John Bytheway: 00:00:02 Welcome to Part Two of this week’s podcast

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:00:07 It doesn’t necessarily define the entire lived experience of David, but this event is going to have profound impact on David, on David’s family, and on Israel, going forward. We’ve often turned this into a morality tale, and there’s a reason for that, but let’s just start with verse one. “It came to pass after the year was expired. At the time when kings go forth to battle,” we often key on that, “…that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the children of Amin and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:00:45 And we often make hay out of that, and possibly for good reasons. I want us to be a little cautious on that simply because this isn’t the first time that a king has sent his general to go do the fighting, nor will it be the last time that a king does the same thing. So, it does appear that the redactors are making the same point that we often do, which is, error number one, problem number one was that David tarried instead of going forth and doing his duty.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:01:14 Now, that may be accurate. That seems to be the point of the verbiage in one. On the other hand, maybe that wasn’t so strange for a king to not always go into every battle, though, I think on a regular basis, David had in the past. So, problem number one, not being where he should be, possibly.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:01:35 Problem number two, he sees something that you and I would say is probably not meant to be within his purview, his sight. He sees a woman washing herself, in verse two. The woman was very beautiful to look upon. So, he sees Bathsheba. The seeing, we’ve got to be cautious here, it doesn’t in any way seem to entail a purposeful peeping, that he was literally looking trying to find this, but one way or the other, he looks and he sees this beautiful woman bathing, becoming ritually pure.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:02:10 As a mission president, I would sometimes have missionaries that would come to me. They’d be calm, but stoic on the outside, and then, when we got into the room, they’d just start sobbing in the office. And they’d start with something like, “President, you’re just going to have to send me home.” Now, you never want to say something like that to a mission president. You scare the bejabbers out of them.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:02:32 But instant panic starting to rise in the heart, and I’d say, “Elder…,” and it was usually elders. “Elder, what happened?” And they would share that they had seen something that they probably shouldn’t have seen. So, I remember one elder that came to me and said, “President, we were teaching this lesson to this sweet family. I looked up on a wall, and there was a large picture of a woman who lacked clothing.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:03:03 So, he’s telling me about this, and I said, “What did you do, Elder?” And he said, “Well, I looked away.” And I said, “And?” “I feel, I feel horrible.” And I said, “Why do you feel horrible?” He says, “Well, I liked what I saw. I shouldn’t have liked…” I thought, “Really? You shouldn’t have…” Do you see the problem here? And instead of realizing, you know what, you did exactly what the Lord would have you do. You saw something, you were attracted to that, and you realized, “Nope, that’s not mine.” Therefore, you turned away and you went back and focused.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:03:41 He did exactly what he was supposed to do, but he felt, because he was attracted, that he was somehow dirty or broken or wrong. And our youth today tend to experience very similar phenomena. They’ll see something they shouldn’t see, their body will react to it, their mind will react to it, and because of that natural reaction, they figure, “I’m broke. I’m bad, I’m evil.” But Heavenly Father created us purposefully so that we tend to be interested in these things.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:04:15 This is not a problem. This is not a sign that we’re broken. It’s a sign that something’s working right. The question isn’t, did you see something, and therefore, are you guilty? It’s, did you see something? What did you do next? What David did next becomes the problem. Instead of turning back to his own business, verse three, David sent and inquired after the woman. One said, “Is not this Bathsheba,” which, by the way, is a real cool name, “… daughter of the oath? Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite?”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:04:54 Besides simply seeing and turning away, he continues to ruminate and actually inquires after her. There’s problem number two. Problem number three, verse four, David sent messengers. He didn’t just think, he didn’t just ask. “He took her. She came in under him and he lay with her.” Then, this next phrase really bugged me growing up. I thought, “What strange morality. “For she was purified from her cleanliness,” almost as if that’s somehow justifying the adultery.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:05:28 Now, since then, as I’ve done a bit more study, most commentators, both Jewish and Christian, claim that that statement is not meant to justify the adultery. It’s meant to make clear that the child that is going to be born is not your Uriah’s, it’s David’s. That she was purified from her uncleanliness means that she was still having her period. She wasn’t pregnant.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:05:54 So, one way or the other, he took her in, he slept with her, she returned to her house. Now, we won’t even go to the concept, the difference in power structures and being a king and a ruler and the abuse of power that David did in that. But of course, that’s where the ultimate, well, almost the ultimate error came. Then, he realizes, when she sends back and says, “I’m with child,” he realizes that he’s in trouble.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:06:30 He knew better than what he did. And this wasn’t just simply a crime of passion. This was intention. He looked, he asked, he purposefully did what he did. And we know David loved God, loved the Law, but clearly there’s a disconnect at this point in David’s love of God and what he’s willing to allow himself to do.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:06:56 So, we know the story. He’s going to ultimately end up murdering Uriah so as to “hide the problem”. It’s one of the great tragedy stories in all of Scripture. Uriah is an interesting character. The Jewish rabbis and the Christian theologians and academics don’t exactly know what to do with him. He’s called a Hittite, but the Talmud basically gives you two possible options, the Jewish rabbis.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:07:28 One, that he was a Hittite who converted to Judaism. That’s possible. Or two, he was a Jew from birth, but he lived amongst the Hittites, and so he was known as a Hittite, but his name is a Jewish name. It’s “the Lord is my light. Yahweh is my light.” He believes in God, and he shows himself so honorably. We know the story. David calls him back, trying to get him to go in and sleep with Bathsheba to possibly hide his adultery. He won’t go unto his wife.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:08:03 He says, “No. The soldiers are in the field fighting. And am I going to go in and enjoy my home and my wife? No, I won’t do it.” Well, that didn’t work. David said, “Okay, let’s try this”, verse 13. Let’s make him drunk. If he’s drunk, maybe he’ll just wander in. And nope, he didn’t do it. And finally, this is so tragic, David not only has him killed, he has the order to have him killed brought back by himself. Verse 15, David wrote to Joab and had Uriah deliver.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:08:39 So, he’s having Uriah deliver the letter demanding his death, and he wrote in a letter saying, “Set ye, Uriah, in the forefront of the hottest battle. Retire you from him that he may be smitten and die.” This is beyond the pale. This isn’t I had a bad day and I yelled at my siblings. This is premeditated adultery, premeditated murder. And as we’re going to talk in the next chapter, the consequences are going to be eternal for David.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:09:09 There’s so much to learn from this. So, when I’m teaching in our Eternal Family classes at BYU, we’re talking about keeping the law of chastity and staying emotionally, mentally, and physically pure. We talk about the safeties that the Lord puts in place, and first and foremost, we talk about keeping the Spirit of God with us. I ask my students, “If the Spirit of God is actively in your life and you are currently under the influence of the Spirit of God, what’s the likelihood that you’re going to go out and commit adultery or fornication?

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:09:41 My students aren’t dumb. They’ll say, “It’s not gonna happen,” and I’ll say, “You’re right. The only way Satan can get a good Latter-day Saint to make this kind of a serious error is to separate that Latter-day Saint from the Spirit of God.” That seems to be what’s happened with David. You had these beautiful examples in five and six and seven where David’s humble and going to the Lord and seeking guidance and following God’s will.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:10:12 Well, by the time we hit this story, David seems to have ceased to make that connection. And as that relationship with God became more tenuous, his wisdom, his decision-making, his choices, began to follow more of the natural man than the Spirit of God. So, that tragedy of allowing ourself to disconnect from God is the way that Satan has the greatest chance of getting in and encouraging us, and us using our agency to go down this horrifically tragic rabbit hole.

