Solomon's title threatened. Adonijah attempted to take the throne from Solomon.
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Day 125 (May 5): David’s belongings help build temple, Solomon anointed king, his brother tries to claim throne, David quickly plans to king Solomon

Sweet Publishing / FreeBibleimages.org.

Welcome to Livin’ Light’s Bible-In-A-Year challenge of discovering God’s love for us and His purpose for our lives. Here is the format for this great adventure: The daily reading assignment is posted at 5 a.m. After each day’s reading, Leigh An Coplin, the blog host, shares observations and poses questions about difficult passages to Rob Fields, who studied Christian Education at Asbury Seminary and currently teaches Biology in the Orlando area. To start from the beginning, click on 365 Bible Readings and scroll down to Day 1. The reading schedule is taken from The One Year Chronological Bible NLT. 

Today’s Reading
— 1 Chronicles 29:1-22
— 1 Kings 1
(970 BC) Click here for a timeline of the entire Bible.

Questions & Observations

Q. (1 Chronicles 29:1-22): As we read this story, should we keep in mind that it is 1 Chronicles, where the author may have glorified the actual happenings to paint a prettier picture of King David’s rule?

A. That is always something to have in mind at this point.  We certainly get a “rosy” vision of David, but I would also say that there is not much going on here that is outside of the established character of David: He is willing to make great sacrifices on behalf of his God, and this is just one more instance of it.  It is quite clear why David is held up as an OT example for others to follow, even with his obvious shortcomings.

Q. (1 King 1:1-4): What?  I guess this is a “give the king his last dying wish?”  Whatever the reason is, I’m sure it’s not that important — as I have learned.  But, why include it here?  From the text, we never see David spending much time with his sons.  Maybe this is why they are so at odds.  The brothers didn’t have a strong family nucleus with their father or each other?

A. The historian Josephus mentions the “medical” practice of using a healthy person to keep the elderly warm, so it appears that this was an accepted practice in this day.  It appears to be part of the process of making David as comfortable as possible in his final days.  Verse 6 would seem to indicate that David was quite lax in his discipline of his boys, even where it was quite clear what he desired — for Solomon, not any of his other sons, to be king.  David excelled at many things, but it appears that being father of the year was not one of them — and just one more place where the king’s polygamy created unnecessary tension.

Q. (1:5-6): These people seem to be so fickle.  If there was such a huge celebration for Solomon to become king, then why is there an opposing side thinking that they can defeat the named king?

A. Both Solomon and his brother are powerful men, so it is most likely that many who joined Adonijah are hedging their bets as to who will be the “true” king.  They want to be in the good graces of such a powerful monarch, and one of the best ways was to be on his side and cheering for him, right up until the moment someone else prevails.  Fickle is right.

Q. (1:7): Joab sure is a hard one to figure out.  He has always stood beside King David, though he definitely wasn’t completely obedient.  But, if King David named Solomon the next king, then I would think Joab would support Solomon.  On a side note, Joab has to be getting very old too!

A. He is, and this decision to not follow Solomon will be a costly one for him.  Technically, Adonijah is probably, by society’s standards, the right choice for king. He was most likely the oldest surviving son, and the logical choice to be king.  So it is not surprising that Joab followed him.  But as with David, man’s choice for king was not God’s choice.

Q. (1:31): This is a sideline question.  People bow before the king.  Is this OK with God?  I am not sure how God views bowing to anyone except him.  Some people around the world greet one another with a bow, showing a sign of respect.  This came up once when President Obama bowed to a foreign leader.  I was taking a martial arts class with my daughter and we were supposed to bow when you entered the dojo and when we left, I believe, as a sign of respect to the master.  I did not like this one bit.  I have never met the master who is in another part of the world.  I bow my head to God when I pray, but rarely a full-body bow.  I definitely don’t feel like bowing to someone that I don’t know, or moreover, someone who isn’t God.

A. I think there is a fine line between bowing in respect for a leader or another person, and “bowing your heart” to an idol.  Bowing your heart to anything other than God is obviously not what God desires, but I don’t see a particular problem with showing respect for others, as long as it is not worship.

