The Davidic Covenant in Samuel and Psalms, and Acts

Dear Bible Challenge participants,

One of the aspects of this reading plan that I am loving is how the threads in the different readings weave together.  We're reading in Samuel as the Davidic Covenant is starting to emerge, just as the Psalmist is bewailing in Psalm 89 how the same Davidic Covenant is being unravelled. (Tomorrow will be a lovelier Psalm-- 90-- you'll have familiar hymn tunes in your head all day :)  )   The Davidic Covenant was made between God and David-- God's promise that there would forever be a Davidic monarch on the throne of Israel.  The devastation and deportation wrought by the Babylonians if 587 AD would call all this to question-- a question the Deuteronomistic Historians are trying to answer in their writings (Joshua, Judges, Samuel I and II, Kings I and II...)....their answer being, "the people were unfaithful, so the covenant was null and void."

We've also finished John's Gospel and have begun reading Acts--- another pretty dramatic change as we shift from authors, and their voices call out so distinctly. Acts was written by the same writer who brought us Luke-- so different from John! One of the more engaging things about our encounter with Acts at this time is the benefit of reading the passages we're hearing in our Sunday Lectionary for Eastertide-- but in their native context.

Richard Carr wrote recently to ask who the current day descendants of the Philistines are.  That's tough to call, but archaeology suggests that the Philistines themselves were descendants of a sea-going people, connected to the Mycenaean culture found in sites in Greece... Not really answering the "present day" question, but offering a theory as to who they were related to historically.

Thank you, as ever, for being on this journey.

Paige+