1 Chronicles 18–20

We are in Chapter 18 of 1 Chronicles. I want to just remind you as we start to get into the chapters that we are going to deal with tonight, that 1 Chronicles is not just a repetition of 1 and 2 Samuel, and of 1 and 2 Kings. 1 and 2 Chronicles was written much, much later. We believe very strongly that it was written by Ezra. This was actually written after the time of the kings. When the time of the kings ended, you will remember that Israel went into exile in Babylon, which then was eventually taken over by the Persian Empire. For a period of 70 years, they were in exile. Then the nation of Israel came back to their homeland. But the time of the kings never resumed. This account is written after Israel came back from exile. Ezra has the benefit of looking back toward these historical events and writing down the things that he wanted to record for you and me about the kingship. One of the things that you will notice as you read through Chronicles is that it doesn't deal with the kings of Israel. It only deals with the kings of Judah. The Southern Kingdom. Now, that doesn't mean the kings of Israel aren't ever mentioned, because once in a while they are, but only when they are connected to the kings of Judah. This is really about the Southern Kingdom. In other words, this is about the Davidic line. 1 and 2 Chronicles is all about the Davidic line. Just remember that. It is about the line of David. Because the line of David is incredibly important. It translates into the New Testament, begins to speak to us about the coming of Messiah, and of course, about His next return for which we are awaiting, soon awaiting, His coming. I want to just remind you of that as we get into it. We are in chapter 18, if I didn't say that already. 1 Chronicles, chapter 18, and this chapter, in fact, the chapters we are going to look at here tonight, largely deal with David's victories as king. It begins in verse 1 by saying:

Now you are going to hear in a couple of chapters from now– actually the next chapter– you are going to hear about how he is going to still have skirmishes with the Philistines. You might think of, you might read that and think, Wait a minute, it says right here in verse 1 that he subdued them. Well, that doesn't mean that there weren't uprisings, because there were. David defeated the Philistines. David subdued the Philistines. But there were uprisings from time to time when an individual, a Philistine, would garner a bit of a following among his people and rebel against David's rulership in their lives. He would gather an army, and they would usually be quickly put down. We will see how that is going to happen here soon. But you will notice here that it says, “he took Gath and its villages (in other words, its surrounding villages) out of the hands of the Philistines.” Gath– as you will recall– was one of the primary cities of the Philistine kingdom. It was the hometown of David's former enemy Goliath whom he slew so many years earlier when he was but a teenager. Now years later he is able to not just subdue the Philistines, but take Gath, that city, and the city and the villages around it. In fact, and then it goes on to verse 2, and this is almost given as a passing comment. Just one verse,

which is interesting in light of the fact that David has lineage from the Moabites. And you guys know that so he has relatives, if you will, that are among the Moabites, and yet he defeated them, and they became his servants. Verse 3 goes on and tells us:

Let me just tell you that Hadadezer was an Aramean king. He ruled in the region of Syria east of Damascus. He wasn't the king of Damascus, but he was a king east of that area. And we are told here that he was a pretty powerful king when David defeated him. Look at verse 4:

This Hadadezer guy was a pretty powerful king to have an immense army of this size. We are told here that “David hamstrung all the chariot horses, but left enough for just 100 chariots.” For those of you who are animal lovers, I'm sorry you have to read that verse. But hamstringing a horse was –I guess I should say– is what we would call arms-control today, because horses were a powerful means of building an army. A king who owned a lot of horses had a powerful army. When David conquered a king who had that kind of military prowess, he would take steps to make sure that the king was not going to rise up anytime soon and challenge his authority and threaten the people of Israel. He would do that by limiting that king's ability to mount any kind of future attack by hamstringing his horses, thus, basically crippling them. And again, these kinds of verses have created challenges, particularly for animal lovers. But this is the way things were done in those days. Today, I guess we go in with inspectors and get rid of their nuclear stuff. But anyway, life was a little bit simpler back then. Verse 5:

