From the recording 12 Stories: the Bible Album
STORY 6: The Early Kingdom (1, 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, Psalms)
The last of the judges of Israel is Samuel, who now becomes God’s prophet, or spokesperson (kind of like Moses lite). The people tell Samuel “Tell God we need our own king!” But Samuel tells the people “God doesn’t like that idea because you tend to worship kings”. But the people cry out to God and insist. And so God gives them Saul, their first king. Saul is pretty good at fighting the Philistines, but one day disobeys Samuel’s directions to carry out the "curse" of destruction. Instead of wiping out all the Canaanites of a particular city, he spares their king and keeps some of the loot. As a result the Samuel tells Saul he would soon lose his kingdom. Upon hearing this Saul starts losing his mind. He calls on the young musical shepherd boy David to calm his nerves. But this young shepherd boy, unbeknownst to Saul, was secretly anointed to be the next king. One day young David slays the mighty Goliath, the largest of the Philistines, and people start rallying around him as a great warrior. They would shout out “Saul has killed thousands, but David has killed tens of thousands!” Hearing this, King Saul grows insanely jealous and sets out to kill David! Fearing his life, David runs to the caves where he composes many of the psalms, placing his trust in God in his time of darkness. “The Lord is my shepherd…” Saul eventually dies in a battle and David is heartbroken, having respected his king, and he becomes the next king, the greatest king at that. David even conquers the city of Jerusalem to make it their capitol, and he eliminates the Philistine threat! Everything is good, but one day David himself sins and takes Bathsheeba, the wife of his soldier Uriah, for himself. As punishment David and Bathsheeba’s first baby will die. But unlike King Saul before him, King David makes no excuses when he repents, as reflected in some later psalms, and God loves David for this and makes a new covenant with him. And so the people are united, they have their land, they have their greatest king, and to cap it off, they have their own capital, Jerusalem, a,k.a. “Zion”, the city of David…
Lyrics
The only thing that budges waiting on a judge, is
another piece of land. We need a better plan:
How ‘bout a king? Yeah!
People if I do, you’ll only give your loyalty
to royalty that rightfully belongs to me.
Not a good thing! Yeah!
Judge & prophet, Samuel, go tell all of Israel
I’ll give you what you want, I’ll give you Saul,
but you’re not out of the woods! Yeah.
It started off okay but then his will got in the way
and when I told him wipe away the enemy
he spared the king and his goods! Yeah. Yeah.
But there’s a city in Zion where the chosen can pray
And if it’s me you rely on, you could have it today.
I took away the favor that I gave to Saul and later
told the prophet Nathan find the shepherd boy
that does the whole harp and dance. Yeah.
David slew Goliath and the king could not deny it
But he started getting jealous of the boy
and wouldn’t give him a chance. Yeah.
David loved the king but then the king went after Dave
and so he hid up in a cave and
then he wrote some of the psalms that we sing. Yeah.
Saul died in a battle & David got rattled,
but he got back in the saddle, took Jerusalem,
and long live the king, yeah! Yeah!
Now there's a city in Zion where the chosen can pray
And if it's me you rely on, you could have it today.
In the city of Zion even Dave lost his way, yeah.
Took the wife of Uriah, and baby he paid, yeah.
But there's a city in Zion where the chosen can pray
and if it's me you rely on, you could keep it today
Yes there's a city in Zion where the chosen can pray
and if it's me you rely on, you could keep it today, yeah
You could keep it today yeah yeah.
You could keep it today, yeah yeah.
And it’s still there today yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Everything was okay, yeah, yeah,
for a while anyway!