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1Ch 28:1 David assembled all the princes of Israel, the princes of the tribes, the captains of the companies who served the king by division, the captains of thousands and hundreds, and the rulers over all the substance and possessions of the king and of his sons, with the officers and the mighty men, even all the mighty men of valour, to Jerusalem-
See on 1 Chron. 24:1. We note again that there was "all the substance and possessions of the king and of his sons". David came from poverty, but now at the end of his life he has personal ownership of substance and possessions. David had his own extensive personal wealth, including vineyards (1 Chron. 27:27) and servants who worked the ground (1 Chron. 27:26). This was exactly what Samuel had warned Israel about; a human king would take Israel's men to till their ground, and would take their vineyards from them (1 Sam. 8:12,14). That all suggests that David slipped spiritually at the end of his life. For he came from a poor family, and to have all these things meant he had taken them for himself, and had ignored these warnings of his one time mentor Samuel. We noted that the overseers over this (Ezri, Shimei in 1 Chron. 27:27 and Baal Hanan in 1 Chron. 27:28) don't have Godly names but rather secular names.  


1Ch 28:2 Then David the king stood up on his feet-
As if standing was now difficult for him, with reduced strength and faculties in his old age.

And said, Hear me, my brothers and my people! As for me, it was in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, and for the footstool of our God; and I had prepared for the building-
See on Ps. 132:8. The ark is called both the throne of God and also His footstool (Ps. 94:5; 132:7,8; 1 Chron. 28:2). Above or sitting upon the cherubim, the pagan mind expected to see Israel's God. But there was (to their eyes) an empty throne. Yahweh had to be believed in by faith. And His supreme manifestation was through the blood of sacrifice. Cassuto gives evidence that the Egyptians and Hittites placed their covenant contracts in a box beneath the throne of their gods; and the tables of the covenant were likewise placed beneath the throne of Yahweh. This similarity begged the comparison yet stronger- Israel's God was not seated there. He had to be believed in by faith. Such a concept of faith in an invisible god was quite foreign to the pagan mind; and yet the whole tabernacle plan was designed to have enough points of contact with the pagan tabernacles in order to elicit this point in very powerful form: the one true God is invisible and must be believed in.

Or it could be argued that Yahweh was enthroned upon the cherubim, and the ark was His footstool. It was to the ark that Israel came to worship, although it was invisible to them, only visible to the priesthood.

David again expands his narrative, now speaking of the temple as a "house of rest for the ark". But God's resting or abiding was never in anything physical, but always through the abiding / resting of His Spirit in the human spirit / heart.


1Ch 28:3 But God said to me, ‘You shall not build a house for My name, because you are a man of war, and have shed blood’-
1 Chron. 22:8; 28:3 are reported speech by David. We wonder if David wasn’t imagining this. Why should it be morally objectionable for David to build the temple because he was a man of war? Yahweh is a man of war, yet He was to build David's house. We only learn about God's objection to David building the temple from the passages where David reports what God apparently told him, and from Solomon repeating this. If God did actually say this, then there is a logical contradiction between this and His statements about not wanting a house at all. If He was saying 'I want a physical house, but not built by David', then this appears irreconcilable with the reasons He is actually recorded as giving David for not wanting a house (see on 2 Sam. 7:7-11). Either God wanted a house or He didn't. See on 1 Chron. 28:5,6.

Shimei called David a "bloodthirsty man" (2 Sam. 16:7,8 s.w.). And the same words are [supposedly] used by God about David. So we can wonder whether David was too quick in Ps. 5:6 to assume that the 'man of blood' was hated by God and was of course not him. But there is the possibility that God did say this, but it wasn't earlier recorded. So often in the psalms, David reveals a vicious desire for the blood of his enemies (see on Ps. 21:11). Perhaps it was because of this bloodlust that David was precluded from building the temple because he had been a man of wars and had shed blood (1 Chron. 28:3). Solomon also shed blood as did many of God's servants, so that alone seems no reason why David couldn't build the temple. Perhaps it was his bloodthirsty attitude, albeit tinged with moments of great grace, forgiveness and gentleness, which led to God's prohibition.


