1 Chronicles 23-27: Even a Doorkeeper

We trace Israel’s shift from a portable tabernacle to a permanent temple and show how David’s planning turns ordinary roles into sacred service. The story lands on a practical challenge: embrace contentment in the post God assigns and practice steady worship.

• David prepares Solomon by organizing Levites, priests, and musicians
• Service age lowered to widen capacity for temple duties
• Morning and evening praise becomes a set rhythm of worship
• Musicians prophesy under training and supervision
• Gatekeepers chosen by lot and honored in their post
• Storehouses, judges, and regional leaders support worship life
• Monthly army divisions and royal officials structure the kingdom
• Sons of Korah model contentment over ambition

Chapters

• 0:34 From Portable To Permanent
• 1:23 Why Temple Planning Matters
• 2:26 Levites Recounted And Reassigned
• 5:33 Duties Shift From Tent To Temple
• 10:55 Musicians Appointed To Prophesy
• 13:23 Gatekeepers And Casting Lots Explained
• 16:51 Storehouses, Judges, And Regional Leaders
• 18:37 Monthly Army Divisions And Royal Officials

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:23

Hey, welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast. This is Mike. Have you been a part of a church, or maybe are you in a church right now where you don't have a fixed or or permanent location, but instead you maybe rent a space and you have to set up early on Sunday morning and then tear down after church is done on Sunday afternoons because someone else owns and uses the space? If so, have you ever been a part of the process of getting a new permanent location and the excitement around that, the work that that involves, even some of the trepidation, even of like, you know, I know it's a lot of work to have to show up and set everything up and tear everything down, but at least that's the routine and we know it and we're good at it and we can do it with our eyes closed. Now owning a building comes with other responsibilities, and it's just it can be a little overwhelming. Also exciting, right? It's kind of a mix. Well, that's where the nation of Israel is in this section of 1 Chronicles that we're reading, because David has been making plans to have his son Solomon build a temple for the Lord. And the temple has been the central point of the way of life for hundreds of years, because it started with the tabernacle back when God gave Moses plans for the tabernacle, which, by the way, it says in Hebrews that the tabernacle is uh basically a replica of what God's throne room is like in heaven, which is pretty cool. And this has been the center of spiritual life for the Israelites for the entire time. And the tabernacle was a tent. It was set up, it was torn down, it was able to be moved throughout the wilderness as they were heading to the Promised Land. And now that they've been in the Promised Land for a little while, it's still modular, it's still not a permanent structure. And so the idea of having a temple is very exciting, but it comes with a lot of work and planning and organization. And how are we gonna do this and how are we gonna maintain this and what's gonna change and all of these questions? So, one of the things that David is doing to help prepare Solomon and his nation uh to be able to enter into this transition smoothly in this new chapter of a new temple is not just fund it with resources, which he's doing, but also start some of the organization and starting some processes in place to help people get ready for the new roles and responsibilities surrounding the temple. Now, organizational leadership and organizational structure is not very exciting to read and uh and listen to, I would imagine. And so I'm not going to really read all of the, especially the repetitive parts of this, because David is listing a bunch of names and their families and their roles and responsibilities here in this section of First Chronicles. Uh so I'm gonna do like we did at the beginning of this book, skim through some of the repetition, but make sure that we zoom in on the parts that really push the story along and give us some insights into what's going on here. So we're gonna cover quite a few chapters today in this way, uh, but I'm excited about what we're gonna land on as far as a takeaway, and maybe you'll have something else. So tune in here, we're gonna check out 1 Chronicles chapters 23 through 27 in the New English Translation. So when David was old and approaching the end of his life, he made his son Solomon king over Israel. David assembled all the leaders of Israel, along with the priests and the Levites. The Levites, who were thirty years old and up were counted. There were thirty-eight thousand men. David said, Okay, of these, twenty-four thousand are to direct the work of the Lord's temple, six thousand are to be officials and judges, four thousand are to be gatekeepers, and four thousand are to praise the Lord with the instruments I supplied for worship. So David divided them into groups corresponding to the sons of Levi, Gershon, Kohath, and Morari. Now, by the way, so far this is nothing new. This is how God organized the Levites to be the servants of the tabernacle and working with all of the tabernacle logistics and the routines for worship and maintenance of the tabernacle. And those tasks were organized according to the three sons of Levi and their descendants, Gershin, Kohath and Morari. So David is is clarifying and re-organizing based on God's original plan. So the majority of the rest of chapter 