In verse 3 David comes to his house at Jerusalem. It should have been a glorious moment. But it’s not quite a return to how things were before his sin with Bathsheba. On the national level, there are clear tensions, which in the days of David’s son Solomon will become even clearer when the nation fractures irreversibly. It’s all part […]

Sheba’s rebellion is different from Absalom’s in many ways. Remember how Absalom had planned his rebellion for years. Sheba, on the other hand, is an opportunist. He can see the tensions. The fault lines are clear. And so he tries to exploit them for his own benefit. But at the heart of it, both these rebellions are the same. They […]

Sometimes you hear of a falling out in a family, or a church. And when you hear what it’s about, you’re left thinking: ‘Wow – is that really what they’ve fallen out over?’ Often, however, the ‘issue’ isn’t really the issue. Often there have been tensions for a long time, and one side is just looking for an issue to […]