That last line is something that Ezra wants you to know about David's established kingdom. That is that, wherever he went, he had victory. David was uncontested. He was undefeated in his military engagements. There was never a time when David was defeated up to this point. We are going to see this point come to an end, but up to this point, he had a perfect record. And it says here, wherever he went, David had victory. Why? Very clearly laid out for you and me in verse 6, the Lord gave it to him. God gave him that victory. Verse 7:

You can see that the Lord is already enabling Israel to amass many of the raw elements that are going to be used in the construction of the temple years later under David's son, Solomon. Verse 9 says that:

And by the way, Tou is a wise man, just in case you're wondering, here in verse 9, a lot of the kings, they were dumb. When David would have victory, they would gather their armies together because they believed it was a threat, and they would try to come against David, and they got defeated too. Or some of them got dragged into other scuffles that weren't even theirs. But because they were mercenaries, they would be given some money to come and join the battle, and they would get involved and end up getting defeated themselves, the various groups among the Syrians as we've seen, and so forth. But this Tou, king of Hamath, is an interesting guy. He hears that David conquers Hadadezer, and he basically, sends his son to bring all these gifts to David and say, Hey, good job, man. That guy was a pain in my side. And I hear that you've defeated him. Here's some gifts and gold and this, and so forth. I'm not going to fight you. But thanks for taking care of my enemy just the same. You have to appreciate that. That's some wisdom there. We're going to see some stupidity here in just a bit. That is why I'm pointing out the wisdom. It says in verse 12, “And Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, (and by the way, that's the brother of Joab,) killed 18,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt.” And by the way, that doesn't mean Abishai killed 18,000 guys himself. It means he took an army, or at least there was an army, a part of the army, of Israel under his command. He killed all those Edomites in what they called the Valley of Salt. Now here's an interesting thing about this comment that is given us here as it is recorded by Ezra, because in 2 Samuel, chapter 8, it tells of this same event. But it is attributed to David. Let me put this on the screen for you so you can see it. 2 Samuel 8:13 says: 2 Samuel 8:13 (ESV) And David made a name for himself when he returned from striking down 18,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt. And David made a name for himself when he returned from striking down 18,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt. That's a little odd, isn't it, because in 1 Chronicles it says that this was under the command of Abishai, the brother of Joab. Who did it? Who conquered the Edomites in the Valley of Salt? It is really very simple. Abishai, as we are told here in 1 Chronicles, was the commander who was on the ground and who won that victory for David. That is why in 2 Samuel we are told that David won, because it was for David. Whenever one of his commanders went out and won a victory, it was David winning a victory. It was attributed to David.

This isn't really an odd sort of thing. Maybe you've watched an old war movie or something like that, where, before the warriors rally to go out against the enemy, they'll yell out, for king and country!, charge!, or whatever, and here we go. But notice they say, For king and country. We are going to go do this for him. We're going to do this to support our king. In the newspapers, it would say that the king defeated this enemy, right? That's a very common sort of thing. All it means is that the warfare that happened under David's rule, was credited to David because it was done on his behalf, under his leadership. Therefore, he is credited as having won the victory. It's interesting, there is even a recorded time when Joab got a little tired of winning battles for David, and David getting all the credit. There's actually a recorded time when Joab said, You send an army to come finish this job, or I'm…Here, let me put it up on the screen. I’ll read it for you. 2 Samuel 12:27- 28. It says:

