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 124-8 1 Chronicles 15-29

            David brought the ark of the lord to Jerusalem and celebrated with a lot of music.  He was about to build a temple for the ark too, but God told him not to via a nearby prophet.  God also told David that He would raise up David’s son and establish his rule forever.  This son would build a house for God and God will be his father, never withdrawing His love.  David’s son was Solomon who did build the temple and I don’t think God ever did get really angry with Solomon.  Israel hardly lasted forever though, under the rule of David’s line.  It split into two nations and then a few generations later both were taken prisoner and carted off to Babylon.  I think a lot of people would argue that this promise to David is actually about Jesus.  The word son seems to be pretty much interchangeable with a more general idea of a descendant in a lot of these stories and Jesus was a descendant of David’s.

            With God happy, David won battle after battle with the Israelite army against everyone around them.  Everything was going great until David ordered a census taken of all the fighting men in Israel.  For some reason, this was a horrible, sinful thing for him to have done.  This story is really strange, but it already came up at the end of 2 Samuel so there’s no real need to go over it again.

            David had a son, Solomon, and he wanted to start early cashing in on God’s promises about the son of David.  David made a lot of preperations for the temple Solomon would build, saying that Solomon was young and inexperienced so he was just getting things set up for him, he was just helping.  My mom used to help me write essays the same way when I was young.  It can be a little frustrating.

            At the end of his life, David made Solomon king of Israel and delegated groups of Levites to different tasks around the temple according to their families.  Then chapters 23 through 26 of 1 Chronicles give a breakdown of the Levite family tree and the divisions of the priests.  Levites were assigned by David to be musicians, gatekeepers, treasurers and other things in the new temple.  The word prophecy is used around the musicians a lot, which seems like a new development.  The role of music so far in scripture seems like it’s mostly been to talk about how awesome God is or to record some historical event in verse so people will remember it better.  Music seems to be a big deal to David though and these temple musicians sound like they actually have some connection to God through their music.  This raises further issues though because, if that’s true,  and being a musician is supposed to give these Levites the ear of the Lord, David is way overstepping his authority appointing them.  Kings don’t get to make prophets, prophets make kings.

            The rest of the book is a list of military and government officials under David’s administration up until Solomon is crowned king and David handed over to him the plans for the temple.  David had drawn up plans for every part of the temple in such detail that there were already designated weights for the gold to be used for the forks and sprinkling bowls inside.  David was not taking any chances on this temple not turning out the way he wanted it.  From the story in 1 Kings it sounded like Solomon had no trouble planning and building the temple on his own, but by this account, it seems that all Solomon really needed to do was say go and David’s temple would essentially start building itself.

            David then took up a collection from the whole assembly for the building fund, gave thanks to God, had Solomon acknowledged as the new king of Israel a second time, and then died.

Day 68 Deuteronomy 32- 34

            I’m just going to get this out of the way now because it’s going to come up a lot later on.  I can’t make heads nor tails of pretty much any kind of poetry.  I know that’s a sweeping generalizations, but it’s especially true for poetry that was written in a very different time or culture than mine, or that’s been translated from another language.  I tell you this now because I’m sifting through the song of Moses which he recites to the whole assembly of the twelve tribes of Israel right before he dies.  This is his concluding argument, so you know it’s important, but it’s kind of obtuse in the way it’s worded.  So, I’m doing the best I can, but you may be better off reading it for yourself.

            This is going to come up again in the book of Psalms.

            Moses says that God is perfect and amazing and created everything, but all of you (Israelites) are going to screw up this good thing you’ve got going and God is going to absolutely ream you for it.  Like no punishment or plague we’ve seen so far, God is going to destroy everything you love and spread you to the wind.

            This is going to happen.  God already knows it even.  You’re going to fail at this one thing that the Lord has told you to do.  But eventually, once all this hardship knocks some sense into you and you come back to the Lord, then He’ll take you back and things will be good again.

