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.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 10-12.

As I understand the intentions of those who compiled this book, everything up until this point was to set the stage for the history they now begin telling.  Even their account of the death of King Saul and his sons was intended more to set the stage for David’s kingship than to relate events.  That does not mean that the account of Saul’s death is inaccurate, just that the writer glossed over details in order to get to the “important stuff”.  Even when describing the warriors who followed David, the writer counts on the reader being familiar with the story of David’s life from other sources.  I mentioned yesterday how the compiler of this account intended to show how a particular ethnic group was entitled to rule over the land of Israel.  Well, today’s passage suggests that to be a somewhat oversimplified explanation of their motives.  I find it interesting that, in today’s passage, they make it clear that David only came to rule over Israel because he had successfully inspired men from many backgrounds and nations to follow his leadership.  The account tells us how the men who followed David were extraordinary warriors who were willing to take great risks to serve David.  So, the first part of David’s success came from his ability to gain the loyalty of many great men.  The second part, which is not as clearly spelled out, came from his ability to inspire them to do even greater things in service to him.

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 7-9.

This is one of those passages which I struggle with what to write every year.  As with last year the things I am going to write about are things which I would not even have noticed if I did not need something to write about.   I found it curious that, after writing about the sons of Benjamin, but before discussing the sons of Naphtali, the writer mentions that the Shuppites and Huppites were descendants of Ir, and the Hushites were descendants of Aher.  However, at no place does he tell us from whom Ir and Aher were descended.  From the placement, I assume that the Shuppites, Huppites, and Hushites were all descendants of Benjamin, but I do not know for sure.  The Shuppites and Huppites have additional significance in that Makir, a descendant of Manasseh married a woman from their number.

I also want to note that we again have a portion in this passage which tells us that this book was compiled by those who returned to the Land of Israel after the Babylonian Exile.  Many scholars hold that the entire Old Testament was compiled at around that time.  In fact, some people have concluded from the genealogies included here, and the way that they are presented, that the Old Testament was compiled from other sources in order to provide support for the idea that those who returned from Exile should rule the land.  I think those people are on to something when it comes to the motivation in compiling the books of Chronicles.  However, I think that the way in which the “Chronicler” made his bias in favor of those whose genealogies were “pure”, while most of the other Old Testament books lack that clear bias suggest other origins for those books.   I will also point out that while the “Chronicler” had his own agenda in compiling these two books, God had His purposes for them.  I believe that God made use of the “Chronicler’s” personal motives to accomplish His greater purpose.

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 5-6.

I am not really sure what to write about the genealogies listed here.  I have a few thoughts.  It appears that the lists of descendants of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh listed here were those living in Gilead (east of the Jordan River) when Jeroboam II was king of Israel, the Northern Kingdom.  On the other hand, the descendants of Levi listed appear to include an actual genealogy.  As I understand this passage, it was included by those who compiled it in order to provide a way to identify where those returning from Exile fit in the nation of Israel which the Returned Exiles were trying to build.

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 2-4.

I don’t really know what to do with this passage, but I will write about a few things which I found noteworthy.  I have made note before that Joab, Abishai, and Asahel were King David’s nephews by his sister Zeruiah, and Amasa was David’s nephew by another sister named Abigail.  I mention this because Joab killed Amasa when David had offered Amasa Joab’s job as commander of his army.  I have written about all of that previously.  However, what I noticed today is that Amasa’s father is mentioned in this passage, but no father is mentioned for Joab and his brothers.  I am not sure what to make of those facts, but I want to think about whether or not the failure to mention a father for Joab and his brothers has any significance.  In addition I want to think about whether the significance of Amasa’s father is that he was known, or that he was an Ishmaelite, rather than an Israelite?  This passage also implies that the Line of David after the Exile consisted solely of the descendants of Jehoiachin.  I am not entirely sure why that is important, but its presence here means that it has significance.  The list of descendants of Jehoiachin also gives us an idea about when this book was compiled, which was a generation or three after Zerubbabel, who was governor of Jerusalem after the Israelites returned from Exile.

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