Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Chronicles 15-18.

I think that we do not give King Asa as much attention as we should.  His story contains some great lessons for us.  Most of his reign provides us with an example we should follow, while the last few years of it provide us with a warning.  Starting at the beginning of his reign, Asa destroyed the altars and places of worship for idols and led the people to faithfully worship God.  He committed himself to serving God his entire life.  His dedication to God led Israelites from the Northern Kingdom to relocate to Judah.  After relying on God to defeat a vast invading army, he held a great festival to praise and worship God.  The people of Judah enthusiastically followed Asa’s lead and took an oath to serve God.  As I read over what I just wrote, I realized that I have failed to communicate the joy which the passage conveys that the people felt over their dedication to the Lord.  And that is perhaps the most important part of what Asa did, he led the people of Judah to serve and worship God with joy.

Unfortunately, late in his life King Asa became more “pragmatic”.  When King Baasha of Israel began fortifying the border to isolate Judah (probably at least in part in response to his own people moving to Judah), instead of turning to God for aid, Asa bribed the king of Aram to go to war against Israel.  When confronted about this by a prophet, rather than accept his criticism, Asa had the prophet imprisoned.  The passage also tells us that at the same time Asa began oppressing some of the people.  While the passage does not outright say so, I suspect that the people who oppressed were those who were critical of his actions.  Then when he was afflicted with some sort of disorder in his feet, King Asa sought only the aid of doctors, he did not seek help from God.  I find this very sad, as his life ended without the joy in serving God which filled so much of it.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Chronicles 11-14.

In today’s passage we have three successive kings of Judah and four wars (sort of).  After Jeroboam led the northern tribes in rebellion against him, Rehoboam mustered the fighting men of Judah and Benjamin to force an end to the rebellion.  However, God sent the prophet Shemaiah to tell them not to fight against their fellow Israelites.  When the army heard Shemaiah’s words, they went home.  (as a side note: this always reads to me like Rehoboam did not have a choice about whether to contest the rebellion after this because his army refused to fight to reclaim the northern territory).  Initially after this, most of those who lived in the northern territory who rejected Jeroboam’s idol worship moved south to Judah.  In Rehoboam’s fifth year, Judah was invaded by Egypt.  Once again, the prophet Shemaiah delivered God’s word to Rehoboam and the people of Judah.  Shemaiah told them that God had abandoned them to the Egyptians because they had abandoned Him. In response, Rehoboam and his officials humbled themselves.  Since they humbled themselves, God turned aside from His anger.   After Rehoboam died his son, Abijah ruled in Jerusalem.  During Abijah’s reign he was at war with Jeroboam.  In one battle, the army of Judah was vastly outnumbered by Jeroboam’s army.  Abijah appealed to God, and his army cried out to God, and they routed Jeroboam’s army.  The final battle in today’s passage occurred when Asa, Abijah’s son was king.  The king of Cush marched against Judah with a massive army.  Asa called out to God, and God struck down the Cushite army.

There are two lessons to learn from this.  First, we need to listen to God when we choose which battles to fight.  Second, we need to learn to call on God and trust Him when we do fight battles.  And, actually there is a third lesson: if we do not listen to God, we may end up having to fight battles we would have been better off avoiding.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Chronicles 8-10.

In today’s passage, chapters 8 and 9 are written to highlight Solomon’s wealth, power, and wisdom.   In particular, chapter 8 discusses how he used the wealth he acquired to strengthen Israel by building fortified cities and settling Israelites into border territories.  Chapter 9 illustrates how word of his knowledge and wisdom spread far and wide, with the Queen of Sheba coming to see for herself that the rumors were true.  Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but in the account here, and in the one in 1 Kings, the Queen of Sheba comes to Jerusalem after Solomon had partnered with Hiram of Tyre to send a trading fleet into the Arabian Sea.  This is significant because the best sources I can find place the kingdom of Sheba as being on the Arabian Peninsula in the area where Yemen is today.  With such a location, Sheba would have traded with the east coast of Africa and with India.  Reading the descriptions of Solomon’s trade fleets suggests that they also traded with the east coast of Africa (perhaps as far south as modern South Africa) and with India.   It is likely that Solomon was taking goods obtained from the lands along the western Mediterranean, transporting them overland the short distance to the Red Sea, then carrying them by boat to lands to the east.  The Queen of Sheba traveled to Jerusalem to determine what kind of threat this new trading empire was to her own country’s prosperity.  I believe her comments about Solomon’s wisdom indicate that she found Solomon intent on making mutually beneficial trades with all his subordinates encountered (after all, Solomon and his father before him had a mutually beneficial relationship with Tyre).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Chronicles 5-7.

