Preliminary Thoughts on I Chronicles 2006 October 26^th for November 27^th

I thought that the two books of Chronicles were an historical continuation of the two books of Samuel and the two books of Kings which preceded them. Flipping through the first few pages of I Chronicles yesterday, I was a little surprised to find several chapters of genealogies. Later on in the book it looked like there were some stories that we have already covered. Now I’m beginning to think that Chronicles may another telling of some of the same history we’ve already seen. Maybe it is these books that deserve the reputation that Leviticus and Numbers have. (A reputation for dryness.)

In the process of summarizing, I’m not going to repeat every name that is listed, particularly if the list of names is the entire contents of a chapter. The next several summaries may be short. Maybe the different telling of the stories will give different insights.

For those of you wondering how long this can go on, I am projecting an end date in March 2009. At that time we will have gone through every book of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution with Amendments, and the four Gospels twice. Since we started in August 2004, the half-way point is right about here, somewhere early in I Chronicles.

I Chronicles 1 2006 October 27^th for November 28^th

This book begins by re-establishing the genealogy from Adam through the sons of Abraham. It begins:

Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah.

Noah, as we have seen, had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. All of their descendants and the descendants of their sons are also listed. The line to Abraham goes through Shem, his son Arphaxad, and on through Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, and Terah. Terah’s son Abram (after being called out of present day Iraq) was renamed Abraham by God, the caller.

Abraham had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. Paul has just discussed them in Galatians, Isaac being the son of the promise and Ishmael being the son of the flesh, or the law, or slavery. Ishmael’s mother was Hagar. Abraham’s wife of the covenant was Sarai, renamed Sarah. After their deaths, Abraham had a concubine, a strong woman Keturah who had many sons. The descendants of all three of these women are listed. The important one to Israel is Isaac, first son of Sarah (second son of Abraham).

Isaac had twin sons Esau (also known as Edom) and Jacob (also known as Israel). The rest of the chapter lists the numerous descendants of Edom, the tribes and clans that spread out to form their own country in parallel with Israel. The sons of Israel are listed in the next chapter.

I Chronicles 2 2006 October 30^th for November 29^th

The lineage continues with the sons of Israel: “Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad and Asher. That makes twelve.

It then starts into all the descendants from these sons beginning with Judah. Recall all the trouble in Judah’s family. One of his sons died childless, then his daughter-in-law Tamar acted like a prostitute to get pregnant by Judah himself. Just before she was stoned, she revealed Judah as the father. The line to David goes through one of the resulting children, Perez. By weaving through the text, we can follow that line from Hezron to Ram (brother of Caleb, possibly the hero of the Joshua – Caleb stories) the Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, and Boaz who married Ruth. Their son was Obed who was father of Jesse.

Here we have a list of all of Jesse’s children. In order: Eliab, Abinadab, Shimea, Nethanel, Raddai, Ozem, and David. David was the seventh son. There were also sisters Zeruiah and Abigail. Zeruiah is notable because she was the mother of the great warriors under David, Abishai, Joab, and Asahel. This makes those three warriors nephews of King David.

Although we’ve been through the entire story of David’s origins, reign, and descendants previously, this is the first time we have seen these relationships.

The various lines continue with details on the sons of Hezron. Some interesting things happen in the various lists, besides just names: “The sons of Nadab: Seled and Appaim. Seled died without children.” But one of the children of Appaim was Sheshan. “Sheshan had no sons – only daughters. He had an Egyptian servant named Jarha. Sheshan gave his daughter in marriage to his servant Jarha, and she bore him Attai. And then that line continues with Arrai. (Families were smaller through this period. Higher standard of living?)

So there’s an interesting development. A man without sons marries off a daughter to his foreign slave and the line continues through that daughter.

It didn’t say who Zeruiah’s husband (father of Joab, et al) was either.

The chapter concludes with the descendants of Caleb.

I Chronicles 3 2006 October 31^st for November 30^th

Now we have the family of David. He had six sons in Hebron by six wives. These were Amnon, Daniel, Absalom, Adonijah, Shephatiah, and Ithream. By his wife Bathsheba, he had Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, and Solomon. There were nine other sons. Tamar, their sister, is also listed.

Notice how far down the list Solomon was. Sometimes the better heir is not the firstborn.

We then go through the descendants of Solomon who we have studied in the books of Kings: Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah, Azariah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, and Josiah. Josiah had four sons. His successor was the second, Jehoiakim whose son was Jehoiachin whose son was Zedekiah.

The remainder of the chapter is devoted to the royal line following the exile. The exile was just beginning as we finished II Kings and so we do not know any of these heirs.

I Chronicles 4 2006 November 2^nd for December 1^st

This entire chapter is lists of descendants of people we don’t know and a couple of stories of how they moved around in the countryside, taking over territories and occupying them. There is one interesting footnote on one of the strangers:

“Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, ‘I gave birth to him in pain.’ Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, ‘Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.’ And God granted his request.”

If this request honors God in some way that we are accustomed to, it doesn’t say so specifically.

I Chronicles 5 2006 November 4^th for December 4^th

Here we have more lists of names, in particular Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh. It includes where the various sub-tribes lived, who they ran out of the land in order to live there, and about when that happened (i.e., from the reign of Saul through the exile).

The listings under Reuben begin with this complicated editorial explanation: “The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel (he was the firstborn, but when he defiled his father’s marriage bed, his rights as firstborn were given to the sons of Joseph son of Israel; so he could not be listed in the genealogical record in accordance with his birthright, and though Judah was the strongest of his brothers and a ruler came from him, the rights of the firstborn belonged to Joseph) – the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel:…”

So, he was the firstborn but not really due to a transgression, but yes really, but it didn’t count, and Judah was stronger and ended up being the leader, but Joseph got the birthright, actually Joseph’s sons. Just an attempt to diagram this sentence leads one to believe that the whole birthright system really doesn’t work well.

And sometimes sins have eternal consequences. Or not, depends on which one ends up counting.

Under the listing for Gad, there is this interesting little anecdote. Perhaps the author throws these tiny stories (or parenthetical explanations) in once in a while to keep the reader awake.

“The Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh had 44,760 men ready for military service – able-bodied men who could handle shield and sword, who could use a bow, and who were trained for battle. They waged war against the Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish and Nodab. They were helped in fighting them, and God handed the Hagrites and all their allies over to them, because they cried out to him during the battle. He answered their prayers because they trusted in him. They seized the livestock of the Hagrites – fifty thousand camels, two hundred fifty thousand sheep and two thousand donkeys. They also took one hundred thousand people captive, and many others fell slain, because the battle was God’s and they occupied the land until the exile.”

Everything is explained in terms of God, although there is no mention of priestly direction or Urim and Thummim with respect to this military action. They got into the thick of it, cried out to God, and were saved.

It’s worth remembering that this doesn’t always happen, and when it doesn’t, the explanation of what God was doing is different. There is always an explanation that fits whatever happened. Who is writing this history anyway?

Later, it says, “So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria (that is, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria) who took the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh into exile.”

So, when Israel has glory days, it is due to God’s provision, answering Solomon’s prayers, though Solomon himself went on to commit sins of the first order (worship of foreign gods). When Assyria has glory days, it is because God “stirred up” the king’s spirit. It is true that the glory days of Israel were represented as peaceful in the region, unlike the glory days of anyone else, who saw life and the neighbors as something to conquer (more like David).

I Chronicles 6:1 - 47 2006 November 7th for December 5^th

This section lists the descendants of Levi down through Samuel and his sons, Joel and Abijah. It also lists the temple musicians appointed by David from when the Ark was still in the Tabernacle through the move into the Temple. There was Heman, a son of just-mentioned Joel, Kohathites. Heman’s associate was Asaph, a Gershonite. They also had another associate Ethan, a Merarite. These represented the three sub-tribes of Levi.

I Chronicles 6:48 – 81 2006 November 8^th for December 6^th

This chapter details the family of Aaron who, at the command of Moses his brother was the one who dealt with all the inner workings, the “Holy of Holies” business, within the Tabernacle. A brief synopsis of what this was is given. We saw this in much more detail in Leviticus.

The remainder of the chapter lists the descendants of Kohath (the sub-tribe of Levi of which Aaron and Moses were part), then Gershon, then Merari (the other sub-tribes of Levi) and the towns and pasturelands that were allocated to them by lot under Moses.

I Chronicles 7:1 - 29 2006 November 11^th for December 7^th

The lists of families and descendants continues with Issachar, Benjamin, Naphtali, Manasseh, and Ephraim. In some cases they give a census of all the fighting men, 87,000 for example, under Issachar, but this is not consistent throughout the other tribes listed.

Under Manasseh are listed descendants by foreign concubines (Aramean, Huppite and Shuppite). Even the name of a sister is listed, but it doesn’t say why.

Two sons of Ephraim, Ezer and Elead were killed by some men from Gath in a raid on their livestock. Ephraim mourned for a long time but eventually had more children, one of whom he named Beriah, which sounds, in Hebrew, like ‘misfortune.’

Also, in some cases the lands where the various peoples lived is listed, though this is not consistent from tribe to tribe either. Doubtless these place names would have been meaningful, even nostalgic, to the intended readers, people only a few generations beyond the patriarchs. The places named encompassed their entire world. Those same places are unknown and mostly lost to us.

I Chronicles 7:30 – 8:40 2006 November 11^th for December 8^th

The list of genealogies of the sons of Israel concludes with the tribe of Asher. There were 26,000 men ready for battle in this tribe.

The tribe of Benjamin is then chronicled down through their favorite son King Saul. Beginning with Benjamin and his firstborn Bela, the list is quite extensive with rare stops for a clause of a story (i.e., “Beriah and Shema, who were heads of families and those living in Aijalon and who drove out the inhabitants of Gath.”).

It ends up with Jeiel, father of Gibeon whose wife was Maacah who had several sons, the fifth of whom was Ner father of Kish father of Saul. Saul had sons Jonathan, Malki-Shua, Abinadab, and Ishbosheth, as we have seen.

Jonathan also had sons who propagated the house of Saul for many more generations. Although Saul and Jonathan were killed and lost the kingdom for their family, the family itself did continue.

I Chronicles 9:1 – 34 2006 November 13^th for December 11^th

Judah was taken into captivity in Babylon. Some of the first to return to their own property are listed here. After giving names of some leaders in each tribe, it says that there were about 690 people from Judah, 956 from Benjamin, and 1760 priests from Levi in this first resettlement group. Also listed are some of the gatekeepers. Their total number was 212.

Because they had around-the-clock duties in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple, the priests were exempt from other duties, such as military. Some of the priestly duties were keepers of the four Tabernacle gates and keys including the rooms and treasuries. Others counted any items that were checked out; then counted again when they came back in. Some took care of the flour and wine. One, a Levite named Mattithiah, was in charge of all the baking.

Musicians also stayed in the Temple and they were also exempt from other work, Temple and otherwise, because they were on 24 hour call.

I Chronicles 9:35 – 11:9 2006 November 13^th for December 12^th

The genealogy of Saul is given again, in nearly exactly the same words as it was a couple of days ago, but with a few different spellings of the names. Then, the story of Saul’s demise is retold, much as we saw it back in I Samuel.

Israel was engaged in battle with the Philistines and three of Saul’s sons were killed: Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malki-Shua. The archers wounded Saul mortally and Saul ordered his armor-bearer to kill him before the Philistines captured and abused him. The armor-bearer was afraid to kill the king so Saul fell on his own sword. When the armor-bearer saw him dead, he fell on his own sword too. “So Saul and three of his sons died, and all his house died together.”