23 here lists all of the sons and the grandsons and the families of Gershon, Kohath, and Morari. And again, remember the benefit of First Chronicles is for the people who are moving back into the Promised Land, and they're going to start having to restructure their lives around the traditions of the temple life. And this is all new. They're going to have to build a new temple at this point, too, because they've come back from exile. And so this serves as a reminder of hey, this is who you are. This is how much temple life really matters to our culture and worshiping God the way that He instructed. And this is, hey, maybe you know one of these descendants, uh, one of these ancestors in your family, this sort of thing. So that's the point of this. I won't read all of the names if you would like to. It's in uh chapter 23 for most of the middle of the chapter. But at the end of the names, it goes on with chapter twenty three, verse twenty-four. These were the descendants of Levi according to their families, that is, the leaders of families as counted and individually listed who carried out assigned tasks in the Lord's temple, and were twenty years old and up. For David said, The Lord God of Israel has given his people rest, and has permanently settled in Jerusalem. So the Levites no longer need to carry the tabernacle or any of the items used in its service. According to David's final instructions, the Levites, twenty years and older, were counted. So David basically adjusted the starting age of the Levites from thirty down to twenty. This would allow more Levites to enter into service in the temple and serve God in this way, where you know it may not be taking up and tearing down chairs all the time like it used to be, or carrying things from point A to point B, but there's going to be a lot more of maintenance and a lot more of serving the people because there's going to be more and more people who need to interact and make their sacrifices, and we need more Levites on hand to be able to serve people in that way. Verse 28. So their job was to help Aaron's descendants in the service of the Lord's temple. They were to take care of the courtyards, the rooms, ceremonial purification of all holy items, and other jobs related to the service of God's temple. They also took care of the bread that's displayed, the flour for offerings, the unleavened wafers, the round cakes, the mixing and all the measuring. They also stood in a designated place every morning and offered thanks and praise to the Lord. They also did this in the evening and whenever burnt sacrifices were offered to the Lord on the Sabbath and at new moon festivals and assemblies. That's interesting. Do you have a designated place every morning and every evening where you offer thanks and praise to the Lord? That might be a valuable, interesting routine to get into. Have a designated place for praising the Lord. Make it part of the routine. Verse 32. They were in charge of the meeting tent and the holy place, and helped their relatives, the descendants of Aaron, in the service of the Lord's temple. The divisions of Aaron's descendants were as follows the sons of Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, Eliezer, and Ithamar. Nadab and Abihu died before their father did, and they had no sons. Eliezer and Ithamar served as priests. David, Zadok, a descendant of Eliezer, and Ahimelech, a descendant of Ithamar, divided them into groups to carry out their assigned responsibilities. The descendants of Eliezer had more leaders than the descendants of Ithamar, so they divided them up accordingly. The descendants of Eleazar had sixteen leaders, while the descendants of Ithamar had eight. They divided them by lots, for there were officials of the holy place and officials designated by God among the descendants of both Eliazar and Ithamar. The scribe Shemiah, son of Nathanel a Levite, wrote down their names before the king, the officials, Zadok the priest, Ahimelech, son of Abiathar, and the leaders of the priestly and Levite families. One family was drawn by Lot from Eleazar, and the next from Ithamar. The first, Lot went to Jehoiarib, the second to Jehida, and I'm going to skip down because there's twenty-four names here, but this was the order in which they carried out their assigned responsibilities when they entered the Lord's temple, according to the regulations given them by their ancestor Aaron, just as the Lord God of Israel had instructed them. The rest of the Levites included Shubael from the sons of Amram, Jedeah from the son of Shubael, and again a bunch more names down to verse 31. Like their relatives, the descendants of Aaron, they also cast lots before King David, Zadok, Ahimelech, the leaders of the families, the priests, and the Levites. The families of the oldest son cast lots along with those of the youngest. David and the army officers selected some of the sons of Asaph, Hemon, and Jeduthon to prophesy as they played stringed instruments and cymbals. The following men were assigned this responsibility. From the sons of Asaph, Zachar, Joseph, Nethaniah, and Asarelah, the sons of Asaph were supervised by Asaph, who prophesied under the king's supervision. From the sons of Jedathon, Gedaliah, Zari, Jeshiah, Hashabiah, and Matathiah, six in all under supervision of their father, Jedethun, who prophesied as he played a harp, giving thanks and praise to the Lord. From the sons of Hemon, Buchiah, Mataniah, Uzel, Shebuel, Jeremoth, Hananiah, Hanani, Eliatha, Gedalti, Romamti Azir, Josh Bekashah, Melothi, Hothir, and