1 Chronicles: A Messianic Jewish Commentary

Before we begin

The last book of the Tenakh opens with one word: Adam. No verb, no story, just the first man’s name, and then thirty-seven more names before the first sentence with a verb in it (1:10). Most readers close the book here. We are going to open it, because the sages say this is exactly where the treasure is buried.

What this book is. In Hebrew the book is דִּבְרֵי הַיָּמִים (Divrei HaYamim), “the words of the days,” the daily record of a kingdom. It is one book in Hebrew; the Greek translators split it in two. The Talmud lists it last among the Writings (Bava Batra 14b), so the Tenakh closes with Cyrus’s call: “Who is there among you of all his people? Hashem his God be with him, and let him go up” (2 Chronicles 36:23). The Jewish Bible ends with an open door to Jerusalem. Yeshua counted the martyrs of Scripture “from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias” (Luke 11:51), from Genesis 4 to 2 Chronicles 24, the first book to the last in the order we still use.

Who wrote it. The Talmud says that Ezra “wrote his book and the genealogies of Chronicles up to his own time,” and that Nehemiah finished it (Bava Batra 15a). So Chronicles was written after the exile, for a small community back in the land with a modest rebuilt Temple, a Persian governor instead of a king, and a long memory. The Chronicler retells Samuel and Kings for those people, with the Temple, the kohanim and Levites, and the house of David at the center. He leaves out what does not serve that purpose: the stories of Bathsheba, Amnon, Absalom and Adonijah. We will come back to that choice in chapter 3. He is not hiding anything; his readers had the book of Samuel. He is telling them what to hold on to.

The commentary called “Rashi.” The commentary printed as Rashi on Chronicles is traditionally attributed to him but was most likely written by students of his school. We cite it as “Rashi on Chronicles.”

Why the lists matter. The first nine chapters are genealogy. The Midrash says of this book, “Chronicles was given only to be expounded” (Vayikra Rabbah 1:3), and the Talmud mourns a lost “Book of Genealogies” that explained these names:

From the day the Book of Genealogies was hidden, the strength of the Sages was weakened and the light of their eyes was dimmed. (Pesachim 62b)

We take the names seriously because the Brit Hadashah does: the two genealogies of Yeshua, Matthew 1 and Luke 3, are built on the backbone of 1 Chronicles 1–3. Matthew begins where chapter 1 turns to the chosen line, with Abraham. Luke runs back to where chapter 1 begins: “which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God” (Luke 3:38).

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 1 · From Adam to Edom

Read 1 Chronicles 1 in Hebrew and English →

1:1–4 · Ten names from Adam to Noah

“Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth” (1:1–4).

Genesis 5 gives each of these men a paragraph. Chronicles gives each one a word. That is the Chronicler’s method all through these chapters: he assumes you know the Torah, and he draws one straight line through it, from the first man to the people now reading.

Why begin with Adam? No other book besides Genesis starts there. The Chronicler opens by setting his small, bruised community inside the whole human family. The Mishnah says Adam was created alone so that no one could say, “My father is greater than your father” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5). Paul said the same in Athens: God “hath made of one blood all nations of men” (Acts 17:26). Israel’s story is not a story about a superior race. It is the story of what Hashem did inside the one family of Adam.

Ten and ten. Pirkei Avot counts these names: “There were ten generations from Adam to Noah, to make known how patient He is… ten generations from Noah to Abraham… until Abraham our father came and received the reward of them all” (Avot 5:2). Chronicles gives exactly those two tens, here and in 1:24–27, with nothing but names. One of them carries a story even stripped bare: Henoch, the seventh from Adam (Jude 1:14), who “walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). Our Statement of Faith points to him when it speaks of Yeshua taken up to heaven.

1:5–23 · The seventy nations

Now the Chronicler copies the Table of Nations from Genesis 10, trimmed to names. Japheth’s sons come first, then Ham’s, then Shem’s. Watch the pattern, because he will use it again and again: he clears away the branches that do not lead to Israel, and saves the chosen line for last.

Japheth (1:5–7): Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, Tiras. Three of these names open Ezekiel’s last war: “Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal” (Ezekiel 38:2). FFOZ’s End of Days notes that “the Torah lists Magog, Meshech, and Tubal as sons of Japheth in Genesis 10:2, where their names appear among the names of the seventy original families of nations descended from Noah,” and that the sages understood Gog and Magog as a force “representing all seventy nations” (Lesson 16, “Gog and Magog”). The list in front of us is the cast of the end of days.

Ham (1:8–16): Cush, Mizraim, Put, Canaan. One man gets a sentence: “And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be mighty upon the earth” (1:10). Genesis adds that he was “a mighty hunter before Hashem” and that his kingdom began at Babel (Genesis 10:9–10). Rashi reads “before Hashem” as “against Hashem.” FFOZ puts it plainly: “Jewish legend depicts Nimrod as the father of idolatry… Nimrod ruled over a united humanity with a single religion centered in Mesopotamia. He created the original one-world government” (End of Days, Lesson 21, “Image of the Beast”). The first man in Chronicles to do anything is the first tyrant. From here on the book is about a different kind of king. Canaan’s sons follow, among them “the Jebusite” (1:14), who held Jerusalem until David took it (11:4–5).

Shem (1:17–23): Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, Aram. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Edom #4 – Zepho & Vulcan,” notices that Genesis 10:23 lists Aram’s fourth son as Mash and Chronicles has Meshech (1:17), one of the “seemingly many contradictions with earlier books” in Chronicles, “but you can resolve them.” Small differences like this show the Chronicler copying old records, not smoothing them over.

Two names here shape the whole Tenakh. Eber gives his name to the Hebrews; on “Abram the Hebrew” (Genesis 14:13) the Midrash offers a descendant of Eber, a man from beyond (ever) the river, or the whole world on one side and he on the other (Bereshit Rabbah 42:8). Peleg is named for Babel: “in his days the earth was divided” (1:19; Rashi on Genesis 10:25). After Nimrod’s one-world kingdom comes the scattering. After the scattering, Hashem calls one man.

1:24–34 · Ten more names, and the sons of the promise

“Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, Abram; the same is Abraham” (1:24–27).

Here is the second ten of Pirkei Avot, and it ends with a correction. The Chronicler will not let the old name stand. The Talmud says that one who calls Abraham “Abram” transgresses a command, because Hashem said, “thy name shall be Abraham” (Berakhot 13a, on Genesis 17:5). A new name is a covenant, and the covenant was never taken back.

The pattern again. “The sons of Abraham; Isaac, and Ishmael” (1:28). Isaac is named first though Ishmael was born first; then, true to form, Ishmael’s twelve princes (1:29–31; Genesis 17:20) and Keturah’s sons (1:32–33) are listed before the trunk returns: “And Abraham begat Isaac. The sons of Isaac; Esau and Israel” (1:34). The sages say Keturah was Hagar brought back (Bereshit Rabbah 61:4), and that Ishmael repented in his father’s lifetime, which is why Genesis says “Isaac and Ishmael buried him,” the younger walking first (Genesis 25:9; Bava Batra 16b). The sons who were not chosen are still written down. Being outside the covenant line is not being outside Hashem’s book.

Hebrew lesson: “Esau and Israel.” Genesis would say “Esau and Jacob.” The Chronicler writes יִשְׂרָאֵל (Yisrael), the name given at Peniel, the name of the nation. He is telling his readers who they are. All of chapter 1 has been moving toward this half-verse, and then, in his usual way, he turns aside to finish with Esau first.

Messianic reading. When Paul explained why not every descendant of Abraham is “Israel,” he walked through this passage: “In Isaac shall thy seed be called”, not Ishmael; “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (Romans 9:7, 13; Malachi 1:2–3). The line of promise narrows by Hashem’s choice, not by human merit, until it comes to one man, and through that one man it opens again to “all families of the earth” (Genesis 12:3). Chapter 1 is the narrowing. The rest of the Bible is the opening.

1:35–42 · Esau and Seir

Esau’s sons and grandsons are listed (1:35–37), then the sons of Seir the Horite (1:38–42), the people Esau’s family married into (Genesis 36:20–30). Chronicles counts them because Edom is the brother who stayed outside, and the prophets saw the end of days as the reckoning between the two brothers (Obadiah; Isaiah 63:1–6).

Amalek, and the woman named Timna. Among the sons of Eliphaz the text lists “Timna, and Amalek” (1:36), and three verses later adds, “and Timna was Lotan’s sister” (1:39). Genesis explains: Timna was Eliphaz’s concubine and the mother of Amalek (Genesis 36:12). Why does Scripture bother? The Talmud asks the same question:

Timna was a royal princess… She wished to convert. She came to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and they did not accept her. She went and became a concubine to Eliphaz the son of Esau, saying: better to be a maidservant to this nation than a noblewoman of another. From her came Amalek, who afflicted Israel. Why? Because they should not have pushed her away. (Sanhedrin 99b)

Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Edom #1 – Esau & Amalek,” brings this passage and asks why the Torah gives us “this long list of chapter 36 of Esau’s genealogies.” His answer is the Gemara’s: “she wanted to join the family of Abraham… nobody wanted to accept her,” and he draws the lesson: “it’s important not to be too closed off as a people.” Amalek, Israel’s oldest enemy, began as a rejected would-be convert. Chronicles names her twice so that we do not forget. Our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 1 said more about Amalek.

1:43–54 · The kings of Edom, before any king reigned in Israel

“Now these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel” (1:43).

Eight kings follow, most from a different city and none the son of the one before, then eleven chiefs (אַלּוּף, alluf, a clan head). Edom had kings while Israel was still in Egypt and the wilderness.

What the sages say. Rashi on Genesis 36:31, following the Midrash, counts: eight kings reigned in Edom before Israel had one, and then eight kings reigned in Israel while Edom had none, from Saul to Jehoshaphat, until Edom revolted under Jehoram (2 Kings 8:20). The brothers take turns, as Rebekah was told: “the one people shall be stronger than the other people” (Genesis 25:23). Notice that Edom’s sixth king is named Shaul (1:48). Edom had a Saul before Israel did, and it did not make them Israel. A crown is not a covenant.

Hadad, who died. The last king, Hadad (Hadar in Genesis), is the only one whose wife is named, and in Genesis the only one whose death is not recorded (Genesis 36:39). Chronicles supplies it: “Hadad died also” (1:51). The kabbalists made much of Genesis’ silence. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The Lost Word of the Freemasonry – Part 4,” teaches that of the first seven kings “about each one of them it is written: he was a king, and after, he died,” and reads them, with the Zohar and the Ari, as a world that was built and broke, with the married eighth king as the first hint of repair. We take the picture as remez and leave the system. The plain text gives its own lesson: every king of Edom, even the last one, died. “And the kingdom shall be Hashem’s” (Obadiah 1:21).

Why this matters. The returned community had no king at all, and Edom’s descendants were pressing on their southern border. The Chronicler tells them: Edom had kings first, and Edom’s kings are all dead. Your king is coming. That is the hinge into chapter 2, where he finally writes, “These are the sons of Israel.”

Chapter 2 · Judah First

Read 1 Chronicles 2 in Hebrew and English →

2:1–2 · The twelve sons of Israel

“These are the sons of Israel; Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun, Dan, Joseph, and Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher” (2:1–2).

Twelve names in an order found nowhere else: Leah’s six, then Dan, whom Rachel named and claimed (Genesis 30:6), then Rachel’s own two, then Naphtali, Gad and Asher. The Chronicler keeps all twelve, including the ten tribes exiled by Assyria more than two centuries before he wrote. He has not given up on them.

FFOZ’s End of Days builds its hope for the lost tribes on this kind of record-keeping. It quotes Rambam: in the days of the King Messiah, “the ancestry of each one of them will be confirmed by Messiah through the Holy Spirit which will rest upon him… he will announce that this one is from such and such a tribe” (Hilchot Melachim 12:3, in End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). Revelation 7 counts twelve thousand from each tribe it names, and FFOZ insists that “the point of designating the 144,000 is to ensure that a remnant from each of the tribes of Israel survives to receive the promises of the redemption” (Lesson 49, “Day of Harvest”). Chronicles is a down payment on that promise: every tribe written down, so that every tribe can be found.

2:3–8 · Judah’s sons: Er, Tamar’s twins, and the troubler of Israel

Judah is the fourth son, but the Chronicler takes him first and gives him chapters 2 through 4, more than any other tribe. The reason is David. “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah” (Genesis 49:10), and readers under a Persian governor needed to hear that the scepter was still in the family.

He does not clean the family up. “Er, the firstborn of Judah, was evil in the sight of Hashem; and he slew him” (2:3). Judah’s first sons came “of the daughter of Shua the Canaanitess”; the sages were uneasy enough to read “Canaanite” as “merchant” (Rashi on Genesis 38:2; Pesachim 50a). Then: “And Tamar his daughter in law bare him Pharez and Zerah” (2:4).

What the sages say about Tamar. The Talmud does not flinch: Tamar acted the harlot, and kings and prophets descended from her (Nazir 23b), because she acted for the sake of Heaven. The Midrash goes further. While the brothers were busy selling Joseph and Judah was busy finding a wife, “the Holy One, blessed be He, was busy creating the light of the King Messiah” (Bereshit Rabbah 85:1). Hashem was planting redemption in the middle of the family’s worst chapter.

Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Who is Mashiach?,” says what “our sages point out all the time: the whole lineage of Mashiach is full of strange relationships,” Lot’s daughters, Judah and Tamar, Ruth the convert, David and Bathsheba. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The Trinity – Part 12,” calls Genesis 38 “the main story in the Torah about the birth of Mashiach.” Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” said it in a sentence: the Messiah’s family line runs through strange and surprising births, Tamar, Ruth and Bathsheba among them, and Matthew’s genealogy has all three, with Rahab (Matthew 1:3–6).

Hebrew lesson: פֶּרֶץ (Peretz), “breach.” The midwife said to Perez, “How hast thou broken forth? this breach be upon thee” (Genesis 38:29). The Midrash reads it as a title: from him comes the one of whom Micah says, “The breaker is come up before them… and their king shall pass before them, and Hashem on the head of them” (Micah 2:13; Bereshit Rabbah 85:14). The Messiah is a Perez: he breaks through the wall that holds the people in. The book of Ruth ends by giving the line of Perez to David (Ruth 4:18–22), the same ten names the Chronicler is about to give.

Zerah’s sons. “Ethan, and Heman, and Calcol, and Dara” (2:6) are the wise men Solomon surpassed (1 Kings 4:31). “Ezrahite” means “of Zerah,” and Psalm 89, “of Ethan the Ezrahite,” is the great psalm of the covenant with David (Psalm 89:4). Zerah’s line did not get the scepter. It got the song about the scepter, and sang it.

Achar. “Achar, the troubler of Israel, who transgressed in the thing accursed” (2:7). Joshua calls him Achan. The Chronicler spells him עָכָר (Achar), “trouble,” after Joshua’s words, “Hashem shall trouble thee this day” (Joshua 7:25). The Mishnah hears mercy in “this day”: troubled today, but not in the World to Come, because he confessed (Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:2). Judah’s record includes the man who brought defeat on Israel, written in with his sin and his new name, and the door of hope left open (Hosea 2:15).

2:9–17 · The line to David

“And Ram begat Amminadab; and Amminadab begat Nahshon, prince of the children of Judah; And Nahshon begat Salma, and Salma begat Boaz, And Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse, And Jesse begat his firstborn Eliab… Ozem the sixth, David the seventh” (2:10–15).

This is the spine of the book, and Matthew 1:3–6 and Luke 3:31–33 carry it into the Brit Hadashah.

Nahshon, “prince of the children of Judah.” He led Judah in the wilderness and brought the first offering at the altar (Numbers 2:3; 7:12). The Talmud tells how he earned it: at the Red Sea, while the tribes argued over who would go first, Nahshon jumped in, and the sea split (Sotah 37a).

Salma and Boaz. Matthew adds a mother: “Salmon begat Booz of Rachab” (Matthew 1:5). The Talmud remembers Rahab as a convert who married Joshua (Megillah 14b); the Gospel and the Gemara give her different husbands, but both agree that the harlot of Jericho was gathered into Israel and honored. The Chronicler writes “Boaz begat Obed” and says nothing of Ruth; her book was on the shelf beside his. The Talmud asks why she is called Ruth and answers: from her came David, who saturated (rivvahu) the Holy One with songs and praises (Berakhot 7b). Our class “Shavuot: Torah, Ruth, and Return” put it the way we say it at Benei Avraham: “From Ruth comes David. From David comes Mashiach. No Ruth, no Davidic line as we know it.” A Moabite convert stands three names from the king.

David the seventh. Samuel says Jesse had eight sons (1 Samuel 16:10–11). Chronicles counts seven; Radak answers that one died without children and the Chronicler, tracing families, leaves him out. The Midrash is glad of the number: “all sevenths are beloved,” and among sons it names “David the seventh” (Vayikra Rabbah 29:11), with Enoch, seventh from Adam. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “General Overview – First Coming & Second Coming of the Messiah – Part 2,” points out that דָּוִד בֶּן יִשַׁי (David ben Yishai), “David the son of Jesse,” has the value 386, the same as יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshua). A hint and no more, but in the right direction: Paul in Antioch preached from this line, “I have found David the son of Jesse… Of this man’s seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Yeshua” (Acts 13:22–23).

The sisters. “Whose sisters were Zeruiah, and Abigail” (2:16). Zeruiah’s sons, Abishai, Joab and Asahel, fill the pages of 2 Samuel. Abigail’s son is Amasa, “and the father of Amasa was Jether the Ishmeelite” (2:17), whom Samuel calls “Ithra an Israelite” (2 Samuel 17:25). The Talmud explains: he was an Israelite who “girded his sword like an Ishmaelite” and declared that anyone who rejected the ruling “an Ammonite, but not an Ammonitess; a Moabite, but not a Moabitess” would be run through (Yevamot 77a). That ruling is what made Ruth’s marriage valid and David’s line legitimate. The man who married David’s sister had drawn a sword for David’s great-grandmother.

2:18–24 · Caleb, Ephrath, Hur and Bezalel

“And when Azubah was dead, Caleb took unto him Ephrath, which bare him Hur. And Hur begat Uri, and Uri begat Bezaleel” (2:19–20).

