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Week 20  Psalm 148

Psalm 148 begins and ends with the phrase: praise the Lord.
In between it mostly talks about who and what praises the Lord. But it also spells out why a person would praise him – it says because: a) his name is very great and b) his glory towers over the earth and heaven.
When I praise some guy I’m recognizing that he has talent or skill or ability. But when I praise the Lord I’m sensing what’s more like peerless & unrivalled giganticism.
Praising a person and praising the Lord are so different that using the same word is a bit problematic. If I could I’d use different words. For example I might Recognize or Acknowledge or Compliment a person. But I’d use a heavier word – like Extol or Laud – if I was talking about the Lord.
With Praise #1 I’m admitting that I’m impressed. Praise #2 is more of a thunderstricken ego-shriveling wakening-awareness of overwhelming brilliancy.
Praise #1 applies to lots of things. For instance if one boy’s frog jumps farther than his buddy’s frog I could say “what a great frog!” That’s Praise #1. Praise #2 is more exclusive. It’s a mind-boggling superiority.
I know that a word can have different meanings. And I think a lot of bibles use the word praise to cover different meanings. But if I had a chance to make editorial changes that would be one I’d make.

Note: quotes from Psalm 148: 1 14 13 (NLT)

Week 20  2 Chronicles 14-16

The chronicler whittled down the story of king Asa to three episodes. The first and last stories are pretty important and pretty similar – both look at how Asa reacted to international conflicts.
In the first story an overwhelming Ethiopian army mobilized against Judah. Asa did two things: a) he deployed his armed forces and b) he prayed: Lord, no one but you can help the powerless against the mighty! Help us, O Lord our God, for we trust in you alone.
In the last story the northern tribes of Israel invaded Judah. Asa did one thing: a) he paid a mercenary army from Damascus to defend Judah.
In both cases Judah came out on top. But after the second operation a prophet came to Asa and criticized him: don’t you remember the Ethiopians? At that time you relied on the Lord, and he handed them all over to you. So there was a reliance issue.
In Battle #1 Asa relied on the Lord.
In Battle #2 Asa relied on Benhadad.
My first impression is that Asa mostly relied on the Lord (but then had that one foul-up with Benhadad). But the chronicler adds a little footnote that makes me wonder. Asa had a foot disease and when it: became life-threatening, he did not seek the Lord’s help but sought help only from his physicians. So maybe after a strong start Asa’s reliance on the Lord declined incrementally over a long forty-one year reign.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 14:11 16:8 & 12 (NLT)

Week 20  Psalm 146

One of the supplementary goals I have while I’m reading is to track what the bible says about the Lord. So yesterday when I noticed a few things listed consecutively in psalm 146 I wrote them down.
The Lord:
Brings justice to oppressed people
Feeds hungry people
Releases innocent prisoners
Restores sight to blind people
Helps people who are loaded down
Provides a haven for immigrants
Helps parentless kids
Helps women who’ve lost their husbands
Is dependable/reliable
Loves righteous people
There was one more that didn’t quite fit with the others…
The Lord frustrates evil people.
I was mostly interested in the first ten items and thought for a while about how the process worked out in life – for instance in Yemen. How the values crossed-over into actionables.
Anyway today I read psalm 147 and I was surprised to see what looked like a condensed version of yesterday’s list: the Lord supports the humble but he brings the wicked down into the dust. (I composed my own short version: the Lord helps people who are vulnerable and wretched and dejected and tormented. But he turns against people who are ruthless and evil and arrogant and exploitive.)
One of the things I’m doing while I’m reading is putting together a composite of the Lord. It’s harder than I thought it would be. So 146-147 are a helpful addition to the mix.

