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

In today’s passage, as he gave Solomon his plans for building the temple, David told Solomon that if he sought God, he would find Him, but that if he forsook Him, He would forsake him as well (this is one of those sentences where I am so happy that we capitalize the pronoun when applying it to God).  That is an important point to which we should all pay close attention.  Those who genuinely seek God, will indeed find Him, no matter where they choose to begin their search.  However, those who forsake God will be forsaken.  But David had more to say to Solomon which also applies to each of us, “God has chosen you to…  Be strong and do the work.”  Now, not all of us, not even many of us, have been chosen to build a house for the Lord, but all of us have been chosen by God to do something for God.  Let each and every one of us be strong and do the work.  The best part of that instruction is what David says about it a little later.  As we strive to be strong and do the work for which God has chosen us, God will always be with us and will not fail us.  If we strive to be strong and to do God’s work, God will make us strong enough to accomplish whatever task He has chosen for us.  With God by our side, or, perhaps, with us by God’s side, there is nothing for us to fear, or for us to be discouraged by.

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 27-29.

Today’s passage starts with a continuation of the lists of people who ran things under King David. Unlike the last few days, I did not find anything interesting hiding in those lists.  I did however want to write about what David had to say during his commissioning of Solomon to build the Temple.  When the vast amounts of wealth (gold, silver, bronze, etc.) had been gathered for building and furnishing the Temple, David rejoiced at the generosity of the people.  However, he pointed out an important point; what had been given towards the Temple had come from God in the first place.  A point we should carefully remember, everything we have came to us as a gift from God, so we should never begrudge giving any of it back to His purposes.

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

I am using 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.

This passage lays out how David laid out his government of the Kingdom of Israel.  It lists those who commanded the forces he kept prepared against an unexpected attack (and probably sent out to deal with bandits who raided caravans on the trade routes) and those who he appointed to administer the various aspects of his government.  Perhaps the most interesting thing is how he included the leaders of each of the tribes into his government.  Certainly, that contributed to the division of the Kingdom when his grandson took the throne, but it also helped to make the people think of themselves as part of the Kingdom rather than just as part of the various tribes.

However, I want to spend a little time about something it relays from David’s instructions to Solomon.  Up until this point, most of what was written in this book was there to show how the Returned Exiles were connected to the Kingdom of David.  This was included as instruction on how they, and we, should live.  It includes a series of points which we should meditate on frequently:

• Learn to know God intimately
• Worship and serve Him with your whole heart and a willing mind
• God sees every heart and knows every thought and plan
• If you seek Him, you will find Him
• If you forsake Him, He will reject you.

Part of me wants to expound on that, but everything I think to write seems to dilute the above.