Here is Bezalel’s pedigree, “the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah” (Exodus 31:2). Before Judah gave Israel a king, it gave Israel the builder of the Mishkan. The Talmud says Bezalel knew how to combine the letters with which heaven and earth were created, and that his name means what it says, בְּצַלְאֵל, “in the shadow of God” (Berakhot 55a). Craft for the sanctuary and the crown come from the same tribe, and the pattern returns at the end of this book, when David gathers the materials and Solomon builds the House (22:5; 28:11–19).

What the sages say about Caleb’s wives. This Caleb is “the son of Hezron,” not “the son of Jephunneh” as the Torah calls the spy (Numbers 13:6). The Talmud reads the two as one man, and the wives as one woman: “Azubah is Miriam. Why Azubah, ‘forsaken’? Because at first everyone forsook her. Ephrath is Miriam; why Ephrath? Because Israel were fruitful (paru) through her” (Sotah 11b–12a). On that reading Miriam the prophetess is the mother of Hur and great-grandmother of Bezalel. Whether or not we take it as history, the midrash says something true about this list: the women in it are not decoration. Ephrath gives her name to Bethlehem Ephratah (2:50–51; Micah 5:2), where David and his greater son were born.

Hezron’s old age. Hezron’s late marriage to “the daughter of Machir the father of Gilead” (2:21) explains how his grandson Jair, with his cities in Gilead, can be called “Jair the son of Manasseh” (Numbers 32:41): Judah’s by his grandfather, Manasseh’s by his grandmother. The Chronicler, who hopes for all twelve tribes, likes to show their lines crossing.

2:25–41 · Jerahmeel, and an Egyptian in the house of Judah

The Chronicler gives Hezron’s firstborn, Jerahmeel, seventeen verses. The Jerahmeelites lived in the Negev; David shared his spoil with them (1 Samuel 30:29). Hardly any of these names comes up again, and that is the point. A family that produced no one famous is still written in the book.

One story stands out. “Now Sheshan had no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife” (2:34–35). Thirteen generations follow from an Egyptian slave (2:35–41). The commentators assume Sheshan freed him first, since a freed slave enters Israel as a convert. A Gentile’s descendants are counted in Judah, by name, for thirteen generations. Isaiah promised “the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to Hashem” a “name better than of sons and of daughters” (Isaiah 56:5–6). Here is one, in the last book of the Tenakh.

2:42–55 · Caleb’s towns, Bethlehem and the scribes of Jabez

The chapter ends like a map of Judah. Caleb’s descendants are “fathers” of towns: Ziph, Hebron, Maon, Beth-zur, Kiriath-jearim, Bethlehem (2:42–54). Ziph and Maon are where David hid from Saul (1 Samuel 23:14, 24); Hebron is where he was crowned (see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 2); Kiriath-jearim is where the Ark waited until David fetched it (13:5–6). The land and the family are one record.

Bethlehem. “Salma the father of Bethlehem” (2:51) belongs to “Caleb the son of Hur, the firstborn of Ephratah” (2:50). Ephrath, Caleb’s wife in verse 19, has become Ephratah, the clan whose chief town is Bethlehem. The elders blessed Boaz, “do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem” (Ruth 4:11), and Micah knew the family tree: “thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel” (Micah 5:2). The scribes in Jerusalem quoted that verse to Herod (Matthew 2:5–6). The Chronicler’s dull list of town-fathers is where the prophecy of the Messiah’s birthplace gets its address.

The scribes. “And the families of the scribes which dwelt at Jabez… These are the Kenites that came of Hemath, the father of the house of Rechab” (2:55). The Kenites were Jethro’s people, who settled with Judah (Judges 1:16); the Rechabites kept their father’s vow, and Jeremiah promised that Jonadab “shall not want a man to stand before me for ever” (Jeremiah 35:19). The sages expound the three family names as titles of Torah scholars descended from Jethro (Sifrei Bamidbar 78). The chapter that began with Judah’s Canaanite wife ends with Gentile scribes teaching Torah in Judah’s towns. Jabez himself, a man with a prayer (4:9–10), waits for our next batch.

Chapter 3 · The House of David, Through the Fire

Read 1 Chronicles 3 in Hebrew and English →

3:1–9 · David’s sons at Hebron and Jerusalem

“Now these were the sons of David, which were born unto him in Hebron; the firstborn Amnon… the second Daniel, of Abigail the Carmelitess… These six were born unto him in Hebron; and there he reigned seven years and six months: and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years” (3:1–4).

Our 2 Samuel commentary went through these six sons (on chapter 3) and the missing six months (on chapter 2; Sanhedrin 107a–b). We will not repeat it. Note what Chronicles changes: Abigail’s son, Chileab in Samuel, is Daniel, “God has judged me,” which a midrash reads as David’s thanks that God judged his case against Nabal before David could shed blood (1 Samuel 25:32–33). The Chronicler names the sons and says nothing of what became of them.

Bath-shua and her four sons. “Shimea, and Shobab, and Nathan, and Solomon, four, of Bathshua the daughter of Ammiel” (3:5). This is Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam (2 Samuel 11:3), given the same name Judah’s Canaanite wife bore in 2:3. Four sons and no history. Here is the choice we promised to discuss. The Chronicler leaves out the sin with Bathsheba, Uriah’s death, Nathan’s parable and the dead child. The Talmud has a famous line: “Whoever says that David sinned is simply mistaken” (Shabbat 56a). Does the Chronicler agree? We lean toward a simpler answer. His readers had 2 Samuel; he is not denying it. He is writing a different book, about the throne and the Temple, and about how Hashem kept His promise through a family that did not deserve it. The silence is a decision about what the returned community most needed, not a cover-up. Our 2 Samuel commentary on chapters 11 and 12 says what we believe about David’s sin and repentance.

Nathan. Solomon is the fourth son, and the Chronicler lists Nathan before him. Two later texts give that quiet name weight. Zechariah’s great mourning names “the family of the house of David apart… the family of the house of Nathan apart” (Zechariah 12:12); the Talmud records Rabbi Dosa’s view that the mourning is “for Mashiach ben Yosef, who was killed” (Sukkah 52a), and Rabbi Palvanov walks through that page in his class “Jesus in the Talmud.” And Luke’s genealogy of Yeshua does not run through Solomon at all; it runs “the son of Nathan, which was the son of David” (Luke 3:31). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “I Shall Be Who I Shall Be – The Spirit of God & The Flying Serpent – Part 10,” notes that Luke counts “from Natan… to Yeshua” and “gives there a different generation” from Matthew. The Tenakh names him as David’s son only in the lists (2 Samuel 5:14; 1 Chronicles 3:5; 14:4).

Nine more sons follow, “beside the sons of the concubines, and Tamar their sister” (3:9). Tamar is the only daughter named, and she is named without her story.

3:10–16 · The kings of Judah, to the exile

“And Solomon’s son was Rehoboam, Abia his son, Asa his son, Jehoshaphat his son, Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son, Amaziah his son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son, Ahaz his son, Hezekiah his son, Manasseh his son, Amon his son, Josiah his son” (3:10–14).

Fifteen kings in five verses, father to son without a break, four hundred years. Israel’s northern kingdom went through nine dynasties; Judah had one, because “thy throne shall be established for ever” (2 Samuel 7:16; see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7).

The list has no adjectives. Good and bad stand together: Asa and Jehoshaphat beside Joram and Ahaziah, who married into Ahab’s house; Hezekiah, of whom the Talmud says Hashem wished to make him the Messiah and Sennacherib Gog and Magog, but he did not sing (Sanhedrin 94a); Manasseh, worst of all, who repented in chains and was heard (2 Chronicles 33:12–13; Sanhedrin 103a). The covenant did not depend on the kings’ merit. Matthew copies this list but drops Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah to make his “fourteen generations” (Matthew 1:8, 17); genealogies were often shortened, as the Chronicler shortens them himself.

Josiah’s sons. “The sons of Josiah were, the firstborn Johanan, the second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, the fourth Shallum. And the sons of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, Zedekiah his son” (3:15–16). Here the straight line breaks into pieces, because the kingdom was breaking. Jeremiah calls the son who reigned after Josiah “Shallum” (Jeremiah 22:11), the king 2 Kings calls Jehoahaz; the Talmud takes Shallum as Zedekiah, “in whose days the kingdom of the house of David was completed” (Horayot 11b). Either way, three of one righteous king’s sons wore the crown in its last years, each brought down by a foreign king.

3:17–24 · After the exile: Shealtiel, Zerubbabel and Anani

“And the sons of Jeconiah; Assir, Salathiel his son, Malchiram also, and Pedaiah, and Shenazar, Jecamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah” (3:17–18).

The curse on Coniah. Jeconiah reigned three months before Nebuchadnezzar carried him to Babylon (2 Kings 24:8–15). Jeremiah had spoken the hardest words ever said over a son of David: “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence… Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David” (Jeremiah 22:24, 30).

And yet here are his sons. The Hebrew of verse 17 can be read “the sons of Jeconiah the captive (assir),” and the Talmud reads it that way:

Rabbi Yochanan said: Exile atones for everything, as it is written, “Write ye this man childless”; and after he was exiled it is written, “The sons of Jeconiah: Assir, Shealtiel his son.” (Sanhedrin 37b)

The Gemara goes on through the names. Assir, because his mother conceived him in prison. שְׁאַלְתִּיאֵל (Shealtiel), because God planted him (shetalo El) as other plantings are not planted. זְרֻבָּבֶל (Zerubbabel), because he was sown in Babylon (Sanhedrin 38a). The Midrash tells how Jeconiah repented in prison and the exiled Sanhedrin pleaded for the house of David to continue (Vayikra Rabbah 19:6). Chronicles tells the rest: he had seven sons. “Write ye this man childless” was answered by a list of children.

Hebrew lesson: “sown in Babylon.” Isaiah saw the house of David cut to a stump, “the stem of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1), and promised a shoot. The shoot’s name is a farmer’s word: seed that fell in the soil of exile and came up anyway. Haggai turned Jeremiah’s curse into a promise around him: “I will take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel… and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee” (Haggai 2:23). The ring pulled from Hashem’s hand in Jeremiah 22:24 is put back on, on Jeconiah’s grandson.

Chronicles makes Zerubbabel the son of Pedaiah (3:19); Ezra, Haggai and both Gospels call him the son of Shealtiel (Ezra 3:2; Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27). The usual answer is a levirate marriage: Shealtiel died without a son, and Pedaiah raised up seed for him. Zerubbabel led the first return and built the Second Temple (Ezra 3–6): “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit… The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it” (Zechariah 4:6, 9). The Chronicler’s readers worshipped in that Temple. When they read his name in David’s line, they knew that the Second Temple and the house of David were built by the same hands.

Matthew and Luke both pass through Shealtiel and Zerubbabel and then part ways again; neither Matthew’s Abiud nor Luke’s Rhesa appears among Zerubbabel’s sons here. The Gospel writers had family records beyond what the Chronicler preserved; Chronicles gives the trunk, and both Gospels are rooted in it. Our class “The Essence and Mission of Yeshua from a Jewish Perspective” drew the lesson: in Judaism “tribal lineage comes from the father,” genealogies were required of priests who served in the Second Temple (Ezra 2:62), and “if this was required of the priests to serve in the temple, how much more the ultimate king of Israel?” The promise to David was physical, “thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels” (2 Samuel 7:12), and Paul says Yeshua was “made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3). The genealogies are the deed to the throne.

Names of hope. Look at what Zerubbabel named his children: Hananiah, “Hashem has been gracious”; Berechiah, “Hashem blesses”; Hasadiah, “Hashem is kind”; Jushab-hesed, “kindness returns” (3:19–20). A family home from Babylon named its children after the mercy that brought them. The generations that follow (3:21–24) may reach well past Zerubbabel, into the time the Talmud assigns to Nehemiah’s completion of the book. The line of David was still being written down when the Tenakh closed.

Anani. “And the sons of Elioenai were, Hodaiah, and Eliashib, and Pelaiah, and Akkub, and Johanan, and Dalaiah, and Anani, seven” (3:24). This is the last name in the last genealogy of David’s house in the Tenakh, and the Targum to Chronicles pauses on it: “Anani, he is the King Messiah, who is destined to be revealed.” The name is עֲנָנִי, and עֲנָנֵי (ananei) is Daniel’s word: “one like the Son of man came with the clouds (ananei) of heaven” (Daniel 7:13). Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” set this Targum beside Sanhedrin 98a, where the Talmud weighs Daniel’s “with the clouds” against Zechariah’s “lowly, and riding upon an ass” and answers: if they merit, with the clouds; if not, on a donkey. We believe both are true, one for each coming. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The Tale of the Seven Beggars by Rabbi Nachman – Part 5 – Justice and Charity,” makes the same connection: “Anani was the last generation in the Bible,” and the name “refers to Mashiach that came im ananei shmaya, with the clouds of the heavens,” just as “Yeshua is the last generation in the book of Matthew.” We take the hint without the rest of his scheme.

Messianic reading. This chapter began with a king in Hebron and ended with seven brothers no one has heard of, under Persian rule, with Jeremiah’s curse over the family. The Chronicler wrote the names down anyway, because the promise was not to a throne but to a seed. Four centuries later a messenger said to a girl of this family, “the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:32–33). The one who said “I am the root and the offspring of David” (Revelation 22:16) came from the stump Isaiah saw, through Jeconiah the prisoner and Zerubbabel the seed sown in Babylon. He came first in the pattern of the son of Yosef, lowly, on a donkey, and the family of David did not know him. He will come again in the pattern of the son of David, “with the clouds of heaven,” and “the family of the house of David” and “the family of the house of Nathan” will look on him (Zechariah 12:10–12). The last name in David’s list is a cloud. The book was keeping the line for him.

Drawing it together

1. Hashem keeps a book. Chronicles opens with Adam and keeps every name it can, the chosen and the unchosen, the famous and the forgotten. Malachi promised that “a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared Hashem” (Malachi 3:16), and John saw “the books… opened” (Revelation 20:12). FFOZ’s End of Days reminds us that in Jewish thought “all your deeds are written in a book; the ledger is open and the hand writes” (Lesson 38, “The Last Day,” citing Pirkei Avot). No one who belongs to Hashem is lost in the crowd.

2. The line narrows by grace, then opens. Shem not Japheth, Isaac not Ishmael, Israel not Esau, Judah not Reuben, Perez not Zerah, David the seventh. At every fork the choice is Hashem’s, and the ones not chosen are still written down. Then the chosen line, in David’s greater son, becomes the door through which “all the families of the earth” are blessed.

3. The Messiah’s family tree is full of surprises. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bath-shua, an Egyptian slave named Jarha, Kenite scribes, a king in prison. The sages say Hashem was “creating the light of the King Messiah” while Judah was busy with other things. The pattern holds for Yeshua, born of this family in Bethlehem Ephratah.

4. Kings die; the covenant does not. Eight kings of Edom reigned and died before Israel had a king. Fifteen kings of Judah, good and bad, sat on one throne for four hundred years, and when the throne fell the seed was still kept. The promise does not depend on the circumstances of the people holding it.

5. The lists are written for the end of days. Rambam says the Messiah will sort Israel by tribe; Revelation counts twelve thousand from each tribe it names. The genealogies of Matthew and Luke rest on these chapters. A people that remembers who it is can be gathered. That is why the last book of the Tenakh begins with thirty-eight names and no verb.

Questions for discussion

1. Why does the Chronicler begin with Adam rather than Abraham or Jacob? What does Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 add to the answer?
2. What pattern does the Chronicler follow in chapter 1 when he lists Japheth, Ham and Shem, or Ishmael, Keturah and Isaac? Where does Paul use the same pattern in Romans 9?
3. Who was Timna, according to Sanhedrin 99b, and what lesson did Rabbi Palvanov draw from her story?
4. The kings of Edom reigned “before any king reigned over the children of Israel.” What did Rashi notice about the number eight, and what point is the Chronicler making for readers who had no king?
5. Why does the Chronicler spell Achan’s name “Achar”? What does the Mishnah hear in Joshua’s words “this day”?
6. Name the ten men from Perez to David. Where else in Scripture does this list appear?
7. Who was Jether the Ishmaelite, and what does Yevamot 77a say he did to defend the legitimacy of David’s line?
8. Why does the Chronicler say nothing about Bathsheba’s story in 3:5? What does Shabbat 56a say, and what do we lean toward?
9. Jeremiah said, “Write ye this man childless.” How do Sanhedrin 37b–38a, Haggai 2:23 and 1 Chronicles 3:17–19 answer that curse?
10. What does the Targum say about Anani, the last name in David’s list? How does our Sukkot shiur relate Daniel’s “clouds” and Zechariah’s “donkey” to the two comings of Mashiach?

Sources

Scripture: 1 Chronicles 1–3, 11, 13–14, 22, 28; 2 Chronicles 24, 33, 36; Genesis 5, 10, 12, 14, 17, 25, 30, 36, 38, 49; Exodus 31; Numbers 2, 7, 13, 32; Joshua 7; Judges 1; Ruth 4; 1 Samuel 16, 23, 25, 30; 2 Samuel 2–3, 5, 7, 11, 17; 1 Kings 4; 2 Kings 8, 24; Ezra 2–6; Psalm 89; Isaiah 11, 56, 63; Jeremiah 22, 35; Ezekiel 38; Hosea 2; Obadiah; Micah 2, 5; Haggai 2; Zechariah 4, 12; Malachi 1, 3; Daniel 7; Matthew 1–2; Luke 1, 3, 11; Acts 13, 17; Romans 1, 9; Jude; Revelation 7, 20, 22.

Talmud and Midrash: Bava Batra 14b–15a, 16b; Pesachim 50a, 62b; Berakhot 7b, 13a, 55a; Megillah 14b; Sotah 11b–12a, 37a; Nazir 23b; Yevamot 77a; Sukkah 52a; Shabbat 56a; Horayot 11b; Sanhedrin 37b–38a, 94a, 98a, 99b, 103a, 107a–b; Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 and 6:2; Pirkei Avot 5:2; Bereshit Rabbah 42:8, 61:4, 83:2, 85:1, 85:14; Vayikra Rabbah 1:3, 19:6, 29:11; Sifrei Bamidbar 78; Targum to 1 Chronicles 3:24.

