He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights (Psalm 18:33).

The last few days I’ve watched deer glide in and out of the woods. A couple of nights ago, at dusk, we drove down a heavily wooded, gravel road. Our truck scared up several deer bedded down in dense cover. They immediately popped up and bounded away, easily jumping over downed trees along a rocky hillside.

The next day, I worked with my brother to clear brush off a steep bank alongside Lake Taneycomo, in southern Missouri. Between trying to balance on the unstable slope and dodging patches of poison ivy, I failed the “feet of a deer” test. I ended up in the water, although I avoided most of the poison ivy. I never felt secure on that particular height.

The deer looked on with pity. Whether they leap and bound when startled, or carefully place their feet while feeding, grace always marks their movements.

I don’t know where David watched deer. Probably during his long days caring for sheep. I imagine him observing the difference between the clumsy sheep and the athletic deer—and that drew him to the Lord’s goodness.

David called upon the Lord, who saved him, and in his relief he felt as free as a deer in the mountains. I’m enjoying his understanding as the deer drift around me this week here in the Ozarks.

Week twenty-one of reading the Bible cover to cover

Photo by Benoit Gauzere

Ornan’s threshing floor—a broad, flat, hardened surface of stone or clay—stayed busy processing the recent harvest. But when an angel approached, all work stopped. His four sons ran and hid (a common response when people in the Bible sighted an angel). Ornan stood slack-jawed, too awed to move.

King David followed the angel and offered to buy Ornan’s property. David hoped to stop a terrible plague he caused by displeasing the Lord. Ornan offered the property for free, but David refused, insisting on full price. Ornan took the deal, David built an alter, and the Lord accepted his sacrifice with fire from heaven.

Several years later, Solomon built the first Jewish temple on the site of Ornan’s threshing floor (2 Chronicles 3:1). Invaders, first the Babylonians and later the Romans, eventually destroyed the Jewish temple and looted its contents.

Today the Temple Mount holds The Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine. Three major religions—Judaism, Islam & Christianity—all revere the old threshing floor and cling to its significance.

David purchased the property after his sin with the census led to the death of 700,000 men. Now it’s the most contested religious site in the world, as recent riots underscore. A long history of violence characterizes this one-time scene of harvest and hope.

A place birthed in bloodshed remains bathed in bloodshed.

2 Samuel 24 & 1 Chronicles 21 in week twenty-one of reading the Bible cover to cover

Photo shows Aerial views of the Temple Mount and parts of the Old City of Jerusalem