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[Note: This is one of a series listed under the heading: Wordie Post." It was originally posted on the Word Press blog entitled "Our Daily Bread," found at rtippett97@wordpress.com. The changes at Word Press are similar to those on Twitter and Facebook, where I was posting to an empty space. That was because I began and maintained that blog as one of their free offerings. When their force to change to a paid blog website did not move me, they cancelled their "Reader," so posting on Word Press has become like a caged animal at the zoo, where only workers occasionally toss the animals a bite to eat. Word Press [et al] is like what I imagine life was like in the satellite countries of the Soviet Union: meager, bleak, spiritless. So, I am transferring those forty articles here.]
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When Saul was made King of Israel, his place of government was Gibeah. Samuel, as judge, lived in Ramah. David was the ‘mayor’ of Ziklag, which was a border town between the cities of the Philistines and the land of Judah. After Saul died, Judah seceded from Israel along with the land of Benjamin and asked David to be their king.
In 2 Samuel 2:1 is written: “After this David inquired of Yahweh, “Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah?” Yahweh said to him, “Go up.” David said, “To which shall I go up?” He said, “To Hebron.” The “after this” was the death of Saul. Because Saul still had a son still living [his eldest], that son was to be the ruler of Israel after Saul. That transition meant Judah and Benjamin were through with the Saul line of power, so they asked David to be their king. When David prayed to Yahweh, asking if he should go and be the king of Judah, Yahweh said “Go.” When David asked, “Go where?” Yahweh then said “Hebron.” So, David had his place of government there.
The question that everyone should ask is this: Why did no one prior to David see Jerusalem [also known as Jebus] as a place to make the center of government?
The logical next question is this: If Yahweh told David to go to Hebron (and he did), then why would he move his center of government seventeen and a half miles north to Jerusalem?
Another question that should be asked is this: If David prayed to Yahweh for guidance about where to go to be the king of Judah, why wouldn’t he have done the same before leaving Hebron and going to Jerusalem?
The reason David left Ziklag was that town was not only small, it was Philistine. So leaving there meant not bringing conflict to the Philistines, who had befriended him and given David asylum when Saul was trying to kill him.
Even when Saul was trying to kill David, twice after David defeated Saul’s army in battle, David spared Saul’s life. That leads to the next good question to ask, which is this: Why would David decide to make the center of government Jerusalem, if it meant having to cast out the Jebusites who had a stronghold there?
A quick history check says historians tend to agree that David became the King of Israel & Judah in 1003 B.C. That is 1003 years after the first Passover, when their calendar began. So, subtract the forty years they wandered around in the wilderness with Moses and the presence of Israelites in Canaan had been ongoing for 963 year [give or take]. In 963 years, why did no one before David decide it was time to take Jerusalem from them?
The answer, as far as I have been led to realize, is found by going back to Abram and Melchizedek, who was the King of Salem, later named Jerusalem. Melchizedek blessed Abram after he rescued Lot and returned with everything evil kings had looted. Melchizedek took wine and bread and said of Abram, “Blessed be Abram el elyown, possessed angel in the flesh.” [I know this is not what English translations say, but look up the Hebrew.] Jesus is said to have been a priest in the order of Melchizedek. Abram told the King of Sodom, who fled from the battle when Lot was taken as booty, “I am an exalted hand of Yahweh el elyown, possessed angel in the flesh.” Melchizedek was a Jebusite AND he never died. He ascended.
There is then more to the story about Abraham that links him to Hebron. Sarah died in Hebron while Abraham was away. Abraham returned to find her dead; and, instead of preparing her body for transportation to Ur, from where they both came and where Abraham’s and Sarah’s family still lived, Abraham bought a cave tomb in Hebron and paid 400 shekels of silver for the land surrounding the entrance to the cave. Abraham paid that to an Hittite. The tomb was where he and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah and Jacob were interred. This is named Me’arat HaMakhpela or “Cave of Machpelah” [a.k.a. Cave of the Patriarchs, or Tomb of the Patriarchs], where the words “Me’arat HaMakhpela” mean “cave of the double caves.” That name is important to remember.
According to classical rabbinical literature, the payment of 400 shekels of silver did not end the transaction of Abraham’s purchase of the tomb for Sarah. Those scholars say the Jebusites said it was their territory and they “made Abraham grant them a covenant that his descendants would not take control of Jebus against the will of the Jebusites, and then the Jebusites engraved the covenant into bronze.” [Wikipedia] This raises the question, “If Abraham paid 400 shekels of silver to a Hittite for the land with a cave” [and that would have come with a deed], “then how was that the territory of the Jebusites too?”
By remembering the name of the cave purchased was “Cave of the double caves,” this says the cave purchased by Abraham stretched seventeen and a half miles [or more] from Hebron to Jebus. Still, because historians have a difficult time figuring out how the Israelites [in particular Joshua] could never defeat the Jebusites, the fact that a Hittite sold the cave and land to Abraham makes them think the Jebusites were actually Hittites, with some language making them have two names. The better solution is to see the territory of the Jebusites as being underground [caves and tunnels], while the Hittite territories were surface lands; so, the Hittite that sold Abraham land with an entrance to a cave, the Jebusites owned the rights to the cave underground. Obviously, the “two caves” or “double caves” meant a surface opening in Hebron and another in Jebus. Thus, the agreement that none of Abraham’s ancestors would take Jebus was necessary because it was possible someone could use the sneaky underground strategy of coming from Hebron to take Jebus.
This says that Yahweh answered David’s prayer as to where to go by telling him to “Go check out the double caves in Hebron and see where that leads.”
Coming soon: Who were the Jebusites?