Q. (1:34): Solomon has already been anointed.

A. Anointing is a public ceremony, so I’m not surprised that Solomon is anointed many times.  There wouldn’t have been any CNN covering the ceremony, so the repeated anointing might have had something to do with different people being involved in the process.  Part of the reason for this particular ceremony is David’s desire to publicly make it crystal clear who the king is going to be.

Q. (1:50): Adonijah was afraid of Solomon because he had David and the Lord backing him?  I would think that Adonijah would die from grabbing the horns of the altar.  Maybe he has learned from observing the Lord’s power and will be obedient to Solomon?

A. The horns of the altar are not the same as the Ark, which is what was not to be touched.  The horns of the alter were the place where sacrifices were made, and would have been seen as a place of mercy and surrender.  This is most likely what Adonijah is attempting to convey: I have sinned against the true king, my brother, and need his forgiveness and mercy.

For further reading: David had a big family!  Here’s the list — of sons, anyway, https://www.christianity.com/wiki/people/sons-of-david.html

Shop: Christian shirts get noticed.  Check out these conversation starters: https://livinlight.org/shop/

Tomorrow’s reading
— 1 Kings 2:1-9
— 2 Samuel 23:1-7
— 1 Kings 2:10-12
— 1 Chronicles 29:26-30
— Psalms 4-6, 8-9, 11

David names his son king over Israel.
Categories365 Daily Bible Readings by

Day 123 (May 3): David names Solomon King of Israel, Levites cast lots to assign temple duties

Moody Publishers / FreeBibleimages.org

Welcome to Livin’ Light’s Bible-In-A-Year challenge of discovering God’s love for us and His purpose for our lives. Here is the format for this great adventure: The daily reading assignment is posted at 5 a.m. After each day’s reading, Leigh An Coplin, the blog host, shares observations and poses questions about difficult passages to Rob Fields, who studied Christian Education at Asbury Seminary and currently teaches Biology in the Orlando area. To start from the beginning, click on 365 Bible Readings and scroll down to Day 1. The reading schedule is taken from The One Year Chronological Bible NLT. 

Today’s Reading
— 1 Chronicles 23-25
(979 BC) Click here for a timeline of the entire Bible.

Questions & Observations

Q. (1 Chronicles 23:25): What does it mean when David said that The Lord will always live in Jerusalem?

A. When the temple that David has been planning for is built by his son Solomon, it will become the final location for the Ark and therefore God’s presence.

Q. (1 Chronicles 24:6): What does “casting lots” mean?

A. It’s the same thing we’ve been looking at before: the use of the Urim and Thummim to determine God’s will.  They were “cast” or thrown as a kind of “yes” or “no” answer.

Q. (1 Chronicles 23-25): Today’s reading is primarily for record-keeping?  One thought that comes to mind is why is there so much work in the temple?  Of course, I am judging this in today’s standards where you go to church with 30-10,000 people depending on the size of the building.  But, when you have hundreds of thousands of worshippers, the duties would be multiplied.  And, this is no basic church, it is where the Ark rests.

A. Yes, it is pointing out two important aspects of ministry for the various priests: care for the temple and ministries of worship on behalf of the king and royal family.  Those tasks would have required plenty of labor, so it is not really a surprise to me that there were a lot of priestly families involved.

For further reading: How did the tribe of Levi become the tribe of priests? https://www.christianlearning.com/how-the-tribe-of-levi-became-the-tribe-of-priests/

Shop: Today, it’s our duty to show God’s love, https://livinlight.org/product/deepest-love-t-shirt/ and by showing our love, and when we do that, we share the truth — https://livinlight.org/product/truth/ — with others and, in turn, find favor with the Lord!

Tomorrow’s reading: 1 Chronicles 26-28

Unauthorized census David starts collecting building materials to for temple construction
Categories365 Daily Bible Readings by

Day 122 (May 2): David’s census angers God, Plague is served as punishment, David builds altar the right way, David makes preparations for temple

Sweet Publishing / FreeBibleimages.org.

We are now 1/3 of the way through the Bible. Congrats! And, look how much we have learned. There is a lot more to come!  If you are new to Livin’ Light’s Bible-In-A-Year challenge of discovering God’s love for us and His purpose for our lives, Welcome! Here is the format for this great adventure: The daily reading assignment is posted at 5 a.m. After each day’s reading, Leigh An Coplin, the blog host, shares observations and poses questions about difficult passages to Rob Fields, who studied Christian Education at Asbury Seminary and currently teaches Biology in the Orlando area. To start from the beginning, click on 365 Bible Readings and scroll down to Day 1. The reading schedule is taken from The One Year Chronological Bible NLT. 