Hank Smith: 00:10:56 And there’s so many moments in here where you’re, “David, just don’t. Just stop.” There’s so many warning signs going off, “Stop. Don’t don’t send an inquirer. Don’t send messengers.”

John Bytheway: 00:11:09 When I teach Book of Mormon, I equate this with Alma 52. I just think the stratagems of war that we read about in the Book of Mormon are similar to the stratagems that Satan uses against us. And they’re trying to get the Lamanites to leave their stronghold. So, they get a small number of men, “Hey, walk by as if you’re delivering provisions to another city. That’s a small number, we can take them, we’ll be right back. This is no big deal.”

John Bytheway: 00:11:34 And they take a step out of their stronghold. And this is what David does, a step, and then another step. So, it’s a, “don’t leave your stronghold” type of a message. And as you pointed out, it starts out with, at a time when Kings went to war, like, “Eh, David probably should have been…”

John Bytheway: 00:11:54 President James E. Faust, in October 1997, he said, “Over my lifetime I have seen some of the most choice, capable, and righteous of men stumble and fall. They have been true and faithful for many years, and then get caught in a web of stupidity and foolishness, which has brought great shame to themselves, and betrayed the trust of their innocent families, leaving their loved ones a legacy of sorrow and hurt. My dear brethren…”

John Bytheway: 00:12:21 This was General Priesthood Conference, “… all of us, young and old, must constantly guard against the enticements of Satan. We must choose wisely the books and magazines we read, the movies we see, and how we use modern technology such as the internet.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:12:36 So good.

John Bytheway: 00:12:38 And that quotation is 25 years old. And I always feel I have to say, there was a day when, if you wanted pornography, you had to go find it. Now, it finds you. And I just hope our young people, whoever is listening, just… What was the phrase we learned last year, Hank, from one of our scholars? “Repent relentlessly.”

John Bytheway: 00:13:00 Just keep getting back on the covenant path and you’re going to encounter this stuff like your missionaries did, but keep coming back, and don’t give up. And keep getting back to the sacrament table and getting the promise that His Spirit can always be with you.

John Bytheway: 00:13:19 Years ago, I came across this from Dr. Wendy Watson, who’s now Wendy Watson-Nelson, President Russell M. Nelson’s wife. And she said, “What if, like a package of cigarettes or something, what if pornography had a warning label?” And this is what she said the warning label might say, “Contents highly addictive. Extremely corrosive to the soul, materials enclosed. Be prepared to have your mind twisted, your views of life ravaged, and your spirit shrunk.

John Bytheway: 00:13:48 Be aware that the Spirit of the Lord will not be with you during or after viewing. Be prepared that after an initial rush, you will experience feelings of depression, loneliness, despair, and guilt. However, with repeated exposures over time, you can numb those feelings, and enter into almost total amnesia…,” listen to this, “… about who you really are and about the truth itself.”

John Bytheway: 00:14:12 That was from her book, Purity in Passion, on page 60. Those are strong words that keep coming back. If that’s a line you’ve already crossed, please keep coming back. There’s a way back. This is powerful stuff. And the Lord knows the world He sent us to, and Section 46, verse 15, right, Hank, “He suits his mercies according to the conditions of the children of men,” thankfully. But keep coming back to that covenant path, don’t give up.

Hank Smith: 00:14:43 I love it. Yeah. I think in teaching this, you can point out how many different places there are for David to stop and say, “Wait, what am I doing? I can stop this right now instead of continuing down this path.” Those of you who are longtime listeners of our podcast will recognize the name, David Sorensen, because David and Verla Sorensen are our sponsors, he gave a talk in the April 2001 General Conference. Doesn’t seem it should be that long ago, but we’re talking two decades ago.

Hank Smith: 00:15:13 I’d encourage everyone to read this one. It’s called you, “You can’t pet a rattlesnake.” What a great talk. He says, “In the summertime, one of our responsibilities was to haul hay from the fields into the barn for winter storage. My dad would pitch the hay onto a flatbed wagon. I would then tromp down the hay to get as much as possible on the wagon. One day, in one of those loose bundles pitched onto the wagon, was a rattlesnake.

Hank Smith: 00:15:35 When I looked at it, I was concerned, excited, and afraid. The snake was lying in the nice, cool hay. The sun was glistening on its diamond back, and after a few moments, the snake stopped rattling, became still, and I became curious. I started to get closer, leaned over for a better look, when suddenly I heard a call from my father, ‘David, my boy, you can’t pet a rattlesnake.’

Hank Smith: 00:16:01 The Bible records that King David was gifted spiritually, but he stood where he should not have stood, he watched what he should not have watched, and those obsessions became his downfall.” He says later on, “We have all accepted the responsibility to pattern our life after the Master.” I think that’s a crucial point here that David knows he is supposed to pattern his life after Jehovah.

Hank Smith: 00:16:25 This is back to the talk, Elder Sorensen continues, “He has committed the keys of the priesthood and of divine revelation to our living prophet. He counsels, ‘Stay away from pornography. I plead with you to get it out of your life. Don’t allow the poison to touch your souls.'” What a great lesson. This is a hard one. I remember once walking out of a Gospel doctrine class where we talked about David and Bathsheba, and I was with my friend, Shane Argyle. And Shane is one of the most righteous, incredible people.

Hank Smith: 00:16:58 And here I was, you guys, I was walking out of this class going, “Oh, poor David. Oh, David, you should have been smarter.” As I’m walking out with Brother Argyle, he said, “That lesson scares me.” And I said, “Why?” Because I didn’t walk out of that class the least bit scared. He said, “If David can fall, what does that say about me and you?”

John Bytheway: 00:17:22 Ooh, yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:17:22 And I thought, “Oh, now I am scared,” because the whole time I’m just going, “Oh, David, what a dumb decision. I would never do that,” where my friend Shane saw, “Oh, I’ve gotta be more careful.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:17:37 President Kimball once said, paraphrasing, if you take the very best boy in the church and the very best girl in the church, and you put them in the wrong circumstance long enough, they will fall. None of us are immune to the mistakes that we can make. This is why it’s so crucial to stay connected to God, to recognize when we begin to disconnect.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:18:01 When we read stories like this, we can sometimes just jump right out of the story and into a proof text version of, what are lessons to draw? And that’s good. We need to draw lessons from it. But there are times when we do that can send the wrong message. For instance, we talked earlier about the reality that sexuality is not bad. Sexuality is part of the plan of salvation. I teach my students that the entire planet, salvation depends on sexuality. There would be no continuation, no seed, no anything.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:18:31 We shouldn’t take from stories like this that sexuality is bad, we shouldn’t take from stories like this that the reality of our nature to be attracted to each other is wrong. That’s somehow wrong. We’ve got to be cautious, even in stories like this. Plural marriage, we could use this as a proof text against plural marriage where we know that that’s going to become a major issue, ultimately, with David and Solomon.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:18:51 It’s not that plural marriage in and of itself cannot be commanded or ordained by God. What happened here was twofold. Adultery, obviously first. This was your Uriah’s wife, this was not David’s wife. And second, the personal tragedy that comes when we disconnect from God to the point where we’re able to or willing to make these mistakes.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:19:15 It reminds me of a statement from David A. Bednar. He gave a classic talk entitled, That We May Always Have His Spirit to be With Us. But he makes an interesting point. In the first paragraph there he says, “Hey, we do a great job in the church talking about how important it is to invite the Spirit and to have the Spirit with us.” He says, “But we frequently overlook one issue.” He said, “We should also endeavor to discern, when we withdraw ourself from the Spirit of the Lord, that it may have no place in us to guide us in wisdom’s paths.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:19:48 So, his point is, listen, it’s not enough to just seek for the Spirit when you can get the Spirit and expect it on Sundays or maybe when you’re in the temple or maybe when you’re reading your Scriptures, but seek to recognize when the Spirit is no longer guiding us in our life, because that’s at the point where we can begin to make these errors.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:20:07 And even if they’re not going to be these massive errors, that’s when our path begins to diverge from the covenant path from God. And in this case, that’s what happens with David, the man who was the greatest king that Israel ever knew, the man who did so much good, and the man who, after this, will continue to try to do good. But my goodness, what tragedy comes from this event.

