[Apr 23]--“I Got Away With It!”

2 Sam 11:22-27

I recently listened to a friendly debate between Christopher Hitchens (a prominent atheist) and Michael Medved, a talk-show host who’s also a practicing Jew. The discussion topic was the existence of God, and Medved brought up how the fact that the Lord is always watching was a source of accountability to him. Hitchens replied, and I’m paraphrasing from memory, that the idea of a “Dictator in the Sky” constantly monitoring us was “repugnant” to him. I thought this was very interesting, as it lifts the curtain on a lot of people. I submit that a lot of atheists, if not most of them, are claiming not to believe in God because an all-knowing, all-seeing Judge is very discomforting.

Even though David still believed in God theoretically, he was what I call a “practicing atheist” at this point, acting as if there’s no God watching us. Notice that in this chapter, the Lord’s name is not mentioned at all until the very end. It’s almost as if the inspired author didn’t want the Lord to be associated in any way with this nasty business.

But it looked like David had gotten away with it with no bad consequences: the lust, the adultery, the deceit, the cold-blooded murder. This was not 20th century America, where we impeach Presidents who are accused of breaking the law. He was king, and although in theory he was as much under the law as anyone else (lex rex), it usually didn’t work out that way. Most people would never know about it anyway, and the few palace officials and co-conspirators like Joab knew better than to open their mouths. After all, if a king was willing to murder one innocent man, why stop there?

But I love how the last verse of the chapter puts a whole new light on David’s cover-up. He might be tempted to think “I just got away with murder!” but this puts a screeching halt to that silly notion: “the thing David had done displeased the Lord.” He hadn’t gotten away with anything. Everyone around him was either ignorant or intimidated; there was probably not a court in Israel that would haul him into a trial. But there was one court and one Judge who'd seen everything, and this Judge was not pleased. And he was about to do something about it.

Lord Jesus, your eyes pierce through my masks, my deceits, my façade. Please cleanse and clean out what you see there. Please.