by Brian Godawa
Yahweh had always commanded that only the Levites should transport the ark on the poles as they would transport a king’s throne. So the cart was an insult. But Yahweh had also said that no man should touch it because it was emblematic of Yahweh’s holy presence with Israel—Yahweh who is seated enthroned above the Cherubim.
Touching the ark was not a mere attempt to rescue it from damage, it was a final act in a long string of acts of disobedience that violated Yahweh’s holy commands. Nathan said the road to Sheol was paved with good intentions of individuals who sought to follow Yahweh on their own terms.
But Yahweh was not so to be trifled with. He was Creator and King, but he was also Judge of all the earth.
So David concluded that he was not worthy of having the ark with him. He immediately sent it to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite near Kiriath-jearim, a man he had met when he was at Gath. He had been one of Ittai’s converts.
The ark stayed there for three months until David finally called upon the Levites to bring it properly to the city as he should first have done. They had even performed a sacrifice of ox and fattened animal after it had gone six steps. This time, David would do it right. This time, he would honor Yahweh’s greatness and goodness with the holy respect and awe he deserved.
David followed the ark, leaping and dancing with the dancers before Yahweh, wearing a mere linen ephod. He followed the ark up to its temporary home in a special tent on the elevated high place above the city overlooking his own palace.
He offered sacrifices and offerings and distributed cakes of bread and raisin with meat to all the people gathered around. The joyous occasion was concluded with a concert of praise unto Yahweh.
Arise, O Yahweh and go to your resting place,
you and the ark of your might.
Let your priests be clothed with righteousness,
and let your saints shout for joy.
For the sake of your servant David,
do not turn away the face of your anointed one.
David returned to his house that evening to bless his household and hopefully bless his bed with one of his wives’ companionship—or maybe two if he was blessed. All this worship of Yahweh did not make him tired, it energized him. It roused his hunger for the earthly side of his relationship with Yahweh. Being fruitful and multiplying to fill the earth was one command of Yahweh’s he found the easiest and most desirable to obey. He smiled to himself.
As he approached the entrance to his palace, he was met by Michal on the steps. He could see she was not in a pleasant mood. She had not seemed to be interested in him at all since he had gotten her back from Saul’s illegal remarriage of her to another man. She had seemed bitter and hard.
Her words were sarcastic. “How the king honored himself today in the celebration of Yahweh’s ark.”
“What do you mean, Michal?”
Her venom was thick. “Uncovering yourself before the eyes of your female servants.”
It took David by surprise. “What?”
“Like some kind of vulgar, shameless pervert.”
“It was before Yahweh that I danced. The ephod is a symbol of his communication with me.”
Her bitterness of years would not give way. “You do everything for your own glory.”
David knew he had to become firm with her childish insolence. “Yahweh chose me above your father and above all his house to appoint me as leader of Israel. So I will celebrate before Yahweh, and I will make myself even more contemptible before your eyes if it means honoring my Creator.”
She stared at him silently, eyes unforgiving.
“Michal, despite all my sins, and they are many, your unforgiveness is not against me. It is against Yahweh. It has soured you and I would not doubt that it has soured your womb to lack a child in the House of David.”
Michal’s eyes went wide with shock. “How dare you! May Asherah prove you wrong with her fecundity!”
She left him in a huff, planning her next sacrifice to the goddess. And I’m bringing those teraphim back into the household.
David watched her stomp away. A painful tear flowed down his cheek. She had been the wife of his youth. They had discovered life and love together. It had been so simple at the start. But as his life became more complicated, he made more mistakes and hurt more people. He had not treated her as he should. But he did not know how to fix that now.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he had lived more for his own glory than he had thought. Maybe he was fooling himself and others with humble claims of unworthiness, while actually seeking the greatness and glory of the world.
The words “House of David” echoed in his mind. He looked up at his palace, his “house.” It was a grand and glorious work of Phoenician architectural expertise. House of David was a term of the lineage of royalty that encompassed all his many sons. It was entirely legitimate, and yet it now mocked him.
House of David.
What of the House of Yahweh? He had a myriad of Sons of God or Bene Elohim, who surrounded his throne and carried out his sovereign will. But why did he not have a temple on earth that connected to his temple in heaven? Why was the very artifact of his presence, the ark of the covenant, residing in a mere tent while David lived in a glorious house of cedar?
Maybe Michal was right. Maybe David did do everything for his own glory and not the glory of Yahweh.
He needed to speak to Nathan the prophet right away. He was the only one he knew who would tell him the honest truth from Yahweh’s own mouth to David’s ears.
Chapter 86
Nathan stood in the firelight of David’s writing room. Scrolls and manuscripts were strewn about with lyres, flutes and other instruments that David would practice with. It was the one room where he could be alone to play his music and concentrate on writing songs when he had the time. As king he did not have much time for this anymore, so he spent most of it trying to put to parchment what he had written when he was younger.
