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.

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

As I have repeatedly written, I find passages such as today’s, which are lists of names and appointments difficult to read and get something to write.  However, today as I read the passage I was struck by the comment about some of the Levites being set aside for the ministry of prophesying accompanied by musical instruments.  This cements the idea which has been growing in my head that prophesy as used in the Old Testament, and perhaps even into the New Testament, has a completely different meaning than what we commonly mean when we use the term today.  Today, when we say or write the word “prophesy” we generally mean proclaim the future.  However, here it seems to be used to mean leading people in worship of God.  There are enough places in the Old Testament where prophesy contains elements of predicting the future for me to believe our modern definition is not completely wrong, but there are also enough like today’s passage to make me think we need to give serious thought to what God wants us to understand about prophesy.

There is one other item I want to note.  Among the list of Levites who were Temple gatekeepers it mentions descendants of Obed-Edom.  We were told earlier in this book, and in Kings, that Obed-Edom was a Githite (a Philistine from Gath). Even here it tells us that Obed-Edom’s descendants were on this list because he was blest by God.  I want to point out that all the evidence suggests that Chronicles were compiled by people from the same group as those who composed Ezra and Nehemiah, two Old Testament books which seem to insist on racial purity for Jews.  Yet, here they are acknowledging that the descendants of a Philistine had duties among the most holy in Israel.  I am really glad I finally noticed this, because it sheds a new light on passages which have long troubled me.

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.

Usually when I look at this passage I look at David’s census and the plague which followed it.  However, it struck me today that this writer includes the census and the plague as setup to explain why the spot to build the Temple was chosen.  David chose the location of Araunah’s threshing floor as the place to build an altar to God.  Later, Solomon built the Temple there.  I find the description of how David chose that spot somewhat confusing (I am not sure that confusing is the correct word).  First the passage tells us that God told the angel to stop spreading the plague when it was at Araunah’s threshing floor.  Then the passage tells us that David saw the angel at Araunah’s threshing floor and begged God to stop sending a plague upon the people of Israel, who were innocent of this wrongdoing.  Then David went to Araunah’s threshing floor to build an altar in order to make an offering to the Lord (or, maybe, David went there as part of pleading with the Lord).  Finally, the passage tells us that Araunah was threshing, saw the angel, and then saw David approaching.  This reads to me as if the writer of this passage had several different accounts which contained slightly different details and were not told in a way which allowed him to determine exactly how they fit together.  It reads to me as if David began praying for God to stop the plague as soon as he became aware of it.  As the plague came to Jerusalem, Gad instructed David to have an altar built to make an offering to God.  As David headed for Mount Moriah, which was the obvious place in Jerusalem for an altar, he saw the angel of the Lord at Araunah’s threshing floor.  At the same time, Araunah saw the angel as well.  At that moment God instructed the angel to stop, or perhaps God instructed the angel to stop just before David or Araunah saw it.

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.

Initially, when King David proposed building a Temple for God in Jerusalem, the prophet Nathan approved the idea.  However, that night God came to him and revealed that David should not be the one to build the Temple.  Instead, God tells Nathan to tell David that one of his offspring will be the one to build the Temple for God.  Now, the simple view of Nathan’s prophecy holds that King Solomon fulfilled it when he built the Temple.  However, the prophecy also says that his throne would be established forever and that God would set him over His kingdom forever.  Considering that Solomon died and was buried, remaining in his grave, I would argue that Solomon was not the fulfillment of Nathan’s prophecy, or, not the complete fulfillment of it.  Instead, Nathan was prophesying the coming of the Messiah, who I believe to be Jesus Christ.

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.

A couple of things which become clear from this passage which are otherwise somewhat murky.  Here it explains how Joab became commander of the army for David.  Elsewhere we see various lists of David’s mighty men and, aside from being commander of the army, Joab does not otherwise rank particularly high among them.  Even his brother Abishai comes out in those lists as a more major figure.  However, here we learn that Joab became commander of the army for David by leading the attack to conquer Jerusalem.  Further, Joab played a major role in building Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (here it says that David built up part of the city and Joab restored the rest).  Another thing we learn here, although there is some reference to it elsewhere, is that while David was on the run from King Saul warriors from many different tribes defected from Saul’s army and joined David.  Perhaps the most significant of these were the warriors of the tribe of Benjamin, which was Saul’s tribe.  These defections show us that David developed a following among all of the tribes, even while Saul was still king.  They became the basis for David becoming king over all of Israel.

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.

The genealogies continue today and once again I noticed a couple of things only because I had to find something to write about this passage.

Note: I am not saying that these things are only worth noticing because I need something to write, only that I would not have noticed them if I did not need something to write.

First, the passage mentions that two of Ephraim’s sons were killed when they raided livestock from Gath.  One might easily pass that by, after all Gath is more or less part of the Land of Canaan and most of Jacob’s sons and grandsons grew up near there.  However, Ephraim was born in Egypt and never lived in Canaan.  This is not an important thing, but it tells us that the Israelites raided into Canaan after Jacob’s family moved to Egypt.  Second, I noticed that the writer tells us that complete genealogies were kept in the records of the kings of Israel and Judah.   Or, at least, that is how I read chapter 9 verse 1.  At some point I may look into whether Hebrew scholars agree with my understanding of what is written here.  The other thing I noticed was that after listing genealogies for all of the tribes, the writer writes about those who first resettled in the land after the Exile.  This tells us that the Books of Chronicles were compiled after the Israelites returned from Exile.  I know some people who conclude from this that ALL of the Old Testament was compiled after the Exile.  However, that does not follow and we have portions of the Torah from before the Exile.  The fragile nature of paper and parchment makes it somewhat surprising we have even that.

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.

And today we have another passage of genealogies.  The writer makes a point that Reuben lost his rights of first born because he slept with one of Jacob’s wives.  Interestingly, the writer thought it important to point out that even though Judah was the strongest of Reuben’s brothers and that the ruler came from the tribe of Judah, it was Joseph who received the rights of first born after Reuben lost them.  Was this included to explain how the Kingdom of Israel divided?  Or, does it serve some other purpose?  I find it interesting that the writer listed the places to which the Assyrians exiled the tribes who had lived east of the Jordan River.  After writing about the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, the writer goes on to outline the genealogy of the tribe of Levi.  The writer goes on to write about those who King David assigned musical duties around the Ark of the Covenant after he brought it to Jerusalem.  All of these genealogies had great significance to those who returned to Jerusalem and the land of Israel after the Exile.

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 have written time and again that I get little out of the genealogies in the Bible, nevertheless I believe they have value and seek to find it each time I come to them.  Today, reading this passage I received confirmation of something that had gradually been rising in my awareness.  The family of Jesse, King David’s father, was prominent in the tribe of Judah, and thus in all of Israel, before David rose to prominence.  Jesse was descended from Boaz, who was descended from Nahshon.  Nahshon was the leader of the tribe of Judah during the Exodus.  That fact is not terribly important, but it does help us understand why King David’s nephews (Joab, Amasa, and a few others) kept cropping up in the accounts of his reign as people he had to negotiate with rather than just command.  Again this demonstrates the value of reading and re-reading the Bible, even the “boring parts”.

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