Commentators: Rashi on Genesis 10:9, 10:25, 36:31, 38:2; Rashi on Chronicles; Radak on 1 Chronicles 2:15; Targum Onkelos on Genesis 38:2; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim 12:3.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 16, “Gog and Magog”; Lesson 21, “Image of the Beast”; Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; Lesson 38, “The Last Day”; Lesson 49, “Day of Harvest”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Understanding Edom #1 – Esau & Amalek” (https://youtu.be/NAqVj0_AJQE), “Understanding Edom #4 – Zepho & Vulcan” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnGOWzlCQVk), “Who is Mashiach?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rvL-sW5J04) and “Jesus in the Talmud” (https://youtu.be/kfF0-q-g2XI); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “The Trinity – Part 12” (https://youtu.be/W-somJq3JsM), “General Overview – First Coming & Second Coming of the Messiah – Part 2” (https://youtu.be/Dsb-sxJUO9w), “I Shall Be Who I Shall Be – The Spirit of God & The Flying Serpent – Part 10” (https://youtu.be/71jsK4wNfgE), “The Lost Word of the Freemasonry – Part 4” (https://youtu.be/E_hRR6HD47E) and “The Tale of the Seven Beggars by Rabbi Nachman – Part 5 – Justice and Charity” (https://youtu.be/h2lp78c2M7Y); Benei Avraham classes, “Shavuot: Torah, Ruth, and Return” (https://youtu.be/9FW62wzzfGM) and “The Essence and Mission of Yeshua from a Jewish Perspective” (https://www.youtube.com/live/NcguCQbsk8E); our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David”; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

These three chapters are the middle of the Chronicler’s family register. Chapter 4 finishes Judah and adds Simeon, the small tribe that lived inside Judah’s borders. Chapter 5 crosses the Jordan to Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh, tells of a war they won by prayer and an exile they earned by idolatry, and then runs the house of Aaron, high priest by high priest, from Sinai to Babylon. Chapter 6 is Levi: the three clans, the singers David set before the Ark, the work only Aaron’s sons may do, and the forty-eight towns scattered through every tribe, six of them cities of refuge.

Inside the lists are some of the best-loved lines in the book: the prayer of Jabez (4:10), a daughter of Pharaoh in the family of Judah (4:18), two and a half tribes who cry to God in the middle of a battle (5:20). And one verse explains the shape of Israel’s history and of our hope: “Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler; but the birthright was Joseph’s” (5:2). Joseph and Judah, birthright and scepter, Mashiach ben Yosef and Mashiach ben David. The Chronicler puts it in a parenthesis. We take it as our title.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

We follow the Hebrew verse numbering, as the website does. In these chapters it differs from the English Bible once: the high-priestly list closes Hebrew chapter 5, so 5:27–41 is KJV 6:1–15, and Hebrew 6:1–66 is KJV 6:16–81.

Chapter 4 · Judah’s Craftsmen and Simeon’s Border

Read 1 Chronicles 4 in Hebrew and English →

4:1–8 · The families of Hur and Bethlehem

“The sons of Judah; Pharez, Hezron, and Carmi, and Hur, and Shobal” (4:1).

These five are not brothers. Perez is Judah’s son, Hezron his grandson, and the rest come further down; Radak notes that “sons” here means descendants. Many of the “sons” are towns: Etam, Gedor, Tekoa. A man is called “father” of a place because his family settled it.

One line matters most: “These are the sons of Hur, the firstborn of Ephratah, the father of Bethlehem” (4:4). Bethlehem has a founding father, and his family belongs to Judah through Caleb and Ephrath (2:19, 50–51). We saw at 2:50–51 how Micah’s prophecy of the ruler from “Bethlehem Ephratah” (Micah 5:2) gets its address from this family. The Chronicler is writing the register of the town where David was born and where the Son of David would be born.

4:9–10 · The prayer of Jabez

“And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested” (4:9–10).

Two verses, no father named, and a prayer the Chronicler thought worth keeping. Everything around it is names. This is a voice.

Hebrew lesson: יַעְבֵּץ (Ya’betz) and עֹצֶב (otzev), “sorrow.” The name is the word for sorrow with two letters swapped. His mother named him for her pain, and he asked God to turn the name around: “that it may not grieve me” (otzbi) is the same root. He prays his way out of his own name.

What the sages say. The Talmud says Jabez is Othniel ben Kenaz, the first judge of Israel (Judges 3:9–11), named four verses later (4:13): “Othniel, because God answered him (anah El); Jabez, because he counseled (ya’atz) and spread Torah in Israel” (Temurah 16a). The same page tells that in the mourning for Moses seventeen hundred laws were forgotten, and Othniel restored them by his reasoning. So the sages read the prayer as a prayer about Torah: “bless me” with Torah; “enlarge my border” with students; “let thy hand be with me” that my learning not be forgotten; “keep me from evil” that the evil inclination not stop me. “The families of the scribes” lived at Jabez (2:55); a town of scholars carried his name.

Why this matters. Yeshua taught his disciples to pray the same way: “deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13), and “ask, and it shall be given you” (Matthew 7:7). A community back from exile, with small borders and sorrow in every family, needed to hear that such a prayer is answered.

4:11–20 · Othniel, Caleb and the daughter of Pharaoh

The list goes on through small clans: the craftsmen of “the valley of Charashim” (4:14), the sons of “Caleb the son of Jephunneh” (4:15), and Othniel’s own line (4:13). Then a strange sentence:

“And his wife Jehudijah bare Jered the father of Gedor, and Heber the father of Socho, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah. And these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, which Mered took” (4:18).

A daughter of Pharaoh married into Judah. The Talmud reads every name (Megillah 13a). “Jered” is Moses, because manna came down (yarad) in his days; “Heber” because he joined (chiber) Israel to their Father in heaven; Vayikra Rabbah 1:3 counts ten names of Moses, six of them in this verse. And “Mered” is Caleb: “he rebelled (marad) against the counsel of the spies. Let the rebel come and take the rebel,” the princess who rebelled against her father’s idols.

Her name is the key. The Holy One said to her, “Moses was not your son, and you called him your son; you are not My daughter, and I call you My daughter,” בִּתְיָה (Bityah), “daughter of Yah” (Vayikra Rabbah 1:3). Why does the verse say she “bare” Jered, when she only raised him? Because “whoever raises an orphan in his house, Scripture counts it as if he had borne him” (Megillah 13a; Sanhedrin 19b). The Chronicler keeps her whole story in one word, “the Jewess” (ha-Yehudiyah): the princess who went down to the Nile to wash herself from her father’s idols (Sotah 12b) and came up with Israel’s redeemer in her arms.

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Edom #5 – Gog & Mashiach,” brings a midrash on this figure: “just as the daughter of Pharaoh raised the boy that would ultimately bring down her father’s dynasty, so too with Mashiach,” who waits at the gates of Rome and “begins his journey in Edom” (Shemot Rabbah 1:26). Our Statement of Faith reads the Messiah at the gates of Rome (Sanhedrin 98a) the same way: Mashiach hidden among the nations until his own people know him. Moses was raised as an Egyptian prince and not recognized by his brothers (Acts 7:25); Yeshua has been carried for two thousand years in the arms of the nations, and “his own received him not” (John 1:11). Bithiah reminds us that Hashem can raise His deliverer anywhere, and that a Gentile who leaves her father’s gods to cling to Israel is called His daughter.

4:21–23 · Linen workers and potters, “with the king for his work”

“The sons of Shelah the son of Judah were… the families of the house of them that wrought fine linen… and Joash, and Saraph, who had the dominion in Moab, and Jashubilehem. And these are ancient things. These were the potters… there they dwelt with the king for his work” (4:21–23).

Shelah’s family were weavers of בּוּץ (butz), the fine linen of the Temple veil and the Levite singers (2 Chronicles 3:14; 5:12), and potters who worked “with the king.” The Temple needed linen and clay as much as gold.

What the sages say. The Talmud reads these verses as the story of Ruth in code (Bava Batra 91b; Ruth Rabbah 2:1–2). “Joash and Saraph” are Mahlon and Chilion: Joash because they despaired (nitya’ashu) of redemption, Saraph because they deserved burning. “Who had the dominion in Moab” means they married Moabite women. “Jashubi-lehem” is Ruth, who returned (shavah) to Bethlehem. “Ancient things” are things spoken by the Ancient of Days. And “they dwelt with the king” is Ruth, who lived to see the kingdom of Solomon, her great-great-grandson. It is midrash, not translation, but it shows how the sages heard this chapter: the family of the Messiah is hidden in the lists, Moab and all.

Messianic reading. Matthew does not hide Ruth either: “Booz begat Obed of Ruth” (Matthew 1:5). Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” made the point we noted at 2:4: Hashem’s hand is in the line of the King in ways no one expects, and a Moabite convert is one of them. And notice what these families made: the bride of the Lamb is dressed in fine linen, “for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints” (Revelation 19:8). “With the king for his work” describes every servant in the kingdom.

4:24–38 · Simeon, scattered in Judah

“And Shimei had sixteen sons and six daughters; but his brethren had not many children, neither did all their family multiply, like to the children of Judah” (4:27).

Simeon comes right after Judah because Simeon lived inside Judah. Joshua gave the tribe its towns “within the inheritance of the children of Judah” (Joshua 19:1, 9), most of them in the Negev, and “these were their cities unto the reign of David” (4:31), when they were counted as Judah’s.

Why so small? At Sinai Simeon numbered 59,300 (Numbers 1:23). After Baal Peor, where Zimri the Simeonite led the sin (Numbers 25:14), the count was 22,200, the smallest tribe (Numbers 26:14). Jacob had said of Simeon and Levi, “I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel” (Genesis 49:7), and Moses blesses every tribe in Deuteronomy 33 except Simeon. Rashi, on Genesis 49:7, brings the midrash that the scattering had two faces: the poor scribes and teachers of little children came from Simeon, and the Levites went from threshing floor to threshing floor for their tithes. A curse of dispersion became a tribe of schoolteachers.

Our teachers. FFOZ reads Jacob’s words the same way: “The tribe of Judah absorbed Simeon’s territory under the Davidic monarchy. The members of the tribe of Simeon assimilated into other tribal identities. The tribe of Levi, however, retained their identity. They became priests and Levites with Levitical cities in each tribal territory” (End of Days, Lesson 12, “Acharit HaYamim”). Yet the Chronicler still writes Simeon’s princes “by their names” (4:38). In Hashem’s register no tribe disappears: “of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand” (Revelation 7:7).

4:39–43 · Gedor and Mount Seir: the remnant of Amalek

“And these written by name came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and smote their tents… And some of them, even of the sons of Simeon, five hundred men, went to mount Seir… And they smote the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped, and dwelt there unto this day” (4:41–43).

Here the list becomes a story. In Hezekiah’s days, the years when Assyria was carrying the northern tribes away, little Simeon was pushing out: toward Gedor, where the land was “wide, and quiet, and peaceable” (4:40), and south-east to Mount Seir, where five hundred men finished the last of Amalek.

Amalek. Saul was told to blot out Amalek and spared Agag (1 Samuel 15). David struck the Amalekites who burned Ziklag, but “four hundred young men, which rode upon camels” escaped (1 Samuel 30:17). Their remnant lived on in Esau’s country until Simeon’s shepherds came looking for grass. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef,” teaches that “Mashiach ben Yosef has the ability to destroy Amalek.” Amalek’s end belongs to the redemption: “saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be Hashem’s” (Obadiah 1:21). Simeon’s small victory is a down payment on that verse.

Hezekiah. The sages say Hashem wished to make Hezekiah the Messiah and Sennacherib Gog and Magog (Sanhedrin 94a), and Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Mashiach: Now or Never,” reminds us that Rabbi Hillel “believed that Hezekiah fulfilled the conditions of the Messiah in his day” (Sanhedrin 99a), a view the sages rejected. Hezekiah’s days were a picture of redemption, not the thing itself. The Chronicler’s readers, back in a small Judah, could look at that picture and hope.

Chapter 5 · The Birthright, the Tribes Beyond Jordan and the House of Aaron

Read 1 Chronicles 5 in Hebrew and English →

5:1–2 · “The birthright was Joseph’s”

“Now the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel, (for he was the firstborn; but, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph the son of Israel: and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright. For Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler; but the birthright was Joseph’s:)” (5:1–2).

This is the Chronicler’s own explanation of why his book runs Judah first, then Simeon, then Reuben. A register should begin with the firstborn. His does not, and the parenthesis says why.

Three crowns, divided. Reuben “went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine” (Genesis 35:22), and Jacob told him, “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel” (Genesis 49:4). Targum Onkelos, on Genesis 49:3, spells out what he lost: three portions were fit for him, “the birthright, the priesthood and the kingdom,” and they went to three brothers. The double portion went to Joseph, whose sons became two tribes (Genesis 48:5); the priesthood to Levi; the scepter to Judah (Genesis 49:10). The Talmud defends Reuben even so: “Whoever says Reuben sinned is simply mistaken”; he disturbed his father’s bed out of zeal for his mother Leah’s honor (Shabbat 55b). A firstborn can lose everything by one hot act, even one he meant well.

Hebrew lesson: נָגִיד (nagid), “ruler, prince.” The KJV’s “chief ruler” is the word Samuel used of David: “Hashem hath commanded him to be captain (nagid) over his people” (1 Samuel 13:14). This book uses it of David (11:2; 17:7), and David of Judah (28:4), and Daniel uses it of the one to come: “unto the Messiah the Prince (mashiach nagid)” (Daniel 9:25). Of Judah came the nagid; “it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah” (Hebrews 7:14).

Our teachers. FFOZ sums up Reuben: “The sons of Reuben did not lead in the conquest of the land. They never produced a king” (End of Days, Lesson 12, “Acharit HaYamim”). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef,” reads Jeremiah’s “Ephraim is my firstborn” (Jeremiah 31:9) as the charter of the Josephite Messiah: “he is the firstborn… because he is the one that comes first before Mashiach ben David,” and “his task is… the ingathering of the exiles.” Joseph holds the birthright; Judah holds the scepter. Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” said where we stand: “We believe Yeshua has begun that work as the son of Yosef and will finish it as the son of David.”

Messianic reading. This is the verse where the two Messiahs of Jewish tradition sit side by side. Joseph is the firstborn: rejected by his brothers, sold to the nations, hidden in a foreign court, and later revealed as the one who kept the family alive. Judah is the king: the lion, the scepter, the house of David. Our Statement of Faith confesses one Messiah who fills both patterns, Yeshua, who came first in the humility of Joseph and will return in the royalty of David. Ezekiel saw “the stick of Joseph” and “the stick of Judah” become one under “David my servant” (Ezekiel 37:16–24). The Chronicler’s parenthesis is the seed of that prophecy.

5:3–17 · Reuben and Gad beyond the Jordan

“The sons of Joel; Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, Shimei his son… Beerah his son, whom Tilgathpilneser king of Assyria carried away captive: he was prince of the Reubenites” (5:4, 6).

Reuben’s register is short and ends in exile. Before that the tribe spread east toward the Euphrates (5:9), and “in the days of Saul they made war with the Hagarites” (5:10), the children of Hagar (Psalm 83:6).

A Gog in Reuben. There are only two men called Gog in the whole Tenakh: the invader of Ezekiel 38–39 and this Reubenite. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Edom #5 – Gog & Mashiach,” noticed it: “there’s only two Gogs mentioned in Tanakh.” He ties it to the lost birthright: “Reuben… lost his birthright… does that sound familiar? Who else lost his birthright? Esav.” Both firstborns, he suggests, spend history trying to take it back; he adds that Reuben’s stone on the breastplate was the odem, the red stone (Exodus 28:17), spelled with the letters of Edom. We take this as remez. Scripture does not say Ezekiel’s Gog descends from Reuben, and we do not teach it. But the hint is true about the human heart: the oldest grievance in the world is the firstborn who lost his place and will not accept the one who took it. The kingdom answers it with a feast, where Joseph feeds the brothers who sold him (Genesis 45:5–11).

Gad. Moses blessed Gad as a lion that “came with the heads of the people” (Deuteronomy 33:21), because Gad crossed the Jordan armed ahead of its brothers (Numbers 32:20–22; Joshua 4:12). The Chronicler names his source: a census “in the days of Jotham king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam king of Israel” (5:17), the last good years before Assyria. The greatest man from Gilead is Eliyahu (1 Kings 17:1); the sages debate whether he was of Gad or of Benjamin (we come to that at 8:27), and some say he was Phinehas the priest (see 5:30 below). The land so often first to be lost gave Israel the prophet who comes “before the coming of the great and dreadful day of Hashem” (Malachi 4:5).

5:18–22 · “The war was of God”

“The sons of Reuben, and the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh… were four and forty thousand seven hundred and threescore, that went out to the war… And they were helped against them, and the Hagarites were delivered into their hand… for they cried to God in the battle, and he was intreated of them; because they put their trust in him” (5:18–20).

This is the heart of the chapter. The enemy are Ishmael’s sons (Genesis 25:15). The Israelites are trained soldiers, “skilful in war.” And the Chronicler gives the credit to none of that. Two Hebrew phrases carry the verse. וַיֵּעָזְרוּ (vayei’azru), “they were helped,” is passive: someone else did the helping. לֵאלֹהִים זָעֲקוּ בַּמִּלְחָמָה (le-Elohim za’aku ba-milchamah), “to God they cried in the battle,” not before it, in it. Then the sum: כִּי מֵהָאֱלֹהִים הַמִּלְחָמָה, “because the war was of God” (5:22).

Why this matters. These tribes did what the Torah commands in war: they cried out and “were remembered before Hashem” (Numbers 10:9). David learned it as a boy: “the battle is Hashem’s” (1 Samuel 17:47). Faith is not the absence of training. It is knowing, in the middle of the fight, whom to cry to.

The spoil is enormous: fifty thousand camels, a quarter of a million sheep (5:21). “And they dwelt in their steads until the captivity” (5:22). The word golah hangs over the victory. The Chronicler never lets his readers forget how the story ends, or why.