The Philistines did capture the dead bodies. They stripped them of their armor and abused them by hanging them, in pieces, from their walls. It was a great victory, a great celebration among followers of the heathen idols. All of the locals, seeing the battle was lost, abandoned their towns and fled. The Philistines came and occupied those towns. Later, the valiant men from Jabesh-Gilead staged a raid and recovered the desecrated bodies, burying them under a tree near Jabesh. They then fasted for seven days.

“Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord; he did not keep the word of the Lord and even consulted a medium for guidance, and did not inquire of the Lord. So the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.”

We discussed this at length back in I Samuel.

David then became king. The people and their leadership came and anointed him at Hebron and appointed him king and swore their allegiance. They proclaimed that David was the shepherd of Israel and had already been the leader and defender of the nation, even when Saul had been alive.

David then went up and captured the city of Jebus, also known as Jerusalem. He gave the incentive that whoever led the attack into the city would be the commander in chief. Joab did this, lived, and received the appointment. David then moved into the fortress and used it as his capitol. He built up the inner city and fortifications while Joab built up the surrounding areas.

I Chronicles 11:10 – 47 2006 November 14^th for December 13^th

The next section is devoted to David’s mighty men. The inner circle consisted of The Three. Jashobeam was chief of the officers. Eleazar had taken a stand in the un-strategic middle of a barley field, fought Philistines, and prevailed.

The story is re-told of when David and his troops were besieged at the cave of Abdullam and David had a strong desire for a drink of water from the well at Bethlehem. The Three took initiative to break through the Philistine lines, got the water, and brought it back. David would not drink water that had been acquired at such risk, however. He poured it out before God as an offering instead.

Joab’s brother Abishai was chief of the Three and was equally famous in his own right, having slaughtered three hundred men in one battle. He was chief of the Three but was not one of them.

The third was Benaiah who had killed a lion by himself and had also slain a seven and a half foot Egyptian by grabbing his huge spear out of his hand and killing him with it.

Benaiah was in charge of David’s bodyguard.

The remainder of a chapter is a list of the rest of the mighty men, the Thirty. I don’t recognize any of the names except Asahel, brother of Joab and Uriah the Hittite.

I Chronicles 12 2006 November 15^th for December 14^th

When David and his men were at Hebron, many men from all around Israel “defected” and came to help him become king over the whole country. This chapter is a list of all those men along with some colorful and distinctive stories or descriptions about each group. Kind of reminds me of an American Civil War muster.

Men from Benjamin, relatives of the sitting king Saul came. Their qualification? “They were armed with bows and were able to shoot arrows or to sling stones right-handed or left-handed.”

Some men from Gad are described as “brave warriors, ready for battle and able to handle the shield and spear. Their faces were the faces of lions, and they were as swift as gazelles in the mountains.” Eleven of them are then listed by name and ordinal number. It also says of them, “These Gadites were army commanders; the least was a match for a hundred, and the greatest for a thousand. It was they who crossed the Jordan in the first month when it was overflowing all its banks, and they put to flight everyone living in the valleys, to the east and to the west.”

One wonders if this isn’t like heroism; bravery or foolishness?

There were some questions about the bona fides of all these men coming to join David. He told them if they were traitors to go home, but if they were with him they were welcome.

“Then the Spirit came upon Amasai, chief of the Thirty, and he said: ‘We are yours, O David! / We are with you, O son of Jesse! / Success, success to you, / and success to those who help you, / for your God will help you.’”

There were also defectors from Saul from the tribe of Manasseh.

Then follows a list which is a census but reads like poetry:

“men of Judah, carrying shield and spear – 6,800 …;

men of Simeon, warriors ready for battle – 7,100;

men of Levi – 4,600, including Jehoiada, leader of the family of Aaron, with 3,700 men, and Zadok, a brave young warrior, with 22 officers from his family;

men of Benjamin, Saul’s kinsmen – 3,000, most of whom had remained loyal to Saul’s house until then; [revolution!]

men of Ephraim, brave warriors, famous in their own clans – 20,800;

men of half the tribe of Manasseh, designated by name to come and make David king – 18,000; [the electoral college! Wonder why it is “half the tribe” rather than “the half tribe”?’]

men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do – 200 chiefs, with all their relatives under their command; [a different organizational structure, not directly countable]

men of Zebulun, experienced soldiers prepared for battle with every type of weapon, to help David with undivided loyalty – 50,000;

men of Naphtali – 1,000 officers, together with 37,000 men carrying shields and spears;

men of Dan, ready for battle – 28,600;

men of Asher, experienced soldiers prepared for battle – 40,000;

and from east of the Jordan, men of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, armed with every type of weapon – 120,000.

They all got together with David for a three-day convocation. It was a huge party; people brought provisions for themselves and for the crowds. “There were plentiful supplies of flour, fig cakes, raisin cakes, wine, oil, cattle and sheep, for there was joy in Israel.”

The Hebron get-together was mentioned back in I Samuel, but not nearly in this detail.

I Chronicles 13 – 14 2006 November 16^th for December 15^th

The story of the restoration of the Ark to the City of David is retold.

David inquired throughout the country if they should bring the Ark into the city to be near the king. After all, they hadn’t inquired of God during the reign of Saul and it had been a disaster. With the Ark there, this would be easier. Everyone thought it was a good idea to bring the Ark back.

They put the Ark on an oxcart that was guided by Uzzah. David had the people come from all over the country and they all celebrated with all their might dancing in the parade, including the king himself. When they came to the threshing floor at Kidon, the oxen pulling the cart stumbled and when Uzzah put out his hand to steady the Ark, “the Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he had put his hand on the ark. So he died there before God.”

Everyone was very upset at this and David was afraid of God. “How can I ever bring the ark of God to me?” So, at that point, they took the Ark to the nearby house of Obed-Edom the Gittite where it stayed for three months. That household was blessed during its stay.

I’ve heard it preached that there were approved procedures in the law for moving the Ark and that they had nothing to do with an ox-pulled cart, therefore the disaster. We’ve recently seen, however, that the people have not followed any such laws very seriously for many generations at this point. I’ve also heard a hypothesis that the Ark, by nature of its construction, wood (an insulator) inlaid and overlaid by gold (conductors) was a giant capacitor, capable of building up and delivering a lethal jolt of static electricity. Although an understanding of such principles would have been beyond the Hebrews in Davidic times, this secular explanation is rather more compelling even up against the authoritarian preaching. After all, this whole fiasco was under the authority of God’s appointed king, with the approval of the people, so whether you believe in democracy or monarchy, the authority was there for this, God’s plan notwithstanding.

Of course, when God made the long-forgotten rules about the Ark and its transport, he had the priest’s physical safety in mind. There were no such incidents when the regulations were followed, at least none that are reported as an act of God against the disobedient.

There was that incident with the eldest sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu. “Strange fire….”

When David moved into Jerusalem, his neighboring king, Hiram of Tyre sent materials (cedars) and workers to build him a palace. When he was in the palace, he married more wives and had more children. One of these children was Solomon.

The Philistines were not happy with David being king over all of Israel so they came out in full force to attack him. David inquired of God as to what would happen if he faced them. God said David would prevail, so David and his army went and attacked and prevailed.

The Philistines came after him again and David inquired of God again. God told him not to attack directly but to circle around behind and, “As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, move out to battle, because that will mean God has gone out in front of out to strike the Philistine army.” They did this and prevailed again. This is a repeat of a story we’ve seen before but from a different point of view.

I Chronicles 15 2006 November 18^th for December 18^th

“After David had constructed buildings for himself in the City of David, he prepared a place for the ark of God and pitched a tent for it. Then David said, ‘No one but the Levites may carry the ark of God, because the Lord chose them to carry the ark of the Lord and to minister before him forever.’”

It does not say how David came to this new knowledge.

So David had an assembly of all Israelites in Jerusalem in order to have the Ark brought up. He “called together the descendants of Aaron and the Levites,” who are then listed by leaders and census. He then brought in the priests Zadok, Abiathar, and some of the other leading Levites and told them this, “You are the heads of the Levitical families; you and your fellow Levites are to consecrate yourselves and bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, to the place I have prepared for it. It was because you, the Levites, did not bring it up the first time that the Lord our God broke out in anger against us. We did not inquire of him about how to do it in the prescribed way.”

Which begs the question, if the way is prescribed, what is the need to inquire? But, in any case, in the previous disaster they had not inquired and had not used the prescribed way.

So, they consecrated themselves, “And the Levites carried the ark of God with the poles on their shoulders, as Moses had commanded in accordance with the word of the Lord.”

David also arranged for the Levitical musicians, whose names we have seen before (such as Heman, Asaph, and Ethan) to accompany the procession playing cymbals and lyre and harps and such according to musical standards (lost to us) such as “alamoth” and “sheminith.”

Also there is an interesting statement, “Kenaniah the head Levite was in charge of the singing; that was his responsibility because he was skillful at it.”

This seems to argue against the theology that we should all be doing things we are not good at in order to prove by their unexpected success that God’s power is behind us. (This from the “we are nothing, God is everything” extensions of Paul’s teaching.) Perhaps God gave Kenaniah this skill to be used in this way. Perhaps there are other ways to discern God’s paths than to assume it means doing things we are not good at. Perhaps this overextended theology has resulted in ineffectiveness for Christians and the church.

Anyway, returning to the procession with David, the Levites and the Ark…

The Levites carrying the Ark and king David and the elders of Israel and the commanders of thousands and the players of instruments and the singers were all wearing linen ephods in the procession.

As we saw when this story was told in Samuel, “As the ark of the covenant of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David dancing and celebrating, she despised him in her heart.”

David understood that he was nothing compared to God. Michal, on the other hand, wanted to be the wife of an exalted king.

I Chronicles 16 2006 November 21^st for December 19^th

The Ark was brought and set in the tent prepared. David came and made sacrifices of burnt and fellowship offerings. He appointed some Levites to work in the tent with the Ark and observe all of the rituals and commands that had come down from Moses. Chief of these was Asaph. There were also appointees to play the lyres, harps, cymbals, and trumpets. David, a musician himself, emphasized music in worship.

After sacrifices and blessings, “he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each Israelite man and woman.”

David then “committed to Asaph and his associates” a psalm of thanks to God. It went something like this:

God is wonderful and has done wonderful things. Proclaim this to the nations. Seek him. He is Lord of everything. His judgments and promises are forever, for a “thousand generations.” The promises, or covenant, began with Abraham and continued through Isaac and Jacob back when there weren’t many Israelites. They were a small band of strangers in a strange land. Bring offerings! Tremble! Let the heavens rejoice and the sea resound. Even the trees in the forest will “sing for joy before the Lord.”

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” Cry out for salvation and give thanks.

Even today, it has not been a thousand generations since David.

After the ceremonies, David left to go bless his own family. All of the Israelites went to their own homes. He left Asaph and his 68 associates in charge of worshipping there at the Ark in the tent every day. There were also the musicians and gatekeepers. They were to keep all the ancient ordinances of worship, adding music and also watching the gates.

I Chronicles 17 2006 November 20^th for December 20^th

“After David was settled in his palace, he said to Nathan the prophet, ‘Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under a tent.’”

