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 24-26.

This is another passage which I always struggle to read because I am not sure why I should care which priestly and Levitical families were assigned to which duties. However, there are a couple of things we learn from this particular passage. We see once again that the writer of this book was more of a compiler than a writer. This passage is taken from other documents to which the writer had access. How do we know this? Because the writer tells us who took the notes at the meeting where the duties were assigned. This is not the sort of detail which someone who is writing out a myth or legend includes. Rather, this is the sort of detail which someone includes because they know that their readers to know that they are relying on a primary source. While my understanding of this passage supports the idea that 1 and 2 Chronicles were written in order to bolster the claims of the Returned Exiles to ownership over Jerusalem and surrounding lands, it runs counter to the idea that they did not have such a claim. I find this important because I know people who believe that the Old Testament was compiled to cynically cement the claim of people who had no actual connection to what we now know as the Holy Land.

The writer imparts to us that the duties of the Levites and priests were assigned with no preferential treatment given. He makes it clear that those who assigned those duties under King David were fully conscious of the ways in which people might claim that duties were assigned based on who people knew rather than on an impartial basis and made a concerted effort to ensure that they could refute such claims. We need to follow their example when choosing who to assign tasks in the modern Church. It is not enough to assign duties impartially. We must make sure that we do everything we can so that people know that we did 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 1 Chronicles 20-23.

The writer/compiler of this account is even more emphatic that David’s census was a sin. He is less than clear as to what sin was committed in taking the census, perhaps it was the failure to collect the census tax which God told Moses to collect in Exodus 30. The consequence of David’s census was exactly that which God told Moses would happen if they took a census without collecting the tax. When given a choice as to what punishment he would suffer for his sin, David chose to suffer Divine punishment rather than punishment delivered by human agency. We must always balance David’s choice to fall into the hands of God against the writer of Hebrews warning that it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It is indeed a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God, but, as David said, at least we know that He may show mercy.

The account also tells us that David witnessed an angel of the Lord stretching a drawn sword out over Jerusalem. David and those with him expressed remorse and contrition upon seeing the angel and God halted the plague before it entered Jerusalem. David felt led by God to build an altar to worship God at this site and this became the site where Solomon later built the Temple. Further we learn that David was afraid to go to Gibeon where the Tabernacle and the altar built by Moses resided because of the sword carried by the angel he witnessed.

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 17-19.

When David had built secured his control over Israel and built himself a palace to rule from, he felt that he should build a Temple for God. Through Nathan, God told David that He did not desire a fixed location house to live in and that David should not build Him one. But God did have Nathan tell David that He would raise up one of David’s descendants to be king after him. That descendant would build a temple for God, and God would establish his throne forever. While this was interpreted by David and Nathan as referring to Solomon, in many ways it was not truly fulfilled in Solomon. God said that He would never take His favor away from this descendant of David. Yet we know that, because of Solomon’s idolatry, God chose to take His favor from Solomon and split the kingdom upon Solomon’s death. Clearly the descendant to whom God was referring was the Messiah, Jesus Christ. While Solomon built a physical Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus built a spiritual Temple. Solomon’s Temple was destroyed, while the Temple which Jesus built will never be destroyed.

David’s response to the message which God gave him through Nathan tells us a some things about the theology of those who worshiped God in his time. Throughout the Old Testament we read things which reveal to us that the people of Israel tended to view God in ways which were influenced by the beliefs of those around them. The people around them viewed gods as being geographically limited. They worshiped a god of the hills and a god of the plains. To them God was just another god who ruled over a limited geographic area. Some of those gods were able to extend their geographic reach a bit further. Some of them were more powerful than others, and the power relationship between them shifted over time. However, the exchange here between God and David reveals that God is not like those other gods. God tells David that His home is not a fixed location. God is not limited to a geographic location. His power extends to the whole earth. David responds by stating that the people of Israel know that God is different from all other gods. None of the other gods had done for their people anything even vaguely resembling what God had done in bringing the Isrealites out of Egypt.

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 13-162.

As I read the account here of David’s decision to move the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem I realized that this was both a political move and an act of faith. By moving the Ark to Jerusalem David brought the focus of Israelite religious activity to his capital. However, he also led the people to make worshiping God a more central part of their lives. While David had good intentions in moving the Ark of the Covenant, he did not do so according to God’s instructions for moving the Ark. As a result, one of David’s friends died. We must realize that good intentions is not enough. If we do not act according to God’s instructions and commands, things will go wrong and bad things will result. When that happens we often react as David did and get angry with God when bad things happen. However, David did not turn away from God in his anger. Instead, he took the time to learn what he had done wrong. Then he made plans and completed moving the Ark to the prepared location, doing things the right way.

