"There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it:" (Ecclesiastes 9:14 KJV)
"So a time was set, and on that day a large number of people came to Paul's lodging. He explained and testified about the Kingdom of God and tried to persuade them about Jesus from the Scriptures. Using the law of Moses and the books of the prophets, he spoke to them from morning until evening. Some were persuaded by the things he said, but other did not believe. And after they had argued back and forth among themselves, they left with this final word from Paul: "The Holy Spirit was right when he said to your ancestors through Isaiah the prophet, 'Go and say to this people: When you hear what I say, you will not understand. When you see what I do, you will not comprehend. For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes - so their eyes cannot see, and ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.' So I want you to know that this salvation from God has also been offered to the Gentiles, and they will accept it."" (Acts 28:23-28 NLT)
Something about this "great king" has me believing that this is about something spiritual and in involves the ability to comprehend; but let's pretend for a moment this is actually a king that besieged a little city, with just a few men, and then went through the effort to build great bulwarks against it. If any of that might make any sense, it must have some buried treasure somewhere, that a great king would waste his time and effort on a little city, with only a few men within it; don't you think?
If you think about the reason Solomon has written this Book, "Ecclesiastes," stated in the first opening verse: "The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem." At this point of his life, he had experienced more pleasures than most people could ever have an opportunity to have; yet he had come to a point where his, with all of its glamour and prestige, was meaningless and vanity, of vanities.
Finding all of this was nothing but emptiness, he finally discovered that only by having God as the center of our lives, would we ever really be satisfied and complete. Part of this may have been a result from his upbringing; having king David as his father, and Bathsheba as his mother, there were certain things that were special about his being where he was and what he had become.
Just so you know, his father David was forgiven by God for what he had done with Bathsheba. But he still suffered in this life for what he had done. The forgiveness that we receive from God is to make us right with God; but we will still have scars and difficult times, on this earth, based upon the sins we might have committed.
All the more reason to look forward for the hope we have in being with the LORD...
"So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin's control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit." (Romans 8:1-4 NLT)
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