Day 349: 1 Chronicles 10-12 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Welcome to the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebaldapartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. (upbeat music) - Family, welcome to day 349. We are done with the genealogies and chronicles. So today we are diving into first chronicles, chapters 10, 11 and 12. If you've done the reading and you're gonna have so much context for everything that we're gonna discuss, if you have tracked your way through the mud of the last nine chapters, we are finally in the narrative portion of chronicles. And I am so happy to announce the reading is considerably easier today than it has been the first three days of chronicles. So welcome to the stage, David. That's right. We are going to now get into a different perspective on David's life. So I am going to for context, give you all of the things that are not here. And there are five key elements that are not present, but then there's three elements that are gonna get emphasized. So five things that are gonna get omitted by chronicles

and then three things that are actually gonna get highlighted. My goal in today's episode is just to help you to see that chronicles is really not a repeat of what's happening in Samuel and Kings, but it is a completely and entirely different perspective on David and David's life and David's role and David as a figurehead in the history of the people of Israel. So like I say every day, if you have not done the reading for the day, if you have not done, if you have not read first chronicles chapters 10, 11 and 12, how about you stop this video? How about you pause the audio? Go get the reading done, come on back because you're gonna have so much more context for today's episode. With no further ado, let's dive in. All right, five things that we don't have in chronicles that are heavily emphasized in books like Samuel, okay? It does, I guess I'll give it to you in this fashion. No shepherd in chronicles, okay? David does not start out as a shepherd. That's not how chronicles is. Chronicles not gonna highlight the fact that this man was a shepherd. No, no, no, no. Number two, no Goliath. There is no giant to fight. That is not gonna be something

that is important to the priestly history. That's important to the prophetic history, but not for Ezra. Number three, there is no playing the heart for Saul. Like Saul's gonna have an evil spirit and David's gonna play none of that. We don't have any of that, okay? Number four, there's no running from Saul, no cave of a duller moment, no moment where David is gonna cut the hem of Saul's garment and no, none of that. So no running away, okay? And then last, there's gonna be no civil war or civil conflict once Saul dies, okay? In kings, rather sorry, in second Samuel, when Saul dies, David only becomes the king of Judah and actually they try to install Ishmael, okay? As the king for the remaining tribes up in the north, okay? So and David has to go at it with Abner and Ishmael, but in chronicles, there's none of that, okay? It doesn't mention the story of David in first Samuel. So nothing in first Samuel. It's almost as if we skipped entirely to second Samuel, okay? There's no David being a shepherd, no Goliath, no playing for Saul, no David, the war hero, no running from Saul. The story in chronicles begins with the death of Saul and his sons in chapter 10, okay? Which obviously is on the docket for today's reading. And then David is anointed king over keywords all Israel, okay?

All Israel. Now we know from second Samuel that he wasn't king over all Israel at first, just Judah. But in chronicles, all Israel, why? Because Ezra wants all Israel to be loyal to the temple, which was built by or prepared by David and then built by David's son, okay? He's David is anointed king of all Israel by all Israel. So there's nothing here in chronicles of David being king of Judah first in the civil war with the north at first supporting Ishbaal. David is king of Israel. That's where he starts the story in the priestly history. Three in particular. Number one, we're gonna get way more of an emphasis on David as a worshipper. Go figure, okay? The temple's gonna be a big deal. Second, way more detail on the preparations that David makes for the temple, okay? There is gonna be much more about David's preparation for the temple and his reorganization of the priest and the Levites. I don't know if you can remember this, but when we were in Psalms and we were giving a bunch of context on just the organization of the choirs and the Levites and the priests, a lot of our context clues came from chronicles. Why? Because chronicles is actually going to highlight