1Ch 28:4 However Yahweh, the God of Israel, chose me out of all the house of my father to be king over Israel forever. For He has chosen Judah to be prince; and in the house of Judah, the house of my father; and among the sons of my father He took pleasure in me to make me king over all Israel-
David is arguing that Judah had been chosen as the kingly tribe, and then the family of Jesse chosen, and then David. But there is no evidence for these statements. God chose Saul of Benjamin, and worked to provide him every potential to be the king of Israel. It was only because of his failure that God removed him, and then chose not Judah nor Jesse's family, but David personally. That calling was by grace, and in personal response to the spiritual heart which David had at that time. But David now repositions all that, because he is leading up to arguing that therefore Solomon has likewise been "chosen" in a sovereign way by God. But that too was really a forcing of God to fit the narrative which David had decided upon. David here misrepresented God as having chosen David on the basis of lineal descent, when that wasn't at all the case. But David does so because he wants to thereby justify Solomon as the chosen son on the basis of lineal descent. 


1Ch 28:5 Of all my sons (for Yahweh has given me many sons), He has chosen Solomon my son to sit on the throne of Yahweh’s kingdom over Israel-
David had many sons, but clearly Solomon was the favourite, the love child, effectively, of David's relationship with Bathsheba, the married woman he had become besotted with. It was this favouritism which no doubt provoked Absalom and his other sons to make the rebellions they did, no doubt deeply irked by prophecies like this in Ps. 72, which served the same function as Jacob's giving the priestly coat to Joseph. And it led Solomon to ultimate spiritual failure, because he came to assume that he would automatically fulfil the promises to David about a Messianic son. And so he came to consider himself spiritually inviolate, and came to live a life of debauchery rather than spirituality. David of course claimed that God had chosen Solomon out of all his sons (1 Chron. 28:5), but there is no record of that happening; rather do we suspect that David came to imagine that his own choice was in fact God's. Psalm 72 was David's declaration that he believed Solomon would be the Messianic ruler; but that was proven wrong, because Solomon did not reign with justice and turned away from Yahweh. The words will come true in the person of the Lord Jesus, but David was wrong to insist they must apply to Solomon.

So it was David who chose Solomon, but he is trying to make God be the one who preferred Solomon. As discussed on :4, David had misrepresented God as having chosen David on the basis of lineal descent, when that wasn't at all the case. But David does so because he wants to thereby justify Solomon as the chosen son on the basis of lineal descent. When Adonijah briefly seized power, David was forced to make a statement in support of Solomon; but beyond the reference to a personal comment to Bathsheba that he wanted Solomon to succeed him, David had never made his position on Solomon clear before that time. And there was no recorded word from Yahweh saying that Solomon was to succeed him. 

 


1Ch 28:6 He said to me, ‘Solomon, your son, shall build My house and My courts; for I have chosen him to be My son, and I will be his father-

David specifically claims God has stated the promise of having a son would be fulfilled in Solomon. But the promise itself said this would happen after David slept with his fathers. And the NT specifically applies these words to Jesus and not Solomon.

There can be no doubt that David was proud about his sons; his soppy obsession with Absalom indicates that he cast both spirituality and rationality to the winds when it came to them. The words of 1 Chron. 28:5,6 indicate this: "Of all my sons (for the Lord hath given me many sons,) he hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the Kingdom of the Lord over Israel. And he said unto me, Solomon thy son, he shall build my house and my courts: for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father". We have to ask: Is this what God actually said? The records of the promises to David in 2 Sam. 7 and 1 Chron. 17 contain no specific reference to Solomon, nor do they speak of him building physical courts for God. The Davidic promise is fundamentally concerning David's greater household, rather than a physical house. So it seems that David became obsessed with the idea of Solomon being the Messiah, building a physical house for God, and being king over the eternal Messianic Kingdom. The words of Ps. 110:1 are applied by the NT to Jesus, but there is no reason to think that they were not primarily spoke by David with his eye on Solomon, whom he addresses as his Lord, such was his obsession: “The Lord saith unto my Lord…” (RV), and the rest of the Psalm goes on in the language of Ps. 72 to describe David’s hopes for Solomon’s Kingdom. ‘Solomon’ was actually called ‘Jedidiah’ by God through Nathan (2 Sam. 12:25). The ‘beloved of God’ was surely prophetic of God’s beloved Son. When God said “This is my beloved Son”, He was surely saying ‘Now this is the Jedidiah, whom I wanted Solomon to typify’. But David calls him Solomon, the man who would bring peace. I suggest that David was so eager to see in Solomon the actual Messiah, that he chose not to use the name which God wanted- which made Solomon a type of a future Son of God / Messiah. And this led to Solomon himself being obsessed with being a Messiah figure and losing sight of the future Messiah.