Nathan had first thought David’s idea of building a house for the ark to be just fine. He had told him to do whatever was in his heart, for Yahweh was with him.
But then Nathan got a word from Yahweh, and learned it was not quite that simple.
He said to David, “Thus saith Yahweh: Would you build me a house to dwell in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel out of Egypt to this very day. I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. Not once did I ever demand the judges who ruled Israel build me a house of cedar.”
David sat looking into the flames of the hearth. These times of chastising always hurt, but he knew it was for his good. And he wanted to honor Yahweh with all his heart.
Nathan continued with Yahweh’s words for him, “I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. I will make your name great, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more.”
David’s eyes glistened with wetness as he continued to stare into the flames. They reminded him of the fires of purification.
The words of Yahweh are pure words,
like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
purified seven times.
You, O Yahweh, will keep them.
Nathan continued, “I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, Yahweh declares that Yahweh will make you a house.”
The prophet’s words pierced through the crackling of flames. Even David’s desire to build a house for Yahweh was presumptuous. He had much to learn yet of humility.
“When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. My steadfast love will not depart from him. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall b
e established forever.”
By the time Nathan finished, David was weeping with repentance. He reached for a quill and papyrus amongst his implements. He had been inspired to write. The words pounded in his head and would not leave him alone.
He scribbled them down.
I have set Yahweh always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
Yahweh says to Adonai, my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
Yahweh sends forth from Zion
your mighty scepter.
Rule in the midst of your enemies!
Yahweh has sworn
and will not change his mind,
“You are a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek.”
He sat back on his bench and contemplated the lyrics he wrote. They were words of prophet, priest, and king. He knew in his heart that no matter which of his sons should rule after him, and no matter how righteous they were, they would all die as all men died. But who was this “holy one” who would not see corruption? Who could have an eternal throne, who could sit at the omnipotent right hand of Yahweh, but Yahweh himself? What mortal being could be like Melchizedek, with no beginning or end? Could a Son of David be a Bene Elohim, a Son of God?
The Chronicles of the Nephilim continue with the next book, Jesus Triumphant.
Appendix
Goliath Was Not Alone
David Ascendant tells the story of a league of giant assassins who seek to kill King David during his reign as the ruler of Israel. Goliath is only one of them, and when his brother Lahmi, another giant, discovers David killed his sibling, he sets out to kill the Israelite leader for both revenge and to stop the messiah king from securing victory over the Philistines and ownership over all of Canaan.
As much as I admit creative license in my adaptation of Scriptural story, my goal for the entire saga Chronicles of the Nephilim is to faithfully retell those stories of the Bible that touch on the giants and the War of the Seed as expressed in Genesis 3:15 through God’s curse upon the Serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring [Seed] and her offspring [Seed]; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
My goal has been to bring to light all these Biblical references to giants (ala, Chronicles of the Nephilim) that hint at that cosmic war of principalities and powers against the Biblical God, Yahweh and his victorious Messiah. My standard for deciding which stories to tell was only those that had explicit or implicit references to the Nephilim giants and their progeny in the Bible. Admittedly, Scriptural references to the giants are sparse, but they are significant and seem to hint at this War of the Seed that I have been writing about.
In Noah Primeval and Enoch Primordial, I retold the story of the Flood based on Genesis 6 and the book of 1 Enoch that the New Testament uses as source material. In Gilgamesh Immortal, I retold the pagan myth about a giant king as a prelude or origin story of the Biblical uber-villain, Nimrod. Then in Abraham Allegiant, I expanded on that villain and his building of the Tower of Babel and how it wove into the Divine Council worldview of God allotting territory to fallen Watchers. These were the same Watchers who sought to use the giants as the “Seed of the Serpent” to corrupt the earth and destroy the bloodline of God’s people and his Messiah. The giant clans are referenced in Genesis 14 and the Watcher/human copulation is hinted at in the Sodom and Gomorrah episode in Genesis 19. Abraham settled right near the city of Kiriath-arba, later called Hebron (Gen. 13:18). Kiriath-arba was the city of King Arba, forefather of the Anakim giants that Joshua would battle (Josh. 14:15, 15:13). That is a subtle but critical theological fact that is easily overlooked by less rigorous Bible study. The Sons of Anak and the Sons of Abraham had a history together that went back to Arba and Abraham, their forefathers. Or in other words, the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of Eve.
In Joshua Valiant and Caleb Vigilant, I retold the conquest of the Promised Land, where the Bible indicates a deliberate targeting of giant clans by Joshua for eradication (Joshua 11:21-22). We even read about specific giants in Scripture who were mighty opponents of this campaign, such as the Rephaim giant king Og of Bashan (Deut. 3:1-11), and the Anakim giant warriors; Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai (Num. 13:22; Josh. 15:14; Judges 1:10). Again, we are not told the details of these giant warriors, so I filled in between the lines of Scripture with story that would be consistent with those lines, making those apparently random historical “factoids” more meaningful in the big picture of God’s plans. I connected the dots that our western Christian bias might miss because of our lack of ancient Near Eastern Jewish context.