5:23–26 · Half Manasseh, and the exile “unto this day”

“And they transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them. And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgathpilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away… unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day” (5:25–26).

The tribes that cried to God in battle later bowed to the gods of the peoples God had removed for their sake. The God who “was intreated” now “stirred up the spirit” of Assyria. Pul and Tiglath-pileser are one king under two names (2 Kings 15:19, 29); the Hebrew verb is singular, “he carried them away.”

What the sages say. The Midrash traces the exile to the day these tribes chose their land. They said, “We will build sheepfolds here for our cattle, and cities for our little ones” (Numbers 32:16), cattle first, and Moses answered with the order reversed (Numbers 32:24). Because they prized their property above their children, they were exiled before all the other tribes (Bamidbar Rabbah 22:7; Rashi on Numbers 32:16). The war they won by prayer brought them a quarter of a million sheep. The sheep did not save them.

Our teachers. FFOZ notes that Halah, Habor and Gozan “indicate a broad scattering across Northeastern Mesopotamia,” and that “the return of the ten lost tribes is a prominent feature of Jewish eschatology as a hallmark of the end of the age” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “The Truth About the Lost Tribes of Israel,” reads the Chronicler’s “unto this day” closely. When this was written, “it’s like they know that Reuven, Gad and half of Menasheh are still over there in those places… they’re not lost, we know that they’re there.” Chronicles says this only of the tribes east of the Jordan: “It’s not ten lost tribes, it’s two lost tribes.” Whatever the count, the Chronicler names the rivers where they live. A people whose address Hashem knows is not lost to Him, and the prophets promise them a road home to “the land of Gilead” (Zechariah 10:10).

5:27–41 · The high priests from Aaron to the exile (KJV 6:1–15)

“The sons of Levi; Gershon, Kohath, and Merari… And the children of Amram; Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam” (5:27, 29).

In the Hebrew Bible the chapter does not end with the exile of the east. It turns at once to Levi and runs the high priests from Aaron to the day Jerusalem fell: more than twenty names, father to son, and two comments.

Aaron’s line. Nadab and Abihu died with strange fire (Leviticus 10:1–2), and Ithamar’s line gave Eli and Abiathar, whom Solomon removed (1 Kings 2:27). The Chronicler follows Eleazar, because Eleazar’s son was Phinehas, and to Phinehas Hashem gave “the covenant of an everlasting priesthood” (Numbers 25:13). The sages said, “Phinehas is Elijah” (Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 47; Targum Yonatan on Exodus 6:18): both zealous for the covenant, both promised peace. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The 4 sons from the Passover Haggadah – Part 18,” says it plainly: “Who is Eliyahu? Eliyahu, first of all, is Pinchas.” He builds a kabbalistic structure on it that goes beyond what we teach, and we leave that; the identification itself is old. The priesthood that begins with Phinehas’s zeal will stand at the end with Elijah’s call to the fathers and the children (Malachi 4:5–6).

Zadok. “And Ahitub begat Zadok, and Zadok begat Ahimaaz” (5:34). Zadok, David’s priest, anointed Solomon (1 Kings 1:39), and his house held the high priesthood through the First Temple. Ezekiel gives it the altar in the Temple to come: “the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary… they shall come near to me” (Ezekiel 44:15). FFOZ teaches that in the Messianic Era “only those descended from the priestly family of Zadok are privileged to serve in the priesthood,” while “the Davidic Messiah from the tribe of Judah does not qualify for the job” and serves instead as the Prince, the nasi (End of Days, Lesson 20, “Hamon-Gog”). Yeshua’s priesthood is “after the order of Melchisedec” in the heavenly sanctuary (Hebrews 7:17; 8:4). It does not cancel Aaron’s. Our Statement of Faith says the Torah is not replaced; Ezekiel says the sons of Zadok will stand at the altar again.

Azariah “who executed the priest’s office.” “Johanan begat Azariah, (he it is that executed the priest’s office in the temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem:)” (5:36). Every priest in the list served; why say it of this one? The traditional commentators answer that this is the Azariah who withstood King Uzziah when the king took a censer: “It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto Hashem, but to the priests the sons of Aaron” (2 Chronicles 26:18). He kept a king out of the Holy Place. Priest and king are two offices, and even David’s heirs could not blur them. That is why the Priest-King of Psalm 110 had to be “after the order of Melchisedec” and not after the order of Aaron.

The end of the list. “Shallum begat Hilkiah” (5:39), who found the book of the Torah under Josiah (2 Kings 22:8). Seraiah was executed at Riblah (2 Kings 25:18–21), and “Jehozadak went into captivity” (5:41). A long list of faithful fathers is itself a blessing.

Messianic reading. The Chronicler stops at Jehozadak, but his readers knew the next name: “Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest” (Haggai 1:1). Zechariah set crowns on that man’s head and said, “Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH… he shall build the temple of Hashem… and he shall be a priest upon his throne” (Zechariah 6:11–13). A priest wearing a king’s crown, as a sign of the Branch of David who would hold both. The last name in the list of priests points straight at the Son of David.

Chapter 6 · The Levites, the Singers and the Cities of Refuge

Read 1 Chronicles 6 in Hebrew and English →

6:1–15 · The three clans, and the house of Samuel (KJV 6:16–30)

“The sons of Levi; Gershom, Kohath, and Merari” (6:1).

The Hebrew chapter 6 starts over with Levi, this time for the whole tribe. Each clan had its work in the wilderness: Kohath carried the holy vessels on their shoulders, Gershom the curtains, Merari the boards and bars (Numbers 3–4).

Korah’s sons. The Kohathite list runs “Korah his son, Assir his son, Elkanah his son” (6:7–8). Korah led the rebellion against Moses and Aaron, but “the children of Korah died not” (Numbers 26:11). The sages say they repented at the last moment, and “a place was fortified for them in Gehinnom, and they sat upon it and sang” (Sanhedrin 110a). From them came the psalms that bear their name, and from them came Samuel. The Midrash says this was Korah’s mistake: he saw Samuel, “who was weighed against Moses and Aaron” (Psalm 99:6), descending from him, and concluded that he himself was destined for greatness. He did not see that his sons would repent and he would not (Bamidbar Rabbah 18:8).

Samuel the Levite. “And the sons of Samuel; the firstborn Vashni, and Abiah” (6:13). The book of Samuel calls Elkanah “an Ephrathite” (1 Samuel 1:1); the Chronicler settles it: he was a Kohathite Levite living in the hills of Ephraim, which is why the boy could sleep in the sanctuary at Shiloh (1 Samuel 3:3). “Vashni” is not a name; Rashi on Chronicles and Radak read וַשְׁנִי (va-sheni) as “and the second,” so the verse means “the firstborn [Joel], and the second, Abiah,” as in 1 Samuel 8:2. Those sons “took bribes” (1 Samuel 8:3), and Israel used them as the excuse to ask for a king. The register keeps the whole family, not only the honorable.

6:16–32 · Heman, Asaph and Ethan: song after the Ark had rest (KJV 6:31–47)

“And these are they whom David set over the service of song in the house of Hashem, after that the ark had rest. And they ministered before the dwelling place of the tabernacle of the congregation with singing, until Solomon had built the house of Hashem in Jerusalem” (6:16–17).

Three men, three clans, three positions: Heman the Kohathite in the center (6:18), “his brother Asaph, who stood on his right hand” (6:24), the Gershonite, and “the sons of Merari… on the left hand: Ethan” (6:29). Levi’s three sons had camped on three sides of the Tabernacle (Numbers 3). Now their descendants stand on three sides of the song.

Hebrew lesson: מִמְּנוֹחַ הָאָרוֹן (mi-menoach ha-aron), “from the rest of the Ark.” The singing began when the Ark stopped wandering. When David brought it to Zion (chapters 15–16), he appointed Heman, Asaph and Ethan “with cymbals of brass” (15:19), and Israel’s worship became a daily song. Menuchah, rest, is David’s word for the Temple (28:2; Psalm 132:8). Song is what a people does when the Ark is at rest.

Heman, Samuel’s grandson. “Heman a singer, the son of Joel, the son of Shemuel” (6:18). The chief musician of Israel was the prophet’s grandson, and his line runs back through Korah to Levi. The rebel’s house gave Israel its leading voice. Heman is later called “the king’s seer in the words of God” (25:5). Psalm 88, the darkest psalm in the book, is “Maschil of Heman the Ezrahite,” and Psalm 89, the great psalm of the Davidic covenant, is “Maschil of Ethan the Ezrahite” (the commentators differ on whether these are the same men as the wise men of Judah in 2:6).

What the sages say. Song in the sanctuary is not decoration; the Talmud derives it from the Torah. “To do the service of service” (Numbers 4:47): “what is a service that belongs to another service? Say, this is song” (Arakhin 11a).

Our teachers. FFOZ carries the song into the age to come. The Levites of the Second Temple “played harps of seven strings; in the Days of the Messiah, the harps will have eight strings (Psalm 6:1), but in the World to Come, the harps will have ten strings,” and the “New Song” of Psalms 96 and 98 is the “tenth song” that “belongs to the age to come” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). Heman the singer was Heman the seer.

Messianic reading. The choir sang Psalm 89: “I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, Thy seed will I establish for ever” (Psalm 89:3–4). They sang Psalm 88 too, the cry of one “free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave” (Psalm 88:5). Israel’s hymnal held both, the throne that lasts forever and the righteous one who goes down into darkness: Mashiach ben Yosef and Mashiach ben David in song. When the Lamb opens the scroll, the elders “sung a new song” (Revelation 5:9). The service that began when the Ark had rest will not end.

6:33–38 · Aaron’s sons and the atonement (KJV 6:48–53)

“But Aaron and his sons offered upon the altar of the burnt offering, and on the altar of incense, and were appointed for all the work of the place most holy, and to make an atonement for Israel, according to all that Moses the servant of God had commanded” (6:34).

This verse draws the line Korah tried to erase. The Levites serve (6:33); the sons of Aaron offer. The two altars, the Holy of Holies and the work of atonement belong to the kohanim alone, and the standard is “all that Moses the servant of God had commanded.” Then Aaron’s line is repeated down to Ahimaaz (6:35–38), because the next section tells where these priests lived.

Why this matters. Yeshua “by his own blood… entered in once into the holy place” (Hebrews 9:12) as High Priest of the heavenly sanctuary. That does not finish Aaron’s sons on earth. Hashem swore to Levi as He swore to David: “If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night… then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant… and with the Levites the priests, my ministers” (Jeremiah 33:20–21). Throne and altar stand or fall together, and both stand.

6:39–66 · The Levitical cities and the cities of refuge (KJV 6:54–81)

“And they gave them Hebron in the land of Judah, and the suburbs thereof round about it. But the fields of the city, and the villages thereof, they gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh” (6:40–41).

Levi received no territory; “Hashem is their inheritance” (Deuteronomy 18:2). Instead every tribe gave towns with pasture land, מִגְרָשׁ (migrash), around them: thirteen for Aaron’s sons, ten for the rest of Kohath, thirteen for Gershom, twelve for Merari. Forty-eight in all, as Moses commanded (Numbers 35:7). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “The Truth About the Lost Tribes of Israel,” describes it: the Levites “were just given 48 different towns dispersed across the holy land… six of them were cities of refuge… three on the east side, three on the west side of the Jordan.”

Where the priests lived. All thirteen priestly towns lie in Judah, Simeon and Benjamin (6:45, 50), within a day or two of Jerusalem. The lot put Aaron’s sons around the city that would one day hold the Temple, long before anyone knew it. Among them: Hebron, where David was anointed, and Anathoth (6:45), Jeremiah’s birthplace (Jeremiah 1:1). Caleb kept Hebron’s fields while the priests had the city: the spy who followed Hashem fully and the house of Aaron shared the hill of the patriarchs’ tomb.

The six cities of refuge. Six of the forty-eight were עָרֵי הַמִּקְלָט (arei ha-miklat): Hebron, Shechem and Kedesh west of the Jordan; Bezer, Ramoth in Gilead and Golan to the east (6:42, 52, 56, 61, 63, 65). The manslayer flees there, the congregation judges between him and the avenger of blood, and he stays “until the death of the high priest” (Numbers 35:25). The sages added mercy to the law. The roads were signposted “Refuge, refuge” at every crossroads (Makkot 10b). The mothers of the high priests brought food and clothing to the refugees so that they would not pray for their sons to die (Mishnah Makkot 2:6). And the words of Torah themselves are a refuge (Makkot 10a), which is why the refuges were Levite towns: the man who fled for his life found himself living among teachers.

Our teachers. FFOZ sees the end of the pattern: “New Jerusalem is the city of refuge of the World to Come… The refugee remains within the city’s walls until the death of the high priest, after which he may return home. This detail hints toward the undying high priest of the order of Melchizedek, who secures a permanent refuge for those who cleave to Him” (End of Days, Lessons 42–43, “Length of Days–City of Refuge”; Hebrews 5:9). Hebrews uses the picture itself: we “have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:18).

FFOZ also brings Rambam’s proof of Mashiach from these cities. Moses said that when Hashem enlarges Israel’s border, “then shalt thou add three cities more for thee” (Deuteronomy 19:9). Nine were commanded; only six were ever set apart. Rambam reasons that “this commandment has never been fulfilled. Surely the Almighty did not give this commandment in vain” (Hilchot Melachim 11:2), so a king must come who enlarges the land (End of Days, Lesson 34, “Camp of Israel”). An unfinished mitzvah is a promise.

Why the Levites were scattered. Jacob’s word to Levi was “I will scatter them in Israel” (Genesis 49:7). Here is the scattering, and it has become a gift: “They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy Torah” (Deuteronomy 33:10). Forty-eight towns in twelve tribes meant a teacher within a day’s walk of every Israelite. Rambam draws the lesson wide: anyone “whose spirit moves him… to set himself apart to stand before Hashem, to serve Him… is sanctified as holy of holies, and Hashem will be his portion” (Hilchot Shemitah ve-Yovel 13:13). Peter says it of the whole redeemed community: “a royal priesthood, an holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9; Exodus 19:6). The Levite with no land of his own, living among his brothers to teach them, is the pattern for every disciple of the Son of David.

Drawing it together

1. Hashem keeps the register. Jabez’s two verses, Bithiah’s one word, Simeon’s princes “written by name,” the tribes beyond the Jordan “unto this day”: the Chronicler writes down people who seemed to have dropped out of the story. Malachi saw “a book of remembrance… for them that feared Hashem” (Malachi 3:16). These chapters are what such a book looks like.

2. The birthright and the scepter. Reuben lost the birthright by one hot act; Joseph received it; Judah received the rule (5:1–2). Joseph the rejected firstborn and Judah the king are the two patterns of Mashiach, and we confess one Messiah who fills both: Yeshua, who came as the son of Joseph and will return as the Son of David.

3. Faith in the battle, faithlessness in the peace. The two and a half tribes “cried to God in the battle” (5:20) and won. Then, settled and rich, they “went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land” (5:25) and were carried away. Hashem answers prayer in the fight; He also judges what we do with the spoil.

4. Priest and king are two offices, and one Messiah holds both. Azariah kept Uzziah out of the sanctuary. Zadok’s sons will offer again in Ezekiel’s Temple. Yeshua is High Priest “after the order of Melchisedec,” not Aaron, and Jehozadak’s son wore a crown as a sign of the Branch who would be “a priest upon his throne” (Zechariah 6:13). Torah is not replaced; it is fulfilled from the throne.

5. Scattered to teach, gathered to sing. Levi’s curse, “I will scatter them in Israel,” became forty-eight towns of teachers and six open doors for the hunted. And when the Ark had rest, Levi stood in three ranks and sang. Our hope has the same shape: Israel gathered, the undying High Priest our refuge, and a new song on ten strings.

Questions for discussion

1. What does the name Jabez mean, and how does his prayer answer it? How does Temurah 16a read each line of the prayer?
2. Who do the sages say Bithiah was, and why is she called “the Jewess” and “daughter of Yah”? What does Megillah 13a learn from the word “bare”?
3. How does Bava Batra 91b find the story of Ruth in 1 Chronicles 4:22–23?
4. Why was the tribe of Simeon so small, and what became of it? How did FFOZ describe the different ways Jacob’s word in Genesis 49:7 came true for Simeon and for Levi?
5. Explain 1 Chronicles 5:1–2 in your own words. Which three “crowns” did Reuben forfeit, and who received each? How does this verse hold Mashiach ben Yosef and Mashiach ben David together?
6. What is a nagid? Where else does the word appear, and why does it matter that Daniel 9:25 uses it?
7. What did the two and a half tribes do in the middle of their battle (5:20), and once they were settled (5:25)? What does the Midrash say about their choice of land in Numbers 32?
8. Why does the Chronicler say of Azariah alone that he “executed the priest’s office”? What does this teach about priest and king, and about Psalm 110?
9. Who were Heman, Asaph and Ethan, and what did it mean that the song began “after that the ark had rest”? How did FFOZ connect the Levites’ harps to the age to come?
10. How does the law of the city of refuge point to the High Priest who does not die (Hebrews 5:9; 6:18)? Why does Rambam see the three unbuilt cities of refuge as a proof of Mashiach?

Sources

Scripture: 1 Chronicles 2, 4–6, 11, 15–17, 25, 28; Genesis 25, 35, 45, 48–49; Exodus 19, 28; Numbers 1, 3–4, 10, 25–26, 32, 35; Deuteronomy 18, 19, 33; Joshua 4, 19; Judges 3; 1 Samuel 1, 3, 8, 13, 15, 17, 30; 1 Kings 1–2, 17; 2 Kings 15, 22, 25; 2 Chronicles 3, 5, 26; Psalms 83, 88–89, 99, 132; Jeremiah 1, 31, 33; Ezekiel 37–38, 44; Daniel 9; Micah 5; Obadiah 1; Haggai 1; Zechariah 6, 10; Malachi 3–4; Matthew 1, 6–7; John 1; Acts 7; Hebrews 5–9; 1 Peter 2; Revelation 5, 7, 19.