John Bytheway: 00:20:30 I really like what you said. I want to call you President Goodman, because as a mission president telling that missionary, of course, that would be hard for David because that was attractive to him, if I can use that word. It was what he did with that afterwards. The fact that it was attractive is normal and natural.

John Bytheway: 00:20:47 And I love how Alma, when he is talking to Shiblon, says “Bridle all your passions,” that word, “bridle”, is so good. And Elder Bruce C. Hafen, whom we’ve had on our program, has commented on that. He didn’t say, “Kill your passions.” He didn’t say passions are bad. He said, “Bridle them,” which is, a horse is powerful, but useful, if we control it. Then, there can be a righteous, beautiful use of that, as we’ve talked about.

Hank Smith: 00:21:15 Mike, I think there’s also something to be said here of “unrighteous dominion”.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:21:20 Yes.

Hank Smith: 00:21:20 Right? This idea of, I’m the king, I can do what I want. Section 1:21. It almost outlines David’s fall here in Section 1:21. It doesn’t name him, but it says, “When we undertake to cover our sins, to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion upon the souls of the children of men in any degree of unrighteousness, the heavens withdraw themselves, the Spirit of the Lord is grieved, and when it is withdrawn,” that’s what you said, Mike, when you lose the Spirit, “…amen to the priesthood or to the authority of that man. And that’s really what 2 Samuel 11 is, isn’t it?

John Bytheway: 00:22:01 It could be called “sad experience”.

Hank Smith: 00:22:04 We have learned by sad experience. That’s 2 Samuel 11, that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men. As soon as they get a little authority, here he is, he’s king, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. It’s an abuse of David’s power.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:22:23 That’s right. Absolutely.

John Bytheway: 00:22:25 I just remember as a teenager, when I learned that, “Wait, the same David that slew Goliath? Is this… Oh.” And I just remember going, “Oh, that’s too bad,” because I wanted him to still be the hero and…

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:22:40 It’s a tragedy. So, I would hope that we can maybe take a bit of what your friend, Hank, brought out of this, which is, it’s a reminder that none of us are safe from the temptations that are part of life and that Satan would throw at us. You can see one of the reasons why President Nelson and President Oaks, well, the entire first presidency Quorum of Twelve are so strongly emphasizing the need to stay covenant-connected.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:23:09 And sometimes we use that almost as to be perfect. But covenant-connected is meaning connected with God. We need to stay connected with God, because then, He, through His Spirit and through His servants can guide and help us so that we don’t end up in a tragedy like this.

Hank Smith: 00:23:27 I think there could be a tendency for us to blame the woman sometimes in saying, “Well, she shouldn’t have been wearing that. She shouldn’t have looked that way. She was kind of causing that to happen.” And we’ve got to stop that, right, Mike?

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:23:41 Yeah, absolutely.

Hank Smith: 00:23:42 That somehow this is Bathsheba’s fault. If a man has a bad thought, it was because the woman was dressed this way. If she wouldn’t have dressed that way, then this man wouldn’t have had this thought. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:23:54 Correct. We have to take accountability for our own agency. Yes, the Lord has asked us, male and female, for modesty, but someone else’s immodesty is never reason for our violation of principle and commandment. We have to take responsibility, and especially in a situation like this where the power dynamic is so different.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:24:18 Hank, you said it so well, this is not “kind of”, this is a complete and utter abuse of power. Bathsheba, we have nothing in the text that would lead us to think that she was doing anything other than literally keeping a commandment. She was becoming ritually pure and doing what she was supposed to do. And ultimately, David is accountable for his actions, and especially in a situation like this.

Hank Smith: 00:24:44 So often we want to blame someone else for our decisions.

John Bytheway: 00:24:48 And it’s a difference too between where your thoughts go, but then it became a behavior, it became actions, as you’re talking about. So, your thoughts might go there, and that’s when you have to decide, “Okay…” And that I think is a more helpful question for our brothers and sisters in the Gospel is, how have you learned to respond when you are faced with a temptation like this?

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:25:12 I love the fact that we’re all three poking at a similar thought here, which is, there is a lot to be taken from this. It has to be taught with nuance. We have to be cautious, not to completely proof-text and pull things out of context, but also, even within context, to see it accurately, see that difference in power, see David’s accountability, see that the problem isn’t sexuality, see that the problem isn’t the physical body. The body is meant to be exalted.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:25:44 I love the statement from Elder Holland. He said, “This highest of all physical gratifications, you were designed and created to enjoy. It is as natural as it is appealing.” Then, listen to this, “It is given of God to make us like God.” In our attempt to teach the importance of avoiding immortality, we must never teach it in a way that leads our brothers and sisters, young or old, to begin to believe that sexuality is evil, but see it for what it is. It’s a God-given gift that is ultimately meant to help us become like God when approached righteously.

John Bytheway: 00:26:30 Oh, and that just makes me want to finish Alma, “Bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love.” Alma 38:12. It’s a wonderful outcome. You bridle your passions that you may be filled with love. Not, “bridle your passions”, that’s bad. Oh, no, no, no. “Bridle your passions that ye may be filled with love.” Very positive.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:26:53 If I could bring in a bit of the social science research, the research is pretty darn clear on this. The reality is that immortality, whether that’s pre-marital sex or sex to those that you’re not married to, does not correlate with good outcomes. One of the famous studies that was done, it’s got a bit of a provocative title, Hooking Up and Hanging Out, surveyed university students at five different universities around the United States.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:27:19 And they talked about the hookup culture where basically sexuality is an entertainment factor, not a relational factor. And the findings from that study were very stark. These were not Latter-day Saint students. These were just run of the mill students in American universities. And they pointed to the problematic nature of this. And if you look into the research, it’s very clear, immoral sexual behavior does not correlate.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:27:45 I’ve got to be cautious with “cause”, because we have a harder time with cause and effect. But it correlates with bad things. In fact, yesterday, before coming onto this, I thought, “I’m gonna poke our own data.” So, I pulled up our own data set. Our study that we’re in the middle of got 2000 families that we’re following for 10 years, 2000 parent and child groupings, so 4,000-plus people. Every two years we survey them.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:28:12 I pulled up our latest wave, wave three. We’re in the middle of gathering for the next one. And I pulled it up, and I just did some basic regressions to see, “Okay, what does first age of sexual experience correlate with? What does number of sexual partners correlate with? We’ve got a lot of detail in this. I pulled at five or six sexual-related constructs. I regress them on suicidality, on depression, on wellbeing. The data is clear as glass. It does not correlate good.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:28:44 In fact, one of them, I can’t remember which one of the constructs, whether it was first-age or frequency correlated with two times the likelihood of suicidality feelings of wanting to commit suicide. So, I’m not trying to say anyone who’s been immoral is going to instantly fall to pieces and be mentally ill. What I’m saying is, if you look at the aggregate data, if you look at it just from a secular point of view, not even looking at it from the Gospel, which is more powerful, it’s very clear, immorality does not correlate with good outcomes. Are you ready to go to the consequence?

