All Articles For Day of Shadows

We turn to the eighth and the ninth verses of Isaiah 53, and, as quoting the original text, read the Word of God as follows, “From violence and judgment he was taken; and who of his contemporaries considered, that he was cut off from the land of the living, this stroke lighting upon him, because of the transgressions of my people?”

We are occupied with the transportation of the ark to mount Zion. There are some points in the narrative to which we must return. Stating that David with all the people that were with him went to Baal-Judah to bring up from thence the ark of God, the writer in anticipation of the events that he wants to relate continues, “whose name (the name of the ark) is called by the name of the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubim.” The thought conveyed is that the Lord put His name upon the ark.

But there was a fly in the ointment of his spiritual joy. The fly was Michal, the daughter of Saul. . As the ark of the Lord had come into the city and was passing David’s house, Michal watched the procession through a window. It already spake ill of her that she had not joined the celebrating multitude and was keeping her to the house. She simply wasn’t interested. She saw David dancing before the Lord as divested of his kingly robes and as clad in a linen ephod like all the rest of his servants. Perhaps he was the...

As terrified by the stroke that the Lord had laid upon Uzzah, David had carried the ark aside into the house of Obededom the Gittite. But as reassured by the visible tokens of the Lord’s favor toward Obededom’s house because of the ark, David again made preparations to bring up the ark of God “from the house of Obededom into the city of David.” The Chronicler gives a detailed account of all his preparations for the removal.

The Ark of the covenant had been taken from the house of Abinadab and carried to Mt. Zion, the city of David, where it was set in its place in a tent that David had stretched for it, chap. 6 of 2 Samuel. The fetching of the Ark from Kirjath-Jearim soon was followed by three wars, 2 Sam. 8:15. (This section must be put chronologically immediately after chap. 6). The enemies successively subdued were the Philistines over whom David already had gained a double victory (2 Sam.

That the revelation to David by Nathan forms a prophecy that reached its final fulfillment in Christ and the realities founded on His atonement is plain from the use that the New Testament Scriptures make of that prediction. “To which of the angels said he at any time, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son (Heb. 1:5). Here the writer quotes Nathan literally (II Sam.

We now pass on to the events narrated in chapter 8:1-14. As was stated, it is best to suppose that the wars and victories of which this section makes mention preceded the quiet at chapter 7:1, and David’s decision to build the Lord a house. Here the text states that David dwelt in his house and that the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies. We must now have regard to David’s victories over the heathen of which that rest was the crown.

“And they will break my covenant which I have made with them” (Deut. 31:16). Can the covenant be broken? This scripture says that it can. The carnal seed in the church—the non-elect baptized—do break the covenant. And apart from Christ’s grace, God’s believing people do likewise. That, too, is their great sin. First, let us see what this does not mean.

We are occupied with David’s successes in war. As was said, in order to appreciate these successes, regard must be had to the boundaries of the land that the people of Israel, in fulfillment of the promise, was made to inherit. As was explained, according to Num. 34 this inheritance was small. As was stated it included but a narrow strip of land approximately 160 miles in length and whose greatest width measured 50 miles. The territory occupied by the two and a half tribes east of the Jordan was added later.

We now turn to the 9th and 10th verses of Isaiah 53 and, as quoting the original text, read the Word of God as follows: “But they assigned him his grave with the wicked, but he was with the rich man in his death, because he had done no wrong nor was guilt in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him: he hath put him to grief. When his soul shall make a guilt offering for sin, he shall see his seed; he shall live long; and the purpose of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.”