Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Chronicles 5-7.

When I read Solomon’s prayer of dedication for the Temple I am always moved.  In many ways the events described here, and those which led up to this point foreshadow the coming of the Messiah, Jesus.  Solomon built a Temple of cedar, marble, and gold.  Jesus built a Temple of those who follow His teachings.  Solomon asked God to have His eyes and ears open upon the Temple he had built day and night.  Jesus asked the same thing.  In both cases, God granted their requests.

So, God’s answer to Solomon applies as much to us today as it did to the people of Israel when He gave it to Solomon.  Right now it is especially important that we allow ourselves to be shaped by what God told Solomon: “…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 I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. ”  In that God gives us four things which we must do.

• We must humble ourselves.
  • That means, among other things, being willing to admit to those around us that we have not lived up to what we claim to believe.
• We must pray.
• We must seek His face.
  • This means opening ourselves up for examination by the righteousness of God.  Allowing Him to reveal to us sins we did not know we were committing.
• We must turn from our wicked ways.
  • It is not enough to confess our sins and to seek to act righteously.  We must also stop committing those sins, even the ones which “don’t hurt anybody”.

Will you join me in seeking to do as God asks?

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Chronicles 1-4.

Usually when I write on this passage I focus on Solomon requesting wisdom from God.  That is always a good place to start.  While you may obtain fame, wealth, and power without wisdom, they will bring you no joy, and any happiness they bring will be short-lived, if that is the case.  On the other hand, if you obtain godly wisdom, you will find joy, even if it does not provide you any of those other things.

The wisdom which Solomon asked for was displayed in his missive to Hiram, King of Tyre.  I rarely look at it very closely because it is mostly diplomatese.  However, in this letter Solomon displays an important understanding about God: God cannot be contained within any building built by man.  He cannot even be contained within Heaven, which He created.  God is greater than all others and we cannot hope to contain Him in any way.  The structures which we build to worship God can only serve to focus our minds upon Him, but we should not allow ourselves to believe that our worship can, or should, be limited to those locations.  Let us remember that wherever we are, God is there as well, and worship Him at all times and in all places.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 24-26.

This is another one of those passages which I generally find hard to read and even harder to comment on.  However, skipping over this passage would be a mistake.  The passage discusses how King David assigned duties to the priests and Levites.  The passage tells us that he did so with complete impartiality by having his leadership team cast lots in the presence of representatives of all of the families.  This teaches us an important lesson: it is not enough to make decisions in an impartial way, people must also perceive that those decisions were made in an impartial way.  Again, King David and his advisers recognized that both halves of this formula must be met.  When leadership makes decisions they must equally be sure that there the decision is made fairly and without partiality and that people perceive such to be the case.

I use 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.

Every time I read one of the accounts about the census King David held and the plague which followed it I have unanswered questions.  None of the accounts clearly define what David’s sin was in holding the census.  However, today I want to focus on the place where the angel of the Lord which was spreading the plague stopped and where David built an altar to God.  The passage tells us that an angel of the Lord spread a plague over the nation of Israel, stopping as it approached Jerusalem at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.  The passage also tells us that David and the elders of Israel were dressed in sackcloth and fell face down when David saw the angel standing there with a drawn sword.  At this point David cried out to God asking that the punishment fall only on himself and his family, since it was his sin which brought it about.  The next verse has an angel tell David’s seer, or prophet, to build an altar on the threshing floor of Araunah.

So, the first thing I noticed about this was that David and the elders of Israel were already dressed in sackcloth when David saw the angel.  The passage has God telling the angel to stop before it mentions that David cried out to God to spare the people.  Yet, it is clear that David and the elders were already praying for just such an outcome.  In this passage David gives two examples which every leader of people should follow.  First, he acknowledges that the people he was leading suffered as a result of his sin, his mistake.  Second, he sought to suffer in their place.