Note: paraphrase from Psalm 146:7-9. Quote from 147:6 (NIV)

Week 20  2 Chronicles 7

The story of the Lord appearing to Solomon in chapter 7 was also told in 1 Kings 9 so I page back and do a quick comparison.
The bible I’m looking at subdivides the Lord’s speech into paragraphs. The 1 Kings version has three paragraphs (seven verses). 2 Chronicles has four paragraphs (eleven verses). Flipping back-and-forth I see that the content of paragraphs #1 #2 & #3 in Kings matches up pretty closely with Chronicles’ paragraphs #1 #3 & #4. And so Chronicles’ paragraph #2 is the odd-paragraph-out.
That second paragraph says that in the event of a national disaster – drought or crop-failure & famine or plague – 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 will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (It seems like pretty important advice and I wonder why Kings didn’t include it.)
In the event of meteorological or ecological or medical crises – whatever other material actions I take first – there’s this short list of non-material emergency responses. I should:
Reel-in my arrogance
Seriously search for the Lord
Start talking to the Lord
Quit doing evil things.
It’s a fairly abstract list of recommendations for pretty concrete material-world crises. So they might not be the first things I’d try. Still…there they are. Part of my emergency prep resources.

Note: quote from 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 (NIV). See 2 Chronicles 7:11-22 & 1 Kings 9:1-9.

Week 20  1 Chronicles 28

Not long before he died David gave Solomon some father-to-son advice:
Acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.
Years later – his dad was long gone – Solomon got a similar kind of prompt-reminder from the Lord:
If you walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever.
In the early & middle stages of his life Solomon had a run of successes and he eventually became the greatest king Israel ever had. But as years rolled by Solomon got sidetracked: as (he) grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God…He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord.
Solomon’s end-story is a sad reminder that getting good advice at the front end is only as useful as adopting a Good-Advice Maintenance Program over time. Staying on track is at least as tough as getting on track.

Note: quotes from 1 Chronicles 28:9 1 Kings 9:4 & 11:4-5 (NIV)

Week 20  Psalms 140-143

On the news yesterday I saw a team of sappers moving along a sunny forested road in eastern Europe. Taking their time. The countryside was clear of invaders but not clear of the landmines they’d left behind…
Maybe that image was still in memory today when I was reading psalms 140-143 (my plan was to just read 140 but the computer was running a lot of updates so I kept reading).
The four psalms are similar. They’re all written by David. They’re all short. They all have a similar vibe…they’re all I’m In A Jam Please Help Me Out psalms.
One of the things I noticed was that even though David was alert to Obvious Big Dangers – like getting assassinated – he was also aware of Trickily Disguised (But Still Potentially Deadly) Problems – like getting tripped up & trapped & snared & ambushed by his enemies…
(They) have set a trap to catch me…they have set traps all along the way
Keep me out of the traps they have set for me
Wherever I go, my enemies have set traps for me.
David doesn’t mention traps and snares in 143 but he does ask the Lord: show me where to walk…teach me to do your will…May your gracious Spirit lead me forward on a firm footing.
It’s a pretty good prayer: please show me where to walk. A kind of Sapper’s Prayer for negotiating zones with hidden dangers.

Note: quotes from Psalm 140:5 141:9 142:3 143:8 (NLT)

Week 19  1 Chronicles 25

Right away I see data & lists in chapter 23 so I page forward – hoping for the best but seeing I’ve got five more chapters of names & numbers. About 160-verses of material in the Hurry-Up Bible-Reading Category so I shift into a higher gear.
I guess I would have breezed through all of it – including chapter 25 – except a couple of days ago I read: by the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
And Zion would have had a bunch of songs to sing because 1 Chronicles 25 says there were 288 full-time musicians (I checked the arithmetic – 24 groups with 12 individuals in each = 288 musicians). (It also finally registers with me that chapters 23 & 24 & 25 is one long list of many different temple workers – Levites priests Gershonites Kohathites Merarites. Plus those 288 temple musicians.)
Buried in the musicians’ names are a couple of comments about what the group was set up to accomplish: the ministry of prophesying, accompanied by harps, lyres and cymbals
They: prophesied using the harp in thanking and praising the Lord
They were: trained and skilled in music for the Lord.
So if prophecy praise & thanks were the real objectives of Israel’s dedicated temple musicians it’s easier to understand their reaction in psalm 137 – entertaining their Babylonian overlords wasn’t part of the mandate.