Talmud and Midrash: Bava Batra 91b; Temurah 16a; Megillah 13a; Sanhedrin 19b, 94a, 98a, 99a, 110a; Sotah 12b; Shabbat 55b; Arakhin 11a; Makkot 10a–b; Mishnah Makkot 2:6; Vayikra Rabbah 1:3; Shemot Rabbah 1:26; Bamidbar Rabbah 18:8, 22:7; Ruth Rabbah 2:1–2; Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 47; Targum Onkelos on Genesis 49:3; Targum Yonatan on Exodus 6:18.

Commentators: Rashi on Genesis 49:7 and Numbers 32:16; Rashi on Chronicles and Radak on 1 Chronicles 4:1 and 6:13, and the commentators on 5:36; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim 11:2 and Hilchot Shemitah ve-Yovel 13:13.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 12, “Acharit HaYamim”; Lesson 20, “Hamon-Gog”; Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; Lesson 34, “Camp of Israel”; Lessons 42–43, “Length of Days–City of Refuge”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef” (https://youtu.be/HUxIh1LdM3o), “Understanding Edom #5 – Gog & Mashiach” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJv-1glv5EM), “Mashiach: Now or Never” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmuGREYwQjs) and “The Truth About the Lost Tribes of Israel” (https://youtu.be/RRLA9HYkdgI); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “The 4 sons from the Passover Haggadah – Part 18” (https://youtu.be/mzf-OmOgMeI); our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David”; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

These three chapters finish the long family register that opens Chronicles. Chapter 7 walks through six more tribes: Issachar, Benjamin, Naphtali, Manasseh, Ephraim and Asher. Chapter 8 returns to Benjamin and follows the house of Kish and Saul through Jonathan’s descendants for twelve generations. Chapter 9 steps into the Chronicler’s own day and names the people who came home from Babylon and took up their posts in Jerusalem: Israelites, kohanim, Levites, gatekeepers, bakers of the showbread and singers. Then it repeats Saul’s family tree, and the next thing we read is the battle of Gilboa.

Why end a genealogy with a list of doorkeepers? Because that is what the lists were for. The returned community was small, poor and surrounded. What it had was a Temple, a priesthood and a record that said who belonged where. We said in our introduction to chapters 1–3 why the sages held that Chronicles was given “only to be expounded” (Vayikra Rabbah 1:3). Hidden in these names are the sons of Ephraim who left Egypt too early, a woman who built three towns, a girl who outlived the exile in Egypt, and the gatekeepers who wrote Psalm 84.

These chapters also ask what it means to be written down. Malachi, preaching to this same community, speaks of “a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared Hashem” (Malachi 3:16). The Chronicler’s registers are the first draft of that book.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 7 · The Tribes of the North and the Sons of Joseph

Read 1 Chronicles 7 in Hebrew and English →

7:1–5 · Issachar, the tribe that understood the times

“Now the sons of Issachar were, Tola, and Puah, Jashub, and Shimrom, four” (7:1). Then the Chronicler does what he will do all through this chapter: he counts soldiers. Tola’s house alone had 22,600 “valiant men of might” in David’s day; the whole tribe came to 87,000 (7:2–5). These are military rolls, probably from David’s census, kept so the returned community would know that the northern tribes were once strong and were counted.

What the sages say. Issachar’s fame is not its army. The men who came to crown David at Hebron include “the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (12:33; KJV 12:32). The Talmud makes that the mark of the tribe:

Rava said: You will not find a Torah scholar who issues rulings unless he is from the tribe of Levi or from the tribe of Issachar. Levi, as it is written, “They shall teach Jacob thy judgments” (Deuteronomy 33:10). Issachar, as it is written, “And of the children of Issachar, men that had understanding of the times.” (Yoma 26a)

The Midrash says two hundred heads of the Sanhedrin came from Issachar (Bereshit Rabbah 72:5), and Rashi on Deuteronomy 33:18 explains the old partnership: Zebulun traded and fed Issachar, who sat in the tents of Torah. The Chronicler counts Issachar’s soldiers; the sages count its scholars. Yeshua rebuked a generation that could read the sky but “can ye not discern the signs of the times?” (Matthew 16:3). Issachar is the tribe that could.

7:6–12 · Benjamin, and a tribe called “Another”

“The sons of Benjamin; Bela, and Becher, and Jediael, three” (7:6). Genesis 46:21 gives Benjamin ten sons, Numbers 26:38–39 five, and chapter 8 will give five again with different names. The traditional answer is that the lists come from different times: some sons died childless, some appear under two names (Jediael is often taken to be Ashbel), and a clan can be counted under a father or a grandfather. Chronicles copies from several registers and lets us see the seams.

Then a strange verse: “Shuppim also, and Huppim, the children of Ir, and Hushim, the sons of Aher” (7:12). Hushim is the only son of Dan (Genesis 46:23), and אַחֵר (Acher) means “another.” The traditional commentators, Rashi on Chronicles among them, read “the sons of Another” as the sons of Dan, named sideways because of the idol that stood in Dan from the Judges to the fall of the north (Judges 18:30; 1 Kings 12:29). Whatever the reason, Dan has no family list anywhere in these nine chapters, and neither does Zebulun.

Our teachers. FFOZ notices the same silence in Revelation 7, which seals twelve thousand from each tribe and leaves Dan out. Irenaeus and Hippolytus built a theory that the antichrist would come from Dan. FFOZ calls that “not a very persuasive argument,” notes that it became “a favorite topic for antisemitic conspiracies,” and suggests the omission is a scribal slip in the Greek (End of Days, Lesson 12, “Acharit HaYamim”). A tribe can be hidden in a list without being cut off from Israel; Ezekiel’s restored land still has a portion for Dan, named first (Ezekiel 48:1).

7:13 · Naphtali, in one verse

“The sons of Naphtali; Jahziel, and Guni, and Jezer, and Shallum, the sons of Bilhah” (7:13). That is all. The closing words quietly group Naphtali with Dan, Bilhah’s other son, who has just gone by as “Another.”

Naphtali’s land was the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and it was Naphtali Isaiah had in view when he promised that the Assyrian darkness would not last: “the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali… Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 8:23–9:1; KJV 9:1–2).

Messianic reading. Matthew quotes those words when Yeshua settles in Capernaum, “in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim” (Matthew 4:13–16). Our Statement of Faith notes that even the Zohar expected the King Messiah to be revealed first in Galilee. The tribe that gets one verse in Chronicles gets the first light of the kingdom.

7:14–19 · Manasseh: Machir, Gilead and the daughters of Zelophehad

The Hebrew of 7:14–15 is difficult, and the KJV’s brackets show the translators struggling. The outline is clear. Manasseh’s son Machir, born of an Aramean concubine, is “the father of Gilead”; the Machirites took Gilead in Moses’ day (Numbers 32:39–40). Through Machir come the clans Numbers 26:29–33 also knows, including Abiezer (7:18), Gideon’s family (Judges 6:11).

And this: “the name of the second was Zelophehad: and Zelophehad had daughters” (7:15). The Chronicler does not need to name them. Everyone knew Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah, who asked Moses for their father’s inheritance and were told, “The daughters of Zelophehad speak right” (Numbers 27:7).

What the sages say. The Talmud praises them in three words: wise, expounders of Torah, and righteous (Bava Batra 119b). Rashi on Numbers 26:64 adds that the decree of death in the wilderness fell on the men and not the women, because the women loved the land: the men said, “let us return into Egypt” (Numbers 14:4); the daughters said, “Give unto us… a possession” (Numbers 27:4). The Chronicler, writing for people who had just come back to the land, names a family whose daughters wanted it when their fathers did not.

7:20–29 · Ephraim: the sons who went out too early, and Joshua

Now comes the one piece of story in the chapter.

“And Ezer, and Elead, whom the men of Gath that were born in that land slew, because they came down to take away their cattle. And Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him. And when he went in to his wife, she conceived, and bare a son, and he called his name Beriah, because it went evil with his house” (7:21–23).

The Hebrew can be read two ways: the men of Gath came down to steal Ephraim’s cattle, or Ephraim’s sons went down to take Philistine cattle and were killed. The plain sense, which Radak follows, is a border raid in Egypt’s time, while Ephraim was alive to mourn.

What the sages say. The Talmud reads it as something much larger. Discussing Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones, it asks who those dead were, and Rav answers from this passage:

Rav said: These were the sons of Ephraim, who calculated the end and erred, as it is said, “And the sons of Ephraim; Shuthelah, and Bered his son… whom the men of Gath that were born in that land slew,” and it is written, “And Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him.” (Sanhedrin 92b)

On this reading the sons of Ephraim counted the four hundred years Hashem had told Abraham (Genesis 15:13) from the wrong starting point, decided the exile was over, and marched out of Egypt on their own, thirty years early. They took the coast road, straight into the Philistines of Gath, and were slaughtered. The Targum attributed to Yonatan on Exodus 13:17 says this is why Hashem did not lead Israel “through the way of the land of the Philistines”: they would have seen their brothers’ bones. And according to Rav, those are the bones Ezekiel saw come to life (Ezekiel 37).

Hebrew lesson: בְּרִיעָה (Beriah), “in evil.” כִּי בְרָעָה הָיְתָה בְּבֵיתוֹ, “because evil was in his house.” A child named for a disaster. Yet Beriah’s line is the one the Chronicler follows down to Joshua (7:25–27). The name born of grief carries the future.

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef, Part 3,” tells it with the Talmud open: a group of Ephraimites “miscalculated by thirty years,” said “the four hundred years deadline came, we’re supposed to be out of slavery now,” escaped and “were killed by the Philistines”; the Gemara “brings two proofs from the book of Chronicles,” including the verse that Ephraim “mourned over his children many days.” He adds why it matters: the great resurrection scene in the Prophets is tied to the sons of Joseph, and so to Mashiach ben Yosef. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The 4 sons from the Passover Haggadah – Part 17,” says the sons of Ephraim “tried to leave Egypt, to go out of exile, before the time,” and that their attempt “is like the coming of Mashiach ben Yosef before Mashiach ben David.” We take the insight and leave his chronological symmetries aside.

Messianic reading. Our Statement of Faith teaches that Yeshua came first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef, “also called Mashiach ben Ephraim,” suffering, rejected and raised by Hashem, and will return in the fullness of Mashiach ben David. The sons of Ephraim are the first picture of that pattern: Ephraim’s sons go out ahead of the nation, die by the Philistines’ hand, their father mourns, and the prophet sees them rise. Jeremiah reads like a commentary on 7:22: “I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself… I will surely have mercy upon him” (Jeremiah 31:18, 20). There is a warning in it too, and both our teachers draw it: the end cannot be forced. “Of that day and hour knoweth no man” (Matthew 24:36). Benei Avraham sets no dates for that reason.

“His brethren came to comfort him.” Here Scripture shows brothers coming to comfort a mourner for his children, one root of nichum aveilim. In our class “Hilchot Avelut – The Jewish Path to Mourning,” we taught that the comforter’s work is to “sit and be present, give practical help,” and that “in Judaism the practice is not to cheer people up… but supporting them in mourning and sadness.” Ephraim’s brothers did not fix anything. They came.

A woman who built cities. “And his daughter was Sherah, who built Bethhoron the nether, and the upper, and Uzzensherah” (7:24). No other woman in the Tenakh is said to have built a city. Beth-horon guards the pass from the coast to the hill country, where Joshua’s hailstones fell (Joshua 10:10–11). The Chronicler, writing for people rebuilding walls, remembers that one of Ephraim’s builders was a daughter.

From Ephraim to Joshua. “Ammihud his son, Elishama his son, Non his son, Jehoshuah his son” (7:26–27). Elishama son of Ammihud was prince of Ephraim in the wilderness (Numbers 1:10), and his grandson is Joshua. This is the only genealogy of Joshua in the Bible.

Hebrew lesson: יְהוֹשֻׁעַ (Yehoshua). His name was Hoshea, “salvation,” until Moses added a letter and made it “Hashem saves” (Numbers 13:16); the Talmud hears a prayer in it, “May Yah save you from the counsel of the spies” (Sotah 34b). After the exile the name was shortened to יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshua); Nehemiah calls him “Jeshua the son of Nun” (Nehemiah 8:17). That is our Master’s name. The first Yeshua, from Ephraim, led Israel into the inheritance. The Son of David who bears the same name leads us into the greater one (Hebrews 4:8–9). Verses 28–29 close with the towns of Ephraim and Manasseh, from Bethel to Megiddo and Beth-shean: “In these dwelt the children of Joseph.”

7:30–40 · Asher, and Serah their sister

“The sons of Asher; Imnah, and Isuah, and Ishuai, and Beriah, and Serah their sister” (7:30). The chapter ends with Asher’s roll, 26,000 “choice and mighty men of valour” (7:40).

Serah. Three times the Tenakh counts Asher’s family, and three times Serah is there: when Jacob goes down to Egypt (Genesis 46:17), when Moses counts the people more than two centuries later (Numbers 26:46), and here. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Lebanon & Iran in the End of Days,” tells what the sages made of that: Serah is named “coming into Egypt” and again “at the Exodus… separated by at least 210 years,” and the oral tradition says she broke the news to Jacob, in song, that Joseph was alive, and was blessed with long life for it. The Talmud says she showed Moses where Joseph’s coffin was sunk in the Nile (Sotah 13a). The Midrash says that when the elders told her Moses had said פָּקֹד פָּקַדְתִּי, “I have surely visited you” (Exodus 3:16), she knew he was the redeemer, because that was the password Joseph had left (Shemot Rabbah 5:13; Genesis 50:24–25).

Messianic reading. The Torah’s own picture is of an old woman of Asher who knows the sign of redemption and recognizes the redeemer when he comes. Luke gives us her sister: “Anna, a prophetess… of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age… which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day,” and she “spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem” (Luke 2:36–38). The word Serah watched for, pakad, “visit,” is the word Zechariah sings: “he hath visited and redeemed his people” (Luke 1:68). FFOZ notes that in the Second Temple era “representatives of the twelve tribes could still be identified,” naming “Hannah from the tribe of Asher and Saul of Benjamin” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). Asher’s named daughter in Chronicles and Asher’s named daughter in the Gospels have the same job.

Chapter 8 · Benjamin, and the House of Saul

Read 1 Chronicles 8 in Hebrew and English →

8:1–28 · The families of Benjamin, from Geba to Jerusalem

Benjamin gets a second, longer list. The first reason is Saul. The second is that Benjamin stayed with Judah when the kingdom split (1 Kings 12:21), so the Chronicler’s readers were Benjamites as much as Judahites (Ezra 1:5), and the Temple they had rebuilt stood on Benjamin’s ground.

What the sages say. Moses blessed Benjamin, “he shall dwell between his shoulders” (Deuteronomy 33:12), which the Sifrei reads of the Temple on Benjamin’s height (Sifrei Devarim 352). The Talmud draws the map:

What was in the portion of Judah? The Temple mount, the chambers and the courtyards. What was in the portion of Benjamin? The porch, the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies… therefore Benjamin was privileged to become host to the Shechinah. (Yoma 12a)

Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Revelations from Jerusalem,” makes the point from the other side: David chose a capital “half between Yehuda and Binyamin because Binyamin represents the children of Rachel, and Yehuda represents the children of Leah. So you want to have both of them together.” That is why the chapter ends twice with “these dwelt in Jerusalem” (8:28, 32).

The names. Ehud and Gera (8:3, 6) recall the left-handed judge (Judges 3:15). Beriah and Shema of Aijalon “drove away the inhabitants of Gath” (8:13). Read that beside 7:21: in Ephraim’s list the men of Gath kill the sons of Joseph; in Benjamin’s list Rachel’s other children drive the men of Gath out.

A hint about Elijah. Verse 27 names “Jaresiah, and Eliah, and Zichri, the sons of Jeroham.” The sages disputed where Elijah came from: Gad, from “the inhabitants of Gilead” (1 Kings 17:1), or Benjamin, from this verse. The Midrash tells that while they argued, Elijah appeared and said, “My masters, why do you trouble yourselves over me? I am of the sons of Rachel” (Bereshit Rabbah 71:9). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The 4 sons from the Passover Haggadah – Part 18,” brings this midrash and this verse: Elijah “presents himself like it is written” in Chronicles, where “the second name there is Eliya.” He goes on to a kabbalistic scheme of Elijah’s souls, which we leave. If the midrash is right, the herald of the Messiah is hiding in a Benjamite name list, a very Chronicles kind of place to find him.

8:29–40 · Gibeon, Kish, Saul and the line of Jonathan

“And at Gibeon dwelt the father of Gibeon; whose wife’s name was Maachah” (8:29). Chapter 9 names him Jehiel (9:35). Then: “Ner begat Kish, and Kish begat Saul, and Saul begat Jonathan, and Malchishua, and Abinadab, and Eshbaal” (8:33).

Ner and Kish. Samuel says Kish and Ner were brothers, sons of Abiel (1 Samuel 9:1; 14:51); Chronicles says “Ner begat Kish.” The commentators reconcile the two: Jehiel is Samuel’s Abiel; he had sons Kish and Ner (9:36); Ner named his own son Kish after his brother, and that younger Kish was Saul’s father, so “son of Abiel” means grandson, as it often does. A midrash says Saul’s grandfather was called נֵר (Ner), “lamp,” because he lit lamps for the public in dark alleys, and for that light his house received the kingdom (Vayikra Rabbah 9:2). Ner is also Abner’s father, “father of the lamp” (see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 3).

Hebrew lesson: אֶשְׁבַּעַל (Eshbaal) and מְרִיב בַּעַל (Meribbaal). The Chronicler keeps the original names of Saul’s son and grandson. Samuel calls them Ish-bosheth, “man of shame,” and Mephibosheth, because baal had become an idol’s name and the prophets replaced it with boshet (Hosea 9:10). Radak comments on this verse; see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 2.

Jonathan’s house. “And the son of Jonathan was Meribbaal; and Meribbaal begat Micah” (8:34). Micah is the “young son” of 2 Samuel 9:12, whose lame father ate at David’s table. From Micah the line runs to Azel and his six sons, and to Ulam, whose sons were “mighty men of valour, archers, and had many sons, and sons’ sons, an hundred and fifty” (8:35–40). Twelve generations after Jonathan, down to about the exile.