Today’s Reading
— 2 Samuel 24:1-9
— 1 Chronicles 21:1-6
— 2 Samuel 24:10-17
— 1 Chronicles 21:7-17
— 2 Samuel 24:18-25
— 1 Chronicles 21:18-22:19
(979-970 BC) Click here for a timeline of the entire Bible.

Questions & Observations

Q. (2 Samuel 24:1,9: 1 Chronicles 21:1, 5): The 2 Samuel version says that David ordered the census.  1 Chronicles says it was Satan.  There is also a difference in the census numbers between the two books.  Why would God’s anger against Israel make David want to take a census?  And, why was God angry anyway?

A. It is interesting to me the way that this version of the reading so clearly identifies variations in the text.  You could say that both Satan and David were involved in the sin because Satan could have easily tempted David to do it, but David is ultimately responsible.  This is also, to me, just one more way the author of Chronicles portrays David in a more positive light: rather than the census being just “his” idea, Chronicles tells us that the devil put the idea in his head.  I do not know why the numbers are different in the two versions of the census.

Regarding God’s anger, we also don’t know what it is about Israel’s actions that prompted God’s wrath.  But what appears to have made God angry about the census itself is a bit easier to understand.  The census was a military one: David is measuring the size of his army.  This is a customary action of a king who is preparing to go to war.  So that’s one possibility about what angered God: that David was planning to march his armies in (presumed) defiance of God’s command to be at peace.  Another possibility is that this is a vanity/pride move for David: He wants to know how many troops he has so that he can brag about it.  A third possibility is that the census revealed that David was trusting a bit too much in his armies, and not in God.  That’s about all we’ve got here.

Q. (2 Samuel 24:10-17, 1 Chronicles 21:1-17): I like the 1 Chronicles version better.  It is more descriptive.  Three years is a long time.  I think I would have chosen Door #3 also, but if I would have realized that it would cost 70,000 lives, I may have chosen another option.  David probably didn’t realize the plague would cause so much death?

A. A famine could have killed many more: three years of poor crop growth can cripple a nation TODAY!  And who knows what they would have lost (perhaps Jerusalem itself) if he chose losing to his enemies.  I suspect David took what he knew to be the more immediately painful path, and just “have it done with.”

Q. (2 Samuel 24:24): It’s interesting that David respected God when building an altar to Him to stop the plague.  Usually, free is good.  Araunah obviously wanted to give it as a gift.

A. He did, but as we studied in the Law, God desired not what we get for free or cheap, but rather for us to sacrifice the best of what we have for Him.  This is a big part of the reason that lame or otherwise affected animals were not acceptable as sacrifices: it was the cheap and easy way out, and missed the point of what God desired.

Q. (1 Chronicles 22:14-16): I’m just trying to picture how they moved so much building materials around then, especially the cedar.  Also, it would be interesting to know how someone back then became skilled at something, like the goldsmiths, silversmiths, carpenters and stonemasons.

A. There are a variety of answers to movement of massive material in the ancient world.  We know that the Egyptians used flat sleds or logs — with lots of slave labor — to move things like massive stones around for building the base of the pyramids.  Materials could also be transported by caravan using burden animals like horses and donkeys, which could probably drag a considerable amount of weight behind it.

But there’s other ways too: the nations that supplied the cedar were north of Israel, so it is possible they could have used the waterways like the Jordan river or even the Mediterranean Sea to move massive trees around — wood like cedar almost always floats.  The Phoenicians and Greeks were building massive ships in this era (maybe a little later) called Triremes that were massive and could have clearly carried a lot of people or other things as well (read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trireme).  I think that gives you and idea of how it was done.  It was most likely a combination of many factors.