I want to start today’s blog by noting more about the compilation of this book.   A few days ago I had noted that the genealogies at the beginning suggested that this book was compiled after the return from exile.  I still believe that to be true.  However, today’s passage was originally written before the Exile.  We know this because Solomon’s temple was destroyed at the time of Exile, but this passage tells us that the carrying poles for the ark of the covenant could still be seen from in front of the inner sanctuary at the time of writing.  This tells us that the genealogies, and perhaps other notes, were added on to copies being made of a source document which predated the Exile.  It would not surprise me to someday learn that parts of multiple source documents were combined into this one document.

I have always thought of the temple which Solomon had built as a temple of God or a temple for God.  However, as I was reading the passage today, I noticed that while Solomon was addressing the people during the dedication of the temple he referred to it as “temple for the Name of the Lord.”  So, Solomon did not perceive himself to have built a temple for the Lord, he only considered it as being for the Name of the Lord.  I take two things from this.  On the one hand it indicates, as Solomon noted in his prayer of dedication, no building, or even city or nation, can contain God.  So, we do not need to go to a specific location in order to call on God.  God can hear us and come to our aid, no matter where we are on earth.  On the other hand, the Name of God is no small thing to be used without care or thought.  We must be careful to give God’s Name the honor it is due.   And I just realized there is a third thing that I take from this.  Solomon built the temple for the Name of the Lord rather than for the Lord in an attempt to keep people from starting to worship the temple itself.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Chronicles 1-4.

As part of consolidating his hold on the throne, King Solomon called all of Israel to a worship assembly at Gibeon, where the tent of the tabernacle and its altar still resided.  David had not  gone there to worship at least since the plague which followed his ill-advised census.  The writer tells us that while at Gibeon Solomon asked God for the wisdom and knowledge that he would need to lead the God’s people.  The writer also tells us that God granted Solomon his request, and said that He would give him wealth and honor.  However, the writer follows this up by telling us that King Solomon acquired many horses and chariots, and much wealth.  Further, we are told that Solomon imported horses from Egypt.  All of this is contrary to what God had explicitly told the Israelites through Moses about how their kings should behave.  Now, it seems to me that the writer told us about the horses and wealth which King Solomon accumulated in order to show us how God had fulfilled His promise to Solomon to give him great wealth since he had only asked for wisdom and knowledge.  And as we read a little further we see that initially, Solomon used that wealth to bring honor and glory to God by building a magnificent temple for Him.  However, once he completed that temple, rather than using the wisdom and knowledge which God gave him to find other ways to use his wealth to serve God, Solomon used that wealth to please himself.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 27-29.

Once again today I noticed something which I would never have observed if I was not writing this blog.  The list of the leaders of the tribes of Israel listed in today’s passage leave out Gad and Asher.  That is, the passage lists leaders for each of the tribes of Israel, except for these two.  Interestingly, it lists a leader for each half of the tribe of Manasseh (those who settled east of the Jordan River and those who settled west of the Jordan).  I also noticed that in the list of tribal leaders there was a leader listed for the tribe of Levi, and a leader listed for the descendants of Aaron.  At the end of the list of tribal leaders the writer points out that Joab began counting the fighting men of Israel, but did not complete the count.  I am not sure if this is intended to explain why a leader for neither Gad nor Asher is listed, or just as a note about the census being incomplete.  I am sure there are those who would conclude from the absence of a leader being listed for Gad and Asher that during David’s reign those two tribes did not have a leader.  I think a better conclusion would be that no leader is listed for those two tribes because the compiler of this book did not have the information, either because it was not recorded or had been lost from the documents they used.  Which tells me that those who compiled this book honestly recorded the information they found in older sources.  If they had been making things up, they would have invented names for the leaders of Asher and Gad in order to make their document seem more complete.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Chronicles 24-26.

