We are told this is an “oracle of David”. That’s the word used when prophets speak for God. That would mean that David is just a mouthpiece for whatever God is trying to communicate.
![[1] “Study of King David” (adapted) by Julia Margaret Cameron](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/ff6591_389e92b4724f4615aef6c7adc45ac0c6~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_716,h_504,al_c,q_85,enc_auto/ff6591_389e92b4724f4615aef6c7adc45ac0c6~mv2.jpg)
2 Samuel 23:1-7
November 24, 2024
Dr. Todd R. Wright
There are a lot of famous last words. Some of them are stirring, some funny, some ironic.
Here are a dozen examples:[2]
"You too, my child?" — Julius Caesar, discovering that his stepson Brutus was among his killers.
"Never yet has death been frightened away by screaming." — Timur, who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia.
"I desire to go to hell, and not to heaven. In the former I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings, and princes, while in the latter are only beggars, monks, hermits, and apostles." — Niccolò Machiavelli.
“All my possessions for a moment of time!” – Queen Elizabeth I.
"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." — Union General John Sedgwick, at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House shortly before being killed by enemy fire.
"Pull up the shades; I don't want to go home in the dark." — O. Henry, American writer, to a hospital nurse.
"One last drink, please." — Jack Daniel.
"I done told you my last request ... a bulletproof vest." — James W. Rodgers, American murderer, facing a firing squad.
"I feel great." — “Pistol” Pete Maravich, American basketball player, before dying of an undiagnosed heart defect during pickup game.
"Are you guys ready? Let's roll." — Todd Beamer, a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93, before starting the revolt against the hijackers which caused the plane to crash near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on 9/11, sparing the US Capitol or the White House.
"Am I a sheep?" —Fred Rogers, reflecting on the Last Judgment described in Matthew 25.
"Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet." — Stephen Hawking, English physicist and cosmologist, in his book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions.
Eugene Peterson muses, “’Last words’ are words to be held on to, savored, and pondered. [They] are not trivial words, ‘throwaway’ words. [They] can be tested for authenticity against an entire life now available for examination. If a person’s life falsifies the words, we forget them. But if a person’s life is foundational to the words, we hold them dear.”[3]
What are we to make of David’s last words?
I don’t think they are meant to be funny or ironic … so that leaves stirring.
Are they stirring? Can they be, when we know so much about David’s life?
Let’s consider how these words function. I see four possibilities
Maybe they are an attempted cover-up. Calling David “exalted,” “anointed,” “God’s favorite” makes it seem like David’s past sins are being ignored or forgotten or pardoned.
Karla Suomala writes, “From this set of last words, one would never guess that David had an affair with the married Bathsheba and had her husband killed to cover up his actions, or that he ignored the rape of his daughter Tamar, which resulted in a war with his son Absalom that nearly ended his reign.”[4]
But this set of last words are not the only words we have about David’s life. We know the rest of the story. The narrator’s been candid about David’s best and worst moments, covering nothing up.
So maybe they have a different purpose. We are told this is an “oracle of David”. That’s the word used when prophets speak for God. That would mean that David is just a mouthpiece for whatever God is trying to communicate.
What is God saying? Well, it gets poetic.
God says, speaking through David, “One who rules over the people of God justly, is like the light of morning … gleaming from the rain on the grassy land.”
It sounds like Psalm 72 which lifts this prayer for a future king:
“May he live while the sun endures and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.
May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth.”[5]
In the Middle East, in an agriculture-based society, sun and rain are vital for survival. That’s still true. And in every time good leaders, like sun and rain, are necessary.
Scott Hoezee writes,
“Somehow [these words evoke] in our hearts precisely what we so often pine for in this world but so seldom get. So much of this world—and so [many] of the kingdoms of this world and the people who run them — are like a long dark night or an overcast day filled with storms and dismal showers. So much of the time we can do little more than hunker down and hope the long night will pass, hope the storms will pass, hope we will survive somehow in a world where too often it seems that the little people, the marginalized and the poor and the powerless, are overlooked if not actively shunted aside.”[6]
So maybe these last words are, in fact, God’s words… about what a king should be.
Or maybe these last words are a window into David’s unguarded heart.
Valerie Bridgeman writes, “It is through the psalms that we are made privy to David’s worship and worries, his praise and laments.”[7]
So… she continues, “Let’s assume that David is reminiscing and singing… But, as a former hospice chaplain, I know that when people come to the end of life, their memories often soften to ‘clean up’ the messiness of their lives.”
Maybe as he sings, David is remembering the high points of his life. The rest is too painful.
Maybe he sings hoping that the good he did outweighs the bad, as most people hope.
Maybe this last song is like singing along with the oldies station – it transports him back to a time when God made a covenant with him, back when life was simpler, back when he really was a man after God’s own heart, back before he blew things up and his life fell apart!
If that’s what his words are doing here, then he’s not much different from what we try and do at funerals – lifting up the good we saw in the deceased, the ways God was at work in their life, and the hope that God’s grace will be sufficient, as promised.
There is one more possibility that I want to share. The impending death of David means all of God’s people are facing a significant transition.
It is enough to make people anxious. Terrified, even!
Who will the new leader be? What will they be like? Will they govern with justice or violence? Will they be a person after God’s own heart or just tall and handsome … with beautiful hair?
Israel has been down this road before. So have we.
In his commentary on the text, Roger Nam writes of the audience for David’s last words:
“They knew that godless leaders could cause pain [- like a fistful of thorns]. But in the longer timeline, God’s sovereignty endures. God’s sovereignty extended far beyond the reigns of Saul [and] David, [of Absalom snatching the crown] and [eventually] Solomon [taking the throne]. It will surely extend far beyond the lifetimes of anyone reading this commentary, preaching on this text, or hearing a sermon in this lectionary cycle!”[8]
So take heart! As we listen to these last words before we transition from the end of one year into the advent of the next; as we anticipate the transition from one administration to the next; as we endure all the transitions in the life of this congregation, or the presbytery, or our individual lives, know that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end!
Earlier I ended my sampling of last words with a quote by Stephen Hawking – “Remember to look up at the stars not down at your feet!” He may have been a genius, but maybe he should have said, “Remember to focus on God, not earthly leaders.” Amen
[1] “Study of King David” (adapted) by Julia Margaret Cameron
[2] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_last_words for a list that includes dates.
[3] From First and Second Samuel, a Westminster Bible Companion publication, page 256
[4] From her reflections on the text for workingpreacher.org, 11/25/12
[5] From Psalm 72:5-6
[6] From his reflections on the text for cepreaching.org, 11/21/21
[7] From her reflections on the text for workingpreacher.org, 11/21/21
[8] From his reflections on the text for workingpreacher.org, 11/24/24
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