his salvation—his yeshua . This week, we study four psalms dated to the last part of David’s life. This followed the rebellion and death of his son, Absalom, his near-death at the hands of one of the Philistine “sons of the Rapha,” and his decision to eliminate the male heirs of the...

THIS WEEK’S STUDY is a song of deliverance that follows the account of David’s final victory over the Philistine “sons of the Rapha.” 2 Samuel 22 is nearly identical to Psalm 18, which we studied immediately after the account of Saul’s death in battle with the Philistines. In this psalm, David expresses his gratitude to God for His salvation (which in Hebrew is yeshua ), deliverance, and faithfuln...

THE BELIEF that the Philistines were giants (or had giants among them) with six fingers and toes on their hands and feet comes from 2 Samuel 21. That’s not necessarily what those verses mean. As we discussed in our study of 1 Samuel 17, the oldest Hebrew sources, the Dead Sea scrolls and the first-century historian Josephus, record that Goliath of Gath was four cubits (not six) and a span, or abou...

THE POLITICS of David’s day was just brutal and bloody as it is today. Following the rebellion of Absalom, the people of Israel conclude that their best option is to welcome David home as king. For his part, David tried to win the loyalty of his relatives in the tribe of Judah by replacing one of his nephews, Joab, as commander of the army with another nephew, Amasa—who, we failed to mention, had...

DAVID’S CAPACITY for self-examination is remarkable. Many powerful people throughout history found it difficult, if not impossible, to admit flaws and learn from mistakes. However, David also understood the influence of spirits in the unseen realm on human activity, condemning the elim (“gods”) who administer affairs on Earth unjustly. We also discuss “the proud” in Psalm 40:4. The Hebrew word reh...

ONE OF THE hardest things you can do is give thanks to God in the middle of trouble. This week, we read a collection of psalms composed by David while he was running from his son Absalom, who’d raised an army and was marching on Jerusalem. Remarkably, in the midst of David’s heartbreak, realizing that either he or his son would die in the battle to come and reflecting on his failures as a father,...

DAVID WAS NOT a good father. That’s obvious from the way his own children treated each other—and him. Sometimes, kids turn out badly despite their parents’ best efforts, but David seems to have been unable to discipline his sons. Amnon, his eldest, raped his half-sister, Tamar, and was murdered by David’s second son, Absalom. After a few years in exile, he returned to Jerusalem and began plotting...

TALK ABOUT ingratitude: David’s son Absalom, who’d fled to his grandfather’s kingdom of Geshur, returned to Jerusalem after a two-year exile and apparently began scheming to remove David from the throne as soon as he came home. We discuss the ploy by Absalom’s cousin, David’s nephew Joab, to return the king’s oldest surviving son to Jerusalem, and how Absalom forced Joab to meet with him and arran...

THE PSALMS this week follow our chronological reading order, meaning they were written by David after he was confronted by the prophet Nathan for conspiring to kill Uriah the Hittite so that David could take his wife, Bathsheba. We discuss the repentant heart of David that comes through in these psalms—acknowledging his guilt and pleading with God to wipe away his sin, transgression, and iniquity....

DAVID’S PLOY to take the wife of Uriah the Hittite is another story that shows that the Bible has not been cleaned up to make the humans used by God look more, well, saintly. Bathsheba, whose name probably derives from Hurrian meaning “lady of Hebat,” the chief female deity of the Hurrian pantheon, was impregnated by David while her husband, Uriah the Hittite, fought with the army in Ammon. After...

THE TONE of this week’s psalms seems odd given the military victories of David that we studied last week. This is why we use a chronological reading order: We see in this week’s readings that David, despite his success on the battlefield, really grappled with the opposition he faced from enemies both from without and within his kingdom. But despite his occasional cries of despair, David always ret...

DAVID’S KINGDOM faced a strong test from his neighbors to the east and north as a coalition of Ammonites and Arameans tried to take down the new Israelite kingdom. We discuss the nearly identical accounts in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles and the wonderful attitude of David’s nephew and general Joab when confronted with enemies in front and behind: “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our...

DAVID’S KINGDOM expanded outward in all directions, possibly reaching as far as the Euphrates in northern Syria. This week, we read the records of David’s wars against the Arameans of Damascus and Zobah to the north, the small kingdoms east of the Jordan (Ammon, Moab, and Edom), and the Amalekites in the south. We discuss the historical context of David’s reign and the recent discovery of an Iron...

A SUPERNATURAL worldview was perfectly natural to King David. It’s clear from his psalms that he had a better understanding of the unseen realm. After recapitulating the prayer of David from last week’s reading of 2 Samuel 7, we discuss references in his psalms that point to spiritual beings, such as “heavenly beings,” the bene elim (literally, “sons of God”) of Psalm 29:1. For all of his faults,...

DAVID WAS not a perfect man by any measure, but if we draw anything from this week’s study it should be his example of humility when he realized that he’d become a little too full of himself. The narrative is another account of bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, which we previously studied in 1 Chronicles 13–16. Afterward, David proposed building a temple to God, but the Lord appeared...

DAVID KNEW that God had a divine council comprised of supernatural beings. We see more confirmation of that in this week’s study. Psalm 89 mentions the “holy ones” (Hebrew qedoshim ) and “heavenly beings” ( bene elim , literally “sons of God”) who are in his assembly. The psalmist goes on to praise God for His power in mastering the sea (Ps. 89:9–10). In Hebrew, that’s yam , the Canaanite name for...

THERE IS MORE spiritual warfare in the psalms than we realize! This week, we study three of David’s psalms that have more going on under the hood than is obvious at first read. Psalm 24 praises God for founding the earth “upon the seas and… the rivers.” In Canaanite religion, Baal became king of the gods after a battle with Yam (“Sea”), the embodiment of chaos (i.e., Leviathan), who is often calle...