I want to apologize for not getting into the selection of this spot to build an altar, but, as often happens, as I wrote this blog I found myself going in a different direction.

I use 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 decided that he should build a Temple for God, God sent him a message through the prophet Nathan.  In that message, God told David that He had never asked any of the leaders of Israel to build Him a house.  Then God told David that He would raise up his offspring to succeed him.  That son would build a house for God.  The easy reading of this is that God was promising that Solomon would succeed David as king and build a Temple.  Yet, God goes on to tell David that this particular offspring will be established forever.  This leads me to conclude that while God was referring to Solomon, He was also referring to Jesus.  It was Jesus whom God set over His house and kingdom forever.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 13-16.

Today’s passage describes how David established himself as king of Israel.  Actually, the writer started the process of laying out the steps which David took to consolidate power under himself.  As I noted yesterday, David’s approach contrasted with that of Saul.  As yesterday’s passage noted, David started by conquering Jerusalem and making that his capital.  Jerusalem was not a traditional base of power for any of the tribes, so it could be perceived as belonging to all of Israel, not just one tribe.  Today’s passage starts with David getting the consent of the leaders of all of Israel to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.  At first, that goes badly and David gives the Ark into the care of a Philistine living nearby, who was apparently loyal to David.  After two attacks by the Philistine armies, each of which David defeated decisively, David decides to finish moving the Ark to Jerusalem. Once the Ark is established in Jerusalem, David instituted regular worship before the Ark in Jerusalem and at the Tabernacle in Gibeon.  By doing this David unified the people of Israel in their worship of God.  Unifying the people of Israel had the effect of consolidating David’s power.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 7-9.

Today’s passage is more genealogies and a large part of why I am writing this blog.  If I was not writing this blog, this passage would be where my “reading the Bible in a year” would come to an end, if it hadn’t yesterday.  However, there are some useful names mentioned here which are mentioned elsewhere.  While I do not get much out of reading this passage, there is value in cross referencing to here from the other passages where these people are mentioned.  We also get a little bit more of an understanding about the early days in Egypt from this passage.  It mentions that two of Ephraim’s sons were killed when they went on a cattle raid against men born in Gath.  The other relevant thing which we learn from this passage is that this book was compiled after the return from Exile from other sources, sources which were still available for some time after this book was compiled.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 5-6.

Once again I am unsure what to make of this passage.  So, I will just comment on the random thoughts I had while reading it.  In the list of Reuben’s descendants it lists four sons of Reuben, then it lists out descendants of Joel.  But it never tells us who Joel’s father was.  A little later the passage tells us that “All these were entered in the genealogical records during the reigns of Jotham king of Judah and Jeroboam king of Israel.”  What is not clear is if that refers to the names listed, or to the paragraph which follows about the 44,000+ men ready for military service (or both).  Further on it lists the descendants of Levi.  It gives two separate lists of those descendants.  A first glance suggests that the first list followed one line of descent while the second list follows another.  Without doing a detailed look carefully comparing the two lists, they do not seem to contain any conflicts.

As I said, random thoughts.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 2-4.

Today’s passage consists of more genealogies.  One thing we learn about the genealogies in the Old Testament is that we need to be careful about interpreting the number of generations between “father” and “son”.  This is not to dismiss these genealogies.  For example, it tells us that Achar (an alternate spelling of Achan) was the son of Kami, the son of Judah.  Assuming this is the Achan mentioned in the Book of Joshua, which is probable, we know he was more generations from Judah than his grandson.  This genealogy also tells us that Caleb was Judah’s great grandson, but we know that Caleb was more generations removed from Judah than that.  Now, the key here is that we know that the Hebrew words used to indicate that Caleb was the  son of Hezron and that Achar was the son of Karmi, can also just mean that they are descended from them.  We need to remember that Ancient Hebrew had very few words when compared to modern languages.  But even in modern English, we sometimes use the expression “child of” to indicate that someone descended from that person rather than to indicate that they are the following generation.

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