Saul’s house did not die at Gilboa, or with Ish-bosheth, or on the hill in 2 Samuel 21. David had sworn to Jonathan, “thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house for ever” (1 Samuel 20:15), and “the king spared Mephibosheth” (2 Samuel 21:7). Here is the proof, in names. By the end of the list there were a hundred and fifty of them, still what Benjamites had always been: bowmen who could use “both the right hand and the left” (12:2; compare Judges 20:16). When David taught Judah “the use of the bow” after Gilboa (2 Samuel 1:18), he was teaching Judah to be what Benjamin was.

Messianic reading. Benjamin, Rachel’s younger son, keeps turning up at the hinges of Israel’s story. Its first king falls, and the kingdom passes to Judah. Then in Persia “Mordecai… the son of Kish, a Benjamite” (Esther 2:5) finishes Saul’s unfinished war with Amalek. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Trump, Iran & the Year of the Horse, Part 2,” observes that only two men in the Tenakh are paraded in royal honor as mishneh lamelech, second to the king: Joseph in Pharaoh’s second chariot and Mordechai on the king’s horse, “and they’re both descendants of Rachel… Mashiach ben Yosef energy in both cases, saving Israel from Amalek.” Jacob saw it: “Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil” (Genesis 49:27); Rashi reads the morning of Saul and the night of Mordechai and Esther.

Then one more Benjamite named Saul stood up in a synagogue in Antioch and preached this family tree: “God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin… And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David” (Acts 13:21–22), and from David’s seed, Yeshua. In our class “Paul & Other Hard Topics — A Torah-Faithful Perspective,” we noted that Paul “was from the tribe of Benjamin but he didn’t refer to himself as a Benjamite… He said I’m a Jew,” because Yehudi had come to mean loyalty to Judah’s king and Torah (Romans 11:1; Acts 22:3). The Talmud says the same of Mordechai: he is called Yehudi because he rejected idolatry (Megillah 13a). The tribe of the first king became the tribe that announces the last one.

Chapter 9 · Those Who Came Back

Read 1 Chronicles 9 in Hebrew and English →

9:1–3 · “All Israel were reckoned by genealogies”

“So all Israel were reckoned by genealogies; and, behold, they were written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah, who were carried away to Babylon for their transgression” (9:1).

With one verse the Chronicler closes eight chapters and names his sources. Then he turns the page: “Now the first inhabitants that dwelt in their possessions in their cities were, the Israelites, the priests, Levites, and the Nethinims” (9:2). “The first inhabitants” are the first to come home, the generation of Zerubbabel, and the list runs parallel to Nehemiah 11.

Hebrew lesson: הִתְיַחְשׂוּ (hityachsu), “they were reckoned by genealogy.” The root gives us yichus, lineage. In the Persian period a record was the difference between serving at the altar and being sent away: “These sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but they were not found: therefore were they, as polluted, put from the priesthood” (Ezra 2:62).

Hebrew lesson: מַעַל (ma’al), “transgression.” This is the Chronicler’s word for the sin that loses the land. Achan “transgressed in the thing accursed” (2:7); the two and a half tribes “transgressed” and were carried away (5:25); Judah went to Babylon “for their transgression” (9:1); and in the next chapter, “So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against Hashem” (10:13). Ma’al is unfaithfulness to a trust, the sin of a steward. The list of faithful stewards that follows is the answer to it.

The Nethinim, “the given ones,” were the Gibeonites whom Joshua made “hewers of wood and drawers of water… for the altar” (Joshua 9:27), and whom David barred from marrying into Israel after 2 Samuel 21 (Yevamot 79a; see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 21). Yet here they are, counted among the returnees. Hashem’s record keeps even the servants.

Four tribes in Jerusalem. “And in Jerusalem dwelt of the children of Judah, and of the children of Benjamin, and of the children of Ephraim, and Manasseh” (9:3). Nehemiah 11:4 names only Judah and Benjamin; the Chronicler adds the sons of Joseph. Refugees from the north had been streaming into Judah since Asa and Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 15:9; 30:11). FFOZ puts it plainly: survivors of Samaria “intermarried with the tribe of Judah. Even so, some retained records of their ancestry. By the time Judah went into exile, the nation was already composed of families from all twelve tribes of Israel” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “The Truth About the Lost Tribes of Israel,” says the same: many northerners “came south and just relocated and lived in Yehuda… they slowly all became Yehudim.” The “lost tribes” are, in large part, sitting in the pews of Judah.

9:4–9 · Judah and Benjamin in Jerusalem

The Judahites are listed by clan: Perez, “the Shilonites,” that is, Shelah (Numbers 26:20), and Zerah (9:4–6). All three surviving sons of Judah from Genesis 38 have families in restored Jerusalem; the whole house of Judah came home, not only the royal clan. The Benjamites follow, 956 of them (9:7–9).

The numbers are small: 690 of Zerah, 956 of Benjamin, a few thousand in all. Zechariah asked this same people, “who hath despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10). The Chronicler counts them one by one, because Hashem does.

Why this matters. We quoted our own class on this at 3:17–24: if a proven register was required of priests who served in the Second Temple, how much more of the king of Israel. That is why Matthew and Luke open with registers, and why the Chronicler’s lists are their backbone. The Messiah must be “of the fruit of thy body” (Psalm 132:11).

9:10–16 · Kohanim and Levites

“And of the priests; Jedaiah, and Jehoiarib, and Jachin” (9:10). These are heads of priestly courses. In David’s lottery Jehoiarib drew the first course and Jedaiah the second (24:7). Jehoiarib’s course was on duty when the first Temple fell and again when the second fell (Ta’anit 29a), and Mattathias, father of the Maccabees, was “of the sons of Joarib” (1 Maccabees 2:1). Zechariah, father of Yochanan the Immerser, served in the course of Abijah (Luke 1:5). The courses this verse names were still walking up to the altar in Yeshua’s day. “Azariah the son of Hilkiah… the ruler of the house of God” (9:11) stands in the high-priestly line from the end of chapter 5, the family of Ezra (Ezra 7:1).

Hebrew lesson: גִּבּוֹרֵי חֵיל (gibborei chayil), “mighty men of valour” (9:13). The Chronicler uses for priests the words chapter 7 used for soldiers. So does the Torah: the Levites “enter into the host” (לַצָּבָא), the word for an army, to do the work of the Tabernacle (Numbers 4:3). Temple service is a campaign (2 Timothy 2:3).

The Levites of 9:14–16 are singers’ families, Merari, Asaph and Jeduthun; chapter 25 will say more about them.

9:17–27 · The gatekeepers, sons of Korah

Now the Chronicler slows down and gives the doorkeepers more space than the priests. “Shallum was the chief; who hitherto waited in the king’s gate eastward” (9:17–18). He is “the son of Kore, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah,” and the Korahites were “keepers of the gates of the tabernacle: and their fathers, being over the host of Hashem, were keepers of the entry” (9:19).

The sons of Korah. Korah rebelled and the earth swallowed him, “notwithstanding the children of Korah died not” (Numbers 26:11); we told at 6:7–8 how the sages say they repented at the last moment and sang. Their descendants became two things: the gatekeepers of the sanctuary, and the authors of eleven psalms (Psalms 42, 44–49, 84–85, 87–88). Samuel the prophet was one of them (6:18–23; KJV 6:33–38).

Hebrew lesson: שֹׁמְרֵי הַסִּפִּים (shomrei hasippim), “keepers of the thresholds.” סַף (saf) is a threshold. Now read Psalm 84, “for the sons of Korah”: “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness” (Psalm 84:11; KJV 84:10). The verb, הִסְתּוֹפֵף (histofef), is built from the same word. The men who wrote that line held the job. They were describing their post and saying it was better than any palace. A family that began at the mouth of the pit ended at the door of the House.

David and Samuel. The 212 gatekeepers were those “whom David and Samuel the seer did ordain in their set office” (9:22). Samuel died long before the Temple was built, but the Talmud says that when David fled to him at Naioth in Ramah (1 Samuel 19:18), the two sat and studied the Torah’s requirements for the place Hashem would choose (Zevachim 54b). Samuel, a Korahite himself, planned the gates his own clan would keep. “In their set office” is בֶּאֱמוּנָתָם, “in their faithfulness.” The gatekeepers were trusted men.

Phinehas. “And Phinehas the son of Eleazar was the ruler over them in time past, and Hashem was with him” (9:20). The Midrash hears something in the past tense: Phinehas could have released Jephthah from his rash vow, but each waited for the other to come, and the girl died; the Holy Spirit departed from Phinehas, “and Hashem was with him,” that is, no longer (Bereshit Rabbah 60:3). Ariel Cohen Alloro brings that midrash on this verse in his video “The 4 sons from the Passover Haggadah – Part 18.” FFOZ draws the other side: “acting as the agent of God’s wrath,” Phinehas stopped the plague, and “when the final judgment comes, Yeshua of Nazareth acts as the agent of God’s wrath for the sake of saving the remnant of Israel and the nations” (End of Days, Lesson 41, “New Jerusalem”). The gate has a captain, and the captain is Hashem’s agent, never His rival.

How the watch was kept. “They lodged round about the house of God, because the charge was upon them, and the opening thereof every morning pertained to them” (9:27). The Mishnah describes the same watch centuries later: kohanim kept guard in three places and Levites in twenty-one, and the officer of the Temple Mount went round at night with torches; a watchman found asleep was beaten, and his garment might be burned (Middot 1:1–2). That is the picture behind “Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments” (Revelation 16:15), and behind the master who “commanded the porter to watch… lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping” (Mark 13:34–36).

Messianic reading. The king’s gate on the east (9:18) is the gate Ezekiel saw shut, kept for the prince (Ezekiel 44:1–3). Yeshua said, “I am the door” (John 10:9). And John saw the end of the gatekeepers’ work: a city with “twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes… On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates” (Revelation 21:12–13), the four quarters of 9:24, and “the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there” (21:25). The Levites opened the doors “every morning.” In the New Jerusalem it is always morning.

9:28–34 · Vessels, spices, showbread and song

The last Levites have their hands on the holy things: the vessels, brought “in and out by tale” (9:28); the flour, wine, oil, frankincense and spices (9:29); the spice ointment, which priests compounded (9:30); the high priest’s daily griddle offering (9:31); and “the shewbread, to prepare it every sabbath” (9:32).

The Mishnah’s list of Second Temple officers still has “the house of Garmu over the showbread, the house of Avtinas over the incense” (Mishnah Shekalim 5:1), the same two jobs five hundred years on.

Hebrew lesson: לֶחֶם הַמַּעֲרָכֶת (lechem hama’arechet), “the bread of the arrangement.” The Torah calls it lechem panim, “bread of the face” (Exodus 25:30). Chronicles calls it by its order: twelve loaves in two rows, one for each tribe, replaced “every sabbath… by an everlasting covenant” (Leviticus 24:8). Every Shabbat the twelve tribes stood before Hashem in bread. On festivals the kohanim lifted the table and showed the pilgrims the loaves, still warm after a week: “See how beloved you are before God” (Chagigah 26b).

Messianic reading. This is the bread David ate when he fled from Saul (1 Samuel 21:6), and Yeshua used that story to defend his hungry disciples: “Have ye not read what David did… how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread?” (Matthew 12:3–4). The Son of David claims David’s bread. He adds, “in this place is one greater than the temple” (12:6), greater, not instead of; our Statement of Faith holds that the Temple and its service are honored and will be restored. A Kohathite who baked twelve loaves every Friday was doing what the Chronicler’s whole book does: setting all Israel, by tribe, before the face of Hashem.

The singers were “free: for they were employed in that work day and night” (9:33), exempt from other duties because the song never stopped (Psalm 134:1). Anna of Asher served “night and day” in that same house (Luke 2:37), and before the throne the redeemed “serve him day and night in his temple” (Revelation 7:15).

9:35–44 · The house of Saul again: the bridge to chapter 10

“And in Gibeon dwelt the father of Gibeon, Jehiel” (9:35). The Chronicler now repeats 8:29–38 almost word for word, with the small differences that come from copying two registers. The commentators agree on why: he is about to tell of Saul’s death and wants Saul’s family before us when he does. The genealogies end and the story begins with the same name, “Ner begat Kish; and Kish begat Saul” (9:39), and then, “Now the Philistines fought against Israel” (10:1).

What the sages say. The sages noticed that this passage, from Azel to Azel, appears twice, and made it the symbol of everything Chronicles holds beneath the surface. The same page of Talmud that mourns the lost “Book of Genealogies” (Pesachim 62b; see our introduction to chapters 1–3) goes on:

Mar Zutra said: Between “Azel” and “Azel” they loaded four hundred camels with expositions. (Pesachim 62b)

Four hundred camel-loads of teaching between 8:38 and 9:44. The “Book of Genealogies” was a lost midrash on these chapters; what we still have is the conviction behind it, that there is nothing idle in a list of names.

Why end here? The register of the returned community (9:2–34) is set between two copies of Saul’s family tree. That is the Chronicler’s argument in one frame. Saul’s house, the first kingdom, is the past. The Temple servants are the present. In between stands the house of David, which the rest of the book is about. Saul is remembered and his descendants are counted; the Chronicler does not erase him. But the future belongs to the house Hashem chose, and the next chapter says why: Saul “enquired not of Hashem: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse” (10:14).

Messianic reading. For the returned exiles, the question behind every list was: does Hashem still know who we are? Ezra told the priests without a register to wait “till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim” (Ezra 2:63). Malachi promised a day when “he shall purify the sons of Levi” (Malachi 3:3). Rambam made this the Messiah’s own work:

In the days of the King Messiah, when his kingdom is established and all Israel are gathered to him, the ancestry of each one will be confirmed by him through the Holy Spirit that rests upon him… And he will not merely establish ancestry from Israel, but from each tribe. (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim 12:3)

FFOZ’s End of Days builds on this passage and on the remnant sealed by tribe in Revelation 7; we quoted it at 2:1–2 and will not repeat it here.

That is the Chronicler’s faith, and ours. The man who counted 212 doorkeepers believed that Hashem counts. Yeshua said it of sparrows and hairs (Matthew 10:29–30) and of his own: “I… know my sheep… and they shall never perish” (John 10:14, 28). The one who will one day say “this one is of Levi, and this one of Asher” is the Son of David whose own name stands at the head of Matthew’s register, written down like everyone else.

Drawing it together

1. The lists are the message. Issachar’s scholars, Zelophehad’s daughters, Serah of Asher, Sherah who built Beth-horon, the sons of Korah at the door: the Chronicler teaches by naming. The sages said four hundred camel-loads of teaching lie between Azel and Azel. Nothing in Scripture is filler.

2. The end cannot be forced. The sons of Ephraim calculated the four hundred years, marched early and died on the road to Gath. The Talmud makes their bones Ezekiel’s dry bones, and our teachers make them the first shadow of Mashiach ben Yosef, who comes before Mashiach ben David. Hashem raises what went out too early. He does not bless the rush.

3. Hashem keeps covenant through the small. Jonathan’s line survives twelve generations because David kept an oath. The returned community is a few thousand names. Zechariah asked, “who hath despised the day of small things?” The Chronicler did not.

4. Service is a watch. The gatekeepers kept the thresholds, opened the doors every morning, counted the vessels and baked the bread every Shabbat, “in their faithfulness.” Yeshua told his disciples to be porters who are found awake. The Temple and its servants are honored, and the pattern of their watch is the pattern of ours.

5. Rachel’s house and Leah’s house belong together. Benjamin hosts the Shechinah; Judah holds the scepter. Saul falls, Mordechai rises, and a Benjamite named Saul preaches the Son of David to the nations. The Messiah who will sort Israel by tribe is the one in whom Joseph and Judah are one stick (Ezekiel 37:19).

Questions for discussion

1. Why does the Talmud (Yoma 26a) say Torah rulings come from Levi and Issachar?
2. Dan has no family list in 1 Chronicles and is missing from Revelation 7. How does FFOZ handle the old “antichrist from Dan” theory?
3. What did the daughters of Zelophehad ask for, and why does Rashi on Numbers 26:64 say the women did not share the men’s punishment?
4. Retell the story of the sons of Ephraim as Sanhedrin 92b reads 7:21–22. What lesson do our teachers draw from it, and how does it fit our Statement of Faith on Mashiach ben Yosef?
5. Serah appears in three censuses, generations apart. What role did the sages give her, and how is Anna of Asher (Luke 2:36–38) her “sister”?
6. Explain Yoma 12a. Why did the Temple stand on Benjamin’s ground?
7. Jonathan’s descendants are listed for twelve generations (8:34–40). What promise of David does this list prove he kept?
8. What is the connection between the gatekeepers of 9:19 and Psalm 84:11 (KJV 84:10)? How did the sons of Korah get from Numbers 16 to the Temple door?
9. How does the Mishnah’s night watch (Middot 1:2) illuminate Revelation 16:15 and Mark 13:34–36?
10. Rambam says the Messiah will confirm each Israelite’s tribe by the Holy Spirit (Hilchot Melachim 12:3). How does that answer Ezra 2:62–63 and Malachi 3:16?

Sources

Scripture: 1 Chronicles 2–3, 5–6, 10, 12, 24; Genesis 15, 38, 46, 49–50; Exodus 3, 13, 25; Leviticus 24; Numbers 1, 4, 13–14, 16, 26–27, 32; Deuteronomy 33; Joshua 9–10; Judges 3, 6, 18, 20; 1 Samuel 9, 14, 19–21; 2 Samuel 1–2, 9, 21; 1 Kings 12, 17; 2 Chronicles 15, 30; Ezra 1–2, 7; Nehemiah 8, 11; Esther 2; Psalms 84, 132, 134; Isaiah 8–9; Jeremiah 31; Ezekiel 37, 44, 48; Hosea 9; Zechariah 4; Malachi 3; Matthew 1, 4, 10, 12, 16, 24; Mark 13; Luke 1–2; John 10; Acts 13, 22; Romans 11; 2 Timothy 2; Hebrews 4; Revelation 7, 16, 21; 1 Maccabees 2.