Here's Joab, who's getting tired of fighting just for king and country, and him getting all the credit, and he says, Hey, you get your army here and help out. Bring the rest of the guys. Or I'm going to call this one Joab. This is going to be the city of Joab. And I'm going to get the credit for this one. We are told that David actually came. And by the way, this very battle is something we are going to read about here. In the coming chapter. Verse 13: “Then he (obviously David) put garrisons in Edom, and all the Edomites became David's servants. And the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went.” Again, it says it, wherever David went. Undefeated time of victory for him. “14 So David reigned (and look at this) over all Israel, and he administered justice and equity to all his people.” Notice that two things are said there about David. First of all, he reigned over all of Israel. And secondly, it says he administered justice. Now, that's an interesting statement because, you see, David, and frankly the kings of Israel at that time, were much more than just kings in the sense of being military commanders. David was more involved in the military than most of the kings, frankly, being a fighter himself anyway. But David didn't just go to war. The kings were expected to take over the same responsibility as the judges of Israel. And the judges would judge between people and their disputes. And so David, we're told here, did that very thing and administered justice. We are told right here. He administered equity to all of the people. Now what's interesting about this is that this is a foreshadowing of what Jesus is going to do during the millennial kingdom. Have you ever wondered, we keep talking about Jesus coming back, Jesus coming back, Jesus coming back. Wonderful. But remember why He's coming back. First of all, He is coming back to establish His throne on the face of the earth. We know exactly where His throne is going to be. It is going to be on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem. We know that because the prophetic Scriptures tell us that, and we are told that the nations of the earth are going to go there. And what is Jesus going to do during the Millennial Kingdom? He is going to do exactly what it says David did during his reign. He is going to administer justice and equity to all the people. And because He is the true Prince of peace, there will be peace. This is given us in several different passages in the Bible. I want to show you just a few of them. First of all, in the Book of Psalms, verse 12, Chapter 96, it says:

Now, this doesn't just speak of a judgment of condemnation. This speaks of the fact that He's coming to be the judge, as the judges did in the time of the Old Testament. He is coming to judge in righteousness. He will sit upon a righteous throne and judge the people. Now here's another passage that's maybe a little clearer. This is from Isaiah, Chapter 2. It says:

In the last days the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established as chief among the mountains. It will be raised above the hills, and all (look at this, all) nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways (so that we will) so that we may walk in his paths.’ The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. (Look at this) He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.(In other words, the implements of war will be used instead for agriculture. And) Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they (even) train for war anymore. Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD. And then finally in a very similar vein from the Book of Micah, we read that:

He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

These are beautiful prophetic passages that have not yet come to pass. Good grief. Look at the news, and you know that we haven't come to a place of taking our implements of war and turning them into implements of agriculture. We know that these things are yet to come. But we know how they are going to come. This is one of the reasons why Ezra took the time to write about the Davidic kingdom, because the Davidic kingdom is this picture of that which is to come. As David conquers his enemies, Jesus will come as a conquering Savior. He will judge among the nations, as we have seen here prophetically. And nations… Can you imagine the President of the United States, if there even is a president even at that time. Or, it says, the leaders of nations far away will actually go to Jerusalem to have an audience with Christ the Lord, that He might settle disputes and take care of issues and bring peace. And it will be– and we know that He will be– successful, because we are told in these two different passages that they will lay down their implements of war. Isn't it interesting that there have been so many attempts to bring peace on the earth, and particularly to the Middle East? The Middle East has been– let's just face it– it has been a tinderbox that the slightest spark could ignite. Yet, the Prince of Peace will rule and reign right there, right at the center of where today we have the greatest threat of unrest and violence. That is where the Prince of Peace will dispatch peace for the whole earth at that time. It just sounds like God, doesn't it, to do things in such a crazy sort of way. But that is what is going to happen. David is for us this lovely picture of Christ during that time, during the Millennial Kingdom. Let's keep reading here in 1 Chronicles 18. We're finishing the last three verses of the chapter, and they are simply a listing of David's commanders, priests, and officials. It says,

