Who can tell truth to power? How do we rebuke the king? Often the court jester, through masks. Sometimes the prophets, with courage. Bring in the clowns.
Now that the Ark of the Covenant is in Jerusalem, King David wants to build a temple to house it. It’s possible he’s dealing with a bit of guilt for all the blood he’s spilled now to be covered up in the fancy marble of faith? It’s the right move as far as consolidation of power and revenue, that’s for sure. But it’s not yet time.
He summons a religious figure of whom we first hear of in this chapter, and who will appear a few more times in the court of David, but it’s not clear whose agenda he is ultimately defending. Some prophets speak truth to power, some please their masters. Nathan the Prophet- is a bit of both:
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר הַמֶּ֙לֶךְ֙ אֶל־נָתָ֣ן הַנָּבִ֔יא רְאֵ֣ה נָ֔א אָנֹכִ֥י יוֹשֵׁ֖ב בְּבֵ֣ית אֲרָזִ֑ים וַֽאֲרוֹן֙ הָאֱלֹהִ֔ים יֹשֵׁ֖ב בְּת֥וֹךְ הַיְרִיעָֽה׃
“The king said to the prophet Nathan: “Here I am dwelling in a house of cedar, while the Ark of YHWH abides in a tent!”
Nathan’s first response is to assure the king that he should do as he wants. But then he has a dream-vision in which YHWH instructs otherwise.
He returns to the king with a different approach, in effect preventing David from building the house of the sacred service, but in return - promising him that his own royal house will live on for generations, through his progeny. David takes the deal - not that he has an option. Nathan delivers him the promise that one of his sons will become an heir and that he’ll be the one to eventually build the temple.
Spoiler alert - it’s going to be Solomon, hardly the elder, who curiously enough is the king whose legacy and story is most connected to Nathan’s role as royal prophet, as he shows up three big times in the chapters coming up.
So who’s Nathan and what’s his story all about? Like most other prophets we have no biographical info about him, and unlike some of the other prophets he does not get his own book - although it’s later mentioned that he may have written one, eventually getting lost.
Prof. Joel Baden unpacks a little more of who this guy is and why he’s likely more a figure that has to do with David’s future dynasty than the first king himself:
“The observant reader may note, however, that Nathan’s three appearances all have something else in common: They all have to do with Solomon. Nathan first appears to predict that Solomon will be the one to build the Temple. He appears again at Solomon’s birth. And finally, he enters the scene to ensure that David picks Solomon as his heir.
We may go further: Nathan always makes sure that no one can take Solomon’s rightful place. Nathan prevents David from building the Temple. He condemns David and Bathsheba’s first-born to death. And he removes Adonijah from his rightful place in the royal succession. Nathan may be David’s moral conscience, but in practical terms he is also the shepherd of Solomon’s rise to the throne. Once accomplished, his role — and his presence in the text — is complete.
Though Nathan is known to us as David’s prophet, he should perhaps better be known as Solomon’s. At the very least, we may understand that Nathan’s prophetic mission was on Solomon’s behalf first and foremost. This in no way lessens his status: the successful transition from David to Solomon is at the center of the biblical ideas of the united monarchy, the Davidic line, and the Temple in Jerusalem. Nathan is the prophetic architect of Israel’s glory days.”
For now, the ark stays in some fancy tent while David’s house is laid with cedar wood from Lebanon.
The prophet’s role in speaking truth to power will yet come handy, as the complex relationship between political and religious authority and leadership is slowly becoming the defining factor of what it means to wear these two crowns - on one anointed head. Coming up next week - this complication only gets more real, echoing through history all the way to the cedar palaces and halls of justice rumbling in Jerusalem right now.
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