Splish Splash

August 26, 2012

Cindy and Poodle. Cile Bailey, photographer, Mandeville, Louisiana

Bathsheba
Second Samuel 1:1 to 24:1

1:1 David was hanging out in Ziklag, just hanging with not much going on. A dirty, ragged man showed up in dirty, ragged clothes.

1:4 The man was an Amalekite and he brought word to David of King Saul’s and Prince Jonathan’s defeat at the hands of the Philistines. The man claimed to be the one to have personally finished off the fatally wounded king to prevent his capture, or worse, being killed by someone uncircumcised. David thanked the man, and then had him killed of course, and then mourned for the loss of his beloved friend Prince Jonathan, whose love and tender affection was far and away much better than the love of any woman.

5:3 David was officially made king of Judah again with a bunch of oil poured on his head again. The Israelites suffered through a period of power struggles and civil wars again, in which David emerged the only clear hope of a united and free Israel. With all of the pretenders to the throne in the grave, David was at last made King of it all again, with even more oil poured on his head, again. Third time’s a charm.

5:7 David conquered the city of Jerusalem and made it the capital of Israel. He was rejoined by his first wife Michal who was Saul’s daughter. He also acquired many more wives, mistresses, girlfriends, lovers, servant girls, and lots of multi-purpose sex kittens from the Jerusalem citizenry.

One wife is a mystery, more is a bigamystery.

5:17 The Philistines heard of David’s rise in power so they came marching over to wipe him out. Several battles followed in which the Philistines were repeatedly defeated. David had the Ark of the Covenant taken to Jerusalem. On the way it almost fell off the cart but luckily a quick thinking man reached out and steadied it with his hand. The Lord got mad at the man for touching his special box and killed him. David thought that was rather rude of the Lord.

After a cautious interval to let the Lord cool down a little, the box was taken to the capital. David and a band of musicians played for the Lord-in-the-box. Suddenly David started dancing wildly buck nekid right in front of the Lord, his box, and everybody else, so that his royal equipment was no secret. His first wife Michal saw his ornaments dangling for public review and she hated him for it. “What the hell are you doing dancing in the garment of your birth?” she asked. He answered “I’ll do this and whatever I damn well feel like bitch. I’m the one the Lord made the damn king. Now make me a damn sammich!” For some reason Michal never did have children.

7:1 David had a big expensive palace built for himself from cedar in the new capital of Jerusalem. Then there was a horrible famine for several years with lots of starvation and David blamed it all on Saul’s relatives. David was therefore able to have all possible pretenders to the throne hanged. Only one surviving crippled relative of the late king Saul was allowed to live under David’s watchful eye.

11:2 David’s army continued to have glorious victories.

One day David was up on the upper deck of his palace where he was able to look down and notice a gorgeous nude woman taking a bath on the roof of a nearby villa. Her name was Bathsheba. That’s right Bath-sheba. BATH…sheba. Whatever. Anyhoo, David neatly arranged for Bathsheba’s husband to get himself killed in battle so the king could immorally but legally force the bathing beauty to be one of his many wives.

The whole sordid affair of voyeurism, murder, and lustful soapy belly rubbing and stuff displeased the Lord greatly. The Lord sent Nathan, a psychic vision specialist, to lecture David about proper wife acquisition etiquette.

Bathsheba had a son. The Lord made Bathsheba’s baby very sick and eventually the Lord made it die. David took the loss hard but Bathsheba soon had him another son and for some reason the Lord liked the new baby a lot, obviously the other baby not so much. He let this one live. It was named Solomon.

13:22 One of David’s many other sons viciously raped one of David’s many daughters, his half-sister. Meanwhile her full brother, Absalom, vowed revenge for the crime. Later at a party the rapist brother was drinking rather excessively. He got staggering drunk and Absalom took advantage of the situation and killed him.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happy Hour

Absalom was a good looking and well-liked kid. He put together a power grabbing coup attempt that sent King David running for the hills. Absalom failed to follow up consolidating his power, a common mistake, and David rallied enough troops to retake Jerusalem. David wished to spare his son’s life but his prudent field commander Joab knew better and killed the would-be usurper. Scratch one son.

19:41 David’s home tribe of Judah kept an uneasy peace with the rest of the Israelite tribes to the north. Even the neighboring Benjamites revolted but commander Joab was able to suppress the rebellion.

22:1 David sang songs of greatness and some of his tougher fighters had careers filled with lots of great killing and awesome brutality.

24:1 The Lord eventually got all mad as usual and told David to count up his people. David told Joab to do the count. “800,000 in Israel and 500,000 in Judah” tallied Joab. David had another psychic soothsaying forecaster guy named Gad who came to the palace and said “The Lord wants you to choose your punishment.”
a) seven years of famine
b) three months running from powerful enemies
c) three days of disease.

David chose c) disease. The Lord sent his deadly disease angel who killed 70,000 people in three days. When Mr. disease angel was finally recalled to the sky by the Lord, David bought the property where the angel last stood and built an fancy altar there. That seemed to satisfy the Lord. For now.

Next: Don’t be Such a Big Baby
The Bible According to Brad