17 and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites; (and by the way, he will become commander during Solomon's reign) And (then) David's sons (we're told) were the chief officials in the service of the king.” Chapter 19. Now, these next two chapters are going to deal largely with the Ammonites. Do you guys know who the Ammonites are today? Because they're still around. Yeah, the Ammonites still exist. We don't call them Ammonites anymore. We call them Jordanians. And what's interesting is that their capital city, which was Rabbah back then, is still there today, and it is called Amman, Jordan, which is the capital, the Jordanian capital. And so these are interesting. We are actually going to look at some things going on today here when we conclude, but it's always interesting when we're talking about people groups that are still around today. We are going to see here in these chapters how the Lord had David dealing with the Ammonites. Verse 1 says that: “Now after this Nahash the king of the Ammonites died, and his son reigned in his place. And David said, ‘I will deal kindly with Hanun the son of Nahash, for his father dealt kindly with me.’” Now stop there for just a moment. We don't know what event that Nahash is… did. We don't know what he did to garner the appreciation of David. This is not recorded for us in the Word, as far as I know anyway. In fact, during the reign of Saul, there were scuffles with the Ammonites. We don't really know what happened here, but something took place where David felt the need to honor this man, since he had died. He decided to send an entourage of individuals to express the king's sorrow at the passing of the king of the Ammonites. It says here in the middle of verse 2, “So David sent messengers to console him concerning his father. And David's servants came to the land of the Ammonites to Hanun to console him. 3 But the princes of the Ammonites said to Hanun, ‘Do you think, because David has sent comforters to you, that he is honoring your father? Have not his servants come to you to search and to overthrow and to spy out the land?’ “4 So Hanun took David's servants and shaved them and cut off their garments in the middle at their hips, and sent them away; 5 and they departed. When David was told concerning the men, he sent messengers to meet them, for the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, ‘Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown and then return.’” Stop here for just a moment, if you would. Obviously, this is an action by this new king of the Ammonites that was intended to humiliate and to shame David's men. He could have killed them. But instead, he wanted to humiliate them. He wanted to send a message to David that he couldn't send his men in there anytime he wanted and spy out his land. This is his land, and so forth. What a shame this whole thing was. Not for David's men, by the way, but for this foolish Ammonite king. All because he listened to his foolish advisors, he is going to get himself in a heap of trouble that is going to go on through the next chapter. We are going to find out that David is going to ultimately conquer this country, and he is going to basically enslave the people, all because this king was so foolish, so stupid. I brought up Tou earlier, who made a wise decision related to David. I wanted to point that out because I knew this one was coming up, and I wanted to contrast the two responses here. This man could have received David's men graciously instead of being suspicious, instead of being won over by his foolish advisors who had no idea. There was no proof, and the king never sought proof, that David's intentions were anything but genuine. This is one of the troubles we get into when we get advice from people who are telling us things that convince us of something being so, when in fact, they have absolutely zero proof to back up what they say. We have to be really careful about what people say, when somebody claims to know the intent of another individual. Do