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

When David decided that he should build a Temple for God, God sent him a message through the prophet Nathan.  In that message, God told David that He had never asked any of the leaders of Israel to build Him a house.  Then God told David that He would raise up his offspring to succeed him.  That son would build a house for God.  The easy reading of this is that God was promising that Solomon would succeed David as king and build a Temple.  Yet, God goes on to tell David that this particular offspring will be established forever.  This leads me to conclude that while God was referring to Solomon, He was also referring to Jesus.  It was Jesus whom God set over His house and kingdom forever.

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 13-16.

Today’s passage describes how David established himself as king of Israel.  Actually, the writer started the process of laying out the steps which David took to consolidate power under himself.  As I noted yesterday, David’s approach contrasted with that of Saul.  As yesterday’s passage noted, David started by conquering Jerusalem and making that his capital.  Jerusalem was not a traditional base of power for any of the tribes, so it could be perceived as belonging to all of Israel, not just one tribe.  Today’s passage starts with David getting the consent of the leaders of all of Israel to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.  At first, that goes badly and David gives the Ark into the care of a Philistine living nearby, who was apparently loyal to David.  After two attacks by the Philistine armies, each of which David defeated decisively, David decides to finish moving the Ark to Jerusalem. Once the Ark is established in Jerusalem, David instituted regular worship before the Ark in Jerusalem and at the Tabernacle in Gibeon.  By doing this David unified the people of Israel in their worship of God.  Unifying the people of Israel had the effect of consolidating David’s power.

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.

Today’s passage is more genealogies and a large part of why I am writing this blog.  If I was not writing this blog, this passage would be where my “reading the Bible in a year” would come to an end, if it hadn’t yesterday.  However, there are some useful names mentioned here which are mentioned elsewhere.  While I do not get much out of reading this passage, there is value in cross referencing to here from the other passages where these people are mentioned.  We also get a little bit more of an understanding about the early days in Egypt from this passage.  It mentions that two of Ephraim’s sons were killed when they went on a cattle raid against men born in Gath.  The other relevant thing which we learn from this passage is that this book was compiled after the return from Exile from other sources, sources which were still available for some time after this book was compiled.

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.

Once again I am unsure what to make of this passage.  So, I will just comment on the random thoughts I had while reading it.  In the list of Reuben’s descendants it lists four sons of Reuben, then it lists out descendants of Joel.  But it never tells us who Joel’s father was.  A little later the passage tells us that “All these were entered in the genealogical records during the reigns of Jotham king of Judah and Jeroboam king of Israel.”  What is not clear is if that refers to the names listed, or to the paragraph which follows about the 44,000+ men ready for military service (or both).  Further on it lists the descendants of Levi.  It gives two separate lists of those descendants.  A first glance suggests that the first list followed one line of descent while the second list follows another.  Without doing a detailed look carefully comparing the two lists, they do not seem to contain any conflicts.

As I said, random thoughts.

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.

Today’s passage consists of more genealogies.  One thing we learn about the genealogies in the Old Testament is that we need to be careful about interpreting the number of generations between “father” and “son”.  This is not to dismiss these genealogies.  For example, it tells us that Achar (an alternate spelling of Achan) was the son of Kami, the son of Judah.  Assuming this is the Achan mentioned in the Book of Joshua, which is probable, we know he was more generations from Judah than his grandson.  This genealogy also tells us that Caleb was Judah’s great grandson, but we know that Caleb was more generations removed from Judah than that.  Now, the key here is that we know that the Hebrew words used to indicate that Caleb was the  son of Hezron and that Achar was the son of Karmi, can also just mean that they are descended from them.  We need to remember that Ancient Hebrew had very few words when compared to modern languages.  But even in modern English, we sometimes use the expression “child of” to indicate that someone descended from that person rather than to indicate that they are the following generation.

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 2 Chronicles 34-36.

I love the story of Josiah.  He became king at a young age, clearly under the oversight of regents.  As he started to be allowed to make his own decisions he chose to seek God.  As soon as he was of age to rule in his own right he began to fight against idolatry in the land under his control.  Once he had cleansed the land of idolatry he turned his attention to restoring the Temple.  In the process of cleaning the Temple, the priests found a copy of the Book of the Law and brought it to Josiah.  Which raises the question of what Josiah and the others worshiping God were basing their actions on?  Perhaps they had traditions passed down to them from previous generations, or perhaps they had partial records of God’s Law.  The important thing is that when Josiah heard what was in the Book of the Law, he immediately responded to it and began implementing it.

King Josiah’s first act upon hearing what God actually required was to tear his clothes in grief over how badly the people of Israel had failed to keep God’s covenant with them.  His second act was to seek God’s guidance on what he, and the people, should do.  Then, when he was told that God’s wrath could not be averted, Josiah chose to enthusiastically worship God and follow His Law to the best of his ability.  Josiah did not serve God because he saw it as the path to wealth and power.  He served God because it gave him joy to do so.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 29-30.

So, I wonder how Hezekiah came to be such a staunch follower of God after the extremes to which his father had gone.  Perhaps it was a combination of contrasting his father with his grandfather (Hezekiah was 9 when his grandfather died) and seeing his father sacrifice some of his younger brothers.  In any case, he called on the priests and Levites to purify themselves so that they could lead the people in worship of God once more.  King Hezekiah did something interesting: when he offered sacrifices for the people’s sins, he did not just offer sacrifices for the sins of the people of Judah, over whom he ruled, he offered sacrifices for all of the people of Israel, many of whom did not acknowledge his sovereignty.

Then when Hezekiah decided to hold Passover, he chose to hold it a month late because there was not time to prepare and have people gather in time for the normal time.  However, King Hezekiah did not reach this decision on his own, he did so in consultation with his advisers and representatives of the people.  Further, he sent word throughout all of the lands settled by the Israelites, even though he knew that most of them would reject celebrating the Passover as silly.  Finally, when they held the Passover, King Hezekiah made accommodation for those who had not properly prepared themselves.  We, also, should allow for those who wish to seek the Lord, but still struggle with sin.  We should not ask people to have cleaned all of the sin out of their lives before we accept their participation in our services and activities worshiping and serving God.  All we ask is that they strive to do better going forward.