1Ch 28:7 I will establish his kingdom forever, if he continues to do My commandments and My ordinances as he does at this time’-
It is clear from :8 that David didn't understand "forever" as meaning 'eternal life' but rather passing on an inheritance down generations without end. But in his earlier Psalms, David had indeed understood the idea of life eternal at the resurrection of the body. He seems to have slipped from that in his old age. David recognizes the conditional nature of the promises to him about his seed, but then he seems to say that the condition of the seed's obedience will be met if the leaders are obedient (:8). All the time, David is wriggling out of the clear statements of God. He had told David not to build a temple for reasons quite other than David's personal history.


1Ch 28:8 Now therefore, in the sight of all Israel, the assembly of Yahweh, and in the audience of our God, observe and seek out all the commandments of Yahweh your God; that you may possess this good land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children after you forever-
The phrase for "inherit good" is used by Solomon in Prov. 28:10, as the reward for the "blameless". But to describe the wise as "blameless" is an example of his over simplistic worldview. All have sinned, none are blameless (Rom. 3:23), as David reflected in his Bathsheba Psalms. But Solomon had whitewashed his parents' sin, and knew nothing of the grace David had discovered at that time. The Lord's parables of the lost in LK. 15 may be seeking to deconstruct Solomon's attitude. The self righteous older son, who considered himself blameless, connects with the 99 sheep who "need no repentance". But "all we like sheep have gone astray", those 99 only thought they needed no repentance, and being so snug in their sheepfold actually only enhanced their sense of self righteousness, and that they were not in fact the lost. The phrase "inherit good" is only found again here in 1 Chron. 28:8, where David says that this is to be the outcome for those who "seek" for obedience to God's ways. But 'seeking' is not being "blameless". None are blameless, but the spiritually minded seek for God's ways and will therefore "inherit good". Solomon totally lacked this humility and spiritual reality of David.  


1Ch 28:9 You, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind;
To know God is to serve Him, and eternal life will be about knowing God, as it is now (Jn. 17:3). Despite evidence for a spiritual slip in his old age, David quite rightly emphasizes the place of a willing and united heart in serving God. Although we wonder whether he had in mind the idea that Solomon would be literally "perfect". Solomon seems to have assumed that, as he clearly had no conscience of personal sin or possibility of spiritual failure. And this pride led to his undoing.

 For Yahweh searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever-
In :8, Solomon has directed the elders of Israel to seek God. And perhaps he is directing this sentence to them rather than Solomon, whom he liked to think would be "perfect" before God.


1Ch 28:10 Take heed now; for Yahweh has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary-
God had clearly stated that the ark was where He wanted it- in a tent, behind curtains. And He did not want a brick house around it. And yet David urges people to enable the very opposite- to build a sanctuary in terms of a physical building, and to place the ark within it (1 Chron. 22:19). The whole land was seen by God as a sanctuary / holy place s.w. Ex. 15:17). "Let them make Me a sanctuary" (Ex. 25:8) uses a very general word for making / doing, whereas  David is trying to localize and define the sanctuary / holy place and is implying God had no such holy place- until it had been built according to his plans. The Kohathites are described as carrying "the sanctuary" (s.w., Num. 10:21); it was the ark which was the essential sanctuary or holy place. But David speaks about the building he proposed around that ark as being the sanctuary. And so form had replaced content, the external the internal, as so often happens when the pole of religion overtakes that of spirituality.

Be strong, and do it-
This is quoted in Ezra 10:4 about the work of the restoration of the temple.


1Ch 28:11 Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch of the temple, and of its houses, and of its treasuries, and of the upper rooms of it, and of the inner rooms of it, and of the place of the mercy seat-
This sounds as if David handed over to Solomon some architectural plans at this formal gathering, before all Israel (:1). The emphasis upon the porch must be noted. There was no such equivalent to this in the plan of the tabernacle; this was purely of David's grandiose device. Nor were there any "upper rooms" in the tabernacle. "The inner rooms" presumably refer to the holy and most holy places. Yet God had stressed that the ark, upon which was "the mercy seat", the lid of the ark where the cherubim were, was to dwell in "tents". This was His desire, but David speaks of "rooms" for it. If these plans were indeed from God, we would expect to read about the point when a prophet declared them by a "word of the Lord". But instead we have David presenting his plans and visions for the divisions of the Levites, and only then claiming that this was from God's revelation to him (:19). 