Hank Smith: 00:29:21 Yes. Now-

John Bytheway: 00:29:23 Here comes Nathan.

Hank Smith: 00:29:24 Here comes Nathan.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:29:25 Okay. Chapter 12. This is where, of course, the consequence of David’s actions are going to be brought forward. The Lord sends Nathan to David and shares this very sad parable. And to me, this is just so tragic because David’s response to the parable is exactly what you would expect it to be. It was exactly what you would hope it to be. He’s outraged that someone would do this.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:29:51 The parable is, a poor man had a little ewe lamb, treated it like its daughter, which, by the way, is a fun play on even the name Bathsheba, his daughter, and took and dressed that poor man’s lamb and gave it to a rich man, and instead of taking from his own flock. And look at it this way, David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord…” there’s an oath. “The man that had done this thing shall surely die.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:30:19 Oh, my goodness. There’s where you get your Hebrew, [foreign language 00:30:23]. “Thou art the man.” Look at verse six though even before that, this is because, and he’ll pay fourfold because he had no pity. The sad tragedy here is, David seems oblivious to the reality that he has just pronounced a sentence upon himself, that his actions fit exactly into this.

Hank Smith: 00:30:47 It’s fascinating to me, Mike, how Nathan approaches this. He doesn’t come in screaming and yelling. He comes in, “David, can I tell you a story?” I’ve always thought highly of Nathan here, that he could come in and really just start to skewer David. Instead, he just says, “Let me tell you a story…” And it’s called an entrapment parable.

John Bytheway: 00:31:07 Because you passed the verdict, and then you realize you just passed a verdict on yourself.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:31:13 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:31:13 Jesus is going to use entrapment parables in his life.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:31:17 It’s going to have consequences for generations. So, of course, Nathan calls him out on it, and to David’s credit, you’d say, he acknowledges it, and then, listen to the consequence, go to verse 10. “Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house, because thou hast despised me, and has taken the wife of Uriah, the Hittite, to be thy wife.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:31:47 So, consequence number one, the sword will continually be part of your existence, your house, your experience. Number two, 11, “Thus saith the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine house.” As we know the story going forward, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. “And I will take thine wives before thine eyes and give them onto thine neighbor. And he shall lie with thine wives in the sight of this son.” We know, of course, that has at least partial fulfillment in Absalom’s actions. We’ll talk about that in a moment.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:32:28 Then, 12, “For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this before all Israel, before the sun.” I was reading in a Jewish commentary… By the way, when you’re reading Old Testament, grab the best Study Bibles you can. But most of those Study Bibles are going to be written from Christian perspectives. There’s power in reading them from a Jewish perspective because they’re seeing things sometimes that we don’t.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:32:54 There’s a great Jewish Study Bible that said this, that punishment corresponds to David’s sins in a typical measure-for-measure fashion, because he put Uriah to the sword, the sword will never depart from his house, alerting to the violent deaths of Amnon, Absalom and Adonijah, in the following chapters. And because he took Uriah’s wife, his wife should be taken by another, Absalom and others.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:33:17 But it’s not just those two things. It’s not just that there’s going to be some sword play and things, but as I was pondering this, I thought, what are some of the things that seem to flow? And I want to be careful with this. I actually made a note to myself. We want to be careful not to claim that we totally understand causation. When someone does something bad, and then some something bad happens to that person, you and I better be a little cautious before we say, “See, God’s punishing that person.” That’s not a safe bet, that’s not our role.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:33:48 But if you look at David’s life after this event, whether it’s causative or not, oh, my goodness, do you see the tragic correlation? Think about these things. His son from Bathsheba, that comes from this union, is going to die. Tamar, his daughter, is going to be raped by his son from a different mother. Absalom, David’s son, the brother of Tamar, is going to take vengeance on Amnon and kill him. Absalom is going to try to steal David’s throne. Absalom is going to sleep with 10 of David’s wives/concubines.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:34:25 Joab, his general, is going to slay Absalom, his son, and 20,000 soldiers, in the midst of trying to retake the kingdom that Absalom was trying to tear from him. Joab’s ultimately going to be alienated from David. There’s going to be constant warfare. His other son, Adonijah, is going to attempt another coup with Joab’s help. Then, we won’t even go into Solomon’s life and what happened to him.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:34:50 Then, ultimately, of course, the biggest consequence is clearly what happens to David in the eternities. You look at the consequences, and it’s just heartbreaking, just heartbreaking. I believe that God can punish, but just like what we saw earlier, I believe that God often allows our own actions to bring the fruits forward. And what you’re seeing in David’s life from this point forward so often seems to be fruits from these poor choices.

Hank Smith: 00:35:27 The mistrust he inserts into his family at this point, it’s going to sew the whirlwind.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:35:35 Yes. And ultimately, of course, eternally, Joseph taught that he has fallen, this section 132:39, “Therefore, David, he has fallen from his exaltation and received his portion. And he shall not inherit them…” Meaning his family, his wives, “… out of the world, sayeth the Lord.” Such tragic, painful consequences to his actions.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:36:01 Hank, you brought up earlier, and I think this is important to acknowledge, Jewish religious authorities, and others, they agree that David’s actions were wrong, but they believe that David has been forgiven. And that belief comes from verse 13 of Chapter 12 that we’re studying here.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:36:22 Verse 13 says, “David said unto Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ Nathan said unto David, ‘The Lord also hath put away,'” which in Hebrew just means to cause to pass, “… thy sin. Thou shalt not die.” That has been taken as evidence that David did make a serious mistake, and that there are going to be consequences, but David is still a redeemed forgiven man. And you see David throughout the Psalms pleading for that forgiveness constantly.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:36:55 But it’s very important to note the JST to that verse. It’s in the footnote, “God hath not put away thy sin.” The punishment, if it passed, it didn’t pass away, it was paused. And tragically, some people also proof-text this to say that punishment was passed onto the child that’s why the child died. But you and I have to understand the nature of God well enough to know that’s an impossibility. God’s not punishing our children for our sins, though our children are impacted as a result of our sins, to realize that consequences sometimes continue even after forgiveness comes.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:37:36 In David’s case, there’s going to be forgiveness. He’s not going to be damned to hell forever. Joseph Smith taught explicitly that the time would come where he would get forgiveness. The exact quote, “David sought repentance at the hand of God, carefully with tears, for the murder of Uriah, but he could only get it through hell. He got a promise that his soul should not be left in hell.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:37:59 So, David will receive forgiveness, but one of the things we all learn in life is when we make mistakes, sometimes those consequences stay around even after we’ve completely repented and moved on. And it’s not that God doesn’t like us, it’s not that God doesn’t see us as beautiful and of value, and it’s not that we can’t grow and become all that God wants us to do, as long as we’re not doing murder, but the reality is, sometimes those consequences stick around.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:38:28 Those consequences aren’t evidence of God’s lack of love. God wants us to experience the joy and happiness that comes from living well. One thing that I think is crucial to understand is that the severity of the consequences for David, both in this life as well as the next life, according to Joseph Smith, Section 132, were not simply the result of his adultery. His adultery was incredibly serious. But it was a result of the murder of Uriah.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:38:57 We know that in this life, adultery, sexual sin, as serious as it is, can be fully forgiven, fully overcome. We know that this is something that, as serious as it is, doesn’t have to have eternal consequences. Murder becomes much more problematic. And David didn’t simply commit adultery, as bad as that was, he premeditatedly had Bathsheba’s husband killed, and that is why Joseph Smith says the consequences are eternal.