Mahazioth. Can you imagine trying to keep those names straight as their dad? These were all the sons of Hemon, the king's prophet. But God had promised him these sons in order to make him prestigious. God gave Hemon fourteen sons and three daughters. All these were under the supervision of their fathers. They were musicians in the Lord's temple, playing cymbals and stringed instruments as they served in God's temple. Asaph, Jedothan, and Hemon were under the supervision of the king. They and their relatives, all of them skilled and trained to make music to the Lord, numbered two hundred and eighty-eight. They cast lots to determine their responsibilities, oldest as well as youngest, teacher as well as student. The first lot went to Asaph's son Joseph and his relatives and sons, twelve and all. The second to Gedaliah and his relatives and sons, twelve and all. And again we have another repetitive list of how these lots go to twenty-four people, and uh twelve sons and relatives in all. That totals two hundred and eighty-eight musicians in the king's service in this way. Chapter twenty-six, the divisions of the gatekeepers. We're going to talk more about this at the end of this episode. But here we have the gatekeepers among the Levites from the Korahites, Meshelamiah, son of Kor, one of the sons of Asaph. It talks about Meshelamiah's sons, and then Obed Edom's sons, and Shemiah's sons, and all these descendants of these sons of Korah. These divisions of the gatekeepers, corresponding to their leaders, had assigned responsibilities, like their relatives, as they served in the Lord's temple. They cast lots. I'll clarify here, casting lots is a process used to make decisions throughout the Old Testament among God's people. It's kind of like flipping a coin or drawing straws, but they didn't think it was just up to fate. It wasn't just like, well, we can't make a decision, let's just let fate decide. It wasn't about fate. It was actually a process that God had prescribed for them, that when they needed to find something out, he would guide the what looked to be random chance, but it was uh representative of God's knowledge and his wisdom and his decisions. It would also help prevent people from being accused of being unfair or or nepotism or any of those things. So it was a system that God had for his people to help make decisions and and draw people out of the crowd. This really wouldn't be an appropriate model to follow nowadays in the New Testament era because God has ripped open the temple curtain. He's opened access to himself, and we're certainly not to leave things up to fate and try to make decisions just, you know, based on random chance. That's not the model we have today. He says, if you need anything, just come to me. I've made it available. Alright, so uh we let's not flip coins and draw straws. I mean, if yeah, if you want to just try to be fair among your group of friends, but if you're really seeking wisdom, yes, go seek the Lord's wisdom directly. We don't need to we don't need to do systems like this. But in this case, this was how he prescribed it. And until Jesus came and tore the veil, then then this was the way that God was going to communicate with his people when it came to things like that. So they drew lots, both young and old, according to their families, to determine which gate they would be responsible for. So remember, this would be, according to them, the what God had decided for them, and they were they were pleased with God's decision. So the lot for the east gate went to Shalemiah, then they cast lots for his son, Zechariah, a wise advisor, and the lot for the north gate went to him. Obed Edom was assigned to the south gate, and his sons were assigned the storehouses. Shupim and Hosa were assigned the west gate, along with the Shalaketh gate on the upper road. One guard was adjacent to another. Each day there were six Levites posted on the east, four on the north, and four on the south. At the storehouses, they were posted in pairs. At the court on the west there were four posted on the road and two at the court. These were the divisions of the gatekeepers, who were descendants of Korah and Morari. Their fellow Levites were in charge of the storehouses in God's temple, and the storehouses containing consecrated items. The descendants of Laden, who were descended from Gershon through Laden, and were leaders of the families of Laden the Gershenite, included Jehieli and the sons of Jehieli, Zitham and his brother Joel. They were in charge of the storehouses in the Lord's temple. As for the Amramites, Isharites, Hebronites, and Uzielites, Shebuel, son of Gershem, the son of Moses, was the supervisor of the storehouses. His relatives through Eliezer included Rehabiah his son, Joshiah his son, Joram his son, Zikri his son, and Shelomith his son. Shelamath and his relatives were in charge of all the storehouses containing the consecrated items dedicated by King David, the family leaders who led units of a thousand and a hundred, and the army officers. They had dedicated some of the plunder taken in battles to be used for repairs on the Lord's temple. They were also in charge of everything dedicated by Samuel the prophet, Saul, son of Kish, Abner son of Nur, and Joab son of Zeroiah. Shelamath and his relatives were in charge of everything that had been dedicated. As for the Isharites, Kenaniah and his sons were given responsibilities outside the temple as officers and judges over Israel. As for the Hebronites, Hashabbiah and his relatives, 1700 respected men, were