125- 2 Chronicles 1 and my triumphant return

  Things have been very busy the last few months, with drastically, rapidly changing plans and developments in various ministries and what have you, but those are all stories for other blogs.  I'm going to try to get back into a regular posting schedule here and someday maybe even finish this giant book that's been keeping both my soul and my coffee table so stable all these years.

  There will be a few changes from the last round of posts though.  For starters, no more of this trying to post every day.  The reading schedule is doable, but trying to summarize and comment on another passage every day can quickly get really shallow or really sloppy, and sometimes both.  With everything else I'm working on, I think it will be very doable to shoot for one post per week, maybe two when I'm overcome with the spirit.
  Posting less often means that my system of numbering posts according to how many days it's been from the begining almost completely meaningless, so that's going to have to change.  Call me obsessive, but I just like it when things are numbered, so I'm still going to keep posting a number before each post, but they're not going to mean quite the same thing.  Actually I guess the only difference is that I'm just not going to write the word day in front of them anymore.  That should be pretty easy to get used to.


  In the first chapter of 2 Chronicles, David is dead and Solomon is the new king of Israel.  He goes to the tent of meeting and makes a huge sacrifice to the Lord.  When God appears to him that night and asks him what he wants, Solomon requests the knowledge and wisdom to  rule well.  God considers this a very classy request since Solomon could have used this opportunity to increase his own holdings, which is the sort of request we've seen from most people to date.  God grants Solomon's wish and also grants him all the riches and power that he could have asked for but didn't.  Afterword, Solomon had a lot of nice things imported from other places and the economy of Jerusalem thrived.

  This is more or less unrelated, but bear with me.  We always write the titles of books like 1 and 2 Kings and Chronicals and John and so forth with numerals in the titles, but when we say them out loud, we say first and second.  So how would these books be alphabetized?  Is 1 Kings under F or in that weird section off to the side where you find books that start with numbers and symbols?  Most lists of Bible books just omit the numbers and treat the sets as complete books just broken into parts, like the last two Harry Potter Movies, which I suppose is exactly what they are.  I suppose it doesn't matter much either way, but this is just a warm-up question anyway.  We'll get into some more controversial stuff later.  Promise.

Day 103 1 Kings 8-9

            Solomon built the temple and his palace with forced labor from the remnants of the groups of non-Israelites in the land.  When he dedicated the temple, God approved of it and filled it with his cloud-form body with such power that the priests couldn’t even do their work.

            Solomon prayed with all the elders of Israel at the temple dedication, mostly about forgiving them for their sins because no one ever lived completely without sin, and about hearing the prayers of both Israelites and of foreigners so that they would also see how great God is.  The Lord responds similarly to the way He spoke with Moses just before his death, promising great things for Solomon and his people as long as they don’t stray away from Him, but horrible curses if they screw up.  In fact, here’s an excerpt from the beginning of chapter 9:

            “Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. ⁸ This temple will become a heap of rubble. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ ⁹ People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why the LORD brought all this disaster on them.”

Day 30 Exodus 39-40

            After the tabernacle itself built, the craftsmen now work on the special priest suits for Aaron and his sons.  They’re covered in gold and precious stones.  They have obsidian tablets, cloth of gold-spun thread, gemstones set in gold representing the twelve tribes and then everything is held together with ropes made of pure gold.  These must have weighed a hundred pounds each when they had their full suits on.

            Moses inspects each piece and when he says it’s all in accordance with God’s instructions, it’s all assembled and placed in the tabernacle so Aaron and his sons could get to work sprinkling oil on everything.

            One thing that is repeated several times is that everything was built the way God said to build it.  Honestly, today, with some of the amazing buildings we see around the world, the tabernacle doesn’t sound that impressive to me.  I sure it was a big deal then, with all that gold and silver and acacia wood, but it’s still just a tent filled with gaudy iconography.  The important part clearly isn’t the building itself though, but the fact that the Israelites were following directions.  The statement isn’t what an impressive tent they can build, but how obedient they can be.  And that’s something that the Ancient Israelites are good at when it comes to God at least.  They may be unfaithful and wicked and kind of complainers sometimes, but God has handed down these kind of complicated instructions a couple times now and the Israelites always do a good job of following them.

            I guess that must count for something because God descends down into the tabernacle in the form of a cloud and the area is so filled with His mojo that Moses couldn’t even go inside the tent.  The cloud stayed with them on Earth, glowing at night so it could always be seen, and whenever it lifted they would follow it to the next patch of desert along their route.

Day 28 Exodus 33-35

            3,000 Israelites have been killed by Moses’s Levite enforcers and God and Moses sit down again to rewrite their covenant.  God keeps saying that He will send an angel ahead to clear out the land and He will make sure that everything goes to plan, but that He’s not going to actually travel with them because they are so disobedient and flawed that He can’t stand to be around them.  If God tries to travel with the Israelites all the way back to Caanan He’s going to end up wiping all of them off the face of the Earth.

            By now Moses and God are good friends and Moses practically begs Him to come with, so that everyone will know that God is with them and that God is responsible for all the great things happening.  He also asks to see God’s glory.  God agrees to the first request, and says that He will travel with Moses because He thinks Moses is awesome (33:17), but Moses can’t see His glory because that would destroy him.

            Assuming that’s true, it’s kind of an interesting statement on this nitpicky, theoretical idea of omnipotence we like to debate, like if God can make a rock so big that He Himself cannot lift it.  God has made a creature so frail that He Himself cannot look it in the eye.

            He does tell Moses that He will pass by though and allow Moses to see the place where He just was, but not His face.  Moses is so spiritually charged up by that interaction that his face starts glowing and everybody at the camp gets freaked out.