Hank Smith: 00:39:33 We don’t want any anybody listening thinking, “Oh, no, I’m as bad as David. I’ve done what David has done.” David is in a unique position, right, Mike, as the king, as the leader of the army. This is his unique situation the Lord is judging here. And I wouldn’t put my own sins into this chapter and think, “Oh, I’ve done this.”

John Bytheway: 00:39:54 We’ve talked about David. Can we feel a little better talking about Solomon as we look at 1 Kings. We’re supposed to look at 1 Kings 8 and 11. Throw us a rope here. It’s going to get better for a bit, right?

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:40:10 1 Kings 3 and 8 are really beautiful. Well, there’s a little foreshadowing in three that we got problems coming up, but three and eight are gorgeous. To be very frank, you see a very strong parallel here. And David, you got five, six and seven, where David’s humble and seeking the Lord, the Lord’s answering his prayers, and he’s doing all this good stuff, and then you have Levi and Bathsheba in 12, the consequence.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:40:35 You have a similar trajectory with Solomon. You’ve got three, where he’s anointed king and he has this tremendous gift of wisdom that is promised him. We’ll talk about that as we look at it. Chapter eight is the dedication of the temple, the house of the Lord that Solomon was allowed to build, actually commanded ultimately to build. So, you’ve got these happy chapters, Solomon being humble and doing good, and then you’ve got chapter 11 where it all goes south fairly quickly. So, shall we start with three? Let’s get some happiness-

Hank Smith: 00:41:10 Yeah.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:41:10 Can we do that?

Hank Smith: 00:41:12 Show us the highlights here.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:41:13 We have a bit of a foreshadowing of problems to come in verse one. Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh, king of Egypt. That’s not a problem, but it’s the way he did it. He took Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her into the city of David until he had made and end up building his own house. In other words, it was a dynastic marriage. He married the daughter of Pharaoh.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:41:36 And by the way, scholars contend that there’s not a prayer that he actually married a living daughter of the Pharaoh, but someone in the Pharaoh’s house that he married to make an alliance with Egypt. And it’s these marriages out of covenant, out of Israel, that are going to end up being Solomon’s Achilles heel. Some of the scholar data looking at this says that 1 Kings is likely not written chronologically as much as it is theologically.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:42:04 You see chapters one through 10 that largely show us all the good things Solomon does, with a little foreshadowing that things aren’t always good in River City, so to speak. Then, you hit 11 and you go forward, and that’s the bad things. So, you have as much of a theological ordering as you do a chronological ordering.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:42:28 So, you have a little foreshadowing in verse one, but nothing’s made of it. I would simply make this point because sometimes you look at things in chapters one through 10 and you say, “Well, there’s just, this is the good stuff, so everything must be good.” No. The stuff in one through 10 is happening at the same time as much of the stuff that’s happening in 11 onward. Do you see what I’m saying?

Hank Smith: 00:42:50 Yeah. So, they separated them.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:42:51 Exactly. The redactors did. We’ve got low foreshadowing of problems in verse one, but then, we get this beautiful intro into the spirituality of Solomon, verse three. “Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David, his father. Only he sacrificed and burned incense in high places.” Now, that sounds really bad, but this is pre-temple. So, one way or the other, at this point he’s doing good things. Now, the redactors, at this point, would be very sensitive to anything that looked like sacrifice outside of the priestly order that should happen. So, that might be a bit of a hint there.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:43:30 But Solomon’s loving God walking in the statutes of God, verse four, “The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place.” Now, you can see, numbers are often problematic in the old Testament. “1,000 burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon the altar.” Maybe, or maybe just a bunch of them.

Hank Smith: 00:43:49 A lot, yeah.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:43:50 A lot. He made a lot of sacrifices, which is meant to show two things. One, he is very faithful, and two, he is very well-to-do. Then, look at verse five, so beautiful, “In Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night. God said, ‘Ask what you shall. Ask what I shall give thee'” So, Solomon, what do you want? It’s almost a 12 Nephites and 3 Nephites story here. And I love the beautiful answer of Solomon.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:44:22 Verse six, “Thou hast shown unto Thy servant, David, my father, great mercy. According as he walked before Thee in truth and in righteousness and uprightness of heart with Thee, Thou was kept from him this great kindness,” building the temple. “That Thou was given him a son to sit on his throne as it is this day, now. Oh, Lord, my God. Thou hast made Thy servant king instead of David, my father. And I am but a little child. I know not how to go out or come in.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:44:57 This is exactly what we were talking about earlier. “The servant is in the midst of the people, which I was chosen, a great people that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude.” Maybe a little hyperbole again. But verse nine, “Give therefore Thine servant an understanding heart to judge Thine people, that I may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge thy so great a people?”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:45:24 So, you get this beautiful plea, “Lord, give me an understanding heart. I don’t speak Hebrew, but I know enough to be dangerous.” And the words here, “for an understanding heart” actually mean a hearing heart, a heart that hears, a listening heart, which is beautiful. Lev Shomea indicates a person that is open to divine direction from God. Give me a heart that’s willing to listen to You, because You are the one who can judge this people.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:45:58 And by the way, quick note on the word, “judge”. You and I understand this already, the word, because of your work in Judges, the book, sefer shoftim, which is the Book of Judges, “judge” in the Hebrew doesn’t simply mean to sit and adjudicate cases. It’s to lead, to rule, to guide, to administer. So, when Solomon’s asking to be a great judge, he’s not simply asking help me to make good decisions, like he will at the end of this chapter, help me to be the kind of leader of Israel that Israel needs. And the only way I can do that is if I have a listening heart, an understanding heart.

Hank Smith: 00:46:39 Mike, I’m seeing all three of our kings, Saul, David, Solomon, all started out so well.

John Bytheway: 00:46:46 Yes.

Hank Smith: 00:46:47 They all started out with this, “Who am I? I’m a nobody. I can’t do this.” Power doesn’t corrupt everyone, but it sure does these three.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:46:57 It sure has. And again, I would pull it back to the concept of, they’re disconnected from God. If they were currently under the influence of the Spirit of God, strongly, regularly, daily, they wouldn’t make these decisions. Oh, they’d make mistakes. But go back to Elder Scott’s promise, “God won’t let us go too far. If we have a listening and humble heart, He’ll pull us back.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:47:21 Well, clearly, in the case of David and as we’re going to see in Solomon’s case ultimately, they don’t pull back. They make the error. So, this plea for an understanding heart pleases God, which I think it does for us. But the Lord’s just saying, “I want to be your God. I want you to be my child, not just in a literal distance sense, but I want us to walk together,” and that’s the plea.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:47:48 So, God, when we say, “I want to listen, I want to learn,” God is so pleased with that. Look at His response. Verse 10, “Speech pleased the Lord,” that Solomon asked this thing. And God said unto him, “Because thou hast asked this thing and has not asked for thyself long life, neither hast thou asked riches for thyself, nor hast thou asked the life of thine enemies, but has asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment. Behold, I have done according to the word. Lo’, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:48:35 Realize this is being written by a redactor several hundred years removed, and he knows Solomon’s going to become this great judge and ruler. But you and I know the laws of eternity well enough to know that God doesn’t pop up in Solomon’s head, pour in wisdom, sew him back up and say, “Now, go get ’em, tiger.” This is a process that’s going to happen.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:48:54 God will help Solomon become wise as Solomon does wise things. As Solomon seeks God’s wisdom and God’s insight and God’s inspiration, God will give that inspiration. So, lest we think that somehow this comes by osmosis, Solomon was going to have to do his part, and clearly did, because he became an incredibly wise and good leader for many years.