you understand, people, that that's something you and I cannot know? Do you know that we can't know a person's intent until it is revealed? We can't know it ahead of time. We would like to think we have that kind of knowledge, but we don't. Only God has that kind of insight. You and I cannot see into the heart of another individual. They may do something or say something, and our immediate response is to just become defensive. How in the world could they say that? And what is it they mean by that anyway? And of course, what goes through our minds, good things? Do we come up with all kinds of good scenarios about what somebody meant when they said that? No, we never do. We always come up with the worst case scenario, don't we? We concoct in our mind the absolute worst situation we can possibly think of, and we just go, Well, and then we get all offended, and we get all angry, and we have absolutely no clue. Sometimes we base it on past actions. But we don't know exactly what is happening here. David had no desire to spy out this land. He came with absolutely nothing but peaceful intentions to express his sorrow at the death of this man's father. We are going to see how it plays out here, when we listen to foolish advisors. I bring that up because the Bible says that there is safety in a multitude of counselors (Proverbs 11:14). But it assumes that they are good counselors. It doesn't mean that every counselor is a good person to listen to, because, listen, there's a lot of people who are willing to give you their counsel. Just get on the internet. Well, I take that back. Just don't, when you're looking for counsel. That's not a place to go. Usually it's just not a good, safe place to go. But I see people doing it all the time, getting on the internet, opening up to the world and going, What do you guys think I should do? Merciful heaven. It gets weird from there. We need to go to the Word of God, don't we? We need to go in prayer. We need to seek the counsel of God's Word before we seek the counsel of men, because men are dopey sometimes, really dumb, and God is full of great wisdom and insight. He sees clearly the things that you and I cannot see. So how does this play out? Verse 6: “When the Ammonites saw that they had become a stench to David, (and that's a simple way of saying that he was ticked, it says that) Hanun and the Ammonites sent 1,000 talents of silver to hire chariots and horsemen from Mesopotamia, from Aram-maacah, and from Zobah.” Wow. This guy is a charmer, isn't he? Instead of admitting his mistake, which– David had a history of responding favorably when people admitted that there was– that the offense that came against David– was either unintended or was done by someone who he really didn't, shouldn't listen to. I'm thinking about Abigail and her husband (1 Samuel 25). Remember that situation? Her husband insulted David's men when David came at the time of harvest to say, Hey, we've been watching over your flocks out in the fields. We made sure that nobody, no harm came to your men, no harm came to your flocks. And now that it's shearing time, and this and that, why don't you share in some of the blessing with your servants? You remember what Abigail's husband said? His name was Nabal which basically had a very derogatory meaning. And he's like, Who's this David character that I should take my money and give it to him? But you will remember what happened. David got pretty angry. In fact, he was intent on doing some real harm to Nabal and his family. But Abigail came and presented herself before him, even while David was on the way. And she appealed to his better sense of forgiveness and grace and mercy, and he responded favorably. People often do when we take the time to go to him and say those three incredible words: I am sorry, or please forgive me, and preferably those altogether. It's really amazing what can happen when you just take the time. What does this guy do? Instead, he decides the best thing to do is to spend a lot of money to cover it up.

