GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
1 CHRONICLES 22:17-19
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17 David also commanded all the leaders of Israel to help his son Solomon, saying, 18 “Is not the LORD your God with you? And has he not given you peace on every side? For he has given the inhabitants of the land into my hand, and the land is subdued before the LORD and before his people. 19 Now: set your mind and heart to seek the LORD your God. So, rise and build the sanctuary of the LORD God, so that the ark of the covenant of the LORD and the holy vessels of God may be brought into a house built for the name of the LORD.”
Even David’s command to the leaders (sarey, ‘princes’) of Israel is given in an easy-to-remember poetic form, in an A-B-C-C-B-A chiastic pattern. The outer structure of the command could not be easier to understand: “Help him (vs. 17)… to build (vs. 19).”
David’s command is supported as if with the pillars of a strong house by reasons that enable their help for the young king. First (and fourth), “God is with you / seek the Lord.” These are not mutually exclusive. The man who truly seeks the Lord is not skeptical about God’s existence, or presence, or work in the world. God himself promised that when his people would be in captivity, if they would seek him from there, “you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29). Those who seek the Lord study his holy word. There they find examples for faith, to be sure, but also lessons about how to trust in God above all things: “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn. Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth. When I called him he was but one, and I blessed him and made him many” (Isaiah 51:1-2). Those who seek the Lord observe their own lives to see his holy hands at work. “Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing” (Psalm 34:10).
The innermost pillars to support David’s command brush aside any doubts about outside interference: “There is peace on every side… the land is subdued.” This is not what the men would face when they rebuilt the temple in the days of Haggai and Zechariah. There would be enemies all around them then. While the Jews were in captivity in Babylon, Jeremiah served the remnant still in Judah with the warning that was really a quote from David: “There is terror on every side!” (Psalm 31:13; Jeremiah 6:25; 20:10; 46:5; 49:29; Lamentations 2:22).
But Solomon was handed a kingdom that was secure, with few enemies and none of much consequence as long as David or Solomon lived. The fear of the might of David’s arm lasted for generations. “By my servant David I will rescue my people Israel from the hand of the Philistines and from the hand of all their enemies” (2 Samuel 3:8). “The Lord delivered David from the hands of all his enemies” (Psalm 18:1).
The goal of all this help was the goal David had been seeking all along: To bring the ark of the covenant into its new home: a house built for the name of the Lord. God is not a mere concept or idea. He does not spring from the imagination of men, even though there are men who deny that he has any objective reality. The truth is that God is; God exists. He himself says, “I am that I am” (Exodus 3:14). By comparison, the idols of the world truly are nothing; they have sprung from the imaginations and fears of men. Isaiah mocked them according to God’s bidding: “Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear. But you are less than nothing and your works are utterly worthless. He who chooses you is detestable” (Isaiah 41:23-24).
God gives us his name, and his attributes. Each attribute of God tells us more and more about him: infinite, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, all-holy. He has a divine will. He is good. He is just. He is righteous. These attributes also count as his names, for “the Good One” and “the Righteous One” and “the Almighty” are surely names that are used for him (Nahum 1:7; Proverbs 21:12; Job 5:17).
To proclaim the name of the Lord is to proclaim everything about him: His magnificent works, his gracious words, his compassionate plan to save mankind from our sins. “O LORD, our Lord, how glorious is your name in all the earth!”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 1 Chronicles 22:17-19 David’s plan