Note: quotes from Psalm 137:1-3, 1 Chronicles 25:1 3 7 (NLT)

Week 19 1  Chronicles 9

My bible reader’s Prime Directive is: read the bible. On the secondary-directive level I’d include: try to understand what you’re reading.
So anyway yesterday I lumped 1 Chronicles 1-9 together as one big list-of-names. But today I see something I missed in chapter nine: the people of Judah were exiled to Babylon…The first to return to their property in their former towns were common people.
Hmmm… I missed the time difference. I check a couple of other bible versions and they give me the same impression – that chapters 1-8 is a long list of family names from the older-past (before the exile to Babylon). But chapter 9 is a different list that jumps forward to the newer-past (after the exile was over).
[I’ve read Chronicles before and I figure I know what I’ll find but I still page through the next 56-chapters…quickly…only looking at title headings…double-checking. Sure enough I’m seeing things I expected…stories about David Solomon Rehoboam Abijah Asa…like that. All the kings of Judah. I look at chapter nine again. I see it’s people from long after the kings of Judah…names with marginal cross-references to Ezra & Nehemiah – both of them after-the-exile guys.]
I come away with two things…
A) it looks like the Chronicles were written after the exile was over (I don’t care too much about exact dates…but I like being in the right century)
B) if I could flip-flop chapters I’d make 1 Chronicles 9 2 Chronicles 37.

Note: quote from 1 Chronicles 9:1-2 (NLT)

Week 19  1 Chronicles 1-9

Sometimes I figure it’s a useful trick to give myself a Bible Reader’s Exercise (BRE). A BRE is a self-directed drill for when I’m losing focus interest concentration…like that. Gives me a point of mental convergence.
The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles makes up a pretty ominous & depressive subsection that’s hard to get jacked-up about. So this is an ideal passage for a BRE.
My BRE this year was to count up how many narrative comments I could find buried in the long list of names. What I found were things like this…
Nimrod: grew to be a mighty warrior
Achan: violated the ban
Jehoiachin was nicknamed: the captive
Geharashim’s family: were craftsmen
Mered married: Bithia the daughter of Pharaoh
Jabez: was more honorable than his brothers
Reuben’s: rights as firstborn were given to the sons of Joseph
Johanan: served as priest in the temple Solomon built
Manasseh had an Aramean concubine
Shaharaim: divorced his wives Hushim and Baara
Levite musicians: stayed in the…temple and were exempt from other duties.
In a little over 400-verses there’s at least 41 of these biographical snippets that take up about 60-verses. Meaning the section isn’t 100% names…more like 85%.
I don’t know how many names are in all nine chapters. But it’s a lot (there’s almost 250 just in chapter one). So my BRE turned out to be a good reading-management tool for me this time around.

Note: quotes from 1 Chronicles 1:10 2:7 2:14 2:17 3:17 4:9 5:1 6:10 7:14 8:8 9:33 (NIV)

Week 19  1 Chronicles 4

Chapter four begins: the sons of Judah were Perez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur and Shobal. I think: hold-on-for-just-one-second! I haven’t memorized family name lists but that doesn’t sound right. For one thing I have a clear memory of that off-kilter Judah Story (it not only interrupts the flow of Joseph’s Long Story in Genesis but it sticks in memory as one of those what’s-the-point? bafflers). And for another thing I just read seventy-seven verses ago that: the sons of Judah were Er, Onan, and Shelah…(and) Perez and Zerah.
I cross-reference back and see that the 1 Chronicles 2 list matches with Genesis 38 – Judah had five sons: Er Onan Shelah Perez & Zerah.
In 1 Chronicles the only common name in its two lists is Perez. But I also see that chapter two says Perez had a son named Hezron (who’s in the chapter four list). I cross-reference back to another Genesis list of Judah’s sons: Er and Onan and Shelah and Perez and Zerah…And the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.
Okay…so Perez is Judah’s son…but Hezron is his grandson.
Finally I check two other bible versions. I wish I’d done it earlier because they both say that Perez Hezron Carmi Hur & Shobal were: the descendants of Judah. So…not necessarily sons.
I wonder why writer’s in the ancient near east didn’t just use the same kinship terminology we use in Alberta. So there’s another Reader’s Alert for me.

Note: quotes from 1 Chronicles 4:1 (NASB NIV & NLT) and 2:3-4, Genesis 46:12 (NASB)