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 123 1 Chronicles 12-14

            This is a summary of the story of David as he took over Saul’s office as king of Israel.  A lot of men follow him as the Lord is on his side.

            The brevity with which 1 Chronicles covers these important figures and events brings to mind the time I spent in high school and college doing my best to follow the teachings of the Buddha.  No matter what is happening, whatever crisis, the universe continues onward.  Any issue seems trivial when compared to the progress of creation as a whole.  There are epic battles, great heroes, incredible acts of valor, and then the next thing happens and none of it matters anymore.  Time marches onward.

            Imagine if one simple sandstorm had happened at the wrong time and robbed us of the book of 1 Kings the same way some series of events has obviously robbed us of the books of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah.  All we would know of David would be based on the couple chapters we have in Chronicles talking about him and his men being great warriors.  How would that have changed our idea of king David the shepherd, the vulnerable father and reluctant leader of the nation of Israel appointed by the prophet Elijah?

Day 122 1 Chronicles 9-11

            Wow, I could have saved myself a lot of time reading through 1 Kings if I’d known about this section.  It basically recounts the short version of that whole book.

            I’m glad we have both versions to compare though.  It’s interesting which facts each account considers important.  1 Kings tells like a story at it’s core, something that could be told to the kids.  This version in Chronicles is for the historical ledger though. It tells who begat whom and not much else.

            It still mentions Saul falling on his sword, but none of the stuff about Samuel, Elijah or Elisha pulling the strings behind the scenes.  This section is pretty clearly written after the exile in Babylon so maybe the prophets just got marginalized over the years.  After all, kings leading armies around make a way better story than a dusty old man hiding out uneventfully by a stream in the wilderness.

Day 121 1 Chronicles 7-8

            Geneologies for the tribes that no one really seems to care about as much.  Naphtali, Asher, Benjamin.  Saul came from Benjamin, so there’s some extra care given to his line.

            This section also covers the half tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, which I think are kind of under-valued.  For one thing, Manasseh seems to be involved somehow in every third major even that happens in Israel.  Come to think of it, Ephraim seems to have more than their fair share of important people and events too.  If you look at all the Josephites together, they’re pretty major players in the shaping of Israel.

Day 120 1 Chronicles 6

            The sons of Levi.  All Levites had special title within the theocracy of Israel, but only the sons of Aaron could actually approach the altar to offer sacrifices.  Other Levites were assigned to various other tasks related to keeping up the tabernacle, and later the temple.

            It’s tempting to try to think of the Levites, and especially the priests, in kind of the same way people think of the Vatican or the president of the LDS church or something where these guys are in charge of the temple because they have a direct line to God.  They’re listening to Him so we need to listen to them.

            This doesn’t seem to be the case though through the last couple books.  When priests are mentioned, they are usually referred to as so-and-so’s priest, like the king’s priests for example.  Chronicles mentions that King David assigned a bunch of Levites to be in charge of music in the temple, so obviously the king is able to boss the priests around.  Even Aaron back in Moses’s time was aware of (and not very happy about) the fact that he and his sons were kind of like glorified janitors, with no authority beyond doing exactly what the law and Moses told them to.

            The guys with the direct line to God are the prophets, who have the authority to anoint kings themselves.  So it looks like it goes God, prophets, kings, priests, other levites, and then the general public in terms of who gets to tell whom what to do.  The trick is though, the kings are in charge of the day to day affairs of the country and, more importantly, the army, so there’s an enforcement issue when prophets roll in and try to tell kings what to do.

            1 Chronicles 6:55 says that Hebron was made a city of refuge and given to the Levites, but back in the book of Joshua, Hebron was given to Caleb, the scout who had originally gone out with Joshua to reconnoiter Canaan for Moses and came back with a positive attitude about it, so there’s a bit of a conflict there.  It turns out the city itself, and the pasture land around it, were given to the Levites, but the fields and villages in the area were given to Caleb.  That must have been pretty awkward.  Herders and planters didn’t get along under the best of circumstances in the ancient world.  Also, I think I mentioned before how Caleb really seems to get the short end of the stick.  Joshua is basically the unofficial king of Israel, while Caleb, who we’re told did most of the same stuff Joshua did, got Hebron thirty years later.  Now we find out that e didn’t even get all of Hebron, just some of the leftover bits of Hebron.

            I’ll bet that being right next to a city of refuge really brought down local property values too.

Day 119 1 Chronicles 3-5

            More recap, genealogies from David through the sons of Elioenai.  We haven’t heard about that guy so far, the book says that he came after the exile so I guess we haven’t gotten there yet.  The narrative kind of jumps around here.

            Jabez is mentioned in this section for the first, and I believe only time in the Bible.  The prayer of Jabez is a popular thing, spawning a multitude of books on its own.  All of this hype is based on a throw-away line in 1 Chronicles chapter 4 about how Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, which, lets not forget, does not mean he was honorable, but merely more honorable than his brothers.  He was from one of the other clans of Judah, the ones that weren’t directly related to David.  Jabez prayed for his lands to increase and for nothing bad to happen to him. 

            Revolutionary, I know.

            I’m certainly not saying that some parts of the Bible are not important.  The prayer of Jabez is a part of the history of God’s interaction with humanity.  I feel like this section is well-known for the wrong reasons though.  I worry also that it is famous at the expense of other passages that may have a more profound day-to-day influence on our faith.  This is getting kind of frustrating honestly.  Methuselah, Onan, Jabez.  If these guys didn’t have catchy stories attached to them, there is no way they would be better known in our culture than the people of real importance to the narrative of the Bible.

Day 118 1 Chronicles 1-2

            Recap.  The first two chapters traces the geneology of God’s chosen people from Adam, through Abraham and on through the line of Judah.