1Ch 28:12 and the pattern of all that he had in mind for the courts of the house of Yahweh, and for all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of God’s house, and for the treasuries of the dedicated things-
See on 1 Chron. 24:1. The key phrase is that this was all that David "had in mind". He will later claim in :19 that God made him understand this. But that would require God to have totally reversed His reasons for not wanting a temple, which He clearly stated when David first had the idea. I suggest David wriggled around those reasons by assuming it was because he personally had shed much blood and Israel was not peaceful enough. He became obsessed with his plans, and assumed that these were in fact from God. When they were of his own device.  

David seems to have become obsessed with preparing for the physical building of the temple in his old age. He truly commented: "The zeal of Your house has eaten me up" (Ps. 69:9). The RV margin of 1 Chron. 28:12 makes us wonder whether the dimensions of the temple were in fact made up within David’s own mind: “David gave to Solomon his son the pattern… the pattern that he had in his spirit  [AV “by the spirit”] for the… house of the Lord”. There are several other examples of David wildly over-interpreting. See on 2 Chron. 3:1; 2 Sam. 16:10.

The "surrounding rooms" were chambers around the temple court where the holy vessels and tithes were  to be stored (1 Chron. 28:12; 2 Chron. 31:5,11,12; Neh. 13:4-9). It could be to these rooms which the Lord Jesus alludes when He says that in God's house / temple, there are many such rooms and He will go to die on the cross to prepare them for our use (Jn. 14:1-3). He clearly has in view the temple as a spiritual house, comprised of people not bricks. The idea is that His death achieved for us not only salvation, but eternal service as priests within God's "house", being about God's work and business for the sake of others' salvation and implementing their relationship with God. This is what eternity will be about. And it is in this life which we develop our desire to do these things, so that the Kingdom will be a time when all the frustrations and barriers to such service are removed.


1Ch 28:13 also for the divisions of the priests and the Levites, and for all the work of the service of the house of Yahweh, and for all the vessels of service in the house of Yahweh-
We have been reading of these divisions in the previous chapters, and David is going to claim in :19 that all this was from God's direct revelation. Yet throughout those chapters we noted David's preference for appointing leaders not from all Israel, but mainly from Judah and his own inner circle. And some of the people mentioned, such as Asahel and David's uncle, had already died. So the schema needed revision. Yet David claims this whole packet of documentation was all directly inspired and revealed by God (:19), when instead, as noted on :12, it was all from David's mind and spirit.


1Ch 28:14 of gold by weight for the gold, for all vessels of every kind of service; for all the vessels of silver by weight, for all vessels of every kind of service-
This was indeed a measure of David's obsession, calculating the exact weight of gold for each vessel. Even though this was not specified in the commands for building the tabernacle. 1 Kings 7:47 implies Solomon tried to calculate the total weight of all the vessels once they had been made, but the inventory was so huge that he left off. Yet so many vessels were not required by the tabernacle service. This was a completely different, grandiose religious system of David's own device; and in the end, all these vessels of mere religion were taken off into captivity (2 Kings 25:14-16 emphasizes this). 


1Ch 28:15 by weight also for the lampstands of gold, and for its lamps, of gold, by weight for every lampstand and for its lamps; and for the lampstands of silver, by weight for every lampstand and for its lamps, according to the use of every lampstand-
See on :14. "The candlestick" or menorah is only ever spoken of in the law of Moses in the singular, but here David has decided there were to be multiple such candlesticks. By doing so, he ignored the symbolism of the one candlestick, such was his obsession with mere religion.


