To Speak of Barzillai the Gileadite

i’m still back in Arequipa for a few hours yet.

i think that we have established how i feel about cities, so i´m not going to bother with more of that.

But… i feel like i don´t have much new from my trip to discuss… i’ve just been doing boring logistical things, and at 8:30 i’ll be catching a bus to Cusco.

i probably will regress to Arequipa in my next post to get a few pictures up that i haven´t had time to look at yet, but for now, i’m going to speak on slightly broader issues.

My hotel in Arequipa was named Hotel Mahanaim. This is a word that Peruvians can’t really say… it defies a lot of phonetic and practical rules in Spanish. i thought it was a funny and obscure name… but my reading coincidentally shed some light on it.

In 2 Samuel 13 we see one of the terrible results of David’s multiple marriages. In this chapter, one of his sons, Amnon, finds himself madly in love with his half-sister, Tamar. After raping her, he finds that he then hates her. Tamar’s brother Absalom is enraged and kills Amnon, and as a result is exiled.

After three years, he was allowed to return to Jerusalem. During this time, however, he wins over some of the people and stages a revolt. David is exiled from Jerusalem.

There is a sequence of loyalties and betrayals that plays out over the next several chapters—this advisor flees with David, that one betrays him, the other one is loyal to David, but is sent back to confuse the plans of Absalom. The priests start to follow David, but are sent back in peace. This man curses David, that man blesses David.

And then we come to 2 Samuel 17—

“Then David came to Mahanaim. When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites and Machir the son of Ammiel from Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim, brought beds, basins, and earthen vessels, wheat, barley, flour, parched grain, beans and lentils, honey and curds and sheep and cheese from the herd, for David and the people with him to eat, for they said, ‘The people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness’”
--2 Samuel 17:24,27-29

There is a great battle between David and Absalom, Absalom is (treacherously) killed by David’s general, and David is able to return to Jerusalem. 2 Samuel 19 describes an interesting exchange with Barzillai:

“Now Barzillai the Gileadite had come down from Rogelim, and he went on with the king to the Jordan, to escort him over the Jordan. Barzillai was a very aged man, eighty years old. He had provided the king with food while he stayed at Mahanaim, for he was a very wealthy man. And the king said to Barzillai, ‘Come over with me, and I will provide for you with me in Jerusalem.’ But Barzillai said to the king, ‘How many years have I still to live, that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem? I am this day eighty years old. Can I discern what is pleasant and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats or what he drinks? Can I still listen to the voice of singing men and singing women? Why then should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king? Your servant will go a little way over the Jordan with the king. Why should the king repay me with such a reward? Please let your servant return, that I may die in my on city near the grave of my father and my mother. But here is your servant Chimham. Let him go over with my lord the king, and do for him whatever seems good to you.’ And the king answered, ‘Chimham shall go over with me, and I will do for him whatever seems good to you, and all that you desire of me I will do for you.’ Then all the people went over the Jordan, and the king went over. And the king kissed Barzillai and blessed him, and he returned to his on home.”
--2 Samuel 19:31-39

This is obviously a very large passage… seven chapters of 2 Samuel, with 12 verses in particular highlighted. There is a lot that can be drawn out of it… but i had just a few points that i wanted to make.

First… what a shame it is that we neglect great men such as Barzillai in our treatment of the scriptures. How clearly graces of boldness and generosity and humility and servanthood are so powerfully portrayed in them…

And his humility is very interesting to me. i think that all would agree that the text portrays him as very humble in spite of his great wealth. Yet look at the language that he uses: i think that we can assume that he was worthy of the reward that David wanted to give to him, and i think that it is safe to say that in his heart he knew that he was worthy of this reward. And when he declined it, note that he did not try to pretend to be unworthy. That would not be humility, that would be deceit and pretentiousness. Instead, he didn’t make his merit of the generosity an issue at all… he completely avoided the question of dessert. His humility was that his thoughts were on something besides himself, not that he thought little of himself.

It’s not that he thought little of himself… it’s that he thought of himself little.

And… i think i’m going to conclude, even though there is much more that i could say.

i encourage you to find a reading plan that guides you through the entire Bible in a year and that includes an Old Testament reading and a New Testament reading every day… the point not being that there is some special spiritual merit in reading the Bible from cover to cover in the magical time span of a year, but instead that there is so much richness in Scripture that we miss out on by skipping the “boring” parts, that there is great benefit that comes from a disciplined lifestyle as pertains to reading of Scripture, that reading Old and New Testament concurrently enriches both of them, and that sometimes God orchestrates things such that your rigid, objective plan has you reading about David’s time in Mahanaim as you sit in your room in Hotel Mahanaim. i believe that you will find that the more time you spend reading the Bible, the more relevant it will appear to you.

That is not the Bible changing. That is you changing.