            After his speech, Moses gives each tribe a blessing, just like Jacob gave each son a blessing.  Ephraim and Manasseh have to share one.  They’re all mostly about prosperity and the accumulation of more land, which is odd because I thought that land ownership was permanent, but it’s still a nice sentiment.

            Finally, Moses climbs to the top of a mountain as God instructs him, sees all the lands promised to them from the time of Abraham, and dies.  The people grieve for 30 days, then Joshua is filled with wisdom and takes control of the camp to prepare for the invasion of the promised land.

Day 66 Deuteronomy 28-29

            After a quick round of descriptions of the amazing blessings God will bestow upon everyone who follows the law, He continues with a much longer section outlining the terrible wrath you incur for not following the law.  Good little Israelites will get bounteous harvests and leisure time, land and children to continue their line.  Bad Israelites will be conquered and enslaved, way worse than they had it in Egypt.  They’ll crawl back to Egypt to try to sell themselves as slaves just to survive but the Egyptians won’t buy them.  You buy a house and watch it be destroyed.  You become engaged to a nice girl and she’s raped.  Your animals are stolen and slaughtered by your enemies; you don’t get any of the meat.  Even the gentlest and noblest will be so desperate they will eat their own children.

            In 28:49 God describes a nation swooping down like an eagle and taking over everything with no sympathy for anyone.  The description it gives sounds to me like the kind of officious, impersonal conquest the Roman Empire was known for.  The symbol of the emperor himself was an eagle.  That’s not necessarily connected, but it’s kind of interesting to speculate on isn’t it?

            Moses rounds up all the Israelites and gives them a little pep talk reminding them of some of the things God has done over the past fifty years as well as His covenant with Abraham and all of their responsibilities to God under their covenants.  Don’t screw this up guys.

Day 43 Numbers 5-6

            Anyone with a skin disease or who has become unclean through contact with a dead body must be sent away from camp.

            There is a special magic spell given in Numbers chapter 5 for determining whether or not your wife has been faithful.  You have to take her to the priests with some special offerings and they mix a potion for her to drink.  If she’s been fooling around on you then the draught will make her swell and then miscarry, but if she’s been faithful then she will be able to have children still.

            Another way to show dedication to the Lord is to take a vow as a Nazarite.  For a certain amount of time that you determine at the outset you may not drink any fermented beverage or eat or drink anything that has ever had anything to do with grapes.  You may not cut your hair, because your hair during this time is symbolic of your vow and so it’s holy.  You absolutely may not have anything to do with a dead body.  For serious.  If your mother or father dies you may not have anything to do with the burial.  If you’re in a room with someone and they drop dead faster than you are able to run out of the building, then you have to go to the priests, shave your head, offer a bunch of sacrifices and then start your time over again because God has exactly zero tolerance for you being around a dead body.

            At the end of your time as a Nazarite you cut off your hair and offer a bunch of sacrifices.  Nothing really happens, but you get to show your devotion to God, so that’s nice.  There are no time requirements given so I guess you could vow to be a Nazarite for like a day, but it doesn’t really make much sense unless you do it for long enough to allow your hair to grow out noticeably, so that’s at least a month or two.

            I can’t find any information on what this word ‘Nazarite’ actually means.  I always though it had at least some tacit connection to the town of Nazareth, and I’m sure there are plenty of medieval bible ‘scholars’ who were happy to make that jump as well, but it doesn’t sound like there’s really anything out there to back it up.  All the etymology sources I can find keep directing me back to this same chapter, which only says what a Nazarite is, but not why they are so named.  Oh well, I’m open to hearing new information if anyone has any.

            The section ends with a new blessing for the priests to give to the people of Israel, and so that is also how I will end.

The LORD bless you
   and keep you;
²⁵ the LORD make his face shine on you
   and be gracious to you;
²⁶ the LORD turn his face toward you
   and give you peace.