            Moses and the Lord have a tent set up out away from camp a little ways where they hang out and write down their covenant.  It sounds like this takes place over a pretty long stretch of time.  Every day Moses walks ceremoniously out to the tent and God hovers overhead in the form of a dust cloud.  He mostly reiterates the same things He told Moses in the last covenant about dedicating all the first born males to Him and keeping the Sabbath.  Seriously, God is not joking around when it comes to keeping the Sabbath.  Also, keep those festivals and don’t eat goats if they’re boiled in their mothers’ milk.

            An interesting addition to this version of the covenant is that the Israelites aren’t allowed to make any treaties with any of the people they conquer in Caanan.  If they allow themselves to be allies with any other people, God figures the Israelites are so unfaithful, that they will soak up this foreign culture and their foreign Gods.  The way He says it is pretty interesting too.  My New Living Translation says “They are spiritual prostitutes, committing adultery against me by sacrificing to their gods.  If you make peace with them, they will invite you to go with them to worship their gods, and you are likely to do it.” 34:15 Adultery, that’s very personal.

            Moses has taken to wearing a veil around the camp now because his face glows so much.  Once the covenant gets worked out, they take up a collection of acacia wood and metals and gemstones and cloth and everything they need for the tabernacle and the priests.  I’m a little surprised that Aaron still gets to be high priest after that stunt with the golden calf, but that’s politics I guess.

Day 18 Exodus 4-6

Moses keeps arguing that no one will believe him so God makes his walking stick magic, so he can show it to people. Moses argues further that he’s not good at speaking and arguing so God tells him that He will tell him what to say and also gives him leprosy for just a couple seconds to prove he’s serious. Moses complains enough that God gets irritated with him and tells him to get his brother Aaron to help.

Moses tells his father in law he has to go back to Egypt and, by the way , almost gets himself killed by God on the way. At some place he’s staying for the night, God comes to kill him, or possibly his son, my footnote says it could be either one. Moses’s wife jumps into action by immediately circumcising her son and touching Moses with the knife, which staves off God. The Bible Handbook I’m looking at says this story has something to do with Moses not conforming to the law of circumcision, which is a huge deal to God. Moses couldn’t be an important Hebrew hero without circumcising his son.

Anyway, everyone gets to Egypt safely without being killed by God and Aaron meets them out in the desert. He was super-excited about God thinking of them. Once they both went to talk to Pharaoh though, not only did he not agree to let the Israelites go out into the desert for the imaginary three day festival, but he increased their workload significantly, making them gather their own straw for the bricks they were making in stead of supplying it like he always had before. Once that happens, the Israelites immediately turn on Moses, blaming him for pissing of Pharaoh and making their lives harder. Moses passes this along to God and asks Him why He would make so much trouble for them and God talks up how He’s going to punish Pharaoh and get all the Israelites out of Egypt with his mighty hand. Moses relays this stirring speech to the rest of the Israelites, but no one listens to him.

Day 11 Genesis 32-34

Jacob returns home to Israel, but he’s scared of Esau, so on his way back he sends big flocks and herds ahead of him as gifts so if Esau’s still angry, he might be bribed into at least letting Jacob live. Before the big meeting he actually divides his camp into two so if one is attacked the other can escape.

This has got to be so frustrating to God! For more than a hundred years now He has been telling and showing the descendants of Abraham that He is watching over them. He constantly increases their wealth and their animals and families and any time anyone looks at them wrong God just straight murders them for it. Each generation though, whenever any danger or uncertainty rears it’s head, they panic and start lying and screwing people over to try to save their own skins. Abraham caused a drought in Egypt, Isaac would have done the exact same thing to Abimelech, an old family friend, if he’d been able to pull off the con. Jacob is the worst of them all, he steals his brother’s birthright, and his blessing from their father, then runs off to Mesopotamia and basically robs his father in law. Now he’s finally back, scraping and bowing and practically begging his brother for forgiveness and, even after Esau hugs him tearfully and tells him everything is cool between them and he’s happy to see him, Jacob tells him that he’ll follow right behind him back to Esau’s lands, then ditches him and sets up camp somewhere else.

What. A. Dick.

Of course, by the time that last part happens he’s not actually Jacob anymore, but Israel. He sends a sweaty night wrestling with some stranger who dislocates his hip and then finds out that it’s actually God. God renames him Israel, which means wrestling with God, because Jacob wrestles with God and with people. I don’t understand why God says he wrestles with either Himself or with people, we haven’t seen any examples of that so far in Jacob’s story except the match that just happened. Maybe when God says he wrestles with people, it’s kind of an idiom for Jacob lying to people and manipulating them. He never really wrestled with God at all though; according to his account of things, he did exactly what God told him every step of the way. Maybe it’s not a metaphor at all and Jacob just liked wrestling.

In any case, God reiterates the same prophecy we’ve been hearing, all the land, numerous descendants. Then the meeting with Esau happens and Jacob runs off to live in Shechem.

In Shechem, Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, catches the eye of the local ruler’s kid who tries to win her as his wife. The text says he defiled her, but he seems to pretty sincerely want to marry her also, so I think it’s possible it may have been a bit of a cultural miscommunication. Anyway, Jacob tells the Shechemites that Shechem, their very creatively named ruler, can’t have Dinah unless all the Shechemite men get circumcised. Afterwards, while all the men are still in pain, a couple of Jacob’s sons go into the city and murder every single Shechemite man. That seems like kind of a ridiculous reaction and, as usual, underhanded, but Dinah’s brothers were a little hot-headed I guess.

Jacob worries that his sons murdering a city full of innocent men will make trouble for him in Canaan politically.