Nathan told him to go ahead and do whatever he wanted about this, but that night God spoke to him at length in a revelation to the contrary.

David would not build the house. God had lived in a tent since he brought the people out of Israel. He would decide when to build a house and who would build it. It would be built by David’s son and heir after David had gone to “be with his fathers.”

God had taken David from being a shepherd of sheep to being a king over an entire nation. He had removed every one of his enemies. His house and throne would be established forever.

Nathan reported all this back to David who then “went in and sat before the Lord,” saying, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?”

David had been regarded by God as most exalted among men. This was his prayer of response.

“There is no one like you, O Lord, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. And who is like your people Israel – the one nation on earth whose God went out to redeem a people for himself, and to make a name for yourself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? Who made your people Israel your very own forever, and you, O Lord, have become their God.”

David ended by reaffirming that God should keep his promise and establish the throne forever.

I Chronicles 18 – 19 2006 November 22^nd for December 21^st

David’s military conquests are summarized. He defeated the Philistines, taking Gath and its surrounding villages, he defeated, Moab, and Hadadezer king of Zobah where he established a frontier along the Euphrates. In that battle he captured a thousand chariots and numerous men and horses and hamstrung all but a hundred of the horses.

The Arameans came to aid Hadadezer and David inflicted 22,000 casualties on them. He took gold shields from the officers of Hadadezer and raided the towns for large amounts of bronze that Solomon would later use for construction of the Temple and its contents.

Tou, king of Hamath, heard of the defeat of Hadadezer and sent his son with considerable tribute to make peace. This tribute also went into the raw materials that would be used for the Temple.

David and his forces were victorious everywhere they went. This explains in part why the neighborhood was so peaceful under Solomon. There had been conquest and domination as far as anyone cared to go in any direction.

David’s officials are also listed: Joab over the army, Jehospaphat recorder, Zadok and Ahimelech priests, Shavsha secretary, Benaiah over the Kerethites and Pelethites, and David’s own sons as chiefs at his side.

When David’s vassal king Nahash died, David sent a delegation to express condolences. Members of the delegation were received as spies, however, and dishonored. Nahash’s heir Hanun had the seized and had their beards half shaved and their cloaks cut off at their butts. This was humiliating and when David heard of it he sent word that they should stay out of town until their beards grew back.

The Ammonites under Hanun then realized that they had “become a stench in David’s nostrils,” and massed up armies, mercenaries, and allies to attack. There were significant forces allied against Joab’s command. He was surrounded. He picked his best troops to go after both fronts. One set was under his command and the other was under his brother Abishai. The deal was that if either front got in trouble the others would come to their rescue.

The Arameans were routed and many Ammonites were killed. “When the vassals of Hadadezer saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they made peace with David and became subject to him.” And, the Arameans swore off ever helping the Ammonites again.

We saw all of this before in the book of Samuel.

I Chronicles 20 – 22:1 2006 November 25^th for December 22^nd

Joab took the troops out and conquered Rabbah. On this campaign David stayed in Jerusalem. The crown of their king was gold with inlaid jewels and weighed 75 lbs. David put it on his own head. All of the conquered people were put to conscripted labor with “saws and with iron picks and axes.” These were the Ammonites.

There was also a war with the Philistines in which they were subjugated. Two of the Philistine warriors were noteworthy. One was a brother of Goliath and “had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.” The other “was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.” He was killed by Jonathan, David’s nephew.

Then the story of David’s sinful census is retold. Here, as in Samuel, the reason why the census is sinful is not given. I think I’ve heard that it was because a census was preparation for war and if God had not ordered war, it was rebellious to prepare for it. This explanation is extra-Biblical, as far as I can tell.

Joab argued against it, but David prevailed and the census was taken, except that Joab did not number the Benjamites or Levites because the whole project was repulsive to him.

The answer: 1,100,000 men who could handle a sword, including 470,000 from Judah.

“Then David said to God, ‘I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.’”

Gad brought back God’s answer. David would choose from three punishments. Three years of famine, three months of fleeing before enemies, or three days of plague.

As we noted before, David had never fled before enemies and was probably terrified of the prospect, considering the way that he typically treated enemies himself (killing everything that breathed). He chose the punishment from God, the plague, hoping that God would be merciful. An angel of God came and struck down 70,000 men. When the angel reached the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, God told him to stop.

The climax is a cinematic moment:

“While Araunah was threshing wheat, he turned and saw the angel; his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Then David approached, and when Araunah looked and saw him, he left the threshing floor and bowed down before David with his face to the ground.”

David bought the threshing floor from Araunah (who had offered to donate it and oxen for sacrifices but was refused), built an altar and offered sacrifices. He asked God to punish him and his family, that it was his sin, that the rest of the Israelites were innocent and had done nothing wrong.

The episode ends with two comments that we did not see before.

First, it says that the Tabernacle with the Ark was at Gibeon at this time and that “David could not go before it to inquire of God, because he was afraid of the sword of the angel of he Lord.” This may be presented as an indirect excuse or reason why David blundered into the sinful census.

Second, David makes a proclamation at the end. Because he had offered sacrifices there and God had heard him, “The house of the Lord God is to be here, and also the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”

So this is how the site for the Temple was selected and is another reason why this story is important in the chronicles.

I Chronicles 22:2 - 19 2006 November 27^th for December 26^th

David had all the aliens in the country rounded up and made assignments of which ones would do what jobs working on the Temple. Some would be stonecutters, for example. He provided the iron for nails and more bronze than could be weighed and more cedar logs than could be counted, provided by the Sidonians and Tyrians.

Manual labor is more or less what we do with aliens in our own country today, legal or otherwise. Perhaps we do take the Bible literally.

“David said, ‘My son Solomon is young and inexperienced, and the house to be built for the Lord should be of great magnificence and fame and splendor in the sight of all the nations. Therefore I will make preparations for it.’”

But he also brought in his son Solomon and told him this. “My son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the Name of the Lord my God. But this word of the Lord came to me. ‘You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight. But you will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon, and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his reign. He is the one who will build a house for my Name. He will be my son, and I will be his father. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.’”

It is interesting that God did not want this highly successful warrior, whom he had made that way, on his reputation for peace. I’m sure there is significant theology in this that is beyond me.

So David instructed his son Solomon to follow the laws of Moses and showed him all the gold and silver (3,750 tons and 37,500 tons respectively) he had provided for this work, and bronze and iron and craftsmen beyond number. He called in all the leaders and told them that they had been given peace, that he, David had overcome all his enemies, all the enemies of Israel, and that they could now turn their hearts towards seeking God full time and begin to build the house of worship.

I Chronicles 23 2006 December 1^st for 27^th

David made Solomon king. They counted the Levites over thirty years old and, finding 38,000 of them, David made the following assignments:

24,000 to supervise the work of the Temple,

6,000 to be officials and judges,

4,000 to be gatekeepers;

4,000 to “praise the Lord with musical instruments I have provided for that purpose.”

These Levites are then listed by family, the Gershonites, Kohathites (including Moses and Aaron and all of Aaron’s descendants, and the Merarites. In the lists there are a couple of interesting out-takes. Of the sons of Shimei (Gershonite), “Jabath was the first and Ziza the second but Jeush and Beriah did not have many sons; so they were counted as one family with one assignment.” And, under “descendants of Eliezer: Rehabiah was the first. Eliezer had no other sons, but the sons of Rehabiah were very numerous.”

That must have been considered a close call, as lineage goes.

It then summarizes by saying that, “These were the descendants of Levi by their families – the heads of families as they were registered under their names and counted individually, that is, the workers twenty years old or more who served in the temple of the Lord.”

David declared that they had been given peace and would live in Jerusalem forever and that therefore the Levites would not longer need to carry the Ark and the Tabernacle around on Israel’s journeys, but that all of the duties that they had when the place of worship was set up they would still do and be in charge of them in the Temple. This included duties like offering the sacrifices, giving praise in the morning and evening, purifying things, baking the holy foods, keeping the place spotless, and arranging all of the festivals.

I Chronicles 24 2006 December 2^nd for 28^th

The next section is the listing of the priests. It is retold that these are all descendants of Aaron although Aaron’s first two sons Nadab and Abihu died before their father did, so the line continues through the third and fourth sons Eleazar and Ithamar.

The rotation for Temple service was drawn from among twenty-four family groups., sixteen from Eleazar’s descendants and eight from Ithamar’s. The twenty-four family heads then threw lots to determine the order of service, and the results are listed:

“The first lot fell to Jehoiarib,

the second to Jedaiah, …”

then skipping down,

“… the twenty-third to Delaiah,

and the twenty-fourth to Maaziah.”

This was the order, and these priests would enter the Temple and serve there as prescribed in the regulations by which God had commanded Aaron.

Then, the remaining Levite families are listed and it says, “They also cast lots, just as their brothers and descendants of Aaron did, in the presence of King David and of Zadok, Ahimelech, and the heads of families of the priests and of the Levites. The families of the oldest brother were treated the same as those of the youngest.”

Zadok and Ahimelech were leaders of the descendants of Eleazar and Ithamar respectively.

It says that they cast lots in this very formal way but it doesn’t say why or what was decided by the process other than the order of service.

The last sentence is worth mentioning because seniority, for some reason, has always been important in human affairs. Most of the time it is reasonable, but it is so ingrained in society that when seniority is violated somehow, it is worthy of note.

(We note that David was the youngest of the sons of Jesse and that Solomon was out in the middle of a long list of sons, so seniority did not apply to this particular succession either until after Solomon.)

I Chronicles 25 2006 December 2^nd for 29^th

David and some of the commanders of the army “set apart some of the sons of Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun for the ministry of prophesying, accompanied by harps, lyres and cymbals.”

All of these men are listed; there were 288 of them in twenty-four groups. They all did their duties under the supervision of their fathers, David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun. These guys were also blessed to have many children, for instance, Heman (the king’s seer) had fourteen sons and three daughters.

They threw lots for each family group and they are listed, one through twenty-four, each with “his sons and relatives.” “Young and old alike, teacher as well as student, cast lots for their duties.”

It is unfortunate that they do not describe at all what these duties were. This is in essence a serving music school and the fact that the king could support nearly three hundred people in such duties was a sign both of his personal interest in music, and of the wealth and status of the kingdom.

I Chronicles 26 2006 December 5^th for 2007 January 2^nd

This chapter is a list of all the assigned gatekeepers. There are long lists of each person from each tribe and all of their sons, some listed in cardinal order, like:

“From the Korahites: Meshelemiah son of Kore, one of the sons of Asaph.

Meshelemiah had sons:

Zechariah the firstborn,

Jediael the second,

Zebadiah the third,

… “, and so it goes through seven in this case. Counting all his relatives there were 18 able-bodied men.

Lots were thrown to assign the gates: East, North, South, and West. There was also a Shalleketh Gate, an assignment for the storehouse, and an assignment of guard. Four guards at a time were posted at each gate except the East had six. The storehouse had two.

Then, the attendants of the treasury are listed, several paragraphs worth of them. One interesting note occurs in this list: “Shubael, a descendant of Gershom son of Moses, was the officer in charge of the treasuries.” Then it lists all his relatives.

What is interesting here is that Moses’ son Gershom is listed. I don’t recall seeing him mentioned since the stories of Moses himself. The family of Moses is certainly not as prominent as the family of Aaron.