As much as I assume there had to be giants in Canaan during the time of the book of Judges, none are actually mentioned in that Biblical tome, so my saga must jump from the story of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan to the next Scriptural occurrence of giants, which is in the life of David.
Goliath and Giants Galore
In King David’s story there are five passages that contain giants in the narrative. The most famous one is 1 Samuel 17 that tells the story of Goliath. In fact, that story is so famous, it seems that some Christians think he’s the only giant in the Bible! Others say he wasn’t much of a giant at all. That’s because there are textual problems with the sources we have for the English text of the Old Testament.
In 1 Samuel 17:4, Goliath is described as being “6 cubits and a span.” Scholarly consensus describes the “cubit” as being approximately 18 inches, measured by the distance between an average man’s elbow and forefinger. A “span” is about half of that length, which is about the distance of an outstretched hand, or 9 inches. So by these standards, Goliath’s “6 cubits and a span” was about 9 feet, 9 inches tall.
But there is a problem with that measurement. The 6 1/2 cubit dimension is taken from the Hebrew Masoretic Texts (MT), which are not always the most reliable in their transmission history. Some scholars point out that the Septuagint (LXX), the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Josephus after them describe Goliath at only “4 cubits and a span,” which would make him more like 6 feet, 9 inches tall. According to archeological estimates of discovered remains in Canaan, the average Jew was about 5 feet, 6 inches tall.[1] This shorter version of Goliath would still be a tall man compared to the average ancient Jew, but not at all the supernatural monstrosity of 9 feet, 9 inches tall.
But scholar Clyde Billington has pointed out that the DSS and Josephus took their cue from the LXX, which was translated in Egypt. Egypt’s royal cubit was consistently at 20.65 inches.[2] It is entirely reasonable that the LXX translators would adjust the Biblical numbers to coincide with their own definitions of measurement. Using the Egyptian cubit would make Goliath’s height from the LXX come out to just over 9 feet tall – the same height as in the MT. Rather than the MT exaggerating Goliath’s size for mythic effect, the later translators most likely translated the Hebrew measurement to match their local Egyptian measurements.
A further complication arises when one considers the fact that Moses had been raised and educated as royalty in Egypt. So he and the Exodus Israelites no doubt used the Egyptian royal cubit in their measurements. The question then is whether or not the original Hebrew text translated that cubit measurement to the smaller Mesopotamian/Levantine cubit.
There is an indication in other Biblical texts of the awareness of this cubit difference. The writer of the Chronicles (written much later in Israel’s history during the exile) makes this distinction when describing the dimensions of Solomon’s temple. He writes, “the length, in cubits of the old standard, was sixty cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits” (2 Chron. 3:3). Ezekiel describing the measurements of the temple in his vision also makes this distinct
ion of cubit difference as well when he writes, “the altar by cubits (the cubit being a cubit and a handbreadth)” (Ezek. 43:13). He later calls this a “long cubit” (Ezek. 41:8). So these parentheticals written by authors around the time of the exile indicate that during that time, there was still an awareness of the older longer Egyptian cubit as if they had been still using it up until that date.[3]
If we apply this longer cubit measurement to Goliath’s 9 cubits and a span, we get a height of about 10 1/2 feet tall![4] Remember Og of Bashan, whose bed was 9 cubits long? (Deut. 3:11). That would make his bed approximately 15 1/2 feet long and Og about 13 to 14 feet tall.[5] And the Egyptian warrior that was killed by Benaiah (1 Chron. 11:23) 8 feet 6 inches tall.
Whichever way one measures a cubit, Goliath was a giant. But that is not the only controversy surrounding that rabid Rephaim Gittite of old.
In 2 Samuel 21 we read a description of several giant warriors who were killed by David’s Mighty Men (gibborim). But verse 19 is a disturbing sentence that seems to contradict David’s slaying of Goliath. It says, “And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”
Well, who was it that killed Goliath, then? Was it David or Elhanan? Critical scholars use this single difficult text to justify constructing a complex conspiracy theory that David didn’t exist and that Elhanan killed Goliath, but the Jewish writer then attributed it to a fictional “David” but forgot to make that change in this passage.
On the other side of desperate conspiracy theories are desperate hyper-literalist harmonizers who conclude that either Elhanan was another name for David or that there was a second Goliath of Gath who was killed by a different warrior later than David. But the lack of a David/Elhanan connection anywhere else in the Bible and the clear coincidence of redundant language about Goliath are no less biased in their attempts to harmonize.