Bible Contradiction? What were the David’s last words?

For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: What were the David’s last words?

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes indicate a Bible contradiction:

The words David spoke in 2 Samuel 23.

“Now these are the last words of David. David the son of Jesse declares, The man who was raised on high declares, The anointed of the God of Jacob, And the sweet psalmist of Israel, 2 “The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, And His word was on my tongue. 3 “The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spoke to me, ‘He who rules over men righteously, Who rules in the fear of God, 4 Is as the light of the morning when the sun rises, A morning without clouds, When the tender grass springs out of the earth, Through sunshine after rain.’ 5 “Truly is not my house so with God? For He has made an everlasting covenant with me, Ordered in all things, and secured; For all my salvation and all my desire, Will He not indeed make it grow? 6 “But the worthless, every one of them will be thrust away like thorns, Because they cannot be taken in hand; 7 But the man who touches them Must be [a]armed with iron and the shaft of a spear, And they will be completely burned with fire in their place.”” (2 Samuel 23:1-7)

The hit list he gave to Solomon just before he died.

“As David’s time to die drew near, he charged Solomon his son, saying, 2 “I am going the way of all the earth. Be strong, therefore, and show yourself a man. 3 Keep the charge of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is written in the Law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn, 4 so that the Lord may carry out His promise which He spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your sons are careful of their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’ 5 “Now you also know what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, what he did to the two commanders of the armies of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner, and to Amasa the son of Jether, whom he killed; he also shed the blood of war in peace. And he put the blood of war on his belt about his waist, and on his sandals on his feet. 6 So act according to your wisdom, and do not let his gray hair go down to Sheol in peace. 7 But show kindness to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be among those who eat at your table; for they assisted me when I fled from Absalom your brother. 8 Behold, there is with you Shimei the son of Gera the Benjamite, of Bahurim; now it was he who cursed me with a violent curse on the day I went to Mahanaim. But when he came down to me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the Lord, saying, ‘I will not put you to death with the sword.’ 9 Now therefore, do not let him go unpunished, for you are a wise man; and you will know what you ought to do to him, and you will bring his gray hair down to Sheol with blood.”” (1 Kings 2:1-9)

(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

 

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

 

1. When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction.  A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time.  To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
2. One should be skeptical of whether this is a Bible contradiction given the website’s track record of inaccurate handling of biblical passages.  See the many examples of their error we have responded to here in this post: Collection of Posts Responding to Bible Contradictions.  Of course that does not take away the need to respond to this post, which is what the remainder of the post will do.  But this observation should caution us to slow down and look more closely at the passages the Skeptic Annotated Bible cited and see if they interpreted the passages properly to support their conclusion that it is a Bible contradiction.
3. The skeptic here tries to pit the words of David in 2 Samuel 23:1-7 against the words of David in 1 Kings 2:1-9.  Yet logically speaking the two passages recording David’s final words do not contradict one another.  David could have said all the words in both passages as part of his last few words he uttered before his death.  In order for there to be a logical contradiction one or more verses have to say “David’s last words only were the following: ___.”  But neither passages states that.  Only when a passage exclude other last words recorded by the other passage would we have a contradiction.  Again this is simply not the case.
4. Just because a passages in one books of the Bible record different sayings of David’s last few words while another passage in the Bible are silent about it that does not mean that there is a Bible contradiction.  We see even in secular history how some sources quote certain facts and other sources omit them and yet one passage’s omission is not a denial of the admission of the facts in another passage.  See for example our posts “Bible Contradiction and Thanksgiving Story” and “Bible Contradiction and Louisiana Purchase.“
5. Also the skeptics’ claim that 1 Kings 2:1-9 teaches “The hit list he gave to Solomon just before he died.” Here he uses as much as possible inflammatory rhetoric.  A more charitable and contextually driven interpretation would acknowledge that yes David does tell Solomon of those he need to put to the sword (killed).  Yet in the context David was referring to people that pose an actual threat to Solomon’s own life and reign or got away from having justice served to them during David’s reign.
6. Concluding our study it must be stated again there is no contradiction here in light of all the above considerations.
7. We shouldn’t miss that worldviews are at play even with the skeptic’s objection to Christianity.  The worldview of the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible actually doesn’t even allow for such a thing as the law of non-contradiction to be meaningful and intelligible.  In other words for him to try to disprove the Bible by pointing out that there’s a Bible contradiction doesn’t even make sense within his own worldview.  Check out our post “Skeptic Annotated Bible Author’s Self-Defeating Worldview.”

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