Like almost all professions in the ancient world, craftsmanship was handed down from generation to generation in family lines.  If your family fished for a living — as several of the apostles — you learned to fish.  If your family worked with bronze or, later, steel, or jewels or other crafting materials, you would have most likely learned from them.  In this era, there was no currency, so survival would have depended upon people’s ability to barter goods and services to meet their needs.  You can think of this as “pressure” to be good at your family craft: If someone else in your village was better at making jewelry than you were, you were in trouble.  But the family who was the best at it would have likely passed important trade skills down to the next generation.  Additionally, there were no formal schools in this part of the world at this time — though there was what we would call “Bible” education in Jesus’ era, we’ll talk about that in due time — so you very likely could not count on anyone but your community to provide you with a “trade.”

For further explanation: There is a lot of undertones to this census, https://www.tenth.org/resource-library/articles/why-was-davids-census-a-great-sin/

Shop: Christian shirts get noticed.  Check out these conversation starters: https://livinlight.org/shop/

Tomorrow’s reading: 1 Chronicles 23-25

David talks to God
Categories365 Daily Bible Readings by

Day 114 (April 24): David and God talk of temples and houses, David expresses his gratitude to God for his blessings, David’s many victories

Sweet Publishing / FreeBibleimages.org.

Welcome to Livin’ Light’s Bible-In-A-Year challenge of discovering God’s love for us and His purpose for our lives. Here is the format for this great adventure: The daily reading assignment is posted at 5 a.m. After each day’s reading, Leigh An Coplin, the blog host, shares observations and poses questions about difficult passages to Rob Fields, who studied Christian Education at Asbury Seminary and currently teaches Biology in the Orlando area. To start from the beginning, click on 365 Bible Readings and scroll down to Day 1. The reading schedule is taken from The One Year Chronological Bible NLT. 

Today’s Reading
— 2 Samuel 7:1-17
— 1 Chronicles 17:1-15
— 2 Samuel 7:18-29
— 1 Chronicles 17:16-27
— 2 Samuel 8:1-14
— 1 Chronicles 18:1-13
— Psalm 60
(1000-996 BC) Click here for a timeline of the entire Bible.

Questions & Observations

O. (2 Samuel 1:2): I am glad that David realized he was treating himself better than the Ark.

Q. (7:11b-16): At first, I thought God was telling Nathan about Solomon.  Because, I believe he builds a temple for God.  But then, verse 14 lets us know he is talking about Jesus, because it says, “I will be his father, and he will be my son.”  So, we know that Jesus is a descendant of David.  Right?  God also says that if He sins, God will discipline Him, just like a father would do.  But, as Christians, we believe in the Trinity.  Why would God punish himself?  He knows Jesus won’t sin anyway, right?  Also, this sounds as if the blessings should continue in Jesus’s descendants.  There are thoughts that Jesus was married and maybe had kids.  Do we get into this at all in the NT?  I think this is a question of curiosity, though, and not important to God’s message?  Back up to verse 13.  God says to Nathan, “He is the one who will build a house — a temple — for my name.  Are we talking about a literal house here, or is this a figure of speech?

A. This is a complicated passage, without a simple explanation.  What God is saying in this promise to David is that his line will never fail, but it does NOT say that the line itself will be eternal and we will see how this unfolds at the story moves into Kings.  So, because God is speaking of a dynasty of rulers, there are multiple ways to interpret the passage.  First, it is Solomon, David’s son, who will build the temple, but it is Jesus — also David’s son and descendent — who will replace the existing temple (that will be destroyed) with an eternal KINGDOM that will never fail.  So God CAN rebuke David’s sons when they go astray and rebuke them (and He will), without excluding the possibility of a son, Jesus, that will NOT NEED rebuking.  Now in the sense that Jesus is eternal, God is speaking of His plans for an eternal temple/kingdom/house in a metaphorical sense.  This sidesteps the ridiculous nonsense about Jesus having children: there was no longer a need for an heir, because Jesus is now eternally alive, having defeated death itself.  We will see numerous examples of this type of prophecy throughout the rest of the OT: in one sense it refers to temporal events and people, but in a deeper sense, God is speaking of things of His Kingdom and eternity.  It is helpful to approach passages without a singular idea in mind about “what this means:” prophecies regularly have multiple, and correct, interpretations that will only be seen in hindsight.