Talmud and Midrash: Yoma 12a, 26a; Sanhedrin 92b; Pesachim 62b; Sotah 13a, 34b; Bava Batra 119b; Ta’anit 29a; Yevamot 79a; Zevachim 54b; Chagigah 26b; Megillah 13a; Mishnah Shekalim 5:1; Mishnah Middot 1:1–2; Bereshit Rabbah 60:3, 71:9, 72:5; Shemot Rabbah 5:13; Vayikra Rabbah 1:3, 9:2; Sifrei Devarim 352; Targum Yonatan on Exodus 13:17.

Commentators: Rashi on Genesis 49:27, Numbers 26:64 and Deuteronomy 33:18; Rashi on Chronicles and Radak on 1 Chronicles 7:12, 7:21, 8:33 and 9:35; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim 12:3.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 12, “Acharit HaYamim”; Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; Lesson 41, “New Jerusalem”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef, Part 3” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfUfOgNXkEc), “Lebanon & Iran in the End of Days” (https://youtu.be/LOUTSoOJA4c), “Revelations from Jerusalem” (https://youtu.be/SxzIBUZSiP4), “The Truth About the Lost Tribes of Israel” (https://youtu.be/RRLA9HYkdgI) and “Trump, Iran & the Year of the Horse, Part 2” (https://youtu.be/bdk3ttKg1g8); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “The 4 sons from the Passover Haggadah – Part 17” (https://youtu.be/hK4PK6FgdIM) and “The 4 sons from the Passover Haggadah – Part 18” (https://youtu.be/mzf-OmOgMeI); Benei Avraham classes, “Hilchot Avelut – The Jewish Path to Mourning” (https://youtu.be/aN9EICJwR6s) and “Paul & Other Hard Topics — A Torah-Faithful Perspective” (https://youtu.be/z_UWZFaio4o); Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

Nine chapters of names end, and the story begins with a funeral. The Chronicler gives Saul one chapter, and that chapter is Saul’s death. Then, with no seven years in Hebron, no Ish-bosheth, no Abner, he brings all Israel to David at Hebron, takes Jerusalem in six verses, and spends the rest of two chapters on the men who came to the king: the three, the thirty, the Benjamites at Ziklag with their bows, the Gadites who crossed the Jordan in flood, the tribes counted one by one, and a feast of three days “for there was joy in Israel” (12:41).

Most of this has a parallel in Samuel, and our 2 Samuel commentary has already walked through it (2 Samuel 1, 5 and 23); the web page links each one. We will not tell those stories twice. Our work here is to ask what the Chronicler adds, leaves out, or changes, because the differences are where he teaches. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Edom #4 – Zepho & Vulcan,” says of this book that it “has seemingly many contradictions with earlier books of Tanakh… but you can resolve them.” Resolving them is the study.

The Chronicler wrote for the people who came back from Babylon, a small community with no king, asking whether the promises to David still stood. His answer is a picture: a king whom Hashem has chosen hides in a Philistine town, and day by day men come to him until his camp is “like the host of God” (12:23); then every tribe comes “with a perfect heart” to make him king. For us, who confess Yeshua as the Son of David, recognized now by some and waiting for all Israel, the picture is not hard to read.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 10 · The Death of Saul, and Why

Read 1 Chronicles 10 in Hebrew and English →

10:1–7 · Gilboa

“Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa” (10:1).

The Chronicler has told us almost nothing about Saul’s reign. He gave Saul’s family tree twice (8:29–40; 9:35–44), and now, with no Goliath, no Amalek, no Ein Dor, he opens on the last day of Saul’s life. The sages say Chronicles was given “only to be expounded” (Vayikra Rabbah 1:3), and this chapter is a commentary on 1 Samuel 31 that assumes you have read it. Almost every word is the same, which makes the changes stand out.

“All his house.” Samuel says Saul died “and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together” (1 Samuel 31:6). Chronicles says “Saul died, and his three sons, and all his house died together” (10:6). But Ish-bosheth reigned two years after this, and Mephibosheth lived to eat at David’s table. The commentators explain that “his house” means those of his house who were with him on the mountain, or that the house of Saul died as a royal house that day. The Chronicler is not writing a casualty list; he is writing a verdict.

10:8–12 · The head in Dagon’s house, and the men of Jabesh

“And they put his armour in the house of their gods, and fastened his head in the temple of Dagon” (10:10).

Samuel says the Philistines fastened Saul’s body to the wall of Beth-shan (1 Samuel 31:10). Chronicles tells us where the head went, and the choice of Dagon is pointed. A generation earlier the Ark stood in Dagon’s temple, and in the morning “the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold” (1 Samuel 5:4). Now the head of Israel’s king hangs in Dagon’s house. In Saul’s days the Ark was left in Kiriath-jearim; the Chronicler will say so in three chapters: “we enquired not at it in the days of Saul” (13:3). A king who neglected the Ark ends as a trophy in the house of the god the Ark had humbled. The Chronicler does not say this out loud. He writes “Dagon” and lets us remember.

The men of Jabesh-gilead. “They arose, all the valiant men, and took away the body of Saul… and buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh, and fasted seven days” (10:12). Saul’s first act as king was to save this city (1 Samuel 11), and they never forgot. David blessed them for it (2 Samuel 2:5; see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapters 2 and 21). The Chronicler, who has no room for Saul’s reign, finds room for the men who honored his body.

10:13–14 · “Therefore He slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David”

“So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against Hashem, even against the word of Hashem, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it; and enquired not of Hashem: therefore He slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse” (10:13–14).

These two verses are the Chronicler’s own; nothing like them stands in 1 Samuel 31. They give the words he will use to judge every king after.

Hebrew lesson: מַעַל (ma’al), “transgression, trespass, breach of faith.” “Transgression” is too soft. Ma’al is the Torah’s word for sacrilege, for treating the holy as common: “If a soul commit a trespass (ma’al)… in the holy things of Hashem” (Leviticus 5:15). It is the word for Achan (Joshua 7:1; 1 Chronicles 2:7). The Chronicler reaches for it at the turning points of his history: Judah “were carried away to Babylon for their transgression (ma’al)” (9:1), and in Zedekiah’s day the priests and people “transgressed (ma’al) very much” (2 Chronicles 36:14). Saul is the first king charged with it, and his story is the nation’s in miniature: an anointed one who treats the holy as common, and loses what he was given.

Hebrew lesson: דָּרַשׁ (darash), “to seek, to enquire.” The verse ends: “and enquired not (lo darash) of Hashem.” Of all the Chronicler’s words this is the one he loves best. David will tell Solomon, “if thou seek him (tidreshenu), he will be found of thee” (28:9); Asa in his sickness “sought not to Hashem (lo darash), but to the physicians” (2 Chronicles 16:12). Saul is the first man in Chronicles who does not seek, and the kingdom is taken from him for it. There is a wordplay too. Saul’s name, שָׁאוּל (Shaul), means “asked for”; the people asked for a king and got him (1 Samuel 12:13). He died, the Chronicler writes, for “asking (lish’ol)” a familiar spirit. The man who was asked for died for asking in the wrong place.

But did Saul not enquire? Samuel says that before Ein Dor “Saul enquired of Hashem, Hashem answered him not” (1 Samuel 28:6). How can Chronicles say he “enquired not”? The commentators answer that his asking was not asking: he did not wait, but turned at once to the medium. An enquiry made without a whole heart, and abandoned the moment it is not answered on demand, is in Hashem’s eyes no enquiry at all. There is a lesson here for anyone who has prayed once, heard nothing, and gone looking for another oracle.

The medium. “There shall not be found among you… a consulter with familiar spirits… or a necromancer” (Deuteronomy 18:10–11). Saul had driven the mediums out of the land (1 Samuel 28:3) and then went, disguised, by night, to a woman at Ein Dor. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Bringing Mashiach Today,” applies the same law to our own day: “you are not allowed to seek information from the dead, period. It’s necromancy… we don’t need intercessors… we pray to God.” Our Statement of Faith leaves open how to read what happened at Ein Dor, and teaches that the dead sleep until the resurrection. What is not open is the prohibition.

What the sages say about Saul. The Chronicler’s verses are a judgment, and we should not soften them. But the sages refuse to leave Saul there. The Talmud says, “Saul sinned once and it was counted against him; David sinned twice and it was not counted against him” (Yoma 22b). The Midrash tells how Samuel, at Ein Dor, offered Saul a choice: flee and live, or go out to the battle, accept the judgment of Heaven, “and tomorrow thou and thy sons shall be with me.” Saul went out, and Hashem called the angels to look: “See the creature I have made… he goes down to the battle knowing he will be killed, and takes his sons with him, and rejoices that the judgment is coming upon him” (Vayikra Rabbah 26:7). Rabbi Yochanan reads Samuel’s “with me” as “in my portion” (Berakhot 12b): Saul died forgiven and will stand with Samuel at the resurrection.

The Talmud goes further still. On Micah’s “seven shepherds, and eight principal men” (Micah 5:5; Hebrew 5:4), the Gemara names the eight: “Jesse, Saul, Samuel, Amos, Zephaniah, Zedekiah, Messiah and Elijah” (Sukkah 52b). Saul is among the princes who rise to serve the Messiah. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef, Part 2,” walks through this list and pauses at Saul: “Shaul actually was just crazy. Yeah, he’s going to come back. He was still a tzaddik.” We read “come back” as the resurrection, which is what the Gemara means, and we hold both halves together: the Chronicler’s judgment on the king, and the sages’ hope for the man.

Our teachers on Saul and the two Messiahs. Saul was from Benjamin, the son of Rachel. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “Elisha the Prophet – Part 9,” says it plainly: Saul “is Mashiach ben Yosef. He’s from the tribe of Benjamin… Before David, Mashiach ben David, we have Shaul, Mashiach ben Yosef.” Saul is a first, broken sketch of the suffering Messiah of Rachel’s house: anointed by the prophet, he falls on a mountain, and his death opens the way for the son of Jesse. We take this as a hint and nothing more; Saul fell by his own ma’al, and the true Mashiach ben Yosef does not. But the shape is the one the sages saw: Joseph before Judah, the fallen king before the enthroned one.

Messianic reading. When Paul told Israel’s story in the synagogue at Antioch, he told this chapter the Chronicler’s way: “God gave unto them Saul… And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king… Of this man’s seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Yeshua” (Acts 13:21–23). The kingdom is Hashem’s to turn. It does not pass by inheritance, or by the sword, or by a medium’s whisper, but by the word of Hashem to the one who seeks Him.

Chapter 11 · All Israel, Jerusalem, and the Men Who Made Him King

Read 1 Chronicles 11 in Hebrew and English →

11:1–3 · “We are thy bone and thy flesh”

“Then all Israel gathered themselves to David unto Hebron, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh… and Hashem thy God said unto thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be ruler over my people Israel” (11:1–2).

These verses are 2 Samuel 5:1–3 almost word for word, and our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 5 explains them, down to Matthew’s use of “thou shalt feed my people Israel” at the birth of Yeshua (Matthew 2:6). Here we look at three small changes.

“All Israel.” Samuel says “all the tribes of Israel.” Chronicles says “all Israel,” his phrase for the nation acting as one, and repeats it (11:4, 10; 12:39) as he will when the Ark goes up (13:5) and Solomon is crowned (29:21–26). For the returned exiles, a remnant mostly of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, the words were a promise.

“According to the word of Hashem by Samuel.” Chronicles adds this to the anointing (11:3), and strikes the note twice more: the mighty men strengthened David “according to the word of Hashem concerning Israel” (11:10), and the tribes came “to turn the kingdom of Saul to him, according to the word of Hashem” (12:24). David was not made king by a tribal assembly or by his army; the word came first, in Bethlehem, when Samuel poured the horn of oil (1 Samuel 16:13). FFOZ writes that Samuel “anointed both King Saul and King David, and the Holy Spirit rushed on them” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). Hebron only made public what Hashem had done in private.

No Hebron years. Samuel adds, “In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months” (2 Samuel 5:5). Chronicles leaves it out here (it keeps it in 3:4), so that the whole people seem to come at once. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “The Truth About the Lost Tribes of Israel,” gives the history: Saul “wasn’t really able to hold everybody together,” and “King David was the first to actually unify all twelve tribes under one kingdom.” Chronicles paints that unity without seams. Samuel shows the seams. We need both books.

Our teachers. Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” quotes Rambam: “The King Messiah will arise and restore the kingdom of David to its former rule. He will build the Sanctuary and gather the dispersed of Israel” (Hilchot Melachim 11:1). The first sign of David’s kingship, in the Chronicler’s telling, is that Israel gathers. Jacob said it of Judah’s king, “unto him shall the gathering of the people be” (Genesis 49:10), and Hosea of the last days: “Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek Hashem their God, and David their king” (Hosea 3:5). Hosea’s verb is seek. What Saul would not do, the nation will do under the Son of David, and “so all Israel shall be saved” (Romans 11:26).

11:4–9 · Jerusalem, and Joab goes up first

“And David and all Israel went to Jerusalem, which is Jebus” (11:4).

Our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 5 covers the city never conquered, the “blind and the lame,” the tzinnor, and the name Zion. Chronicles changes four things.

“David and all Israel.” Samuel says “the king and his men” (2 Samuel 5:6). For the Chronicler, Jerusalem is not taken by David’s private army; the whole nation takes it, and the city belongs to all Israel because all Israel won it.

No “blind and lame.” The Jebusite taunt and David’s hard answer are gone. Only the fact remains: “Thou shalt not come hither. Nevertheless David took the castle of Zion” (11:5).

Joab is named. Samuel records David’s offer to whoever strikes the Jebusites (2 Samuel 5:8; the Hebrew breaks off before the reward), and never says who did it. Chronicles tells us: “So Joab the son of Zeruiah went first up, and was chief” (11:6). Joab, whose killings of Abner and Amasa Chronicles never tells, is given the honor: he won Jerusalem. The Talmud remembers the partnership, hard as it was: “Were it not for David, Joab could not have waged war; and were it not for Joab, David could not have engaged in Torah” (Sanhedrin 49a).

“Joab repaired the rest of the city.” “And he built the city round about, even from Millo round about: and Joab repaired the rest of the city” (11:8). The word for “repaired” is יְחַיֶּה (yechayeh), literally “gave life to.” The commentators understand it as rebuilding; the word choice is still striking. The capital of the Messiah’s kingdom is a city that had to be revived, and will be again: “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Rabbi Palvanov, in the same class on the lost tribes, notes that David “needed a new capital to unify everybody… he chose Jerusalem,” on the border of Judah and Benjamin, belonging to no tribe’s old quarrel.

11:10–25 · The three, and what Chronicles does with them

“These also are the chief of the mighty men whom David had, who strengthened themselves with him in his kingdom, and with all Israel, to make him king, according to the word of Hashem concerning Israel” (11:10).

In Samuel the list of the mighty men stands near the end, after David’s last words (2 Samuel 23:8–39). Chronicles moves it to the beginning of the reign and gives it a heading: these men “strengthened themselves with him… to make him king.” The roll of honor becomes a list of the men through whom the word of Hashem was carried out. Chapters 11 and 12 answer one question: who came to the king, and how?

The first three. Where Samuel’s first hero is “the Tachmonite that sat in the seat,” whom the Talmud reads as David himself (Moed Katan 16b; see our commentary on 2 Samuel 23), Chronicles gives the plain name, “Jashobeam, an Hachmonite,” and three hundred slain instead of eight hundred (11:11). Then Eleazar son of Dodo in “a parcel of ground full of barley” (11:12–14); in Samuel the field is lentils and belongs to Shammah, who is missing from Chronicles’ list, and some lines appear to have dropped out here. The point survives the gap: “and Hashem saved them by a great deliverance” (11:14).

The water of Bethlehem (11:15–19). Our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 23 has given this story in full. Chronicles keeps David’s refusal and sharpens it: “shall I drink the blood of these men that have put their lives in jeopardy?” (11:19). A priestly community understood the pouring out: the king makes a libation to Hashem of what cost men their lives, and will not consume it himself.

Abishai and Benaiah (11:20–25). Both are much as in Samuel (Chronicles adds the Egyptian’s five cubits, 11:23), and the Talmud’s reading of Benaiah’s lions and his Egyptian as feats of Torah is in our commentary on 2 Samuel 23 (Berakhot 18a–b). Chronicles later adds two details that change the picture: Benaiah’s father Jehoiada is “the leader of the Aaronites” at Hebron (12:28), and at 27:5 Benaiah is “the son of Jehoiada the priest” (the KJV’s “a chief priest”). The man who kept David’s guard and would command Solomon’s army was a kohen’s son. In the Chronicler’s Israel, priests and soldiers are not two worlds.

Messianic reading. “Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom… that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:28–30). The men of this chapter continued with David in the hold, and the Chronicler makes them the first citizens of the kingdom. FFOZ reads Yeshua’s words the same way: the disciples will hold “places of authority within the administration of His kingdom… as agents of the Davidic King who holds authority over all twelve tribes” (End of Days, Lesson 25, “Twelve Thrones”). The ones who stand with the king in the wilderness are the ones who sit with him when he reigns.

11:26–47 · The thirty, and the names after Uriah

The list runs on as in Samuel, with small differences of spelling. Asahel stands first, the young man Abner killed at Gibeon (2 Samuel 2:23). Chronicles lists him as a hero and never says how he died.

Uriah the Hittite (11:41). In Samuel the list ends with his name, and our 2 Samuel commentary observed that Scripture lets the last word of David’s roll of honor be the name of the man David killed. Chronicles tells no story of Bathsheba, of Nathan’s rebuke, of Amnon or of Absalom. Is this a cover-up? We do not think so: Uriah’s name is still on the list. The Chronicler could have dropped it as easily as he dropped the story, and he left it for every reader who knows Samuel to find. Chronicles was written to be expounded, read alongside the rest of the Tenakh, not instead of it; the Chronicler is not denying David’s sin but writing a book about the kingdom and the Temple for a people who needed to know those promises still stood. Uriah’s name is his footnote to Samuel. We offer this as our own reading, for Rav Reuven and Morah to weigh.