I Chronicles 27 2006 December 7^th for 2007 January 3^rd

The commanders of the army and their assignments are listed. The army was organized into twelve divisions of 24,000 men apiece. Each division served for one month of the year.

Notable among the listings was the commander for the third month, Benaiah, who was also one of the Thirty and was over the Thirty.

After this, the officers of the tribes are listed. Of note is the officer over Judah. It was Elihu, one of David’s brothers.

Then there is a curious paragraph referring to the deadly census. One would expect a different description like this to be clarifying, but it confuses me:

“David did not take the number of the men twenty years old or less, because the Lord had promised to make Israel as numerous as the stars in the sky. Joab son of Zeruiah began to count the men but did not finish. Wrath came on Israel on account of this numbering, and the number was not entered in the book of the annals of King David.”

What confuses me about this is that nowhere in the story of this or any other census did it say anything about numbering “men under twenty.” The military service age was thirty to fifty. Nor is it clear what this has to do with making Israel numerous. We had seen Joab’s refusal to finish the census. In the original story, the results of the census, the numbers, were given. The “annals of King David” are not part of the Bible.

We also see another distinction with modern culture for those who would take the Bible literally. The convention here is that military service is for all men as needed, like Jury Duty is for us, but only from age thirty to fifty. Those older than fifty were probably too old to be an effective fighter. Those younger than thirty were implicitly given a chance to work and have families before going to wars.

At the end are miscellaneous listings of officials, the people over various properties of King David: the royal storehouses; the storehouses in the outlying districts, towns, villages, and watchtowers; field workers or farmers; the vineyards; the olive and sycamore-fig trees “in the western foothills;” the olive oil supply; the herds grazing in Sharon; the herds in the valleys; the camels; the donkeys; and the flocks.

And then it gets really miscellaneous: the counselor (David’s uncle Jonathan), the scribe, the man in charge of the king’s sons, the counselor (Ahithophel, whom we have met), the “king’s friend” Hushai the Arkite (who we also met), and Joab, commander of the army.

I Chronicles 28 2006 December 9^th for 2007 January 4^th

David called together all of his officials (the people listed in the prior chapter) to the capital and made a speech concerning the Temple:

“King David rose to his feet and said: “Listen to me, my brothers and my people. I had it in my heart to build a house as a place of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, for the footstool of our God, and I made plans to build it. But God said to me, ‘You are not to build a house for my Name, because you are a warrior and have shed blood.’”

This is a sanitized version of the story as told before.

He then goes on to detail how he, from Judah, from the family of Jesse, was chosen to be the ruler of all the people and he announces that one of his many sons, Solomon, would succeed him and that Solomon would build the Temple.

Describing both his reign and that of Solomon, he says things like, “I [God] will establish his kingdom forever if he is unswerving in carrying out my commands and laws, as is being done at this time.”

He then charges Solomon to be courageous and strong in carrying out this work.

David had made all the preparations. He had collected all the materials and they are listed in extensive detail and he knew the whole plan for the building and it had all been written down. This was all passed to Solomon.

David then charged Solomon again, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished.”

Everyone was standing ready to begin, the Levites, the skilled workmen and craftsmen. Everyone would obey Solomon in this undertaking.

This usage “…will not fail you or forsake you until…” is very standard language in the Bible. It always reads to me like God would forsake them or fail them after the work was done although I think the intent was to give a positive promise for the work commanded, not a negative promise for some other time. On the other hand, we do see God withdrawing from his unfaithful people at other times.

I Chronicles 29 2006 December 11^th for 2007 January 5^th

David addressed the assembly again. His son Solomon would succeed him and build the Temple for God. This was a big job for a young and inexperienced ruler like Solomon but David had provided everything needed.

David then gave from his own personal wealth for the project and all of the other leaders followed suite joyfully. In the end there was about a hundred tons of gold and about 250 tons of silver plus precious gems, bronze, and other such precious materials.

David then gave a prayer of dedication with three major points. First, all of the offerings are just returning to God things that already belonged to him in the first place and that he had given to the people to have something to offer. This notion figures prominently in our theology today. Second, “who am I, and who are my people that we should be able to give as generously as this?” The Israelites are just strangers in the land. A man’s life is just a brief shadow and without hope. How do we deserve this greatness? Third, “I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity.” God knows that these things are giving willingly and without coercion or regret.

The people then worshipped God and bowed down prostrate before David.

On the next day sacrifices were made, “a thousand bulls, a thousand rams, and a thousand male lambs,” plus drink offerings and other sacrifices. Solomon was crowned king in place of David.

“The Lord highly exalted Solomon in the sight of all Israel and bestowed on him royal splendor such as no king over Israel ever had before.”

This is the Hollywood version of the end of David’s life. There is no mention of the rebellion of Adonijah or any of the bloodshed that surrounded the succession. There is no mention of Bathsheba or Nathan or any of the family difficulties leading to this moment.

For two chapters Solomon has been proclaimed several times as the next king times then he is crowned by Zadok and begins to rule an obedient people.

“David son of Jesse was king over all Israel. He ruled over Israel forty years – seven in Hebron and thirty-three in Jerusalem. He died at a good old age, having enjoyed long life, wealth and honor. His son Solomon succeeded him as king.”

His life is recorded in the books of Samuel, Nathan, and Gad, his seers and prophets. The book of Samuel is part of the Bible; the others are not.

Concluding Thoughts on I Chronicles 2006 December 14^th for 2007 January 8^th

The first book of Chronicles exemplifies why moderns who are concerned with the Bible at all can find it boring. Much of the material consists of long lists of people whose names (and naming style) are unfamiliar to us and whose lives, though they were very important at that time and place, are not relevant to us. I find myself poking around just looking for inconsistencies. Perhaps scholars make a study of these people and their times, but to what end? Understanding the Bible?

Perhaps the most interesting issue seen here was the use of random chance in making decisions and assignments. The saying is something like, “The lot falls in the lap but the decision is the Lord’s.” When we play games with dice, we often lose a die on the floor or it will roll up on an obstacle giving an ambiguous result. I wonder if they had this problem and if so, how it was formally dealt with. We have seen the Mosaic rules for the priests who would perform these rituals, but have not seen specific rules and conventions for “lot taking.”

Even though this is well established in the Bible, we western democrats would never consider deciding anything by “chance” today. We have discussion, we take votes, we delegate authority, we follow orders, but we never flip a coin except to decide who kicks off first. We would never just roll a die to decide whether to go to war or not or who to appoint to some position. Yet, this is exactly what David did throughout his reign, and he was very successful.

Guess we don’t really take the Bible literally after all.

Well, to be fair, this was not just taking a coin out of somebody’s pocket and flipping it “flippantly.” David, the authority who was being led by these indicators, did not perform the ritual at all. It was done by priests under certain well-understood (but apparently lost to us) rituals.

I wonder who framed the questions. Were they, “do we attack or not?” or “do we attack A or B?” or “do we attack from the front or the rear?” or “what do we do today?” The question predisposes the outcome, even if the narrowed choice is made by chance. I wonder if these people were conscious of this or if the questioning itself was somehow part of the ritual prescribed?

The rest of the material is retelling of historical stories that we have seen before. The telling comes from a different point of view and lends some new insights. We see what it meant in this era to put a positive spin on a story, or just ignore the bad parts. We see what was important to the people, at least their leaders. Things like guarding the gates, instituting and guarding storehouses, music, worship in commanded forms like animal sacrifice and festival observance, and the usual things, heroism, strength, valor, great wealth.

I Chronicles begins at the beginning and goes through the end of David’s reign. Presumably II Chronicles will begin with Solomon and go up to the writer’s time.

Preliminary Thoughts on II Chronicles 2006 December 14^th for 2007 January 9^th

Having just finished I Chronicles, I have no reason to expect anything but a continuation of its form and content in II Chronicles, beginning with Solomon and going forward to some end time that we will discover.

Perhaps there will be some interesting stories or new insights interspersed among the names of all the people who were important enough in that time to get their names (and for the really outstanding, one anecdote about them) into the Bible.

I wonder sometimes about the little people, the farmers and shepherds who didn’t live very close to the capital but whose lives were just daily routine, except when the Philistines marched through to kill and pillage them all or when they were conscripted into the army to go to the other side of the country and fight for some other countryman’s property. These people only appear among 70,000 killed in some incident or in the extremely rare cases where they encounter, … or become… the king.

Then, as now, most never amount to much in the grand historical record. Lest we aspire to greatness in our own time, however, even the most prominent of the citizens of that time and place are completely forgotten to us today, even though they are in the Bible.

II Chronicles 1 2006 December 22^nd for 2007 January 10^th

Solomon established himself firmly as king over Israel. The bloody details that we saw before are not given here. The Ark of the Covenant was housed in a tent that David had pitched in Jerusalem at the High Place of Gibeon. Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on the altar there.

“That night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, ‘Ask for whatever you want me to give you.’”

Solomon asked for wisdom and knowledge so that he could properly rule the great people and, as we saw before, God approved this request and granted it. God also gave many lesser gifts that Solomon might have asked for: wealth, riches, honor, death of enemies, long life, and so forth.

Solomon was so rich that silver and gold were as common as stones and “cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees.” He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses, equipment and animals imported from Egypt and other nearby countries. The cost of a chariot was about 7 kilograms of silver and the cost of a horse about a quarter of that. (There is probably no meaningful conversion either in value or quality to modern currency.) Israel also exported these military resources to their neighbors, the Hittites and Arameans.

II Chronicles 2 – 3 2006 December 23^rd for 2007 January 11^th

Solomon makes preparations to build the Temple. He sent a letter to the friendly neighbor king Hiram of Tyre asking for more cedar for construction material, similar to all the cedar Hiram had provided for David’s palace. He offered a price in food. Tons and tons of ground wheat, barley, wine, and olive oil.

Hiram responded favorably by letter, “Because the Lord loves his people, he has made you their king.” The preface included further buttering up followed by a rather detailed plan on how it would all be accomplished. This included who would work at what locations in cooperation with whom else, where materials would be shipped to (Joppa), and where Israel would take charge of them.

Hiram also proposed a particularly skilled workman, “I am also sending you Huram-Abi, a man of great skill, whose mother was from Dan and whose father was from Tyre. He is trained to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, and with purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine linen. He is experienced in all kinds of engraving and can execute any design given to him.” The ultimate craftsman of the era, this Huram-Abi was also descended from both nations.

Resident aliens were drafted (“conscripted”) to do the actual work. “Solomon took a census of all the aliens who were in Israel, after the census his father David had taken; and they were found to be 153,600. He assigned 70,000 of them to be carriers and 80,000 to be stonecutters in the hills, with 3,600 foremen over them to keep the people working.” Each of these foremen would have been over about 40 people, on average. No hourly wage, labor relations, or OSHA regulations are mentioned.

The Temple was placed on Mount Moriah at the sight of the threshing floor of Araunah where God had appeared to David (at the time of the plague). The dimensions of the foundation were about 90 by 30 feet, the front being on the narrow 30-foot side. The inside was paneled with pine and everything: the walls, the ceiling beams, the doors, doorframes, and so forth, were overlaid with gold from Parvaim. Images of cherubim were carved on the walls.

The Most Holy Place inside was about 30 by 30 feet and was also overlaid with about 23 tons of gold. The builders even used gold nails. As described before, two cherubim were constructed in this area. Their wing tips touched each other in the middle and the walls on the sides, so each one had a wingspan of about 15 feet. “They stood on their feet, facing the main hall.”