He is basically going to take his mistake, and he is going to try to cover it up with another mistake. And it is just going to go from bad to worse. It says in verse 7 that,

It wasn't worth the payment price. That’s, I threw that in there. How could this situation have changed? It's really sad, isn't it? There is all this bloodshed, all this loss of life. And you think to yourself, that was all unnecessary. Every single bit of it was unnecessary. There was no reason for these people to die. We see the error that Hanun made related to this whole thing, how he treated David's men. Well, first of all, how he listened to those idiotic advisors who spoke as they did, foolishly, without any basis of fact or evidence. Then we saw what he did to David's men, and then how he hired a mercenary army along with his own to come against David, and so forth. What could he have done differently? Jesus gives us the answer, interestingly. It is in the Book of Luke. I want to show you this. It goes like this:

As you go with your accuser before the magistrate (that's the judge), make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny. Now, granted, this passage is not about armies, or kings, or nations. This passage is about two individuals who have an issue of some wrong that took place where one of them is going to take this case before a judge so that it might be determined who in fact is at fault, so that whatever needs there are for restoration can take place. But Jesus is basically giving a word here to the guilty party. And He's saying, Listen, when you know you're at fault, when you know you've done something dumb; you've listened to bad advice; you've had foolish advisors in your life, and you've made a really bad decision, don't make matters worse by trying to cover it up or trying to do something to save yourself out of it. Deal with the situation through confession and forgiveness. By the way, this passage is also obviously something that you and I can apply to God. If – I'm assuming that every one of us, at some point in our lives, came to the determination, I am guilty before God– Well, we decided, You know what, I'm not going to wait until Judgment Day to work this thing out. I'm going to go right now, and I'm going to say to Him, can we work this thing out? Can we work out terms of peace? And God says, You know what, I've actually already done the work for you. You believe in My Son as Savior. And I tell you what, I'll wipe out all of your sin. We all said, That's the best deal I've ever heard. And we accepted it, and we received it, and we were forgiven. That's great advice. But this passage also speaks to those situations where we have made blunders, and where we need to simply go to the person and say, That was really stupid. What I did was really dumb. It was really foolish. And I need to ask you to forgive me. I want this thing to be restored because I see that I've been, I was, in the wrong. That's what Hanun could have done. And he could have saved all that loss of life. The loss of his army, the loss of his own freedom. Oh, our pride is really something to behold, isn't it, sometimes? Chapter 20: “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle…” Why did kings go out to battle in the spring of the year? You ever think about that? It sounds dumb to you and me to hear him say, There's a certain time when kings used to go out to war. Really. Why would they go in the spring? The reason kings would go out to war during the spring is because they had to take care of their entire army. An army eats a lot, as you can well imagine. And so they would go during the time of the early harvest when they could go into the land where they were attacking, and they could literally feed off the land. That is why in the spring of the year they would go off to war, because they could support their army during that time. We are told here that, “Joab led out the army and ravaged the country of the Ammonites and came and besieged Rabbah.” This is that passage we read about a little bit earlier tonight. And as I told you before, Rabbah was the capital city of the Ammonites. It is where Ammon is right now, the capital city of Jordan. This is the same group of people that we dealt with in the previous chapter, who treated David's men shamefully when he sent them to honor the passing of their previous king. We are told here at the end of verse 1, “But David remained at Jerusalem. And Joab struck down Rabbah and overthrew it.” And by the way, if this verse sounds really familiar, it's because it probably is. It is very similar to what we read in the eleventh chapter of 2 Samuel. I won't take you, won’t have you turn there. But 2 Samuel actually goes on to chronicle for you and me one of the lowest times in David's entire life. This was the time when David stayed home and up on the balcony of his palace looked down upon the rooftops of the houses and saw a beautiful woman bathing.

Her name was Bathsheba, and he took her, had adultery with her even though she was married, and then tried to cover up his sin by having her husband killed in the line of duty. Ezra omits that. Ezra is not going to talk about it. He is not going to bring it up. But I want you to know, it is not because it wasn't important. It was obviously an epoch in David's life. Not a good one, a bad one. But (David, excuse me) Ezra is not bringing it up because it is not the point of why he wrote these chronicles for you and me. It wasn't the purpose. He is not excusing David in any way. He is rather trying to point to the kingdom, and the kingdom under David as a picture of what is to come. We are told here in verse 2, “And David took the crown of their king from his head. He found that it weighed a talent of gold (by the way, which is 75 pounds. That's a heavy crown. You wouldn't want to wear that very long. I would imagine that would produce a headache after a while. Talk about being a headache, or getting a headache being king), and in it was a precious stone. And it was placed on David's head. 3 And he brought out the spoil of the city, a very great amount. And he brought out (all) the people who were in it and set them to labor with saws and iron picks and axes. And thus David did to all the cities of the Ammonites. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.” By the way, this is the end. This is the end of how the situation between Israel and the Ammonites concluded. This is the end of the foolish king who wouldn't receive David's men in genuineness, but in pride rather attack them. This is how it all ends. His kingdom is decimated. His people are put into forced labor. His treasuries are gone. Because of pride. And that should be a lesson for all of us. Verse 4: “And after this there arose war with the Philistines at Gezer.” Now, let me stop you because, when we first started tonight, I pointed out that the very first verse that we read was that David subdued the Philistines. Yet now we read that there is more war going on with the Philistines. This is what I was telling you. These skirmishes would rise up under the leadership of an individual. We'll see how they're quickly put down. It says (I'm still in verse 4): “Then Sibbecai the Hushathite struck down Sippai, who was one of the descendants (or sons) of the giants, and the Philistines were subdued. Read that again. This Sippai character was one man who generated a rebellion among the Philistines against David's rule. You can imagine David's rule chafed. The Philistines chafed under his rule. They were used to being a self- governing people. They were the big guy on the block for a lot of years.

