It was very interesting to look at the history of the Bible in the aspect of the line of kings, which starts with Saul, then David, then Solomon, and the list keeps going on until the Babylonian exile. Talking about the stories of David and Goliath and David and Bathsheba also fascinated me because they are stories that I know quite well of, but there were certain details I found out today or ways of looking at each story in which I never have before. In David and Goliath, I didn’t realize that there were different interpretations of the height of Goliath based on how one would convert the measurements of when this story was written to today’s measurements. In David and Bathsheba, I knew he committed adultery with her, but I never considered the fact that he may have raped her, which is quite frightening to think about, considering the man being David.
I also found interesting when we talked about how Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, and how his effect on the lives in his kingdom was so negative. When I think about the kings in the Bible, I think of the positive effects they had on Israel and how they did so much good, but in this case Rehoboam knew that Solomon had made life harder for the civilians, and instead of lightening the yoke on these people, he instead did the opposite by making this yoke they have to carry even heavier.