I don’t know if we know today what a cherubim even looks like. I do not know what they represent. Guardians of God, perhaps.

There were curtains and rugs inside made of expensive materials. At the front of the building were two pillars with names. “The one to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz.” These are though to mean, “he establishes” and “in him is strength” respectively.

II Chronicles 4 – 5 2006 December 23^rd for 2007 January 12^th

The furnishings for the Temple are now described. They center around a huge 30 foot square altar which featured an enormous basin called the “Sea.” It was a basin 15 feet in diameter and 7-1/2 feet high (deep?) which stood on twelve bronze bulls, three each facing outward in each direction. This was all cast as one piece. A cord of 45 feet was used to measure around the circumference. (The value of Pi was not well determined by the ancient Hebrews; they had other interests.) This great Sea was used for the priests to wash and held 17,500 gallons of water.

There were also golden lampstands, tables, and a courtyard with bronze doors, pots, shovels and sprinkling bowls.

The language usage is interesting. It says that Solomon did all this, but that means probably that he ordered it all done. At another point it says that our master artisan Huram-Abi did all this for Solomon. Presumably Huram-Abi supervised many other craftsmen in this vast construction project, but he was ultimately responsible to the king.

The bronze articles were “cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan.” So much bronze was used that its total amount “could not be determined.”

When all this construction and finishing was done, Solomon had all of the treasures dedicated by David brought and put in the Temple treasuries. This included furnishings, silver, and gold.

After this, an enormous convocation was held and the priests ceremonially brought the Ark up to the Temple and placed it under the cherubim in the Most Holy place. At the time of this writing, it was still there, the carrying poles still attached. The poles were so long that you could only see them completely from inside the Most Holy Place, only partially from outside. The only content of the Ark was the pair of tablets brought by Moses from the mountain.

The musicians and priests then held a vast and loud celebration with everyone singing at the top of their voice, cymbals clashing, and so many animals being sacrificed that they couldn’t be counted. A huge cloud filled the Temple and everyone had to stop the celebration and get out.

II Chronicles 6 2006 December 27^th for 2007 January 15^th

Solomon stood in a special platform built in the Temple, seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high. He summarized the story of the evolution of rulership and worship in Israel, that after a long time he had chosen David and his descendants to rule the nation and that David had wanted also to build the house for God, but it had been denied him. His son Solomon would build the Temple instead, and had built it, and here it was and here he was.

Solomon then kneeled on the platform in front of all the people and, lifting his hands toward heaven, delivered the prayer of dedication. In outline, the prayer goes like this:

There is no other God like the God of Israel. (There is no other God at all.)

God, keep your promises to David and the people.

Can God really dwell in this house on the earth when all the heavens cannot contain him?

When people pray from, or towards this place, hear them and grant their requests.

When they sin against each other, bring justice on the guilty and to the innocent.

When Israel is oppressed by enemies but then returns to you, restore them.

When there is no rain for a long time but the people pray and turn from sin, help them.

When there is plague or blight , mildew or locusts, and the people repent, help them.

When a foreigner has come to the country because of God’s greatness, hear his prayer.

When you send them to war with their enemies, give them victory.

When they are defeated and taken into captivity, but have a change of heart, restore them.

The prayer concludes:

“Now, my God, may your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.

“Now arise, O Lord God, and come to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.

“May your priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, may your saints rejoice in your goodness.

“O Lord God, do not reject your anointed one.

“Remember the kindnesses promised to David your servant.”

II Chronicles 7 2006 December 27^th for 2007 January 16^th

After Solomon’s prayer of dedication, fire from heaven came and consumed all the burnt offerings, 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep and goats. Smoke filled the Temple and the priests couldn’t go in for a while.

After it all cleared, all the priests and musicians took their places. The altar could not hold all the offerings that were consecrated that day. After seven days of this, everyone went home happy.

After all of this celebration, God appeared to Solomon and answered his prayer explicitly, “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.”

God then charged Solomon to be upright and follow all the laws as David had. If he would do this, David would never fail to have an heir on the throne, as promised. If not, the scene would be appalling. The people would be hauled off into exile and the Temple ruined. Passersby would wonder what had happened here. The answer: “Because they have forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them – that is why he brought all this disaster on them.”

The promises to David appear to be bi-lateral after all.

II Chronicles 8 – 9 2006 December 27 for 2007 January 17^th

After the Temple, Solomon did many other things, leveraging on the peaceful conditions during his reign, the resources from Hiram, and the conscripted labor of foreigners in the country. He rebuilt several cities and had them occupied, including those given him by Hiram. He built all the chariots he wanted. He did not conscript the Israelites; he put them in charge.

Solomon married Pharaoh’s daughter, but said that, presumably due to her pagan religion, she could not live in David’s palace. He had a palace built for her elsewhere.

Solomon offered sacrifices daily and at the Sabbaths, New Moons and the three annual feasts (Unleavened Bread, Feast of Weeks, Feast of Tabernacles). The Levites ran the Temple as specified and as commanded and “did not deviate from the king’s commands to the priests or to the Levites in any matter, including that of the treasuries.”

Hiram sent ships down to the coast in Edom at Ezion Geber and Elath. Solomon’s men went with them and brought back 17 tons of gold.

The Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon. Her arrival in Jerusalem was a great hoopla. She brought huge provisions and gifts, camels and camels of spices, gold, precious stones, and all sorts of other impressive gifts.

When she observed Solomon’s palace, his court, his dining facilities, and all the splendor around town, she was very impressed. She was also impressed with his wisdom and his God. She praised that God for putting Solomon in place and stated how happy all the officials must be who worked there.

They traded large quantities of gifts and Solomon used some of the material for remembrances, such as a set of algumwood steps for the Temple.

The Queen of Sheba and her enormous retinue then departed and returned home.

I don’t think I’ve ever known where Sheba was.

Solomon’s various tributes amounted to twenty-five tons of gold per year. He made all sorts of shields out of this gold and put them in his special palace, the “Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.”

All of the household items in that palace were gold. He had a splendid throne of ivory overlaid and inlaid with gold. The footstool was made of gold. Cast lions stood on each side of the throne.

Silver was considered common during this time. Nothing like this had ever been seen in any other known kingdom at the time. This was the most wealth ever seen by anyone ever.

Solomon had twelve thousand horses, four thousand stalls and chariots. He ruled all kings from the Euphrates to the border of Egypt. He imported horses from Egypt and everywhere else.

Solomon died after a forty-year reign and was buried in the city of his father David. Rehoboam was the successor.

II Chronicles 10 – 11 2007 January 1^st for 18^th

As we saw in Kings, when Rehoboam became king, the people came and asked for their burden to be lightened. Solomon, building all those buildings and restoring all those cities and sending ships after all that gold, had been a hard taskmaster. With a new administration, the people wanted some relief from this.

Rehoboam told them to come back in three days for their answer. He consulted with the elder advisors who told him he should listen to the people’s request and go easier on them. This would ensure his permanent kingship over them. He then consulted with the younger, inexperienced fellows with whom he had grown up. They advised Rehoboam to go harshly on the people, saying in effect, “If you think it was bad under my father, just wait.”

Meanwhile, a high ranking rival, Jeroboam, who had been in exile in Egypt, heard of Solomon’s death and returned.

Rehoboam, “to fulfill the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite,” went with his younger cronies and spoke harshly to his subjects, promising them more work, not less.

The result was this:

“What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse’s son?

To your tents, O Israel! Look after your own house, O David!”

Rehoboam gave his forced labor chief, Adoniram, his orders. Adoniram went out to increase the workload as commanded and was stoned to death by the workers. King Rehoboam himself barely escaped with his life in his own chariot.

The rebellion of Israel against the house of David began that day. Judah, however, did not rebel.

Rehoboam went home and mustered 180,000 troops to go to war and reclaim the rest of Israel. The contemporary man of God, Shemaiah, came and delivered this message from God: “Do not go up to fight against your brothers. Go home, every one of you, for this is my doing.”

So they all went home and there was no civil war.

Rehoboam did strengthen the towns around Jerusalem in Judah. Sixteen are listed, including Bethlehem and Hebron. He improved their defenses and provisions and put commanders in place. Judah and Benjamin were firmly in his control.

The Levites were displaced from Israel by Jeroboam who did not recognize them as anything special, and who appointed his own priests for his own high places for the sacrificing of goats and calves. The Levites who were interested in seeking God all came to Judah, leaving behind their properties among the other tribes. During the three years in which this was occurring, Rehoboam himself walked “in the ways of David and Solomon.”

Rehoboam married two granddaughters of David, Abihail, daughter of Jerimoth and Maacah, daughter of Absalom, with whom he had four sons. (He was third cousin with these wives.) He loved Maacah best of all his eighteen wives and sixty concubines. In all, Rehoboam had 28 sons and 60 daughters.

His chief prince was Maacah’s son, Abijah, who would succeed him as king. He sent his other sons throughout the region that he controlled with provisions and fortifications and made sure that they all had many wives too.

II Chronicles 12 2007 January 1^st for 19^th

After Rehoboam was well established, he and the nation “abandoned the law of the Lord.” Shemaiah the prophet came with a message. “This is what the Lord says, ‘You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak.’”

Shishak was king of Egypt. He was approaching with 1200 chariots, 60,000 horsemen and all sorts of mercenaries from other neighboring countries.

The leadership in Israel said, in humility, “The Lord is just.”

On this, a new word came to Shemaiah. They were not to be conquered by Shishak but, “They will, however, become subject to him, so that they may learn the difference between serving me and serving the kings of other lands.”

Shishak attacked and carried off all the treasures in the Temple and the royal palace. Rehoboam had new shields of bronze made for the armory to replace those of gold that were removed. Whenever he went to the Temple, guards would get these shields and carry them all around him, putting them back in the armory when he was back at the palace.

“Because Rehoboam humbled himself, the Lord’s anger turned from him, and he was not totally destroyed. Indeed, there was some good in Judah.”

… indeed.

Rehoboam’s mother was Naamah, an Ammonite. This Naamah would have been one of Solomon’s wives. The fact that she was a foreigner was probably part of the problem, though that is not explicitly mentioned here, only that she was Ammonite.

Rehoboam reigned for 17 years beginning at age 41. He died and was succeeded by Abijah. More on Rehoboam’s reign is in the records of Shemaiah, which we do not have in the Bible.

II Chronicles 13 2007 January 2^nd for 22^nd

The major event of King Abijah’s reign is chronicled here in much more detail than I remember from Kings.

His father Rehoboam had refrained from going to war with Jeroboam because God told him not to, but Abijah did. He stood on Mount Zemaraim with 400,000 men and drew up battle lines against Jeroboam, who had 800,000.

Abijah then gave a speech outlining his case. Jeroboam was just a rebellious former official of Solomon who had unjustly taken much of the kingdom away during the early reign of Rehoboam when he was “young and indecisive and not strong enough to resist them.” (“Spin” is an ancient art as well as a modern one.)

Abijah was the rightful ruler after all, being of the house of David, to whom God had promised the throne forever. (Spin conveniently forgets the conditions of the promise, but Abijah probably had good intentions on this day that neither he nor any of his descendants would ever stray from God again.)