assigned responsibilities in Israel west of the Jordan, and they did the Lord's work and the king's service. As for the Hebronites, Jeriah was the leader of the Hebronites according to the genealogical records. In the fortieth year of David's reign, they examined the records and discovered there were highly respected men in Jazer in Gilead. Jeriah had twenty-seven hundred relatives who were respected family leaders. King David placed them in charge of the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh. They took care of all the matters pertaining to God and the king. Chapter 27, what follows is a list of Israelite family leaders and commanders of units of a thousand and a hundred, as well as their officers who served the king in various matters. Each division was assigned to serve for one month during the year. Each consisted of 2,400 troops. Jashobim, son of Zabdeel, was in charge of the first division, which was assigned the first month. His division consisted of 2,400 troops. He was a descendant of Perez, and he was in charge of all the army officers for the first month. And now we're going to list more men, army commanders who were in charge of 24,000 troops. And then in verse 16 we'll start to list the officers of the Israelite tribe, one for each tribe in Israel. David did not count the males twenty years old and under, for the Lord had promised to make Israel as numerous as the stars in the sky. Joab, son of Zeroiah, started to count the men, but didn't finish. God was angry with Israel because of this, so the number was not recorded in the scroll called the Annals of King David. Now the rest of the chapter lists the royal officials. I'll spare you all the names, but we have different areas that they were in charge of around the king's grounds and the palace, things like the king's storehouses, the storehouses in the field and the cities, the towns and the towers, the field workers who farmed the land. He had someone in charge of the vineyards, and someone in charge of the wine stored in the vineyards. Someone was in charge of the olive and the sycamore trees in the foothills, and in charge of the storehouses of olive oil. Someone was in charge of the cattle grazing in Sharon. Someone was in charge of the cattle in the valleys, uh, camels, donkeys, sheep. All these were the officials in charge of King David's property. And Jonathan, David's uncle, was a wise advisor and scribe. Jehiel, son of Hakmoni, cared for the king's sons. Ahithophel was the king's advisor. Hushai the Archite was the king's confidant. Ahithophel was succeeded by Jehoiada, son of Beniah and Biabiathar, and Joab was the commanding general of the king's army. Okay, so I know this sounded like a whole bunch of wow, that's just a bunch of organization and people had jobs. Okay, great. What do I do with that? Well, put yourself in the shoes of one of these people who was assigned a role to serve somewhere. Maybe you're in charge of the king's donkeys. Maybe you're just one of the servants who works for the guy who's in charge of the donkeys. Maybe you are in charge of mixing and measuring ingredients to bake bread. Maybe you just clean the floors. Maybe you're a doorkeeper that stands by the door. Are you content with that? Or do you wish you had something more to do, something else to do? Maybe you're tired of doing this. Maybe you think you have skills that could serve better somewhere else. Well, when it comes to the Lord's house, First Corinthians twelve eighteen says God places members of the body where he wishes. And you know what? The Korahites, those who were gatekeepers in the temple, they had a history of their ancestor Korah rebelling against his place in the tribe of Israel, thinking that he was a better leader for Israel than Moses was, and he challenged Moses, and he died for it. And so his descendants now, knowing where they've come from, now they're in a position of being gatekeepers in the house of the Lord. They actually wrote a psalm, Psalm eighty-four. The descendants of Korah wrote this, verse ten of Psalm eighty-four. Certainly spending just one day in your temple courts is better than spending a thousand elsewhere. I would rather stand at the entrance to the temple of my God than live in the tents of the wicked. The sons of Korah have come a long way from their ancestor who was discontent with his role and his position in the work of God. And they've come around to admitting, you know what, I would rather just be a gatekeeper. Just b just being here, welcoming other people in. I am content with that if it means that I don't have to go live among the wicked in the world far from God. I would rather be here. I know there are other people with other jobs that they seem to enjoy and they're pretty flashy and they get attention. But you know what? I'm content just to be in the house of God. Is that you? Are you content to be with God? Or do you feel like you need some job or task or visibility or some sort of sense of fulfillment based on work? God utilizes a lot of people to do his work, and they show up in a lot of different ways. Our main task is to learn to be content and to celebrate the fact that we get to work for God at all. That's above and beyond what we deserve. We deserve to be cast out and not come close to his presence. But he's allowed us to be able to not just come close, but to be involved in his work. But we need to come with a willing and submissive heart that's ready to do whatever he wants to do, whatever he thinks is best. That's the thinking out loud thought for the day.