So, as I have previously mentioned, passages such as today’s tend to make my eyes glaze over as I read them.  They are the perfect example of why I need to write this blog.  Since I need to write something about such passages, from time to time I notice things I might not otherwise notice.  Today, I took notice that the descendants of Obed-Edom were listed among the Levites.  I find that noteworthy because when Obed-Edom was mentioned as the person into whose care David put the ark of the covenant, it called him a Gittite.  Based on the other places where Gittite is used in the Old Testament, I had always assumed that a Gittite was a Philistine from Gath.  My first thought was that perhaps the Obed-Edom mentioned in 2 Samuel was a different person than this one.  However, this passage makes a point that God had blessed Obed-Edom, which is very similar to the wording of that David was told about the Obed-Edom in 2 Samuel.  So, I am confident that the Obed-Edom mentioned here is Obed-Edom the Gittite.  This leads me to conclude that Gittites were not necessarily Philistines.  Perhaps Ittai the Gittite who led the 600 warriors from Gath who joined King David at the beginning of Absalom’s rebellion was not a Philistine, or perhaps he was.  I will add that in King Saul’s first major victory over the Philistines, Hebrews who were in the Philistine army switched sides to ensure his victory.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 20-23.

Today’s passage contains the account of how David chose the future location of the temple in response to the plague which followed his census of the fighting men of Israel.  I will confess that I find all of these accounts confusing.  This one is no exception, and may be more confusing to me than the others.  David insisted on the census even though Joab warned him against it, realizing that he had sinned when he received the results.  Which is the first of the things I find confusing, since the passage does not explain why David commanding the census was a sin.  However, I can think of multiple reasons why it might be a sin, so it is not very confusing.  Next, God offered David the choice of three options for punishment, three years of famine, three days of plague, or three days being forced to flee from his enemies.  David asked only that his punishment come at the hand of God, not at the hand of men.  So, God sent a plague angel against Israel.  Which is also slightly confusing.  Are supposed to understand that David requesting into the hands of God was him choosing plague.  If so, how was plague more at the hands of God than famine?  As the plague angel approached Jerusalem, God ordered it to stop.  Also, as the angel approached Jerusalem, David saw it, fell on his face, and begged God to punish only himself.  God then sent word to David that he should build an altar to God at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.   Araunah and his sons saw the angel and Araunah’s sons hid.  Then Araunah saw David approaching and went out to greet him.  After David had offered his sacrifices, God told the angel to put up its sword and cease threatening Jerusalem.  So, the passage tells us that God told the plague angel to stop as it approached Jerusalem, but also seems to imply that He stopped the plague because David begged Him to turn His anger solely against David and only stopped the plague after David made offerings on a temple at Araunah’s threshing floor.  Perhaps the strangest part of this passage is where it says that David could not go to the tabernacle in Gibeon to inquire of God because he was afraid of the sword of the angel.  I read that as saying that David continued to be afraid to go to Gibeon.  After much thought, I believe the writer chose not to write this in a way which clarified the confusing points in order to convey how we are often confused by the way in which God works and need to look at it in hindsight to have even a modicum of understanding of what He did.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 17-19.

When David first spoke to Nathan the prophet about building a temple for God, Nathan’s gut response was to tell David to go ahead.  Nathan did not feel a need to ask God about it because his experience was that David made choices of which God approved (Note: this was before David encountered Bathsheba).  However, when Nathan meditated on God/prayed that night*, God revealed to him that He did not want David to build Him a temple.  This teaches us something important: we should take time to consult God before committing ourselves to a course of action.

The significance of the next section I am going to comment on depends on how you view the Bible and the way it was written.  If you believe that those who wrote down this book paraphrased their sources so as to put their own beliefs in the mouths of their ancestors, this next section is not very significant.  On the other hand, if you believe, as I do, that those who wrote down the various books of the Bible (particularly this one) based what they wrote on sources that dated to the time about which they are writing, perhaps selecting which sources they relied upon based on their biases and intentions, then this is very significant.  So, many biblical scholars have suggested that before the Babylonian Exile, particularly going back to the time of David and before, the Israelites believed that God was one of many gods, but was the only one worth worshiping.  While I believe that was true for many of the Israelites, it was not what was taught by the teachers of the Law, or what was believed by those, such as David, who strove to do God’s will in their lives.  Instead, I see in David’s prayer of praise to God recorded here a belief that God was the only real god.  So, if you believe, as I do, that this prayer of David recorded here actually reflects what David prayed, then this is evidence that the belief that YHWH is the only God was not a post-Exile “innovation”, but instead goes back to the very beginning of Israel as a people.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.