Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Chronicles 34-36.

Why did King Josiah march out to intercept Pharaoh Necho? (as an aside, whenever I read about Pharaoh Necho, I cannot help but think of the candy, Necco Wafers).  I mean, we know that King Josiah had joined the alliance against the Assyrians led by the Babylonians and that Pharaoh Necho was going to the assistance of the Assyrians, but why did King Josiah march out without God’s blessing?  In all other ways, Josiah acted according to God’s will, and even in this case he was acting in God’s will because God was bringing judgement against Judah for the sins of the people generation after generation.  Yet we also know that God had promised not to bring that judgement until after Josiah’s death.   This question has bothered me for many years.  I have chosen not to write about it because there are so many other things of value in this passage we can talk about.  Nevertheless we need to look at this decision made by Josiah.  We do not know that Josiah made a mistake in going against Pharaoh Necho.  We can think about the “what-ifs” if he had not, but we do know that God had had determined that Judah needed to face judgement for the sins of its people.  We do not know what would have happened had Josiah not chosen to join that war.  Perhaps he would have turned power over to his son peacefully and his son would have followed in his footsteps.  Or perhaps, his son would have done evil in the eyes of the Lord and things would have gone as they did anyway.

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 26-28.

Yesterday we read about Joash and Amaziah who were faithful to God for much of their reigns.  Today we read about Uzziah, Jotham, and Ahaz.  Uzziah and Jotham did right in the eyes of God, although Uzziah attempted to take the role of priest by burning incense before God later in his reign.  As I understand the story (from the account here and also in 2 Kings), Uzziah’s sin was about his failure to recognize a limit to what he could do more than just burning incense in a manner reserved for the priests.  His sin appears to me to have been the rejection of the idea that there were those who could hold him to account for his actions.  In many ways, his sin was a lesser form of that of his father, Amaziah, and his grandfather, Joash.  The difference being that when Uzziah was confronted about his overreaching, he backed down.

Uzziah’s son, Jotham, either learned the lesson from witnessing his father’s comeuppance, or did not live long enough to fall into the sin of his immediate ancestors.  Over their reigns, Uzziah and Jotham strengthened Judah through their dedication to following God and leading the people to do likewise.  Unfortunately, Jotham’s son, Ahaz, did not follow in his father’s footsteps.  Ahaz indulged in many different types of idolatry.  He did as he pleased with no concern for who might be hurt, even if those who might be hurt were his own children.  The writer tells us that Ahaz sacrificed his own children on the altar of gods whom he pursued out of selfish interest.

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 23-25.

Early in his reign, Joash was fervent in his devotion to God.  However, when his stepfather died, he fell under the influence of wicked men and began worshiping idols.  When Joash was confronted about this by his stepbrother, Joash had him put to death.   Then we have his son, Amaziah, who also did right in the eyes of God early in his reign, only to take the gods of Edom as his own after conquering that kingdom.  Both Joash and Amaziah stand as warnings to anyone who enthusiastically obeys God in their youth.  Our faith must endure for our entire lives.  While both Amaziah and Joash did good, in the end they faltered and fell short of what they could have been.

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 15-18.

I want to expound on the prophesy which Azariah spoke to King Asa after the latter’s victory over the mighty Cushite army.  King Asa was inspired by that prophecy to seek the Lord, and to assemble the people who looked to him for leadership for them to enter into a covenant to seek the Lord.  Here is Azariah’s prophecy:

The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach and without the law. But in their distress they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and sought him, and he was found by them. In those days it was not safe to travel about, for all the inhabitants of the lands were in great turmoil. One nation was being crushed by another and one city by another, because God was troubling them with every kind of distress. But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.

This prophecy is not very long, but it says a lot.  When we do the Lord’s will, He will be with us.  And if we seek God, He will be found by us.  If anyone seeks God, He will be found by them.   When the people do not know the true God, their land will be in distress.  Isn’t that what we see in the world today?  It is not safe to travel and people everywhere are in great turmoil.  One nation is being crushed by another.  And why is this?  Because God is troubling the people of the world with great distress because they do not know Him.  Perhaps in their distress they will turn to Him.  Then He will be found by them.  As for us who already know Him, let us be strong and not give up.  We have work to do, let us be about it.  If we do the work which God has given us we will be rewarded…by seeing that God’s work has been done.  And let’s not forget the negative side of Azariah’s prophecy:

If we forsake God, He will forsake us. 

I do not want to be forsaken by God, that may be my greatest fear.

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.

I am not sure where I am going with this today.  I want to start by talking about how the people and leaders of Judah responded to the prophet Shemaiah.  When Rehoboam rallied the troops to suppress Jeroboam’s rebellion, Shemaiah told the fighting force of Judah and Benjamin not to fight against their fellow Israelites.  While it is not clear from the passage, it appears to me that the army of Judah and Benjamin did not give Rehoboam a choice as to whether he would listen to Shemaiah.  Then, later in Rehoboam’s reign, Shemaiah again prophesied against the rulers of Judah.  Shemaiah told them that God had abandoned them to Shishak of Egypt because they had abandoned His worship.  In response, the leaders of Judah, including Rehoboam, humbled themselves and accepted God’s judgement.  Then we have the account of Abijah, Rehoboam’s son, warring against Jeroboam of the Northern Kingdom.  Elsewhere we are told that Abijah did evil in the sight of the Lord.  However, on this occasion, when he was both badly outnumbered and outmaneuvered, Abijah called on God and was victorious.  I will note that the reliance on God seems to have more been on the part of his army than Abijah himself.  Finally, we have the account of Asa against the Cushite army.  The writer here tells us that Asa was good and right in the sight of the Lord.  Asa was greatly outnumbered, but, when he called upon God, he was victorious.

As I said, I am not quite sure where this is going.  When Rehoboam went to suppress Jeroboam’s rebellion, Shemaiah told his army that God did not support their actions, and the army went home.  When Shishak invaded Judah, Shemaiah told the people of Jerusalem that God was with Shishak, and they surrendered to him.  When Abijah fought Jeroboam and the army of the Northern Kingdom, Abijah told the Israelites of the North that God was not with them, and they lost heart and went down to defeat.  When Asa went up against the Cushite army, he knew that victory could only come if God was on his side.  God was indeed on Asa’s side and Asa was victorious.  Do not go into battle, or any other endeavor, unless it is one which God desires you to fight.  If God is with you, you will be victorious.  If He is not, you will fail.

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.

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.