David's key role as someone who completely refigured worship for the temple, okay? And then lastly, we are gonna get way more of an emphasis on David's army, which is going to lead to a key difference between chronicles and second Samuel. In second Samuel, the reason for David's downfall is his sexual misconduct with Bathsheba, okay? Now, for those of you who have been rocking with me all year, you know that I firmly believe that David sexually assaulted Bathsheba, that Bathsheba's a victim in this situation, okay? So in second Samuel, that is the thing that kick starts everything. It kick starts his son, Absalom's rebellion, it kick starts everything. I mean, David's inability to manage his private life is gonna be the downfall in Samuel, okay? Not in chronicles though. The thing that's gonna be the downfall in chronicles is completely different. And it's linked to him counting his army. So the army is a big deal. This army's huge and there's some nerdy nuggets that are gonna begin to plant the seeds here in chapters 11 and 12, okay? That are gonna help us to go or help us to understand what is Ezra getting it. And of course, it's gonna be details 'cause the Bible doesn't tell, but it always shows, okay?

So let's dive into our nerdy nuggets, okay? I'll give you one nerdy nugget from chapter 10, maybe one or two from chapter 11 and then from chapter 12. In first chronicles chapter 10, Saul's gonna die, okay? And that's what it's gonna say. This is chapter 10 verses 13 and 14. So Saul died for his breach of faith already. You can see how chronicles is giving a totally different perspective on why Saul is allowed to die. Like why does Yahweh allow Saul to die? So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with Yahweh in that he did not keep the command of Yahweh and also consulted a medium. Remember when Saul goes to the witch of Endor, okay? The story is in Samuel, but the reason or the consequence is here in chronicles, okay? Who also consulted a medium seeking guidance. He did not seek guidance from Yahweh. Therefore Yahweh put him to death and turn the kingdom over to David, the son of Jesse. The fall of Saul here in chronicles is attributed to seeking guidance from a medium rather than Yahweh. Saul's failure and unfaithfulness is shown in his religious attitude. He seeks spiritual guidance in the wrong place. He does not look to Yahweh. So he is replaced by one who will always, always, always, always throughout his whole reign,

look to Yahweh, okay? One of the massive themes of David's life is David and Choir to the Lord. David and Choir to the Lord, David and Choir to the Lord. And so whereas Saul is dependent upon Samuel and when Samuel dies, he goes to the witch of Endor to get a medium to essentially communicate with the dead for him, David has a direct line of inquiry with the Lord. He has a relationship with the Lord, okay? And just that little different, that tweak is emphasizing chronicles as opposed to the story that we get in Samuel and in kings. Remember this, in the Western world, differences or discrepancies are seen as a reason to not trust the text, but in the Eastern world, It's the thing that an Eastern person would notice and it doesn't cause an Eastern audience to distrust the text. It actually causes Eastern audiences to ask questions of the text, okay? So, I want us to ask questions as opposed to question the text. I want us to ask questions of the text, not question the text, okay? They're very, very, very different. All right, so then we get to chapter 11, okay? Notice in chapter 11 that all Israel and all the elders, okay, the emphasis is David's king of the whole country, of all 12 tribes and more. And Kings, the story, is of a reluctance of the Northern tribes to accept David and a loose loyalty when they do. So, when the split happens after Solomon between the North and the South, it is not that big of a surprise. As you already knew the Northern tribes were not completely loyal to David. He was not one of their own. But here, the story is shown of all Israel being loyal to David. It is portraying David and therefore his house as the true king acknowledged by Yahweh and by all Israel. This repeated theme will mean that when the Northern tribes split from

