We near the end of David’s story. God has given him victory over Bicri and the house of Saul. The killing of seven of the descendants of Saul seems harsh and past the ‘statute of limitations’ to us. But God arranged that revenge in response to untold injustices that were wreaked by Saul against the Gibeonites. Because of that, we should observe: God takes notice of covenants made and wants us to do what we promise in His name. David’s song of praise in this chapter includes ideas from the psalms, but does not seem to be an extended quote from any of them— as far as I can find in my sources. Because of this long poetic section today, we will not read from Psalms today.
One of the features of John's Gospel is that he breaks in with commentary without warning. Because of the lack of quote marks in ancient Greek, there often no overt sign marking the end of Jesus' speech and John's comment, or at the end of the chapter, John the Baptist's speech and John's comment. I personally don't think that John 3:16 is Jesus' words about himself, but is the start of John's explanation of Jesus' words: “as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so [I,] the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in [Me/him] will have eternal life.” We read that story in Numbers 21. Imagine that all one had to do to be healed of a snake bite was to look at the bronze snake Moses put up on a pole. Do you think any of the people who were bit refused to look at that snake?
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