They made their way into other countries and beat them up. Now they were being subdued by David. And they didn't like it. Every so often, one of their young men would rise up and say, We're not going to take this stuff from David anymore. Who's with me? Yeah, let's go. And he would be some, and it says here, these were big men. This Sippai is known as a Rephite, which is actually a descendant of Rapha, which is sometimes translated giant. All we know is they were groups of people who lived in Canaan before Israel got there. They were people of great size. But notice that one of David's mighty men, this Sibbecai, quickly ended this uprising by defeating Sippai, this Philistine, and everybody else went home. The second cameo goes like this: “5 And there was again war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair struck down Lahmi (Lahmi, he was) the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.” and by the way, if you read this story in 2 Samuel (21:19) Lahmi is actually called Goliath, after his brother. It says here that, “6 And there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty four in number, and he also was descended from the giants. (Too bad this guy didn't run off with the circus, because) 7 when he taunted Israel, (it says) Jonathan the son of Shimea, David's brother, struck him down. “8 These were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.” This passage essentially ends, here, the period of David's reign where he was completely undefeated in battle. Because even though Ezra doesn't mention it, David's failure with Bathsheba brought on a period that was very negative and somewhat dark in Israel. It mostly revolved around David's own family. David's family really blew apart after this event, and the problems within his household were just terrible. But, thus goes the consequence of sin. One of the things I want to bring up here in closing tonight, since we are talking about Israel, and we are looking at the history of Israel here through the Chronicles written by Ezra, is that, I don't know if you are aware of it, but today is a historic day as we remember historic days. Today is a day of prophetic fulfillment. It is the anniversary of prophetic fulfillment. Those of you who are online, you might have seen my note on Facebook, but 70 years ago today, November 29, 1947, history was made. I want to read to you some information that was written by Joel Rosenberg on his blog today. Some of you may know who Joel Rosenberg is, some of you may not, but again, if you check out my Facebook page you'll see this link. I want to read you what he said here, because it has to do with the nations that we are talking about, including Jordan, today. Listen to this: “The United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of Resolution 181 to divide the land of British Mandated Palestine to create (a govern is, excuse me, to create) a sovereign Israeli Jewish state and a sovereign Palestinian Arab state. The plan was controversial. It was by no means clear the resolution would pass. Jews and Christians around the world listened by radio to the vote anxiously, prayerfully. And to their astonishment, in the end the resolution passed. Thirty- three states voted in favor, including the United States (of America) Thirteen states voted against. Ten states abstained. True, Jewish leaders living in Palestine at the time wanted much more land than the U.N. plan offered. But in the end they accepted the plan. After two thousand years in exile from the Biblical land of Israel, (the world was finally given excuse me,) the world was finally giving Jewish people legal permission to re-gather and rebuild (Israel) the ancient ruins. (And by the way, this is a fulfillment of prophecy. The Jewish nation being regathered. And this is preparation for the last days.) Six months later– on May 14, 1948– David Ben Gurion formally declared Israel's independence. Tragically, five Arab states immediately launched a war to destroy the reborn state of Israel. Seventy years later, the conflict is still not resolved. Millions of Palestinians live in poverty and discouragement. Their leaders have been offered peace treaties multiple times by multiple Israeli leaders, but thus far have not agreed. That said, there has been progress in the region. (And then he goes through and lists some of these interesting points.) In November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat stunned Israel and the world by making a historic and completely unexpected visit to Jerusalem to address the Knesset. In September 1978, President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin spent thirteen days at Camp David with President Jimmy Carter hammering out the framework of a peace treaty.

On March 26, 1979, Sadat and Begin met at the White House and formally signed a comprehensive peace treaty with Israel, ending that conflict and establishing full diplomatic and economic ties. (Here's an interesting note here about a country that we've been reading about tonight:) On October 26, 1994, Jordanian King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a comprehensive peace treaty between the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan and the State of Israel. (And then finally) In recent years, a growing number of Sunni Arab nations– including Saudi Arabia– are quietly building diplomatic, intelligence, and security relationships with Israel.” flashtrafficblog.epicentermedia.net November 29, 2017. Interesting comments.