2 Sam 5.1-10; Ps 48; 2 Cor 12.1-10; Mk 6.1-13
Behind this laconic and enigmatic text lie antecedents only dimly perceived in other biblical texts.
Before David's day they were two barely related entities: 'Judah' comprised a congeries of different groups in the south, including, among others, elements of Canaanites (Gn 38.1-5) and Kenizzites (i.e. an offshoot of Edom, Gn 36.10-11, Josh 14.6,14). Deut 33.7 hints that at one time Judah was separated from the other 'brothers' who made up the descendants of Jacob. Deborah's song does not mention Judah among the ten tribes which marched down for YHWH against the mighty (Jud 5.13). Meanwhile, ever since the settlement of Canaan, 'Israel' designated the Joseph tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, with their allied clans in the central and northern region centered on Shechem. Belonging to the small tribe of Benjamin in between Israel and Judah, the first king Saul had begun to achieve some cooperation between the two groups, but Saul's enmity drove off David, and Saul's death è in battle plunged his people into deep crisis, followed by civil war between Israel following Saul's family and Judah following David.
David, accompanied by 'his men' (foreign mercenaries loyal to him) had settled in and around Hebron. Whether altogether with good will, or out of necessity imposed on theby this powerful man in their midst, the 'people of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah' (2 Ki 2.1-4). Only after 'a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David' (3.1; 'seven years and six months' 5.5) did the elders of the tribes of Israel come to David to make peace by submission. It was not, however, abject surrender; in the presence of YHWH (i.e. in a solemn religious ceremony) David king of Judah cut a covenant for the elders of Israel, and they anointed David king over Israel. A covenant required mutual recognition of duties and privileges, binding on the king as well as on the people.
Traditionally we refer to the time of Saul/David/Jonathan as the time
of 'the united kingdom,' but I think it more appropriate to call it a
'federated kingdom.' It was never fully united, and after experiencing
discrimination at the hands of David and especially Solomon, Israel
broke away from Judah (1 Ki 11).
As an independent city state with its own kingship and state religion,
Jerusalem lay between and effectively hindered communication between Israel
in central and northern Canaan, and Judah in the south. David and his
private army ('his men,' 5.6) conquered the city, and he made it his
private posssession, not a part of any tribal territory. Unlike Joshua,
David did not annihilate the inhabitants of Jerusalem but absorbed them
into his inchoate empire. From biblical and extra biblical sources (too
complicated to describe here), we may conclude that David seems to have
adopted many religious and political ideas from the Jebusites. David
instituted the census, effective basis for taxation, army recruitment, and
forced labor policies. Under Solomon this resulted in a nearly exact
duplication of pagan city states with absolute monarchies supported by a
subservient priest class functioning in an imposing temple attached to the
royal residence.
When David took Jerusalem from the Jebusites, he assured success by capturing the citadel, Zion, situated on a hill overlooking the Kidron valley to the east. Zion came to be applied to larger areas as the city grew, including the prominence on which Solomon built his temple. By the post exilic period the political and nationalistic significance of the material/geographical site had been absorbed along with mythological symbolism adapted from Canaanite religion. Mount Zaphon (modern day Mt. Casius--where? evidently in northern Syria) was the highest mountain known to them and the abode of the gods (cf Greek Olympus). There El and Baal exercised authority amidst the rest of the deities. In Israel 'zaphon' came to signify the north as a compass direction, but in Ps 48.2 it should be transliterated, as by NJBS, 'Mount Zion, summit of Zaphon.' The Korahite psalmists took this mythological/geographical symbol and applied it to their own hill, which actually was rather insignificant, even in its own physical surroundings. Zion here is designated the highest mountain in all the earth, visible everywhere. YHWH, who in early times was exalted as king over Israel is now praised as universal king in heaven. Dahood (AB) tends to agree with those who say Israel adopted the Canaanite symbolism and thought of Zion as the navel of the universe.
Commentators discourage attempts to identify which incidents of victory over attacking enemy kings may be indicated in 4-7. Reflecting upon the long experience of the people with their God, including national destruction, exile, and loss of political independence, the psalmist confesses his radical monotheistic faith. He can express joy at what he sees as the beauty and strength of the temple and city which he knows and experiences, but his faith far transcends all of that. Mays (Interpretation PSALMS, p 190):
The psalm interprets the city as the symbol of God who is the refuge of those who trust in him. . .Note that it is not the fortifications of Jerusalem but God himself who is haven; the citadels represent to the eye the refuge created by the rule of the LORD. . .The way in which the psalm speaks of Jerusalem as Zion, the city of David as the city of God, is a way of envisioning the earthly in terms of the heavenly, the temporal in terms of the everlasting.
Christian faith has taken over the symbolism and applied it to the Church: e.g. 'Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken, Zion, City of our God' (Presbyterian Hymnbook #446, based more specifically on Ps 87 than 48). Note that the compilers of the hymnbook scrupled not to follow the lead of the psalmist in transforming national/political material into spiritual: the tune is Austrian Hymn by Haydn, used as the national anthem of Austria and by the Germans for "Deutschland, Deutschland, ueber alles."
