“But Absalom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad, for Absalom hated Amnon, because he had violated his sister Tamar.” (2 Samuel 13:22 ESV). I was a little surprised to come across a reference to a Cotterell and Turner’s book…
“O God, even though I am very little before you, this little, this being nothing before thee – is for me infinitely much. All else is to me worth nothing, absolutely nothing.” (Soren Kierkegaard). I don’t quite know where I…
CH Spurgeon is often noted as not only an extraordinary preacher but a pastor who had to deal with melancholy and depression. Some years ago I came across this wonderful ‘God-give remedy for melancholy’. (It was quoted by John Piper…
“A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. …Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’? It has been already in the ages before us.” (Ecclesiastes 1:4, 10). “A wise believer…
“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Back in my College days I wrote an essay on the book of…
The cover up – 2 Samuel 11. David Firth has written quite a long commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel in the Apollos series. I haven’t found the commentary style and format the easiest to work with though there are…
Dale Ralph Davis made my ‘Top 5 commentaries on 2 Samuel‘. He did so easily. It’s a superb commentary. There is a quote of Alec Motyer on the front cover of my edition which captures my sentiments: ‘I have lost…
I’ve been reading the PG Wodehouse novel ‘A Pelican at Blandings’. I’ve read it before but I do so enjoy savouring a Blandings saga before bed. The other night I came across this lovely description concerning Lord Emsworth who has…
“So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house.” (2 Samuel 11:4, ESV). It is interesting to…
Brueggemann notes the threefold use of ‘shalom‘ in this verse which seems to me to reveal the discord and alienation that is going on in David’s inner being. David is feigning interest in everyone else’s ‘shalom’ (well-being, peace) while he…