Q. Why does Chronicles copy 2 Samuel almost verbatim?

A. Because it very likely used Samuel (and Kings) as sources.  Part of what is hard to tell from the way this daily reader is setup is places where Chronicles deviates from the story to tell us some other detail that would only occur if we were reading the books straight through.  Samuel and Kings tell very important parts of Israel’s history, so it is unsurprising that Chronicles would use this good source material to tell its own version of the story of this period.

Q. (8:1-2): Did God command David to do all this killing?  God created the Moabites too.  Why does He not value their lives?

A. David is going into combat against nations that are acting as enemies of Israel.  And once these nations are defeated, oftentimes some of the people are executed, as in this case, if not all of them.  The author does not say whether God ordered the killing, only that He was with David and gave him victory.  It would seem unlikely to me that David would have been given these great victories if what he had done was outside of what God desired.  This isn’t total war: David is allowing members of all of these tribes to live, even if it is as his servants.  Requiring tribute of survivors in military victory was common practice then, and it continues to this day.

Q. (Psalm 60:10): Why is David doubting that God is with him after David and his soldiers have won battle after battle?

A. It looks to me like 60:10 is rhetorical, noting that without God, victory is not possible.  So in asking “are you with us, God?” what he’s really saying is, “if you’re not with us, we won’t win.”  Perhaps the question is asked in the midst of buildup to a great battle, where moments of doubt and trepidation are natural, even to a seasoned army and king like David.  It is hard to say.  The other thing I see is the poem’s structure is that it starts in a dark place in verse 1, but moves to one of victory around verse 5.  It might be that the writer is repeating this structure — dark to victory — at the end using poetic license.  Don’t forget, this is a poem, and we would not hold a poet to the same standards we would expect from a biographer.  Considering the genre of writing is crucial for understanding the various writings of scripture.

For further reading: How can a loving God tell His people to kill its enemies? https://bible.org/question/how-could-loving-god-tell-israelites-kill-their-enemies-even-children

Shop: Christian shirts get noticed.  Check out these conversation starters: https://livinlight.org/shop/

Tomorrow’s reading
— 2 Samuel 8:15-18
— 1 Chronicles 18:14-17
— 1 Chronicles 6:16-30
— 1 Chronicles 6:50-53
— 1 Chronicles 6:31-48
— 2 Samuel 9-10
— 1 Chronicles 19:1-19

Samson and Delilah Samson asks for God to regain his strength one last time. He pushed the pillars down killing all the Philistines, including rulers when he caused it to crumble.
Categories365 Daily Bible Readings by

Day 95 (April 5): Samson takes off Gaza’s gates, deceptive Delilah, Samson asks God for help one last time, Micah’s twisted religion, Dan attacks Micah

Sweet Publishing / FreeBibleimages.org

Welcome to Livin’ Light’s Bible-In-A-Year challenge of discovering God’s love for us and His purpose for our lives. Here is the format for this great adventure: The daily reading assignment is posted at 5 a.m. After each day’s reading, Leigh An Coplin, the blog host, shares observations and poses questions about difficult passages to Rob Fields, who studied Christian Education at Asbury Seminary and currently teaches Biology in the Orlando area. To start from the beginning, click on 365 Bible Readings and scroll down to Day 1. The reading schedule is taken from The One Year Chronological Bible NLT. 

Today’s Reading
— Judges 16-18
(1375, 1075 BC) Click here for a timeline of the whole Bible.

Questions & Observations

Q. (Judges 16:1): Samson seems to have a thing for Philistine women.  The Philistines were ruling, so maybe they wore beautiful clothes and nice perfume?  They may have been more attractive than Israelite women?  But, this was part of God’s plan for Samson?

A. I do not think that Samson’s lusting after Philistine women (for whatever reason) is something that God desired, but he did use it to bring down the rulers of the Philistines.

Q. (16:4-19): So, up until 16:21, Samson thought that Delilah was just playing a lover’s game?  Surely, he didn’t realize that she was trying to trap him or he wouldn’t have played along.  Samson really didn’t take heed to his parents warning about getting involved with a Philistine woman when he was courting his first wife.  But, like it says, in 13:5, Samson will begin to deliver Israelites from Philistine rule.  So, how do we know when to break societal rules — like not marrying the enemy — and know that it is God’s plan?   Maybe they didn’t know it then and didn’t need to know it, but it’s important for readers now?

