I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Chronicles 20-23.

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

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

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Chronicles 17-19.

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

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