2 Samuel 14; Psalm 113; Romans 15

June 14: When Jesus restricted His personal ministry to only Israel, He was fulfilling the promises made to the Patriarchs and laid down in prophetic Scripture. But His interest in the “other sheep…not of this fold” showed how deep His love went: to the most defiled, in the dust and dunghill. In His self-humbling, His love and wonderful grace is shown.

2 Samuel 14: The drama and intrigue of David’s court is of a very sophisticated sort. We have David’s General putting a wise woman up to act out a parable to David? Was it a manipulation, or was it according to God’s perfect will? Amnon deserved to be put to death, according to Deuteronomy 22:25-27, but it should’ve been according to the law, with an official trial. Should Absalom have done it? No, but David wasn’t doing it. Still, taking matters into his own hands made him liable to civil judgment, and David was obviously unsure of what to do when Absalom fled to Geshur in Syria. So Joab conceived a way for him to be reunited with the son he could tell he longed for. Ultimately this was God’s design to chastise David as He had promised, but the wise woman’s statement about God is portentous: “Neither doth God respect any person: yet doth He devise means, that His banished be not expelled from Him.” (2 Samuel 14:14)

Psalm 113: Does Psalm 113:6 parallel Philippians 2:8? In one sense, God would be “humbling Himself” just to take note of things that occur on earth, as Psalm 8:4 implies. But in typical fashion, the Old Testament teases something its original readers couldn’t have known except by divine revelation: exactly how God would humble Himself to behold the things in the earth. By becoming a man obedient even to the death of the cross, that He may raise up the poor out of the dust, the needy out of the dunghill, to set him with princes, even people from the east and west to sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 8:11)

Romans 15: Why was Jesus’ ministry limited to the Jews only? He protested to the woman from Canaan that He had only been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24), but also indicated that there were “other sheep… which are not of this fold” (John 10:16). Here in Romans 15, Paul tells us it was to confirm the promises made to the fathers that Jesus’ coming was to the Jews. Yet the Gentiles would quickly glorify God for His mercy, as the Scriptures predicted.