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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes
2nd Quarter 2011: Garments of Grace: Clothing Imagery in the Bible
Lesson 7: In The Shadow of His Wings
Read for This Week’s Study:
Exod. 19:4, 2 Samuel 11, 12, Pss. 17:8, 32:1, 36:7, 51:2, 57:1, 61:4, 63:7. Memory Text:
“Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice” (Psalm
63:7, NKJV).
Lesson Outline from Adult Sabbath School Study Guide
I. The Naked Truth
II. Nathan Bares All
III. Blessed Is He Whose Sin Is Covered . . .
IV. Whiter Than Snow
V. In the Sanctuary of His Wings
VI. Further Study
Questions for Consideration
1. The imagery by which David and other Bible authors depicted God’s protection bestowed
like a bird’s outstretched wings was originally a popular Egyptian motif. Do these
contemporary extra-Biblical images add to our appreciation and understanding of the
Biblical passages describing God’s abiding protection through similar means? If so, what
might they contribute?
2. In the ancient Near East, wings were an integral component of several composite
creatures: griffins (wings and head of an eagle, body of a lion), cherubim, lammasu
(human-headed winged bulls, sphinxes (human-headed winged lions), and even the
winged solar disk. With these creatures, wings represented mobility, speed, power. But
in the psalmist’s language, wings frequently evoke the protection of a bird for its brood
(see also Mt. 23:37). Several of these attributes were and are applicable to God. Which
attributes of God do you think were most comforting to David when he wrote Psalm 57:1
(while hiding from Saul in the cave)?
3. A number of questions concerning God’s character arise through the story of David and
Bathsheba.
a. How should we approach or interpret the death of David and Bathsheba’s first child?
David clearly believed, and Nathan the prophet stated, that the baby boy’s death was
punishment for the sin: “because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the
child that is born to you shall die.” (2Sa 12:14 NRS) How can God be deemed fair in
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this? Isn’t this arbitrary?
b.
Although, counter to tradition, David prayed to God and fasted while the baby was sick,
then got up and resumed ordinary life when he died. This seems eminently reasonable to
many of us. It almost appears David had a more merciful conception of God than
Nathan…but was David proved wrong?
c. Think about the later life of David and Nathan. It seems this crisis forged a close
friendship. Late in his life, when Adonijah claimed the throne, few besides Nathan stood
with Bathsheba for Solomon’s rightful claim to the throne. Why might God have chosen
Solomon, child of David’s midlife crisis, over the elder sons (at least two, Absalom and
Adonijah)?
d. The multiple family crises that follow the story of David and Bathsheba in II Samuel
imply a family cycle of violence unleashed by the sin of David. What does this say about
God’s value of human freedom, that although David repented deeply, as evidenced in
Psalm 51, God didn’t prevent the influence and results of David’s sin from working its
way through the sons and daughters of David? And is this interpretation warranted by
the Biblical text?
Thoughts from Graham Maxwell
As God treats us, so we shall treat each other. This is why David will be comfortable [in
Heaven], in spite of his great sin. It is not because all the memory of sin has been blotted out.
This would require that every Bible be destroyed and all memory of what it contains. Gone
would be all memory of the plan of salvation and God’s merciful handling of the problem of sin!
The sins of David have been immortalized on the pages of Scripture. Rahab’s former profession
has been described there. So have the sins of Samson, Gideon, Moses, Jacob, and Abraham.
Hebrews 11 indicates that they too will be in the kingdom. And they too will be comfortable
there.
When Paul included a long list of sins at the end of Romans 1, he put gossiping right in the
middle. No one will be admitted to heaven who cannot be entrusted with the knowledge of other
people’s sins and who will not wholeheartedly treat former sinners with full dignity and respect.
This is how it will be possible for David and Uriah to meet and not come to blows. Some day it
may be our privilege to see those two men meet again for the first time in the hereafter. Think
how David stole Uriah’s wife and then arranged for the murder of the faithful soldier who had
helped him become kin (see 2 Samuel 11, 12; 1 Chronicles 11:10, 41)! Will the past be all
forgotten?
Will Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, David’s son, have forgotten she once was Uriah’s wife?
Will the prophet Nathan have forgotten his moving appeal to the king? Will David have
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forgotten his confession in the fifty-first Psalm? Will we have forgotten David’s prayer for a new
heart that has helped many of us pray the same prayer?
Or will it be possible for David and Uriah to approach each other, look into each other’s eyes,
remember, and once more become friends? To me that would be far more wonderful.
Could we begin to treat each other this way here and now in this life? It is surely not natural to
do so. It would be a great miracle of healing, like the miracle that happened to John. At first,
Jesus called him Son of Thunder. But later John became “the beloved disciple” and wrote in his
Gospel and Epistles so much about Christian love.
