Month: May 2021

Week 18 1 Chronicles

Last year on April 28 I was reading chapter 16 and noticed that the chronicler more or less quoted Psalm 105:1-15. This year I noticed that right after quoting Psalm 105 the chronicler more or less quotes a chunk of Psalm 96. So chapter 16 looks like this – Introduction + Psalm 105 + Psalm 96 + Conclusion. But it’s mostly two psalms celebrating the Lord.
I also noticed that on the big day when the ark was taken to Jerusalem musical instruments were used to accompany the psalms: Asaph…sounded the cymbals. His assistants…played the harps and lyres. The priests…played the trumpets. I think I noticed the instruments today because I noticed them yesterday too – singers musicians lyres harps bronze cymbals trumpets.
Near the end of the chapter I noticed one other thing . The ark is home in Jerusalem now and David gives the Asaph Levites a job: to minister regularly before the ark of the Lord’s covenant, doing whatever needed to be done each day. Minister & ministry & ministering are funny words. They usually give me the feeling of doing something religious – like praying in public for example. But the chronicler seems to include in ministry just doing the things that needed doing from day to day. Doing good things that need doing is ministry too.

Note: quotes from 1 Chronicles 16:5-6 (plus see where music is talked about in 15:16-22) & 16:37 (NLT)

Week 18 1 Chronicles

Starting from chapter eleven the chronicler spends more than five hundred verses talking about David (out of all the thousands of people named no one is more important than king David).
The chapter begins this way: then all Israel went to David at Hebron and told him “We are all members of your family. For a long time, even when Saul was our king, you were the one who really led Israel…”
One thing I notice is that the writer uses the phrase All Israel. The name Israel means different things. The Lord named Jacob Israel. It also meant all twelve tribes – people of Israel, tribes of Israel, Israelites, and like that. And it was the name used by Jeroboam’s ten breakaway tribes – Israel came to mean the rebellious northern kingdom.
The chronicler was writing to the exiles in Babylon – Judah-South – but I get the sense that for him the Golden Age was David’s undivided Israel. I don’t know if he’s angling for  an inclusive Israel. I do remember that last year I saw a similar thing when he mentioned the other tribes in chapters 5-6-7-8. Not just Judah-Benjamin. Sure…the north is an alien and an enemy now. But remember when we were All Israel under the great king.
In spite of the bad blood I wonder if the chronicler is holding the door open for wayward northerners.

Note: quote from 1 Chronicles 11:1-2 (NLT). Disclosure: Dan & Zebulun weren’t included in chapters 5-6-7-8. Don’t ask me why.

Week 18 1 Chronicles

Yesterday the chronicler was making editorial choices – exclusions and inclusions – and he’s at it again today.
Saul is killed on the battlefield in chapter ten. The chronicler says nothing else about Saul’s life story. Just the battle and his death. Which means king Saul gets a fourteen-verse mention in Chronicles. I page forward and see that David gets the next nineteen chapters. So the chronicler is saying that he has bigger priorities than Saul. He’s laid his Priority-People Cards on the table, interested in some and not others. He’s very interested in David.

Side Note: the last two verses about Saul are pretty heavy: Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord. He failed to obey the Lord’s command, and he even consulted a medium instead of asking the Lord for guidance. So the Lord killed him (1 Chronicles 10:13-14 NLT). The last phrase really wakes me up: the Lord killed him. I think about it. Does that make Bible-God a Murderer? I doubt it. Just a couple of days ago I read: all (the Lord) does is just and good (Psalm 111:7 NLT). So it reminds me that however I try to dope out the action the Lord took at the end of Saul’s life it can’t really exclude other things I’ve already read. The sentence says the Lord killed Saul. Now I have to figure out just what that means and how it fits.

Week 18 1 Chronicles

The first nine chapters of Chronicles are one massive list of names – a kind of bible-reader’s Namibian Desert. Fortunately I’ve been here before and I’m not totally surprised.
I notice that the chronicler expands on some things and not others. I noticed that last year when the families of Judah and Levi were spotlighted but the other tribes weren’t.
Now I notice that all along the way the writer makes other selection & de-selection choices that I’m not sure what to do with. For example as soon as I get to Noah’s family – Noah is the tenth name in the book – I see the chronicler starting to skip some things. One of Noah’s sons was Japheth and Japheth had seven sons: Gomer Magog Madai Javan Tubal Meshech and Tiras. The chronicler names Gomer’s three sons and Javan’s four sons. But he doesn’t say anything more about Magog Madai Tubal Meshech and Tiras. So I wonder what’s behind the omissions.
Then in chapter seven the writer tells a story about the Ephraim family: Ephraim’s sons Ezer and Elead were killed trying to steal livestock from the local farmers near Gath…Ephraim mourned for them a long time. Afterward Ephraim slept with his wife, and she…gave birth to a son. Ephraim named him Beriah because of the tragedy his family had suffered. It’s an unhappy family story and I wonder what’s behind the inclusion.

Note: quote from 1 Chronicles 1:5 & 7:20-23 (NLT). My margin note says Beriah means Misfortune.

Week 17 1 Chronicles

Twelve days ago I sat looking at 1 Chronicles 1. I’d just finished reading about 180 pages of the Samuels & Kings histories and – whatever was going on in my psychic-self – thinking about starting another history that day loomed as a big Bible-Reader’s Impediment. So I started reading Isaiah instead.
Fortunately I was in a different frame of mind today as I started Chronicles…which was my good fortune since there’s about 240 mostly unrecognizable foreign names in chapter one –  and I know there’s more to come.
I start reading the names but I’m also trying to dope out what the author’s doing with them. I see that he mentions Noah’s three sons – Shem Ham & Japheth. Then he looks at each one – but in reverse order.
Japheth and his seven sons.
Then Ham and his four sons.
Finally Shem…because the author is tracking Shem’s family: Shem Arpachshad Shelah Eber Peleg Reu Serug Nahor Terah Abram – Abraham!
So the Chronicler is making some choices. Other families are important (otherwise I don’t guess they’d be mentioned). But Abraham is the key and I can figure that it’s a safe bet that I’ll be seeing familiar names like Isaac & Jacob and Jacob’s twelve boys soon enough.

Note: the Shem-Abraham list is in 1 Chronicles 1:24-27. Added Note: I ran my end-of-April numbers. I’ve read 44.4 % of the text in 33.3% of the year. Reading Isaiah in twelve days really helped my speed but it blurred my focus a bit. So I paid a price.