1Ch 28:16 and the gold by weight for the tables of show bread, for every table; and silver for the tables of silver-
The table of show bread was to be made of acacia wood (Ex. 25:23), but David planned to make it of pure gold, and even worked out the weight of gold required for it (1 Chron. 28:16). And Solomon indeed made it of gold (1 Kings 7:48), leading to it being known as "the pure table" (2 Chron. 13:11). Religion had overtaken spirituality, form had eclipsed content. Likewise the "tables of silver" David ordered to be made (1 Chron. 28:16) do not feature in the tabernacle. He was missing the point- that God wanted His holiest symbols made of common, weak things like acacia wood. For His strength and glory is made perfect in weakness. David claims these plans were from God (1 Chron. 28:19), although as discussed on 1 Chron. 28:12, they were in fact from his own mind. The way these things were taken into captivity, with no record of this golden table ever being returned, surely reflects God's judgment upon this kind of religious show. He prefers a humble house church in an inner city room, rather than a gold plated cathedral. The way some exclusive churches speak of 'maintaining a pure table' suggests they have made the same essential mistake as David did.    


1Ch 28:17 and the forks, and the basins, and the cups, of pure gold; and for the golden bowls by weight for every bowl; and for the silver bowls by weight for every bowl-
There was little point in making forks and basins of pure gold, a soft metal. This was all for religious show, and not at all stipulated in the Divine design for the tabernacle.

1Ch 28:18 and for the altar of incense refined gold by weight; and gold for the pattern of the chariot, the cherubim, that spread out, and covered the ark of the covenant of Yahweh-
Here we have a clear association between the cherubim and the idea of a chariot. The idea of the cherubim is that this is God in motion. And so we behold the contradiction. David wants this cherubim chariot fixed in one place; whereas God had told David that He didn't want a temple, because He was a God on the move. His ark and the associated cherubim had always been moving and therefore the ark was to be portable. But David was seeking to tie down the ever moving God in one place. This is what religion ever seeks to do to spirituality.


1Ch 28:19 All this, said David, I have been made to understand in writing from the hand of Yahweh, even all the works of this pattern-
In the previous chapters, we have David presenting his plans and visions for the divisions of the Levites, and only now claiming that this was from God's revelation to him. See on :11,12. If these plans were indeed from God, we would expect to read about the point when a prophet declared them by a "word of the Lord". The "said David" is highly significant. Here we see the difference between inspiration and revelation. The record of the words is inspired, but this is not Divine revelation. LXX "David gave all to Solomon in the Lord's handwriting". This was David's claim, trying to make his plans equivalent to Yahweh's writing the ten commandments in His handwriting. But there is no record of this at all. David is desperate to make his narrative God's and even reasons that his handwriting is God's. And so all expanded narratives end up a playing God. 


1Ch 28:20 David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and courageous, and do it. Don’t be afraid, nor be dismayed; for Yahweh God, even my God, is with you. He will not fail you, nor forsake you, until all the work for the service of the house of Yahweh is finished-
The "service" of Yahweh is never finished, and yet David speaks as if it will finish when the temple is built. This reflects his obsession with the project. But maybe the words of David to Solomon here came to the Lord’s mind in Mt. 27:46: "My God (cp. "My God, My God") is with you... He will not... forsake you". Recognizing He had now been forsaken, the Lord Jesus agreed "It is finished". Indeed, from the moment He left the Upper Room the work was finished and therefore the presence of the Angel departed (Jn. 17:4 "I have finished the work...").

Being "dismayed and terrified" is the term used of how Israel generally were terrified of Goliath, whereas David by faith wasn't (1 Sam. 17:11). David in turn uses to his son Solomon (1 Chron. 22:13; 28:20). He was thereby urging Solomon not to worry if he was out of step with all Israel; if they were dismayed and terrified, he was still to walk in faith as David had done at the time of the Goliath crisis. It is also used to urge the people toward the spirit of David rather than that of Israel in 2 Chron. 20:15,17. The same phrase is also used in urging the people of Judah in Hezekiah's time to consider the Assyrians to be as a Goliath which they like David could vanquish (2 Chron. 32:7). The exiles likewise were urged not to be dismayed and terrified at the reproach of men (Is. 51:7; Jer. 30:10), very clearly making the history with Goliath relevant to their times.


1Ch 28:21 Behold, there are the divisions of the priests and the Levites, for all the service of God’s house. There shall be with you in all kinds of work every willing man who has skill, for any kind of service. Also the captains and all the people will be entirely at your command
-
The language of willing men with skill recalls that of the building of the tabernacle by skilled workmen (Ex. 35:35), using materials supplied by willing hearts (Ex. 35:5,21). But David was wrong to imply that this temple he had conceived was some kind of tabernacle. For on point after point, he goes against both the letter and spirit of the directions regarding the tabernacle. But he is shrouding his whole project in the language of the tabernacle