David's house, it is way more of a whiplash. It is way more of a bigger shock. It is a greater betrayal. It is a picture of a farmer rejection of Yahweh's choice. And so Yahweh's house, which is exactly what Ezra wants, okay? Ezra wants his audience to see that disloyalty to the temple is disloyalty to Yahweh. And Yahweh is the one that selected David to build him a house, okay? I hope this is like clicking, okay? Different authors have different agendas. And based on those agendas, they take the raw material and shape it differently. And what we do in the job of interpreting, not just what an author said, but what an author means is by looking at the agenda that that author actually has. And I know in our modern Western world, agendas are bad. But in the ancient world, where these texts are not foreign, but are completely at home, and agenda is not bad. And agenda is fine. Agenda is great. Chapter 11, once we get to verses 10 to 47, we're going to start to get a lot of familiar content probably in its David's mighty men, okay? The rest of this reading continues to set up the story of David and the temple. I need you to see this. David is now king. Jerusalem is his capital. And now the focus will turn to the very thing that will decide where the temple will be built. And that is David's army. What follows is a list of mighty men. You've probably heard tons of sermons about these guys, okay? David's warriors who helped him secure his kingdom, defeat his enemies and expand his borders. The list is full of, I mean, the most daring and brave, just kind of like the guys guys, okay? The list is divided into the first focus is on individuals. They're acting three, and then the 30, and then other mighty warriors. By the way, did you spot Uriah? Uriah is right here, but not as like Beth Cheba's husband. It's because for chronicles, the murder of Uriah in the sexual assault of Beth Cheba is not what is responsible for David's downfall, okay? The story tells of their bravery, mighty deeds and war, and many a survey has been preached about these guys, okay? These three, and then the 30, but there are a few nerdy nuggets about them that are less obvious. Here we go. I want you to look at the names when you study. Now, in the ancient world, let me give you context, okay? There are mercenaries who get paid to fight, okay? Your entire army, unless

you're like the Spartans, your entire army is not going to be trained warriors. For most people, your army are going to be people who are like farmers by day, warriors by night. It's like they got normal jobs. These are just any man within fighting age are going to like be any army. And so you actually needed mercenaries like who could train professional soldiers like Israel didn't have like a standing army, okay? They just had guys that you would just call upon all the men, all the men, come on. We got to go fight, okay? And all these guys would go fight. There's actually this scene in 300 that portrays us perfectly. The guy who's leading the Spartans, he encounters another group and they're like, oh, there's, we got like a thousand people. And he's like, you got farmers, like you You got, you got, you got tanners, like you got, you got a. better quality of soldiers. Okay. Uh, if you remember that moment from 300, you're a real one. Hey, who? All right. Anyone who had a nation and you needed to develop an army, you needed professionals. Okay, you needed people who were paid to fight. And that's who these mighty men of David were, professional soldiers who stayed with David because he fought so many wars. Okay, which leads us to the second point. A lot of these mercenaries are Gentiles. Go ahead and look at the names. These are not Jewish guys. These are Gentiles. Yeah. You do see some Rubenites, someone of Bethlehem or Anatoth and other clans from the earlier list, for sure. But you also get Uriah the hit tight. Ithma, the Moabite, Abil, the Zellek, the Ammonite. And there could be more as many of the mighty men come from places that are only mentioned here. So we do not know if they are in Israel or outside. And the simple truth is this. Gentiles were a good source of mercenaries. Israel had only recently become effective fighters in war during Saul's reign. So if David won a professional soldiers looking outside of Israel would be a great place to start. However, I want you to think, I want you to think who's writing chronicles? Ezra, what do we know about Ezra from the books of like Ezra and Nehemiah? That there are three waves that come back from exile. The first wave is like with Zerubbabel. And when Zerubbabel gets back to the land, people from the land, when he gets back to the land, people who are from that land want to help build the temple. And Zerubbabel was like, Oh, heck no. I will not let anyone who's not 100% Jewish help us in any way. And then Nehemiah gets back and people want to help with the wall, but they're foreigners. And so what does Nehemiah say? Nope, you have no part