Hank Smith: 00:49:21 That is so sad.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:49:25 I know we’re already starting to mourn, but wait, don’t mourn yet. Let’s find some more good stuff if we can. So, back to verse 13. “I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked.” You didn’t ask for money. I’m going to give you riches and honor. “So, there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days.” God’s always more gracious to us than we could ever hope or deserve, but there’s also always a caveat. Look at verse 14.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:49:56 “And if thou wilt walk in my ways to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father, David, did walk, then I will lengthen thy days.” So, there’s always a covenantal “if, then”. God made this tremendous promise, but it’s going to be up to Solomon to live worthy of that promise. I think that’s important for our members to understand, in a different context, but I think equally important.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:50:30 We sometimes see in the church and in life, in mortality, we see good marriages that end up broken and divorced and lives shattered. And especially when that has happened, after confirmation has been received by a person or by both people, that this was a good thing, that God was pleased with it, sometimes it causes our members to question, “Well, did I not understand God? Did I not get that inspiration? Or am I broken? Am I the one who’s done this?”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:51:02 But we have to understand the nature of the God we worship. That God honors agency. And the only way God could guarantee that a marriage will last for eternity would be to freeze our agency, to take it away, to make it so that He controlled us, joysticked us through life. But He doesn’t do that. So, God can make the tremendous promise, “Yes, this is good. If you and your sweetheart will continue to exercise your agency righteously, exaltation is your lot in life.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:51:37 But it’s going to take both. And by the way, not just one. It’s not enough for just one person in that relationship to live true to their covenants. It will take both to live true for those promises to be fulfilled. And I read verse 14, and I see that “if, then” context of a covenantal relationship, that’s the way all of the blessings of God come to us. They come to us based on our honoring our agency, our using our agency in a way that ties us and binds us to God.

Hank Smith: 00:52:10 All right, let’s keep going here, Mike. Oh, let’s just… Don’t mourn yet. I’m trying not to.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:52:16 Yeah. Now, don’t mourn yet. So, we’ve got the happy story. We’re going to build a temple. But even before that, let’s do just a smidge with the judgment. You’ve got this really tragic story of these two mothers who both had babies, and one of them died, and they both claim the living child and they bring it to Solomon. And we don’t have to go into great detail here, but you see the redactors using this story as evidence of Solomon’s great wisdom in which he basically notices one of the mothers is continually, basically, advocating for “justice”, and to have the baby taken away.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:52:52 The other mother is constantly advocating for the life of that child and saying that child was theirs. So, he, of course, says, “Bring me a sword. We’ll chop the child in half. You get half, you get a half.” And of course the real mom saying, “No, no, no, no. Yes, I want my baby, but please don’t kill the baby. Give the baby to her.”

Hank Smith: 00:53:12 Give the baby to her, yeah.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:53:14 And Solomon says, “Okay, I think we now know who the real mother is.” Brilliant, bright. There are tales like this in other ancient texts, but it’s just a beautiful example that the authors are giving us to help us see the wisdom in Solomon. The next several chapters, four, five, six, seven, are all the goodness of Solomon and the building of the temple. It’s gorgeous, it’s lovely.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:53:40 And it brings us to eight, which is the dedication of the temple. And just as David, once he established his kingdom in Jerusalem, sought to bring the Ark, the presence of God, the symbolic and literal presence of God into the midst of the people, Solomon seeks to bring the Ark, the symbol of God’s presence, into the temple. And that’s exactly what they do. The priest took up the Ark, verse three. They brought it in.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:54:08 It is just the Levites and the priests. They bring it in, they place it in the holy place or in the Holy of Holies is what we would call it. They describe the cherubim with its wing spread forward, representing that presence of God. They pulled out the staves. By the way, this is one of the clues that this was written before the destruction of the temple in 586, because they’re describing what’s happening, verse eight, “And there they are unto this day.” So, the temple’s still there when this is being written.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:54:40 Then, you have this symbolic presence of God brought into the temple, and the Lord says, “I can do better than that.” Go to verse 10. “And it came to pass, when the priests would come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priest could not stand to minister before the cloud, for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:55:05 This was the purpose. This was why God wanted to be there with His people. We, like the Israelites, need to learn how desperately we need to learn to want the presence of God in our lives. Not necessarily bodily each day, but at least through His Spirit. It actually reminded me of a statement from President Nelson that I use regularly in my classes I think is so important. “We need to experience God regularly.” That’s how we can know and stay covenant-connected.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:55:42 But President Nelson, in April 2019, said, “Understand that in the absence of experience with God, one can doubt the existence of God. So, put yourself in a position to begin having experiences with Him. Humble yourself. Pray to have eyes to see God’s hand in your life and in the world around you. Ask him to tell you if He is really there, if He knows you. Ask Him how he feels about you, and then listen.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:56:16 The prophet is pleading with us to have regular experiences with God. He doesn’t want us to just be a churchy people, a religious people. We’re not seeking to be bound to the church, we’re seeking to be bound to God through that covenantal relationship. And that happens as we daily seek to see the fingerprints of God in our life.

John Bytheway: 00:56:42 It sounds like, when I read your bio talking about building faith in youth, as the kind of thing we want them to notice is to have experiences with God and to see that and notice it and write it down, and we keep a journal. The best reason to keep a journal is document the hand of God in your life type of a thing.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:57:02 Absolutely, absolutely. This is in the scriptures so regularly. How did Moses recognize Satan’s counterfeit? Well, it’s because he just got done experiencing the real thing. “Who are you?” “I’m a son of God, made in the image of His only begotten.” “And who are you that I should worship you?” Mind you, Satan is pretty good at his deceptions. He’s pretty good at his imitations. If we would stay safe from the imitations, the world or Satan would give, we have to have regular experiences with God.

Hank Smith: 00:57:37 So, like Joseph Smith, we can say, “I knew it. I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it.” Those young people that I work with who are able to weather the storms of doubt or faith crisis or even sin, those are the ones who’ve had experiences, their own experience with divinity. Those are the ones who seem to make it all the way through. They can say, “Well, no matter what that person says or that website says, I’ve experienced God for myself.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:58:05 This is a fun, I don’t want to call it a throwback, but it’s a re-iteration of what Israel earlier experienced as they were coming out of Egypt. The pillar of fire, the cloud and the pillar of fire by day and night, was a visible symbol to Israel that God was in their midst. When the pillar moved, Israel moved, when the pillar stopped, Israel stopped. God was doing a 40 year training program to help them learn to follow Him.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:58:36 “You’re going to have to depend on me.” So, the Lord was trying to help Israel see He’s not like the other “gods” that are of stone or wood. He is the God, and He lives, and He wants to be amongst His people. And this is one of the times, after the Exodus, that you literally see the presence of God come down amongst the people.