Abijah’s main case was on worship grounds. Jeroboam had put up altars everywhere and anyone who would “consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams” could be a priest, a “priest of what are not gods.” The worship in Jerusalem, by contrast was still done by regulation. Only Levites, descendants of Aaron, were priests and only the prescribed sacrifices were offered at the prescribed times as God, the only true God, had commanded. These same priests would sound the attack with their battle trumpets.

While this speech was going on, Jeroboam was moving many of his troops around behind them so as to ambush Abijah from the rear.

Suddenly, the men of Judah realized that they were under attack from both sides. They cried out to God for help and the trumpets were sounded immediately.

“At the sound of their battle cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. The Israelites fled before Judah, and God delivered them into their hands. Abijah and his men inflicted heavy losses on them, so that there were five hundred thousand casualties among Israel’s able men.”

The end result of this action was that Abijah recovered several towns (Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephron) from Jeroboam.

“Jeroboam did not regain power during the time of Abijah. And the Lord struck him down and he died.”

Afterward, Abijah’s strength grew. He had fourteen wives who bore him twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

II Chronicles 14 – 15 2007 January 2^nd for 23^rd

Abijah died and was buried. His son Asa succeeded him.

When I was a boy I had a friend named Asa.

King Asa had ten years of peace during which he did as God wanted, taking down all the foreign altars, Asherah poles and so forth. His army was 300,000 men and they were relatively well equipped with shields and spears and chariots.

Then Zerah the Cushite came out against Israel and Asa pleaded with God for assistance. God delivered and, “The Lord struck down the Cushites before Asa and Judah.” As a result of their flight, Judah captured some cities and plundered them and attacked their shepherds and took home their flocks.

The prophet Azariah came to Asa with the word of God. He proclaimed that they should seek God and only him and he would be with them and bring distress to all of their neighboring countries but not to them. Asa was courageous and did this. He had all the idols removed from the land (Judah and Benjamin and all of the places they had captured including some towns in Ephraim). He deposed his own grandmother, Maacah, and destroyed her Asherah pole.

It was made a capital crime not to seek the Lord and all the people did so with great flourish. “They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them. So the Lord gave them rest on every side.”

Although he didn’t remove all of the high places, his “heart was fully committed to the Lord” and he did bring silver and gold articles dedicated by his father into the Temple.

There was no more war for twenty-five more years.

II Chronicles 16 – 17 2007 January 3^rd for 24^th

As our retelling of the stories of the kings of Judah and Israel continues, it becomes more and more apparent that the versions (Samuel/Kings versus Chronicles) are from different points of view with different emphases and different details. To compose a sermon on one of them, or, more broadly, to view the sweep of the history of this period, the two versions would have to be considered together. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen this done.

Continuing, we are now in the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign. Baasha, king of Israel, fortified Ramah so that no from Judah could leave or enter Asa’s territory. Asa took gold and silver from the Temple and from his own palace and sent them to Ben-Hadad of Aram with a request that he break his treaty with Baasha and form one with Asa. Ben-Hadad took the money and did this, causing Baasha to abandon his work in Ramah. Asa’s men went and got all the construction materials left sitting around and used them to work on other nearby towns.

The seer at the time was Hanani, and he came to Asa with a white-hot prophecy. In summary, it had been a mistake to trust in Ben-Hadad on this deal rather than trusting God. As a result, Asa would spend the rest of his reign at war. “Asa was angry with the seer because of this; he was so enraged that he put him in prison. At the same time Asa brutally oppressed some of the people.”

Then, three years later, he became ill and ultimately died as follows:

“Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the Lord, but only from the physicians. Then [two years later] Asa died and rested with his fathers.” There was a tomb prepared for him in Jerusalem. “They laid him on a bier covered with spices and various blended perfumes, and they made a huge fire in his honor.”

We have not seen this kind of burial proceedings, at least detailed to this level, on prior kings. (This does not mean it was not done, just that it was not previously described.)

It would be fascinating to have some insight into why Asa turned from following God at the beginning of his reign to, apparently totally rejecting God at the end. This was the same king who deposed his own grandmother over an Asherah pole early on. Was it a change in his attitude? A mental disease? A difference in reporting? A difference in prophets? A personality problem? Did something happen where Asa felt God did not help him as expected causing him to turn away?

On Asa’s death, Jehoshaphat became king in Judah. Like his father, he started out well and God firmly established him as ruler. Not only was he personally devoted to “the ways of the Lord” he also sent priests all over Judah to instruct the people in the Book of the Law. This is the first time we’ve seen something like this done too. Is this a first step on the path to democracy?

“The fear of the Lord fell on all the kingdoms of the lands surrounding Judah, so that they did not make war with Jehoshaphat.” Philistines and Arabs brought great tribute. Jehoshaphat built forts and “store cities” all over Judah and had a large army totaling 1,160,000 men (in units of 1,000), the leaders, tribes and divisions of whom are named.

II Chronicles 18:1 - 27 2007 January 3^rd for 25^th

This is the story of Ahab, Jehoshaphat and the prophet Micaiah told this time as part of Jehoshaphat’s reign.

The wording is so exact that I looked up to see if I was re-reading Kings. It may have been copied.

In outline, Jehoshaphat was king of Judah and, as we’ve seen, had great wealth and honor. He was allied by marriage with Ahab, king of Israel. Ahab wanted to go attack Ramoth Gilead. Jehoshaphat said, ‘Sure, we are all family, but let’s inquire of God first.’ Ahab didn’t like inquiring of God because the news was always bad, at least about him. Anyway, there were plenty of prophets around who made great show, some with illustrative sculptures, to tell him what he wanted to hear.

Since it was what he wanted to hear, he knew that it wasn’t right and said so.

Jehoshaphat, apparently a congenial believer, told him he shouldn’t talk that way but that they should bring in a real prophet. They called in the real prophet, Micaiah, son of Imlah. Micaiah was told to tell the king what he wanted to hear, but stated in reply that he couldn’t prophesy anything but what God told him to. When he got to the king he said, tongue in cheek, “Sure, go ahead, you’ll win, whatever.” Ahab swore at him and told him to tell the truth. The real prophesy was:

“I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd, and the Lord said, ‘These people have no master. Let each one go home in peace.’”

Micaiah told that God had put a “lying spirit” in all those other prophets to trick Ahab into doing something fatal. (History is made by stupid people….) This got him slapped by the sculpture prophet Zedekiah. Ahab had Micaiah sent to another town and put in jail on bread and water there until he had returned safely from the battle. Micaiah said that if he in fact returned, God had not spoken through him.

II Chronicles 18:28 – 19:11 2007 January 3^rd for 26^th

As we saw in the parallel account of Kings before, Ahab went into battle in disguise, having sent out Jehoshaphat in his kingly robes. The enemy, meanwhile, had been instructed not to fight with the men, just to go straight and take the king. They went directly to Jehoshaphat since he looked like a king but when they got close, he “cried out, and the Lord helped him. God drew them away from him, for when the chariot commanders saw that he was not the king of Israel, they stopped pursuing him.”

It is true that random things happen in battle and that God can help in random cases, or in any cases. It seems like a stretch to me, however, to insert God into the above sentence, unless it is to remind us that he is always there in these random occurrences, credited or not. It seems to me that they pulled back primarily because Jehoshaphat was not the king they wanted, like it says. God urged them to disregard their rules of engagement in the light of common sense.

Meanwhile, speaking of randomness, an archer fired randomly into the fray and struck the disguised king. They took him out of the battle but he stood there in his chariot for the rest of the day and died at sunset. Doubtless he bled to death.

Jehoshaphat returned home safely and was visited by a seer named Jehu. “Should you help the wicked,” he said, “and love those who hate the Lord? Because of this, the wrath of the Lord is upon you. There is, however, some good in you, for you have rid the land of the Asherah poles and have set your heart on seeking God.”

To this seer, God is vastly more important than family. Jehoshaphat was a mixed bag. We are not told if the seer had any contact with Jehoshaphat before he went to see Ahab, or during the visit when the fatal decisions were being made. Was God’s seer only available to tell Jehoshaphat what he had done wrong retroactively?

Jehoshaphat went out into his countryside and set up a judicial system, appointing leaders from each family and tribe over certain groups and regions to settle disputes. He charged them to judge carefully and thoughtfully since they were working for God, not for bribes. No partiality or injustice would be tolerated. The system even included jurisdiction over the king himself. In cases involving the king, a judge named Zebadiah was appointed. For cases involving God, the High Priest would be judge. Justice was required no matter whether the plaintiffs were from the city or country, rich or poor, whether the case was small or involved bloodshed.

As Moses had done at the advice of his foreign father-in-law Jethro, Jehoshaphat had delegated much of his judicial responsibility, an unusual administrative move in these times. What is most unusual is that the system even had jurisdiction over the king, the delegator, himself. A “sovereign” only does this voluntarily.

II Chronicles 20 – 21:3 2007 January 3^rd for 29^th

Moabites, Ammonites, and Meunites gathered to attack Jehoshaphat. This movement was reported to Jehoshaphat while they approached and he called an assembly of all Judah.

When all were assembled Jehoshaphat cried out before God. Wasn’t he the God of heaven who had driven out the inhabitants of this land and given it to Abraham and his descendants? Now that land and those descendants were under attack by neighboring nations, nations that God had prohibited them from conquering during the occupation clean-up. We don’t know what to do, “but our eyes are upon you,” he concluded.

“All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the Lord.”

The Spirit fell on a Levite descended from Asaph, Jahaziel. He gave the proclamation.

God said not to worry, but to march out against the attackers. Go up to the pass where they were approaching and just watch. They would not even have to fight because God would fight for them. It was his battle.

Jehoshaphat and all the people were thankful. The king bowed down to the ground and some of the Kohathites praised God with loud voices.

Next morning early, they all set out for the pass. Men were appointed to sing, “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.”

While this was going on, the attacking countries set ambushes and attacked each other. The groups from Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir all attacked and annihilated each other. When the men from Seir were all gone, the rest went after each other until all were dead.

When the men of Judah got there, there was no one left alive, but the armies had been very well equipped. They started collecting plunder. There was so much that it took three days to collect what they could carry and that wasn’t everything. Some was left behind.

“On the fourth day they assembled in the Valley of Beracah, where they praised the Lord.” Beracah means praise. They all processed back to Jerusalem and entered the Temple singing and praising.

“The fear of God came upon all the kingdoms of the countries when they heard how the Lord had fought against the enemies of Israel. And the kingdom of Jehoshaphat was at peace, for his God had given him rest on every side.”

Jehoshaphat became king at age 35 and reigned for 25 years. He did fairly well, but all the high places were not removed, a familiar refrain, and not everyone in Israel fully turned to God.

As a footnote, Jehoshaphat made an alliance with Ahaziah, the new king of Israel. They built some ships together in order to get into the sea-trade business. Ahaziah was bad like his father, however, and this alliance displeased God. The prophet Eliezer was sent to tell Jehoshaphat, “Because you have made an alliance with Ahaziah, the Lord will destroy what you have made.” All of the ships were wrecked before they could be used.

Jehoshaphat died and was succeeded by Jehoram.

II Chronicles 21:4 – 22:12 2007 January 5^th for 30^th

Jehoram became king of Judah at age 32 and as soon as he was established, killed all of his brothers. His wife was a daughter of Ahab and he acted like Ahab. Because of his covenant to retain the house of David, it says, God did not destroy him, but did incite many other hardships.

The Edomites rebelled and set up their own king. Jehoram went to take care of them but was surrounded and only barely escaped.