Mays again:
- The psalm uncovers what modern Christians can easily lose, the discernment of the church as a society created in the finite and temporal by the infinite and everlasting...A vocabulary is needed that is not congruent with buildings we build, organizations we devise, and rolls of conglomerate persons. Faith must also say of the church 'Holy... Catholic...body of Christ,' because, whether humble or imposing in its social form, it is constituted in its theological reality by the Spirit and name of God. It is the city of God, a society that represents and anticipates the coming reign of God.
In contrast to David, both Paul and Jesus experienced denial by those from
whom they ought to have received commendation.
Don't leap too soon to the vision of Paul; God's answer, 'My grace is sufficient for you;' and his declaration, 'Therefore I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecution, and calamities for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.' Note vs 1 and vs 11 which put the pericope in the broader context of the Corinthians' failure to defend Paul against those who deny his apostolic status and try to draw away his converts.
Paul would not accept support by the Corinthians, even though Jesus had told his disciples on evangelistic tour, 'the laborer is worthy of his hire.' Other apostles, accompanied by wives, lived off the Corinthians, rather luxuriously, and they exercised dominating authority even to the extent of physical violence. According to Paul: 'You put up with it when someone makes slaves of you, or preys upon you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or give you a slap in the face. To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that!' (11.20-21). For Paul, apostolic authority lay not in standing above the people and bossing them around, but in undergirding them, building them up, even to the extent of following the Lord's self sacrifice unto death.
Apparently the 'super apostles' or 'false apostles' who charmed the Corinthians claimed to have special visions and revelations from God. Paul could not claim any recent such experiences, but in 2 Cor 12 he refers back to the (only?) one he had had 14 years previously. Paul thought of himself in terms of Jeremiah, of Benjamin, called before birth, appointed to the nations. 12.2-10 hints that Paul in spirit entered the heavenly council of God, as Jeremiah had seemed to claim for himself by denying that the false prophets had done so: 'For who has stood in the council of the LORD so as to see and to hear his word? Who has given heed to his word so as to proclaim it? . . .But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people (Jer 23.18,22). Paul will not say 'I' but says instead, '. . .a person in Christ who. . .' But this great privilege does not demonstrate itself in outward show which would attract attention and admiration from others. On the contrary, along with it Paul receives a 'thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan,' which makes him outwardly weak and infirm, object of contempt by observers. In Job 1-3 Satan the adversary and troublemaker appears in the council of God, and Paul also may have this Scripture in the back of his mind.
For Paul, the great tragedy lay in the Corinthians' falling into the trap of external appearances of power and prestige, and their failure to recognize the authenticity of Paul's apostleship as demonstrated in their own rescue from a life of degradation and hopelessness by the ministry of Paul.
Here again we have a description of the true apostle, loaded with gifts
from his Lord and with suffering in the world. Outwardly the high honour
that his service brings with it is unnoticed. His own existence is
characterized by death; out of it there grows life, and only in that life
can his service for Christ be recognized; and that is what makes it so easy
for worldly Christians to despise the apostle, to think themselves his
equal, and to defy him and his authority. [Munk, Traditionally, especially influenced by the interpretation of Luke
4.16ff, people have assumed that the people of Jesus' home town synagogue
began with a favorable impression which turned hostile later. Jeremias
argues that even in Luke the initial reaction was not so much positive as
dubiously inquisitive. In Mark, the whole atmosphere is hostile. Their
astonishment at his teaching was not approving. (In itself, 'Isn't this the son of Mary?' they inquire. Not to call him by his
own name, which they must have known from his childhood, they imply he has
no known father. Even to have referred to a man as 'son of so-and-so'
when his personal name was known was an insult (as in 1 Sam 20-23 Saul
often referred to David as 'the son of Jesse,' after he had turned
against David who had formerly been very close and loved by Saul).
Not only do his fellow towns people reject Jesus, according to Mark,
even his own family do so likewise. Note that the scope of Jesus' words,
inclusive of his own closest family in Mark, receive gradual softening in
Matt and Lk, removing implied criticism of Jesus' family.
Christians criticize Jews for expecting a Messiah with characteristics of a
David who won victory and established an empire through military force, and
supported by the general populace. Too often we slip into admiration for
'success' measured in size, numbers, prestige, and wealth. Too many of us
still expect God to act from outside--upon nature by miraculously reversing
the natural order or by invading the world in cataclysmic eschatalogical
events of overwhelming visibility and power. Even those closest to Jesus
and to Paul could reject them by refusing to recognize the genuine power of
God at work interiorly and through weakness.
(Comments to Arch at
Mark highlights the hostility of Jesus' immediate family in 3.21-35. The
text begins with the effort of his family to take control of him, thinking
he had gone out of his mind (3.21). Next, the scribes from Jerusalem accuse
him of being in league with Satan, ruler of demons (3.22-30). Then, forming
a closure of incidence of opposition to Jesus, 3.31-35 has Jesus leaving
his mother and brothers and sisters 'outside' and announcing his true
kinship with those around him.