Hank Smith: 00:59:01 This is a long dedicatory prayer here.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:59:04 It’s massive, but it’s got a neat order to it, actually. There are seven pleas in it. And we don’t necessarily have to take a lot of time for this, but it’s a fun inverse of what God promised Solomon. At least that’s the way it hit me. I’m not grabbing this from anyone else, but Solomon said, “Give me an understanding heart. I want to have a listening heart.” This dedicatory prayer is Solomon giving the inverse of this, “Lord, would you have a listening heart for us? We need you.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 00:59:43 So, look with me, see what I see what I mean by this. Verse 29, “Hearken unto the prayer which Thy servant shall make toward this place.” Verse 30, “Hearken now to the supplication of Thy servant.” The end of verse 30, “And hear Thou in heaven.” Verse 32, “Then, hear Thou in heaven.” Verse 34, “Then, hear Thou in heaven.” Verse 36, “Then, hear Thou in heaven.” Verse 39, “Then, hear Thou in heaven.” Verse 45, “Then, hear Thou in heaven.” Verse 49, “Then, hear Thou their prayers.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:00:20 This is Solomon’s plea. “Father, we’ve built this house to Thee. We have done what you have commanded us to do. Please be our God. Please hear our prayers. Forgive our sins. As we repent, forgive our sins. Guide us. Help us to live worthy of the life that Thou would have us live.” It’s a beautiful prayer where Solomon saying, “We need you, please hear us.”

Hank Smith: 01:00:48 Yeah, it’s a beautiful prayer all the way from 22 over to 61, just this begging God for His help. “Let your heart therefore be perfect with the Lord our God, to walk in his statutes and to keep his commandments as at this day. And the king and all Israel offered sacrifice before the Lord.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:01:06 And by the way, a lot of sacrifice. Go two verses up from that, if we could real quickly. Verse 60, “That all the people of the earth may know that the LORD is God,” small caps there. So, Jehovah is God. “That there is none else. Let your heart, Israel, therefore be perfect with the Lord our God, to walk in his statues and to keep his commandments as at this day.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:01:34 So, let’s bind ourself to God at this point. Then, they make sacrifices. And by the way, they make a lot of sacrifices. This is another one of those cases where we’re thinking there might be some hyperbole in numbers. Solomon offered a sacrifice, a peace offering, which he offered unto the Lord, two and 20,000 oxen, and 120,000 sheep.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:01:59 “So, the king and all of the children in Israel dedicated the house of the Lord.” Some academic did a study of this and said, “If they did this nonstop every minute, it would take two weeks.” Talk for that much sacrifice. So, this is definitely the redactors who we have seen everyone came together, we totally laid it on the altar, and we have become bound, dedicated to God.

Hank Smith: 01:02:23 It reminds me of when Mormon says, “They all cried with one voice.” You’re, “Well, I’m not so sure they all yelled at the exact same time.”

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:02:29 Exactly. Be cautious on the literal nature of that. So, you have happiness here. You have Solomon, a wise king. He, by the way, he expands the area that is Israel. It becomes broader, longer, wider. He does good. He builds the house of God, dedicates it. God comes and accepts it. This is beautiful stuff, all leading to the tragedy that is Chapter 11.

Hank Smith: 01:02:54 Mike, I’m sorry we brought you on for the episode that just has-

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:02:58 I did notice that, Hank. I thought, “They don’t like me very much.”

Hank Smith: 01:03:02 Both of these stories end so sadly, isn’t it? This is just sad.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:03:08 They’re tales to help us learn though. That’s obviously why the authors put them in there. Chapter 11, shall we wrap this up?

Hank Smith: 01:03:15 Chapter 11, that just has an ominous tone.

John Bytheway: 01:03:17 Sounds like bankruptcy. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:03:21 Verse one, “But King Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughters of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonites, and Hittites,” most of which they were commanded, explicitly, not to marry with in the mosaic law. Verse two, “Of the nation’s concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, ‘You shall not go in unto them, neither shall they come in unto you.'” Why? “For surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. Solomon clave unto these in love.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:04:04 And he had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. His wives turned away his heart.” Again, I’m not going to lose sleep over, what, did he really have a thousand wives? He had a lot of wives. Many of them were not within the covenant. And as was promised, that is exactly what happened. Look at verse four, “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord, God,” Now, this is interesting, “… as was the heart of David,” which the JST changes, “And it became as the heart of David, his father.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:04:49 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites,” basically Ba’al and Ashtoreth. “And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord and went not fully after the Lord as did David, his father.” By the way, I really liked one of your episodes where it was pointed out, Israel likely never totally turned from Jehovah. Yeah, it was Dana Pike. They didn’t just walk away from God and start worshiping Ba’al-

Hank Smith: 01:05:20 They just mixed it up.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:05:23 And there’s such power for that for our day. An active Latter-day Saint with a testimony is not about to just walk away from God in the Gospel in Christ, but are we beginning to mix and mingle other aspects of the world’s wisdom and philosophy in with God? And it doesn’t mean that we don’t love God, it doesn’t mean that we don’t think God is the greatest, but we don’t fully go after God. And that ultimately can end up doing the same thing that happened with Solomon.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:05:53 He goes pretty far afield. “Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh, an abomination of Moab in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of the Ammonites. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrifices unto their gods.” Again, this isn’t just I’m being a little soft and this one wife has this one God and she really feels for him and I’m letting her do this. This is Solomon, like David, going fully far afield, and as a result, breaking the Lord’s heart and breaking the heart of Israel.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:06:32 “The Lord was angry with Solomon,” verse nine, “… because his heart was turned from the Lord, God of Israel,” which had appeared unto him twice. He’d had visitations with God and still turned away. And the redactors aren’t pulling punches. Look at verse 10, “And had commanded him concerning this thing.” God had told him explicitly, “Don’t do this.” “That he should not go after the other gods, but he kept not that which the Lord commanded.”

Hank Smith: 01:07:01 The power of agency is all throughout these stories. The power of agency to do great, amazing things, build a temple, kill Goliath, and then the power of agency to destroy your own life.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:07:14 It’s heartbreaking, it’s heartbreaking. So, it’s far enough removed from our day. We’re probably not likely to go worship other “idols” in the same way, though President Kimball obviously pointed out we have our own version of that, and we’re probably not going to marry 700 people. And yet, to me, there’s a powerful reminder.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:07:36 It goes back to David, David and Solomon, the two areas where they fell, the two areas where they didn’t stay faithful were in their sexual intimate relationships and in their families, while it’s no surprise that those are the two areas that Satan most actively seeks to get us to walk astray, to not realize that our sexual nature is part of our divine nature meant to bring us to God, that family isn’t just a nice 1950s construct here in America, but that it is meant to be our exaltation, that as President Nelson has taught again and again, salvation is an individual issue, exaltation is a family issue, that who you marry and your faithfulness to that marriage covenant is not just a nicety.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:08:28 It’s not just, this is a good thing if you’re in the mood, it is necessary for our exaltation. And that knowledge is being challenged in our day. Yes, most people still believe that marriage is a good thing though, but not all. The number of marriages are definitely dropping, statistically speaking. In the church, for the last several years, there are more singles than married in the church.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:08:52 So, singleness is not a curse, singleness does not mean we’re broken. Singleness does mean we are in process, which by the way, married, you’re still in process. But to understand our theology, we cannot become as our eternal parents without an eternal companion by our side, and hence the commandment, not just a suggestion, that we marry in the Lord’s house to someone of the opposite gender who we can spend eternity with is not a suggestion, but is, in very essence, Section 131, section 132, it’s the Lord’s commandment that we approach sexual relations and approach marriage as the Lord has commanded, not because God doesn’t love others. Not because being single is wrong, but because this is the purpose, the process of life.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:09:51 And Solomon and David both, He almost wished they would’ve erred with the Word of wisdom or something, but not the way they did, because ultimately, this is going to have the strongest impact on their eternal destiny.