with us. You cannot help us. And then Ezra is going to make everyone divorce their foreign wives. So I'm not saying this like it's xenophobic, but for Ezra, Gentile help is not help at all. Like Ezra's whole vibe is like, no, Zerubbabel didn't accept Gentile help. Nehemiah didn't accept Gentile help. And I may dudes divorce their foreign wives. Like we don't do Gentile help. So this may be like a nerdy little detail, but what Ezra is doing through chronicles is showing you that the reason for David's downfall is not going to be killing Uriah in sexy assaulting Bathsheba. It's not sexual. It's not lust. It's that he trusted Gentiles in his army because in chronicles, the reason that David is going to ultimately fail is because he counted his army. That's the story that chronicles is going to tell. And you as a Bible nerd have to be okay with the fact that chronicles has a different reason for David's downfall than Samuel. And in the prophetic history of the Bible and the priestly history of the Bible aren't competing with each other. They are completing each other. Okay. And so a lot of times, I hope this has become normal that when something feels like it's incorrect, I want you to ask the question, is it that it's incorrect or is it that it's incomplete? And what the Bible is doing is actually giving you a complete picture that there's more than one reason for David's downfall. And Samuel's going to give you one reason and chronicle is going to give you the other reason. And in our Western world, we would ask a really bad question or just a very American question. Well, which one's right? And that's just not the point in the Eastern world, the answer would be yes, both are right. This is not a question of which one is right. It's a question of do we need a rake because there are leaves or do we need a shovel because there is snow. And the Bible is trying to equip you with as many tools as possible to know how to apply chronicles when chronicles needs to be applied. But applied, Samuel, when Samuel needs to be applied based on the situation and circumstance that you are dealing with. All right. Chapter 11 and 12 are planting the seeds for a very different reason for the downfall, which gets us to our timeless truth for the day. What if I told you that what you're learning in this video was just the tip of the iceberg. The Bible Department platform that we design to help people. Everyday people learn the Bible for themselves. We started Arma so that anybody anywhere could have access to trustworthy and entertaining Bible and theology content. In addition to this podcast, we have over 60 courses on individual books of the Bible, on theology topics, and on some hot topics like homosexuality, tithing, and women in ministry.

But really, Arma is a community. A community of people that I've gotten to know. A community where thousands of people are currently finding family, asking questions, and nerding out on the Bible together. If you want a community to read the Bible with you this year, or if you want to dive into some deeper theological content, or if you want more exclusive access to me in the entire Arma team, how about you go to the Bible department.com. I'll be sure to post the link in the description of this video. Let's make this your year to become a Bible nerd. Our Thomas truth for the day is probably more of a question, which is the question that Ezra's wrestling with. And it's going to be the question that Judaism as a whole is going to wrestle with in the 400 years between chronicles and Matthew in the intertestamental period. And that question is this, how secular is too secular? How secular is too secular? Like, what does holy really mean? And where's the line between holy and sacred and secular and unholy? How worldly can we be? Like a secular music. Okay. Is even describing some music as secular. Okay. Like I was going to the games is going to the Olympic games going to be okay. And this is really going to be important because the world of the Bible in the intertestamental period is going to enter into the Greek world. And man, the Greek world has the theater, it has the gymnasium. The Greek world has all this entertainment and how secular is too secular. Man, for Ezra, he's like, let's just be as least secular as possible. He has an issue with David just having gentiles in the army. And it's clear that he has an issue with it. Davis is a hero, but you got this little thing against you. And for Ezra, it's not a little thing. It's a big thing. So I would just ask you, like our timeless truth of the day is that question is never going to go away because Christians are called to be a contrast community. Now, are we called to be like the Amish who it's just like, hey, bro, like Ezekiel ain't even got power tools, you know, mean, like, are we called to be like Mormons who like, okay, they're not as much of a contrast as the Amish, but they still have a uniform. Like, it's clear that like when you see Mormons, they're Mormons. Or is it okay that Christians kind of blend in with society that we dress normal or modern? What is it that makes us different? Is it our culture? Is it our commands? Is it our rules? Like, what is it? And that is not an answer to arrive at. It's not a problem to solve. I actually think it's attention to manage. And it should be a question at the forefront of your mind all the time. Are there things that may be allowed, but they're not beneficial? And I should give them up, not based on legalism, but actually based on a relationship with the Holy Spirit. I've become someone like David who

acquires of the Lord. And because I acquire of the Lord, if God says to me, don't do X, even if X isn't a sin, I'm probably not going to do X. Because I don't want to be seen as someone who's just too secular. And I think that's helpful. Not just for David, not just for Ezra, but for you and for me. That's a Thomas truth for the day. Tomorrow we got day 350. Yo, we are trekking through Chronicles. I'm super excited. I see tomorrow as we discuss chapters 13, 14 and 15. I love you. I'm so proud of you, especially if you're on the street. I see you tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to the Bible department.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.