High places of worship were built.

Jehoram received a personal letter from the prophet Elijah:

“This is what the Lord, the God of your father David says: ‘You have not walked in the ways of your father Jehoshaphat or of Asa king of Judah. But you have walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and you have led Judah and the people of Jerusalem to prostitute themselves, just as the house of Ahab did. You have also murdered your own brothers, members of your father’s house, men who were better than you. So now the Lord is about to strike your people and your sons, your wives and everything that is yours, with a heavy blow. You yourself will be very ill with a lingering disease of the bowels, until the disease causes your bowels to come out.’”

So the Philistines and Arabs and Cushites were aroused and raided Judah and took everything out of the king’s palace including all of his sons and wives except the youngest, Ahaziah.

After that “the Lord afflicted Jehoram with an incurable disease of the bowels. In the course of time, at the end of the second year, his bowels came out because of the disease, and he died in great pain. His people made no fire in his honor, as they had for this fathers.”

And, this is interesting. After his brief rule of eight years, “He passed away, to no one’s regret, and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.”

Then, because he was all that was left, Ahaziah was made king at age 22. He reigned one year and also acted like Ahab. With Joram of Israel, he waged a useless war against Aram in Ramoth Gilead. He was wounded in the battle and withdrew to recover. While he was visiting his friend Joram, Jehu arrived to cleanse the house of Ahab by killing off everyone. Finding Ahaziah there, he killed him too, and all the attendants with him.

Ahaziah’s mother was Athaliah and when she found out about her sons death, she killed everyone else in the royal family and became ruler herself. Everyone, that is, except Ahaziah’s son Joash. The infant Joash was hidden by Jehosheba, a daughter of Jehoram and priest Jehoiada’s wife. Joash remained hidden in the Temple for six years.

II Chronicles 23 2007 January 6^th for 31^st

Joash, the heir to the throne, had been hidden in the Temple for six years. In the seventh year, high priest Jehoiada made his move. He made alliances with all the military commanders then they went around the country collecting all the Levites and brought them back to the Temple. A third were assigned to guard the Temple, a third to the palace and a third to the Foundation Gate. “All the other men” were in the courtyards of the Temple. All were instructed not to enter the Temple except for the priests who were consecrated for that purpose.

When all this was established, they brought Joash out surrounded by guards, crowned him, presented him with a copy of the law, and proclaimed him king, inasmuch as God had promised David that he would have an heir on the throne forever. This started a big celebration and Athaliah heard it. She came running to see what all the commotion was and when she saw King Joash she started yelling, “Treason!”

It is unclear to me what sort of paranoia or other mental illness Athaliah suffered from that she had all of her own royal family extinguished and declared herself ruler. At the very least she was unconcerned with the future of the country after her own death.

Jehoiada had her seized, ordered that anyone who followed her be put to death, and had her marched away from the Temple to the Horse Gate where she was executed.

The remaining crowd then made a covenant with God and the new king and proceeded to smash up all the pagan altars and idols, killing Baal priest Mattan right there in front of the ruins.

Jehoiada then restored the service orders in the Temple and they went up and put the new king on his throne. There was great rejoicing in the land. “And the city was quiet, because Athaliah had been slain with the sword.”

The idea of the “quiet city” has been used before, but I don’t grasp the cultural context. Quiet from fear, confusion, relief, rest, or for some other reason?

II Chronicles 24 2007 January 6^th for February 1^st

The remaining reign of Joash was mixed. High Priest Jehoiada chose wives for him and he had children.

At one point he ordered the Temple restored and the Asherah and Baal worship removed from it, but no one did anything. He called the priests to account on this and then they did do something. They set up a collection box and people from all over came and gladly donated and the proceeds were used to repair the Temple and bring it up to date.

Jehoiada the priest died at age 130 and was buried with the kings because of the good things he had done. After this death, Joash listened to the elders and essentially switched religions. Baal and Asherah were worshipped once again. Jehoiada’s son Zechariah, called him to account publicly, saying that because Joash had abandoned God, God would abandon Israel. Joash ordered him stoned to death on the spot, apparently forgetting all that Zechariah’s father Jehoiada had done for him, and as he lay dying, Zechariah said, “May the Lord see this and call you to account.”

In less than a year, they were attacked by Aram. All the leaders were killed even though the attacking army was much smaller than Judah’s. In the fight, Joash was severely wounded and his own officials, including some of foreign birth, conspired against him for the murder of Zechariah and killed him in his bed.

… the line of David.

II Chronicles 25 2007 January 6^th for February 2^nd

Reading in Kings, we had the idea that Judah had bad and good kings but the really awful stuff happened in Israel. The account we consider now focuses on the awfulness of Judah as well.

Next is King Ahaziah. He ascended at age 25 and as soon as he had the kingdom secured, had the murderers of his father executed. It is considered noteworthy, however, that he followed the Law of Moses by not having their children executed as well.

He mustered the army and found that there were 300,000 men available. He also spent considerable money hiring mercenaries from Israel. Before he went to fight, however, the prophet of God came and told him that God was not with him and he should not march out with those Israelite troops. When Ahaziah objected on grounds of the money he had spent on the mercenaries, the prophet explained that God gave the spirit and the victory in battles and that he could give or take away much more than the mercenary help. Amaziah sent them all home.

This made the mercenaries (Ephraimites) furious. They went off on their own and killed three thousand Judeans in their towns and retrieved great plunder.

Meanwhile, Amaziah’s men defeated an army from Sier, killing ten thousand of them. They captured ten thousand others alive and marched them off a cliff so that they were also “dashed to pieces.”

But, when Amaziah returned from the slaughter, he brought back the gods of the Edomites with him. The prophet came and asked why he worshipped and consulted the gods of the Edomites who had not even been able to save their own people. Amaziah told him to shut up. “Have we appointed you an advisor to the king? Stop! Why be struck down?” The prophet did stop talking, but before he did so he said, “I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this and have not listened to my counsel.”

Amaziah then challenged Jehoash of Israel. Jehoash dismissed him with an insult. In essence, just because they had been lucky with Edomites, he didn’t advise taking on a real enemy. “Why ask for trouble and cause your own downfall and that of Judah also?”

But, Amaziah didn’t listen. He confronted Jehoash who attacked and routed Judah. “Every man fled to his home.” Jehoash then broke down a six hundred foot section of the wall of Jerusalem and took all the treasures out of the Temple and some hostages back to his own capital in Samaria.

During all of this, there was conspiracy against Amaziah. Finally, the conspirators caught up with and killed him at Lachish. The body was brought back by horse and buried in the “City of Judah.”

II Chronicles 26 – 27 2007 January 8^th for February 5^th

Uzziah was the next king and he reigned and lived to an unusually old age, 67. He became king when he was 16.

Zechariah the priest instructed him and he did well at first. He sought God, attacked and prevailed over the Philistines, built towers at various gates and corners in the wall of Jerusalem and put up cisterns and fortifications around the countryside. He had many people working the soil for vineyards and support of livestock.

His army numbered 307,500 and they were well trained and well equipped, ready to go at any time. There were 2,600 leaders.

Uzziah became very powerful and was known and feared all the way to the border of Egypt. At the height of his power, he attempted to go into the Temple and burn incense himself, which was forbidden. Several priests got up their courage, followed him in, and confronted him. While he was railing against them, leprosy broke out on his head. When they saw this, everyone ran out of the Temple, Uzziah included.

He remained leprous the rest of his life, had to live in a separate house while his son Jotham was in charge of the palace and the kingdom. When he died, he was buried in a field belonging to the Kings but not in the regular tomb because of the leprosy.

Jotham became king at age 25 and continued the public works improvements of his father. He also attacked and overcame the Ammonites who paid him a handsome tribute. His 16-year reign was upstanding, then he died.

Being king seems to have been hard on most of the holders of the office.

II Chronicles 28 2007 January 10^th for February 6^th

King Ahaz was next. He was pretty lousy. He acted like the kings of Israel and put up idols for “worshipping the Baals.” He performed sacrifices in unauthorized valleys and even sacrificed his own sons in fire.

God handed him over to Aram to humble Judah. Many prisoners were taken to Damascus. Also, God abandoned him to the king of Israel. In a battle with Ephraim, 120,000 of Judah were killed including some of Ahaz’s high officials and close family. The prophet Obed came out to the army of Ephraim and told them not to take prisoners of their own brothers, that is of Judah. When they got home the people confronted the army and told them not to bring any prisoners from Judah there. Some soldiers were designated to restore the prisoners. They clothed them and gave them sandals, fed them and put the weak ones on donkeys, and returned them to their homes in Judah.

Meanwhile, Ahaz sent to Assyria for help. He took treasures out of the Temple to offer the Assyrian king, but it did him no good. He even closed the Temple down and put altars all over the place (“at every street corner”) throughout the land thinking that if the gods of Damascus had helped them, so they would help him if he performed this worship of them.

This, of course, was their downfall. God did not come to their aid during the reign of Ahaz due to this manifest unfaithfulness.

II Chronicles 29 2007 January 11^th for February 7^th

Hezekiah became king when he was 25 years old. The first thing he did, during the first month of his reign, was to restore proper Temple worship.

He called in all the priests and Levites and announced what he was going to do, then opened the doors to the Temple and set them to work cleaning it out. After sixteen days, they had removed everything that did not belong there because it was for worship of some other deity.

These articles they carried down to the Kidron Valley.

Then they consecrated themselves and all of the articles that properly remained in the Temple. When they reported that they were ready, King Hezekiah came with the officials and several animals for burnt offerings early the next morning and they restored the proper observance of sacrifices, singing, and worship.

There was so much work to be done preparing the animals that some of the regular Levites helped out. They had been more conscientious about cleansing themselves for this special celebration than some of the higher ranking priestly Levites, their relatives, had been.

II Chronicles 30 2007 January 11^th for February 8^th

Now that Temple worship was re-established, it was decided to make a big deal of the upcoming Passover. The Passover had not been celebrated in any substantial way for quite some time. A letter was sent out all over the land inviting people to consecrate themselves and come to Jerusalem for the festival. Many scorned, but some humbled themselves and came.

Many priests had not consecrated themselves properly, so some Levites who had were involved in the actual preparations.

Altars not to God were removed and the remains thrown into the Kidron Valley.

Many celebrated the Passover who were not technically qualified by the prescribed purification preparations. The king prayed for them all to be forgiven because even though they were technically in violation, they were seeking after God by being in the celebration at all, which he prayed would be good enough for that day.

When the celebration was coming to a close, the assembly all decided to extend the party another seven days. This allowed many priests and Levites the time needed to purify themselves and participate, which they did.

It does not say how “the assembly” made such decisions, whether by leadership, consensus, or discussion. Probably not by popular vote.

II Chronicles 31 2007 January 13^th for February 9^th

After the big Passover was done, the people who had attended in Jerusalem fanned out over the countryside to the towns and villages and smashed up all of the altars on high places and Asherah poles that they found. Then they went to their homes.

Hezekiah directed the assignment of the priests and Levites to Temple service, referring to the record books about the families and assignments past. He then contributed sacrifices for the various offerings, regular observances, and festivals, and ordered that the rest of the people tithe their produce so that the Levites could concentrate on their duties and not have to worry about sustenance. As the order went out, the people gladly gave from their produce, firstfruits and so forth, and great heaps of grain and flocks and all other sorts of offerings and dedications were piled up. The priests declared that they had enough and to spare.