A. I think the implication of the story is that Samson got by for a long time on his immense strength, but he abused the privilege and violated his Nazirite vows.  If you note the sequence of the story, he has touched the lion corpse, consumed alcohol at his wedding, and now in this story has his hair cut, which wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t reveal it — making it ultimately his fault.  These were the exact things that the Nazirite vows said he couldn’t do (Numbers 6:1-8).  Samson was clearly aware of what he was doing; he refers to himself as a Nazirite in 16:17, so he is taking for granted that the blessing of his strength will always be there.  But, oops, he pays dearly for his pride and is forced into slave labor for the amusement of the Philistines.  That doesn’t exactly ring true for me as a message of “sometimes it’s ok to violate what God has made perfectly clear.”  It seems more like, “you reap what you sow,” which comes for scripture as well (Galatians 6:7).

I knew a minister in college that memorably told me that you never grow closer to God by sinning, and I think that it is good advice.  This is not to say, as we see in this story, that God cannot redeem a man even as prideful as Samson, but who knows how God might have better used Samson if he had been more faithful and less self-serving.

O. (16:22): So we can see here that God is not done with Samson yet.  His hair is growing back.

Q. (16:30): Why did Samson want to die with the Philistines?  He did cross the Philistine/Israel line a lot.  Did he feel like he just needed to go down with them?  I wish we could known more about Samson.  We don’t know much about his heart.  We just know that he liked Philistine women and that got him into trouble.  But in the end, God was victorious via Samson.  Something great can come from suffering.  This copies Christ’s death to some degree.

A. Samson’s death was redemptive to a degree.  It certainly points to the idea that Samson turned to God when he had LITERALLY nothing left, but he did turn to Him.  I don’t really know why Samson wanted to die with the Philistines.  He certainly hated them, and I don’t think he, in any way, thought of himself as “like them,” he just was attracted to their women for some reason.  I think it ultimately was his understanding that he was never going to get such an opportunity again to take out so many important Philistines at once, so he acted on it even though he understood it would cost him his life.

Q. (Judges 17-18): Is this a “stay-tuned” passage?  Micah and his mother sound like they have heard parts of how to properly worship God, but they have obviously missed the bulk of God’s guidance.  Micah steals, his mother says it’s OK sense he admitted it, and from that point on, the story is lacking God.  I need some closure here.

A. Nope.  No “stay tuned,” no other resolution, just some powerful irony, and a whole lot of no God.  This passage — and the one for our reading tomorrow — is an epilogue on the story of Judges that is basically a late way of saying, “how did the Israelites reject God in the Promised Land?”  This story is a powerful indictment of the way that some of the people strayed, and traded in God for false idols.

But for the sake of some closure, let’s do a little summary shall we?  This silver idol that Micah sets up has its origins in his STEALING FROM HIS MOTHER.  From here, rather than using this ill-gotten gain to provide for the poor or donate it to God, he MAKES a god of his own, and SETS UP A HOUSE OF WORSHIP for his idol.  Then, he “ordains” his own son to be the priest of this idol.  If you’re following, what Micah has done is setup a rival religion against God, right in the Promised Land.  Then, he gets a corrupt Levite to run his little house of worship, and he thinks he is all set — that God will actually bless him for what he has done (17:12).

But then, oh irony.  He has his idols, wealth, and his Levite stolen from him by a corrupt group from the tribe of Dan.  Don’t miss this: Micah attempts to chase down and rescue his idols — these same “gods” that he likely turned to for protection.  So not only do we have the almost karmic punishment of Micah having stolen from him what he stole from his mother, but now his own gods need “rescuing,” and in the end, he has nothing.  On top of all of this, the religion and priest that he set up are now leading the entire tribe of Dan away from God.  Frankly, I think that this is exactly what the storyteller intended for us to understand about Micah and this corrupt tribe.  The people were lawless: rejecting God and setting up gods for themselves, and living not by the Law of Moses, but rather by “might makes right.”  And that, I think, is all the closure this story needs.

For more reading: A comprehensive look into the whole Samson and Delilah story, https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-stories/samson-and-delilah.html

Shop: These fun shirts capture the attention of everyone around you.  Forgive 490?  What does that mean? https://livinlight.org/shop/

Tomorrow’s reading: Judges 19-21