John watched the way Jesus received sinners, how he treated everyone with dignity and grace.
Never had John seen such strength of character, and yet such tenderness; such fearless
denunciation of sin, and yet such patience and sympathy. As he was moved to ever deeper
admiration, John became more and more like the One he worshiped and admired. (Can God be
Trusted, 94-5)
Further Study with Ellen White
Parents, in wisdom and love teach your children the grand lesson that in God we live, and move,
and have our being. Every pulsation of the heart is a rebound from the touch of the finger of
God. He watches over us by day, and under his wings we find shelter by night. His preserving
care is over us, whether we wake or sleep. He is as a sentinel to guard us from Satan’s power, or
we should be taken captive by him. Jesus is our constant friend. We are to look to him moment
by moment, and by looking to him we are to live. It will not pay for any one of us to become
self-centered, to study our ease, or pleasure, or selfish indulgence in any respect. It is enough for
us if our life is hid with Christ in God. If the life of Jesus is in us, we shall seek the glory of God
in everything. We shall daily humble our hearts before God, and at the foot of the cross we shall
have distinct views of the loveliness of Christ. We shall make Christ first, and last, and best in
everything. We cannot glorify God if we place man where God should be. Not a word of praise
should be diverted from God to sinful men. But if we walk humbly with God, working the works
of Christ, our characters will become like that of our Lord; and when we most nearly reflect the
likeness of Christ, we are giving the greatest honor to God.
Then we shall have cheerfulness of spirit; our words will be hopeful, we shall show that there is
a power sustaining, upholding us day by day, and we shall make melody to God in our hearts.
Thus we shall show that the way to life is a bright and sunny way. We shall be a light at home, in
the church, and before the world. We shall not be talking the theory of the truth so much of the
time, but shall do the will of our Heavenly Father, and shall talk of Christ and his love. There
will be faithfulness in all the walks of life. We shall have an interest in the souls of all for whom
Christ has died. We shall long to see his work become a praise in the earth. We shall spread the
glad tidings of truth, we shall give of our means, we shall send the messengers into the
missionary fields. Already the fields are white unto harvest; all heaven is interested in this work,
and in working with heaven we are laying up a treasure unto life eternal. (Review & Herald
December 2, 1890, par. 15-16)
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Other Thoughts and Comments
A statue of the Pharaoh Chephren found at Giza near his pyramid (which is beside the Great
Pyramid of his father Cheops) shows a falcon, identified as the god Horus, protectively spreading
its wings behind the king.
The Egyptian motif of a deity spreading its wings protectively over a human being became
popular outside of Egypt near the end of the 2nd millennium and early 1st millennium BC when it
was adopted by the Phoenicians and spread throughout Syria and Palestine. This coincides with
the time of David who utilized the imagery in several of his psalms.
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A Phoenician ivory carving (8th Century BC) shows two goddesses providing protection to
newborn sun through the imagery of sheltering wings.
A papyrus painting from about 1100 BC shows Osirus protected by the wings of Nephthys.
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Even Your Poets Say . . .
All flowers bear seeds
to grow elsewhere
a forceful wind scattered
thorny seeds from my garden of bruises
and all the stories contained,
painfully inward,
to an eagle’s nest.
The eagle could not tell
the battered seeds
from her own eggs
and loved them just the same.
Under the warmth of eagle down
the little seeds began to grow
against the heartbeat of the eagle
the little seeds felt safe
so thick, clotted bruises
no longer held back tears
no longer laughed at pain
no longer pretended to be flowers.
The eagle, perched high
on the edge of her nest
watched with careful eye–
would the hatchling break free
or remain silent, a dead egg?
The brittle hull cracked
the little seed was no more
from within a slender
bud of radiant green
rose above fear,
above all the pain held inside
and began to reach toward
the morning light
of pink, red, and yellow.
The eagle nuzzled
the slender bud–so different
from the other eggs
yet as resilient
as wise
as fierce
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as any true eagle
in place of bruises
the tiny bud had grown
a crystal white feather
edged in gold.
(Lynn Mari, excerpt from “Under an Eagle’s Wings,” 2006)
Even Your Sages Say . . .
Be like the bird that, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way
beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings. (Victor Hugo)
The quickest way to receive love is to give; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly;
and the best way to keep love is to give it wings. (Anonymous)
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings. (Salvador Dalí )
Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall. (Ray Bradbury)
Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds. (JohannWolfgang von Goethe)
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings. (William Blake)
Time is swift, it races by; Opportunities are born and die... Still you wait and will not try - A bird
with wings who dares not rise and fly. (A. A. Milne)
Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that
is character. (Horace Greeley)
Study Collection Prepared 12 January 2011, © Pine Knoll Publications