Hezekiah asked about the piles then ordered that storehouses be made to contain the surplus and assigned various people (who are named) to be in charge of this storage. Distributions were arranged for both the local Levites and those living out on farms.

And, here is the author’s evaluation of these actions.

“This is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah, doing what was good and right and faithful before the Lord his God. In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.”

II Chronicles 32 2007 January 15^th for February 12^th

Sennacherib, king of Assyria, invaded Judah. He intended to attack Jerusalem. Hezekiah got his men together and they blocked off the water from springs outside the city so that the Assyrians wouldn’t have much. He also repaired the walls and built additional walls outside.

Hezekiah then had all the soldiers and people assembled and told them not to be afraid because their God was with them. The Assyrians laid siege on Lachish then sent messengers to Jerusalem telling them that no gods of any other people had been able to resist them and that they should not be so foolish as to trust in their own God. They pointed out that Hezekiah had had all of the worship places removed from the high places. Wouldn’t this make their god mad after all?

This went on for some time, but as we pointed out before, this showed a misunderstanding of the religion of Judah.

The prophet Isaiah cried out to God, “and the Lord sent an angel, who annihilated all the fighting men and the leaders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king.” Sennacherib withdrew in dishonor and when he came to the temple of his gods back home, some of his sons assassinated him.

Hezekiah was in high esteem. His neighbors brought gifts from all around.

Later, king Hezekiah became sick unto death but was granted a miraculous reprieve by God. But, “Hezekiah’s heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the Lord’s wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem.” Hezekiah repented later, so the wrath was delayed until after his death.

Hezekiah had so many riches, both in precious metals and stones and in food and goods, that he built many more storehouses for it all. He did several civil improvements involving the water system feeding the city and he succeeded at everything he did.

But something else strange happened. “When envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask him about the miraculous sign that had occurred in the land, God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart.”

What kind of test is it for God to leave a ruler so as to see what he will do?

Though Hezekiah was something like the ideal king in many respects, a seeker after God, a good civic leader and planner, responsive to the religious leaders, still there are these two instances, one about some miraculous occurrence in Judah that he didn’t admit to somehow and the other about his near-death illness, in which relations with God are strained. It doesn’t fully explain the circumstances or even what it is the king did that was sinful in these cases. In one of them he repented and punishment was delayed, at least as the author interprets the aftermath.

Hezekiah died and was succeeded by his son Manasseh.

II Chronicles 33 2007 January 16^th for February 13^th

Manasseh became king at age 12 and lasted until age 67. He started out by doing great evils, building up idols and images and Asherah poles and putting them up in the very Temple of God. This was the same Temple where God said he would dwell and attend forever. Also, Manasseh led the people in pagan sacrifice in the valleys and high places and even sacrificed his own son in fire.

God spoke to Manasseh but he didn’t listen, so God sent in the king of Assyria who conquered the land and put a hook in Manasseh’s nose and led him shackled into captivity. In captivity, Manasseh cried out to God who relented and saved and restored him. After he was restored to power, he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and, although people continued using the high places for sacrifices, they sacrificed only to the true God.

Upon Manasseh’s death, Amon became king. He reigned from age 22 to 24 and was more pagan than his father had been at the beginning. His officials assassinated him and set up his son Josiah as king.

II Chronicles 34 2007 January 17^th for February 14^th

Josiah became king when he was eight and followed the God of David from the beginning. When he was 16 he started taking action and went all about the countryside smashing all of the worship centers, Asherah poles, altars to Baal, everything. When he was 26, he initiated an effort to repair the Temple. Builders were given money and bought things like joists and beams, so the repairs must have been extensive.

While they were working in the Temple, bringing the money out that had been stored there, the book of the Law was found. The king had it read and when he realized that it condemned the actions of Israel, tore his robes in despair and sent to inquire of a prophetess named Huldah. She lived in the Second District of Jerusalem.

She prophesied that, because of the rebelliousness of the Hebrews, they would be punished. Speaking for God, she said, “Because they have “forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and provoked me to anger by all that their hands have made, my anger will be poured out on this place and will not be quenched.”

But, because Josiah himself had been responsive and humble, this would all happen after his peaceful death.

Josiah had everyone come to the Temple and hear the Law read there. They all took a pledge to follow the laws and their God, all the men of Jerusalem and of Benjamin. “As long as he [Josiah] lived, they did not fail to follow the Lord, the God of their fathers.”

II Chronicles 35 2007 January 18^th for February 15^th

In his eighteenth year as king Josiah staged the biggest Passover celebration since the days of Samuel. The people made preparations and performed the sacrifices on the days prescribed in the law. Josiah himself contributed thousands of animals for sacrifice from his own possessions.

The priests did the sacrifices and sprinkled the blood around the altar and the Levites skinned the animals and prepared them for roasting, as prescribed. All of those in charge of parts of the service in the Temple were in their place and other priests and Levites made preparations for them so that they wouldn’t have to leave their posts.

After this, king Neco of Egypt approached. Josiah went out to meet him but Neco told him that he had not come to fight Judah but somebody else. He said that Josiah’s God had told him to hurry on past and go on to where he was going, not bothering Josiah and his subjects. For some reason Josiah didn’t buy this. He disguised himself and went out to Neco in battle. During the battle, archers shot him. Josiah was severely wounded, was taken out of the battle by chariot, and died.

“Jeremiah composed laments for Josiah, and to this day all the men and women singers commemorate Josiah in the laments. These became a tradition in Israel and are written in the Laments.”

We will come to the Lamentations later.

Josiah was succeeded by his son Jehoahaz.

II Chronicles 36 2007 January 19^th for February 16^th

The last few kings of Judah fly by quickly.

Jehoahaz, successor to Josiah, reigned for three months. Neco of Egypt came and took him to prison in Egypt, leaving his brother Eliakim as king of Judah and changing his name to Jehoiakim.

This Jehoiakim reigned from age 25 to 36 and was evil by God’s standards. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked and took him bound to Babylon. He also totally looted the Temple and took all of the treasures there to his own temples back in Babylon.

Jehoiakim’s son Jehoiachin became king at age 18 and reigned for “three months and ten days.” He, too, was evil and he, too, was taken bound to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar.

Jehoichin’s uncle Zedekiah was made king over Judah. He reigned from age 21 to 32 and “did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke the word of the Lord.” In addition, he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar. All the leaders and people did things that were more and more unfaithful to God, “following all the detestable practices of the nations and defiling the temple of the Lord.”

“The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. He brought up against them the king of the Babylonians, who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and spared neither young man nor young woman, old man or aged. God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar. He carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the Lord’s temple and the treasures of the king and his officials. They set fire to God’s temple and broke down the wall of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there.”

Those who survived were called “the remnant” and they were carried off to Babylon to be servants there.

“The land enjoyed its Sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.

We get the idea here that Jeremiah, or one of his spiritual descendants, may well be the author of II Chronicles.

The allusion to Sabbaths was that the land was not supposed to be worked every seventh so it, like people who rest every seven days, could rest periodically. This law, spelled out in great detail under Moses, had not been followed in about 500 years, so there was a deficit of 70 years of Sabbaths to make up.

After the 70 years, Cyrus king of Persia came to power and proclaimed, “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you – may the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up.”

Isn’t that interesting. The last words of the book of II Chronicles are of a Gentile king who has been given all the power, wealth, and charter of Solomon himself, setting in motion the restoration of Jerusalem. We will read about this in the next Old Testament book, Ezra.

Concluding Thoughts on II Chronicles 2007 January 22^nd for February 19^th

As we finished the two books of Kings I was impressed by the degree to which and the manner in which the nation of Israel, the other ten tribes, had imploded and vanished. Even though the accounts here in II Chronicles ignore some of the evil, or are less graphic about it, there is much more detail about the destiny of Judah, including their own descent into chaos up to the beginning of the exile. I think we’ll see more about this, including interpretation, when we get to the books written by the prophets themselves, some of whom have been mentioned here, namely Isaiah and Jeremiah.

The leadership of the successive kings oscillates wildly between God fearing and following, and God-ignoring practitioners of the detestable religions of the region. Meanwhile, the narrative interpretation always finds a way to see God’s hand of punishment or blessing in the situations and resulting events, even if it takes a very long-viewed stretch to make the interpretation fit. The correlations between good and reward, evil and punishment are not always strong, but the promises of God are unwavering, so the story has to fit, whatever it takes.

We do the same thing today, I observe, and I sometimes wonder if at least we today border on fantasy or superstition when making spiritual interpretations. Once, I was following a popular Christian radio station during one of their fund raising drives. As it came down to the last few hours, it became clear that it would take a miracle for them to make their divinely promised goal. Being divinely promised, a miracle was not out of the question, as it might be in, say, public broadcasting. But, in the end, after it was all over, the target had not been reached, at least not in the way they had been accounting totals up to that time. In order to claim that they had made their goal, they essentially changed their accounting system, counting both cash and monthly pledges in the total, rather than just cash. By that accounting they had made it, in fact they had made it days earlier in the drive and were well beyond the target at the end. The interpretation then shifted to the Biblical reference, “… pressed down, overflowing…” Was this a case of a misunderstood (or imagined) promise from God? An accounting system that isn’t wasn’t divinely inspired? Management flailing? Humility?

Or consider two conflicting interpretations of recent attacks on the U.S. by religious extremists. One is that corrupt and unsanctified infidels (Americans and their compatriots) have been occupying the holy lands and the holy sites for many decades for their own selfish reasons, and the natives there are mad enough to strike out against us, even on our own turf. Another is that the U.S., as a plurality, has tolerated sexual deviance and therefore God lowered his guard and permitted those attacks.

You might be surprised what a strained, myopic, and highly externally indoctrinated reading of the Bible can lead to.

And, Muslims, the natives of those lands, don’t tolerate sexual deviance….

While I had expected to come away from this careful survey with a strengthened faith in certain “God is in control,” “the Bible is perfect” types of doctrines that are implicit in what I’ve been taught in faith, I find instead that I am coming away with a changed faith. I do not doubt God; I merely doubt my understanding of his nature and character. Difficult as it is for me to uproot some beliefs that date back to before my first conscious memories, I firmly believe that honesty and integrity must supersede religious dogma.

Maybe it’s just the times I live in and the way I have come to terms with the world that I experience, but I know spin when I see it. I know “It is what you call it” when I see it. And, frankly, I find this set up, where one man per era, the prophet, speaks for God but has no other authority or responsibility, while the divine-right monarch, who has all the authority and responsibility, who may or may not have been able to make any sense of what the prophet was saying, and in any case had his own issues and phobias to deal with, is at the very least, strange. Of course, it is the prophet who writes the story, so that’s the story we get and that’s how the heroes and the “right” side is chosen.

(I guess I have to say that, like most moderns living in democracy, I question the divine-right monarch system to begin with. What was God thinking? Appointing one king out of nowhere sometimes works (worked with David, didn’t work with Saul). But, having their random children inherit supreme power; history teaches us nothing if not that a system like that has obvious flaws. Yet, if we had to debate which system of government the literally read Bible supported, what would it be?)

I’m not excusing the kings of Judah, or of Israel for that matter, for their clear failures and rebellions, but neither can I see the human prophets as perfect discerners, effective communicators, and error-free authors, if notions of “error” are even meaningful in this context.

© Courtney B. Duncan, 2006, 2007