Hank Smith: 01:10:08 I go back to 1 Samuel 8 when Samuel said, “The people want a king,” and the Lord said, “This is a bad idea. This is a bad idea.” And we’re 0 for three here. Saul, David, Solomon, each one started great and fell great. Huge falls.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:10:26 There’s going to be temporal consequences. So, Solomon is going to have all but one, sometimes we say two tribes, taken from him, and that’s going to happen in his lifetime. But in his lifetime, the authors say, based on the promise God made to David, that He would never fully take the kingdom from him. He kept one to two kingdoms, Judah and likely Benjamin. It’s not the temporal that ultimately matters the most, it’s the eternal. And we know that both David and Solomon are not in the best of shape when it comes to that based on their use of agency having to do with their own sexual nature and their familial decisions.

Hank Smith: 01:11:10 Mike, I want to finish on an uplifting note here. As a marriage and a family researcher, how have you seen people do this right? How do you get your relationships right? Let’s put David and Solomon over on the side for a second and tell us how to do this in our own lives to make sure that we’re staying in a healthy, connected-to-God relationship.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:11:32 You’re kind, Hank. Thank you for pulling us back from the abyss of going sadness with this. The reality is, and this what we try to do desperately in our classes at BYU. I don’t know if everyone that’s listening realizes this, but now, BYU has four religion classes that are required of all students. One based off the Doctrine & Covenants, one based off the New Testament, the Bible, and one based off the Book of Mormon, and then one based on the eternal family. And by the way, the eternal family is the only one that’s primarily based in modern prophetic teachings rather than just Scriptural.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:12:07 And, and I’ll be honest, that made some of our friends, our fellow faculty members, nervous in the beginning, but the board of directors is the first presidency Quorum of Twelve, the Board of Education for the church. And they weren’t nervous on this. They wanted that. So, every student who graduates from BYU has to take the Eternal Family class.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:12:26 So, in that class, we are anxiously seeking to help our students understand that our nature is God’s nature, and God’s nature is relational, that we are intended to be in relation to God, and that our eternal destiny is based on living true to our eternal marriage covenants.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:12:50 So, one of the things we try to do with our students is to help them to pull back from the culture of the world when it comes to marriage and family and sexuality and gender issues. There’re good things in the world, but there’s also problematic things. To try to see marriage and family and sexuality and gender from God’s perspective, as we help our students to see what God has revealed through his prophets, and catch a vision of why God values family, why God commands eternal marriage in the temple, why God institutes these chances for us to become like Him, or should I say them, our Heavenly Parents.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:13:38 That Heavenly Father, or Heavenly Parents, want us to become as They are, and that that’s only possible as we follow the eternal principles that God himself knows and God himself reveals through His prophets. As we do that, John, I like what you said, it won’t be perfect. I have a glorious, happy family that is very much not perfect. I tried to be a really good daddy and a really good grandpa. By the way, the grandparenting gig is really good, but I know I fall short.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:14:18 I love Doctrine & Covenants 64:34, “The Lord requires the heart and the willing mind.” He didn’t say, “I required perfection yesterday.” The Lord requires the heart and the willing mind. What He needs us to do, what we’re trying to do with our students is to help them catch the eternal vision of what sexuality, gender, marriage, family is according to God, and then do our very best to pattern our lives after that, realizing that none of us will do it perfectly, and also realizing that in this life, not all will experience these things in its fullness.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:15:00 And that God has promised, and this I think is so crucial, God has promised that nobody will be denied every blessing that God has promised His children based on anything that is outside of their control, that you and I can know that if we stay covenant-connected to God, we will lose nothing. We will become as our father and mother in heaven. We will receive every blessing God has promised all his children.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:15:33 That has been reiterated by almost every prophet of this dispensation. That is without question. So, when we see tragedies… I come from a family, my family are not LDS, but my parents were the most amazing alcoholic parents you’d ever want. My birth family is the poster childhood of dysfunctionality, and they’re so good, they’re so loving.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:15:56 We’ve got so many challenges in our family, and God loves us. And God has promised nothing that is outside of your choice. You all have to choose. You still have to use your agency. If you choose to stay-covenant connected to Me, I promise you all things, both joy in this life, this is important, you don’t have to wait till the next life, joy in this life and a fullness of joy in the next life. That’s the Lord’s promise to us.

Hank Smith: 01:16:30 Beautiful. How has your scholarship and research influenced your faith? I think our listeners would be interested in your story of becoming a scholar, not just a Scripture scholar, but a marriage and family scholar, and being an active Latter-day Saint. I think that there’s some misnomer out there that if you somehow get more education, you’ll lose your faith, but that hasn’t happened to you.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:17:00 No, no. In fact, I would honestly say my education has strengthened my faith tremendously. My PhD is in Marriage, Family, Human Development. I study what makes marriages and family successful, and I study explicitly dealing with adolescents. Suicidality, LGBTQ issues are the areas where I publish and where I research.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:17:24 But I’ve got to update this in the last probably two years, but it was about three, four years ago, I decided I wanted to look at every single study that had ever been published that is in the major databases, to look at what is the influence of religion, one, and the Church of Jesus Christ, two, on wellbeing. I have reviewed thousands of articles. Yeah, this took a long time, but I want to see what does the best social science say about God, the Gospel, and family and church.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:18:02 I would testify, with all the surety of my heart, correlates with wellbeing. Yes, religion can turn toxic. There can be problems, but the vast majority correlates with wellbeing, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that membership in the church and living those principles correlates with flourishing, with wellbeing. And by the way, I know the world struggles to believe this, but if you look at the research, that is true for every group, straight, gay, pick your congregation.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:18:42 And when you look at representative samples and studies that look at the impact or often not causation but the correlations between research on wellbeing and religion and research on wellbeing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints, hey, the church is far from perfect. We have so many things we have to do better, but the research is clear as glass. If you want to flourish in this life, faith in God, faith in Christ, membership in the church, is a powerful way to do that.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:19:20 So, my scholarship, even on the most sensitive topics… I do a lot of work on LGBTQ suicidality. I have a great love and desire to help. The best research that looks at anything close to a representative sample, shows that the Gospel is protective for all.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:19:44 Now, does that deny that there are people who struggle? No. People aren’t statistics. Individuals definitely struggle, and we need to do better to help all. But I would simply, in answer to your question, Hank, I would say that my study of the best social science has strengthened my testimony, has strengthened my testimony in God, my Savior, Jesus Christ, and in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Hank Smith: 01:20:10 Thank you, Mike. My friend, Mike, so grateful that we were able to share you with our listeners. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Michael Goodman: 01:20:17 Happy to be here. Thank you.

Hank Smith: 01:20:19 We loved having you. I’m happy we were able to finish on a positive note. We want to thank Dr. Mike Goodman for being here today. We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen, and our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen.

John Bytheway: 01:20:32 To our production crew, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nelson, David Perry, Kyle Nelson, Will Stoten and Scott Houston, we love you and thank you. And we hope all of you will join us on our next episode of FollowHIM.