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 7-9.

I have mentioned before that I do not like reading these genealogies and do not get much out of them. However, others find more in them than I do, and I have heard sermons and read messages which show how they sometimes teach us important lessons. I found a couple of interesting things as I read today. This account was written sometime after the Exiles returned, since it lists some of those who returned. However, the writer had access to records from when David was king. He specifically tells us that one of his number of descendants of Issachar was from the time of David (I would suspect it was from the census David took). The writer does not say, but I believe that the other numbers of fighting men he lists as descended from one or another of Jacob’s sons come from the same source. I wonder whether those records were preserved by the Exiles and brought back with them, or were they uncovered while the Returned Exiles were rebuilding Jerusalem? We know from other passages that some of the information contained here could have come from documents the Returned Exiles brought back with them.

I find it interesting that this account tells us that two of Ephraim’s sons died on a cattle raid near Gath. Now we know that Ephraim was born to Joseph in Egypt and his sons would have lived in Egypt. From this we can conclude that in the early period while the Israelites were in Egypt they went on raids to the land of Canaan. In the same portion we are told that one of Ephraim’s granddaughters founded two towns in what became Israel. These two things suggest that in the early years after Jacob’s family went to Egypt they still were active in the Land of Canaan.

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 5-6.

Today’s passage gives an example of why it is useful to read and re-read passages with which we think we are familiar. I do not believe that I have ever noticed before today what this passage says about the tribes of Reuben, Judah, and the two tribes of Joseph. Even though Reuben was Jacob’s firstborn son, the rulers of Israel did not come from his tribe, and his tribe did not have the largest territory. The writer here tells us that this was the case because Reuben had slept with his father’s concubine (something mentioned in Genesis 35:22). Now, in Jacob’s farewell address to his sons we read that Jacob had prophesied/declared that Reuben had lost his position as first because of his act and that a descendant of Judah would rule over the people of Israel. However, this is the first and only place to suggest that the reason Manasseh and Ephraim (Joseph’s two sons) were both counted as tribes was because Joseph received the double share of the inheritance which had been Reuben’s as firstborn son. I never really thought about the fact that Joseph got a double portion of inheritance from Jacob before today. Nor did I think about the fact that by the standards of the day that double portion should have gone to Reuben. I am unsure what significance there is in that it happened, but going forward it will influence my thinking as I read.

There are a couple of points out of the rest of this passage which I want to highlight. I do not currently know if these points have any significance, but think they are things to note as I read the rest of the Bible. The tribes who settled east of the Jordan River functioned as a third political division of the people of Israel. There was the Southern portion, which became the Kingdom of Judah. There was the Northern portion, which became the Kingdom of Israel after the Kingdom divided. Finally there was the portion east of the Jordan. This portion was where Abner set up Saul’s son Ishbosheth as king after Saul’s death. It was where King David fled from and based his resistance to Absalom’s revolt. Then here in today’s passage we get a hint that the Israelites east of the Jordan went into exile some time before the fall of Samaria. This is also mentioned in 2 Kings at one point. Another point of minor significance is that it says here that only descendants of Aaron served as priests, yet in the books previous to this there are numerous mentions of others who served as priests from time to time and place to place. There are two possible ways to reconcile this. The first is that only Aaron’s descendants were supposed to function as priests. The second is that only Aaron’s descendants served as priests at the official altar of God. Again, this will be something I will need to keep in mid as I read the rest of the Bible to see how it colors the meaning of other passages.

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 2-4.

This is a passage that I would never spend any time on if I was not writing this blog. One thing which struck me initially is that the number of generations listed here from Judah to David does not seem to fill the time between them. In particular, there does not seem to be enough generations to fill both the time spent in Egypt and the time from when they left Egypt until David rules. Part of the reason for this was that I was under the impression that the Israelites were in Egypt for 400 years )approximately). However, as I did a little research I discovered that the 400 years was approximately the time from Abraham’s feast when Isaac was five years old until Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. This shortens the time in Egypt to a little more than 200 years. While it still seems to me like a few generations are missing from this genealogy, that change in timing means that perhaps not.