Sixteen more names (11:41b–47). Samuel stops at Uriah with the total “thirty-seven.” Chronicles adds sixteen names, and they tell a story: “Adina… the Reubenite” (11:42), “Uzzia the Ashterathite” from Bashan (11:44), “Ithmah the Moabite” (11:46), and already in the shared list “Zelek the Ammonite” (11:39). Men from east of the Jordan, and men from the two nations the Torah barred from the assembly (Deuteronomy 23:3), fighting for the great-grandson of Ruth the Moabitess (Yevamot 76b–77a: “a Moabite, not a Moabitess”). The Chronicler is quietly telling a small remnant, tempted to draw the circle tight, how wide David’s camp was.

Hebrew lesson: גִּבּוֹרִים (gibborim), “mighty men.” The word is used of Nimrod (Genesis 10:8); the Chronicler fills it with a new meaning, strength that serves the word of Hashem “to make him king” (11:10). FFOZ describes the 144,000 of Revelation 7 as “an elite band of warriors, comparable to David’s mighty men,” “numbered as in a biblical census… twelve thousand from each tribe” (End of Days, Lesson 49, “Day of Harvest”). Chapter 12 gives us exactly that: a census, tribe by tribe, of the men who came to the king.

Chapter 12 · Day by Day They Came to David

Read 1 Chronicles 12 in Hebrew and English →

Chapter 12 has no parallel in Samuel. It runs backward and then forward in time: first the men who came to David at Ziklag while he was still a fugitive (12:1–23), then the tribes who came to Hebron to crown him (12:24–41). The hidden years first, the public day second. (On verse numbers: Hebrew 12:4–5 is KJV 12:4, so from there on the Hebrew number, which we follow, is one higher than the English.)

12:1–8 · Saul’s own brothers come to Ziklag

“Now these are they that came to David to Ziklag, while he yet kept himself close because of Saul the son of Kish… They were armed with bows, and could use both the right hand and the left… even of Saul’s brethren of Benjamin” (12:1–2).

Ziklag was the Philistine town Achish gave David (1 Samuel 27:6), the lowest point of his life: an anointed king living under a Philistine lord, outside the land. The Chronicler begins his picture of the kingdom there, and the first men who come are the last we would expect: “Saul’s brethren of Benjamin,” some from Saul’s own Gibeah (12:3). Benjamin was the tribe of slingers, “seven hundred chosen men lefthanded” (Judges 20:16); Jacob named this son Binyamin, “son of the right hand” (Genesis 35:18), and the tribe of the right hand learned to fight with both. Saul lost the kingdom over a single sin he could not recover from; these Benjamites could change hands.

Messianic reading. A Pharisee of Benjamin named Saul, who had hunted the Messiah’s people, later came over to the Son of David with both hands, and offered himself as proof that Hashem had not cast away His people: “I also am an Israelite… of the tribe of Benjamin” (Romans 11:1). The Benjamites at Ziklag are the first of that line.

12:9–16 · The Gadites cross the Jordan in flood

“And of the Gadites there separated themselves unto David into the hold to the wilderness men of might… whose faces were like the faces of lions, and were as swift as the roes upon the mountains” (12:9, KJV 12:8).

Hebrew lesson: נִבְדְּלוּ (nivdelu), “they separated themselves.” This is the Torah’s word for holiness: Israel is to “put difference (lehavdil) between holy and unholy” (Leviticus 10:10), and Ezra uses it for the returned exiles who “separated themselves… from the filthiness of the heathen of the land” (Ezra 6:21). The Gadites did not merely desert to David. They set themselves apart to him, the way a priest is set apart for service. Coming to the king is an act of havdalah.

The Jordan in Nisan. Moses blessed Gad with the lion (Deuteronomy 33:20), and these eleven lions “went over Jordan in the first month, when it had overflown all his banks” (12:16, KJV 12:15). The first month is the month of Pesach, and only one other crossing of the Jordan in flood stands in Scripture: Joshua’s, on the tenth of the first month (Joshua 3:15; 4:19). Then the waters were cut off; here the men cross the flood. The Gadites coming to David in the month of redemption is a small new exodus, and it keeps their fathers’ old promise to cross over armed before their brethren (Numbers 32:20–22) one more time.

12:17–19 · “Thine are we, David”: the Spirit clothes Amasai

“And David went out to meet them, and answered and said unto them, If ye be come peaceably unto me to help me, mine heart shall be knit unto you: but if ye be come to betray me to mine enemies, seeing there is no wrong in mine hands, the God of our fathers look thereon, and rebuke it” (12:18, KJV 12:17).

David has been betrayed before, by Keilah and by the Ziphites (1 Samuel 23:12, 19). So when a company of Benjamin and Judah arrives at the hold, he meets them outside and puts the question. His welcome is tender: levav leyachad, “a heart for togetherness,” from the root of yachad, “together.” His warning is a courtroom: “the God of our fathers look thereon, and rebuke it.” He will not fight them; he refers the case upward.

“Then the spirit came upon Amasai, who was chief of the captains, and he said, Thine are we, David, and on thy side, thou son of Jesse: peace, peace be unto thee, and peace be to thine helpers; for thy God helpeth thee. Then David received them, and made them captains of the band” (12:19, KJV 12:18).

Hebrew lesson: וְרוּחַ לָבְשָׁה (veruach lavshah), “and the Spirit clothed.” The Spirit put on Amasai like a garment. Scripture uses the idiom three times: of Gideon, where the KJV’s “the Spirit of Hashem came upon Gideon” is in Hebrew “clothed Gideon” (Judges 6:34); here; and of Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, whom the Spirit “clothed” when he rebuked King Joash in the Temple court (2 Chronicles 24:20). Each time the Spirit clothes a man to say in public what Heaven has decided. FFOZ notes that “the kings of Israel also received the Holy Spirit at the time of their anointing… Saul prophesied in the Spirit, David wrote his psalms under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit” (End of Days, Lesson 24, “Table of Abraham”). Here the Spirit rests not on the king but on the man who recognizes him.

“Son of Jesse.” Amasai’s word is a small poem, with shalom three times, like Isaiah’s “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near” (Isaiah 57:19; Ephesians 2:17). Notice “son of Jesse.” In the mouths of David’s enemies it was a sneer: Saul in his rage (1 Samuel 20:27, 30–31; 22:7–8), Nabal (25:10), and later Sheba (2 Samuel 20:1). Amasai turns the insult into a confession, and Isaiah would make it a title of the Messiah: “there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek” (Isaiah 11:10; Romans 15:12).

Messianic reading. When Peter said, “Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” Yeshua answered, “flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 16:16–17). Paul makes it a rule: “no man can say that Yeshua is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). To recognize the anointed king while he is still in the hold, before the crown, is not cleverness; it is the Spirit clothing a man. And David’s response is the Son of David’s response to every such confession: he received them, and gave them a place.

12:20–23 · Manasseh, and a camp like the camp of God

“And there fell some of Manasseh to David, when he came with the Philistines against Saul to battle: but they helped them not: for the lords of the Philistines upon advisement sent him away” (12:20, KJV 12:19).

The Chronicler assumes we know 1 Samuel 29, and adds what Samuel does not say: on the road home from the Philistine camp seven captains of Manasseh “fell to him,” in time to help against the Amalekite raiders of Ziklag (12:22; 1 Samuel 30). Hashem used the Philistines’ suspicion to keep David out of the battle in which Saul died, and used the same road to bring him captains from Joseph’s house.

“For at that time day by day there came to David to help him, until it was a great host, like the host of God” (12:23, KJV 12:22).

Hebrew lesson: כְּמַחֲנֵה אֱלֹהִים (kemachaneh Elohim), “like the camp of God.” The phrase comes from one place in the Torah. When Jacob came back to the land, “the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God’s host (machaneh Elohim): and he called the name of that place Mahanaim” (Genesis 32:1–2). FFOZ explains that Jacob “saw that the ordinarily invisible camp of God’s angels had encamped around his family to protect them” on his way home (End of Days, Lesson 8, “Crown of Twelve Stars”). The commentators read the Chronicler’s phrase as a figure for a very great host; the words themselves recall Jacob’s angels. And they came “day by day.” The kingdom grew one man at a time, in a Philistine border town, while the official king still sat on his throne. The first assembly of Yeshua’s followers grew the same way: “the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2:47).

12:24–32 · The tribes at Hebron: Judah to Manasseh

“And these are the numbers of the bands that were ready armed to the war, and came to David to Hebron, to turn the kingdom of Saul to him, according to the word of Hashem” (12:24, KJV 12:23).

“To turn (lehasev) the kingdom” uses the same verb as 10:14, “He turned (vayasev) the kingdom unto David.” Hashem turned it; the tribes turned it. The second is how the first was done. The numbers are not what we expect.

• Judah, David’s own tribe: 6,800 (12:25).
• Simeon, inside Judah’s borders: 7,100 (12:26).
• Levi: 4,600 (12:27), with “Jehoiada the leader of the Aaronites” and 3,700 more (12:28), and “Zadok, a young man mighty of valour,” with twenty-two captains (12:29).
• Benjamin, “the kindred of Saul”: 3,000, “for hitherto the greatest part of them had kept the ward of the house of Saul” (12:30).
• Ephraim: 20,800 (12:31).
• Half of Manasseh, west of the Jordan: 18,000, “expressed by name, to come and make David king” (12:32).

The near tribes send the fewest; the far tribes the most. Judah is already David’s; Benjamin sends a token, and the Chronicler says plainly why. But the tribes of Joseph, who in a later generation would tear the kingdom in two, come in tens of thousands. In the Chronicler’s day, with the north long gone into exile, these numbers were a memory and a promise: Ephraim and Manasseh once came to the son of David with all their strength, and the prophets say they will again (Ezekiel 37:19; Jeremiah 31:6, 9).

The priests come armed. The Torah exempted Levi from the military census (Numbers 1:47–49), but here Levi, Aaron’s house and the young Zadok are counted among the “bands… ready armed to the war.” The Chronicler shows the returned community its own priesthood standing at the birth of the kingdom. The Temple and the throne were never two institutions in his mind.

12:33 · Issachar: men who understood the times

“And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment” (12:33, KJV 12:32).

Every other tribe is counted by thousands. Issachar is counted by its two hundred heads, and described not by its weapons but by its mind.

What the sages say. We gave the sages’ picture of this tribe at 7:1–5: Rava’s rule that halachic authorities come from Levi or from Issachar (Yoma 26a), and the Midrash’s two hundred heads of Sanhedrin, with our verse as the proof (Bereshit Rabbah 72:5). One thing to add here. Rashi on Jacob’s blessing explains that the tribes followed Issachar’s rulings on fixing the months and intercalating the years (Rashi on Genesis 49:15). “Understanding of the times” was, first of all, the calendar. The same expression in Esther, “the wise men, which knew the times” (Esther 1:13), the Talmud explains as those who knew how to intercalate years and fix months (Megillah 12b).

Our teachers. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “New World Order – Hiram and the Freemasons – Part 11,” says, “Yissachar, the donkey, is the one that knows the times… something special about the donkey that knows the secret of the time,” and connects it to the twenty-eight “times” of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes 3:1–8) and to knowing “when the Mashiach has to come.” The donkey is Jacob’s image for Issachar (Genesis 49:14) and the Messiah’s mount (Zechariah 9:9). We take the hint as a hint.

Messianic reading. Yeshua rebuked the leaders of his generation with Issachar’s gift: “ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” (Matthew 16:3; see 7:1–5). FFOZ reads it this way: “they should have been able to observe the current state of affairs in the world and realize that the Day of Hashem was at hand… They should not have required a miraculous sign to persuade them to repent” (End of Days, Lesson 5, “Signs of the Times”). That is what Issachar had: not a calendar of the end, but the understanding “to know what Israel ought to do.” The same Yeshua said, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power” (Acts 1:7). Our Statement of Faith sets no dates. Understanding the times, in Issachar’s sense, means knowing which king to go to, and going.

12:34–38 · Zebulun to the Transjordan: “not of double heart”

• Zebulun: 50,000, “expert in war… which could keep rank: they were not of double heart” (12:34).
• Naphtali: a thousand captains and 37,000 (12:35).
• Dan: 28,600 (12:36).
• Asher: 40,000 (12:37).
• Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh beyond Jordan: 120,000 (12:38).

Added together, about 340,800 men came to Hebron. The two and a half tribes across the river, whose faith and exile the Chronicler recorded in chapter 5, send the largest contingent of all. No tribe is absent.

Hebrew lesson: בְּלֹא־לֵב וָלֵב (belo lev valev), “not with a heart and a heart.” That is the KJV’s “not of double heart” (compare Psalm 12:2). Zebulun’s fifty thousand had one heart between them, and verse 39 says it of all: “all these men of war, that could keep rank, came with a perfect heart (belevav shalem) to Hebron… and all the rest also of Israel were of one heart (lev echad) to make David king” (12:39). One heart is the prophets’ promise for the end of days, “I will give them one heart, and one way” (Jeremiah 32:39; Ezekiel 11:19), and the Chronicler shows it kept once, at Hebron, as a pledge that it will be kept again. The first followers of Yeshua in Jerusalem are described in the same words: “the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul” (Acts 4:32). One heart toward the king makes one people.

12:39–41 · Three days of feasting: “for there was joy in Israel”

“And there they were with David three days, eating and drinking: for their brethren had prepared for them. Moreover they that were nigh them, even unto Issachar and Zebulun and Naphtali, brought bread on asses, and on camels, and on mules, and on oxen, and meat, meal, cakes of figs, and bunches of raisins, and wine, and oil, and oxen, and sheep abundantly: for there was joy in Israel” (12:40–41, KJV 12:39–40).

The chapter that began at Ziklag, with a hunted man and a handful of archers, ends with some 340,000 men eating together at Hebron for three days, supplied by caravans from the Galilee. Figs, raisins, wine and oil are the fruit of the land (Deuteronomy 8:8); the land itself comes to the coronation. Three days, in the city of the patriarchs’ tomb, with the whole nation alive around its king: Hosea’s “in the third day he will raise us up” (Hosea 6:2) is not far away.

A coronation is a feast. The Chronicler ends David’s reign as he begins it: when all Israel crowns Solomon, they “did eat and drink before Hashem on that day with great gladness” (29:22). Isaiah saw the end of days as a meal on the mountain, “a feast of fat things… and he will swallow up death in victory” (Isaiah 25:6–8). Yeshua promised that “many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11). The marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9) is this table, set for all Israel and for the nations gathered to the root of Jesse.

Simchah, joy, will return at every high point of the book (15:16, 25; 29:9). Joy in Chronicles is never private; it is what happens when all Israel is in one place, around one king, with the Ark and the kohanim among them. Nehemiah told the returned exiles, “the joy of Hashem is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10); the Chronicler shows them the day it first was.

Messianic reading. David in the hold at Ziklag, gathering men one by one while the old order holds the throne, is David in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef: hidden, outside the land, misjudged, recognized only by those the Spirit clothes to recognize him. David at Hebron with every tribe before him is David in the pattern of Mashiach ben David. Our Statement of Faith teaches that these are one Messiah in two comings. Yeshua has been at Ziklag, so to speak, for a long time, and day by day they still come. The Chronicler promises that the Hebron day is coming, when “all the rest also of Israel” are “of one heart,” and there is joy in Israel.

Drawing it together

1. The kingdom is Hashem’s to turn. Saul died for ma’al, for asking a medium and not seeking Hashem, “therefore He slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David” (10:13–14). David is made king “according to the word of Hashem by Samuel” (11:3), and the tribes come “according to the word of Hashem” (12:24). Paul told the story the same way: Hashem removed Saul, raised up David, and from his seed raised Yeshua (Acts 13:22–23).

2. Seek Hashem. Darash is the Chronicler’s key word. Saul “enquired not of Hashem,” and every king after him is measured by whether he sought Hashem with a whole heart, and so are we. An enquiry abandoned the moment it is not answered is not an enquiry.

3. Judgment on the king, hope for the man. The Chronicler does not spare Saul. The sages do not abandon him: he died accepting Heaven’s judgment, Samuel promised him “with me,” and the Talmud counts him among the eight princes who will rise to serve the Messiah (Sukkah 52b). Death is a sleep, and Saul sleeps in hope.

4. Who came to the king, and how. Chapters 11 and 12 are a roll of the men who came while it cost something, “day by day” until the camp was “like the host of God.” Those who continued with David in the hold sat with him at Hebron, as Yeshua promised his own: “that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom.”

5. One heart, and joy. Issachar understood the times and knew “what Israel ought to do”: go to the son of Jesse. Zebulun came “not of double heart,” and “all the rest also of Israel were of one heart to make David king.” Then three days of feasting, “for there was joy in Israel.” That is the Chronicler’s picture of the end of days, and ours: all Israel, with one heart, around the Son of David, at a table.

Questions for discussion

1. Compare 1 Chronicles 10 with 1 Samuel 31. What does the Chronicler leave out, and what does he add? Why?
2. What is ma’al, and where else does the Chronicler use the word? What does it tell us about how he reads Saul’s reign?
3. Samuel says Saul “enquired of Hashem” before Ein Dor (1 Samuel 28:6); Chronicles says he “enquired not” (10:14). How is this resolved, and what does it teach about prayer?
4. How do the sages speak of Saul after his death (Berakhot 12b; Vayikra Rabbah 26:7; Sukkah 52b)? How does that fit our belief that death is a sleep until the resurrection?
5. Why does Chronicles name Joab as the man who took Jerusalem, when Samuel leaves him unnamed? What does Sanhedrin 49a say about David and Joab?
6. Chronicles has no Bathsheba story, yet Uriah the Hittite is still in the list (11:41). Is Chronicles hiding David’s sin? What do you think?
7. Who came to David at Ziklag, and why is it surprising that the first were “Saul’s brethren of Benjamin”? Where do you see that pattern in the Brit Hadashah?
8. What does “the Spirit clothed” mean, and of which three men does Scripture say it? Why is Amasai’s “thine are we, David” a model confession?
9. What did “understanding of the times” mean for the tribe of Issachar according to the sages? How is that different from setting dates for the Messiah (Matthew 16:3; Acts 1:7)?
10. The chapter ends with three days of feasting and “joy in Israel.” Where else is the kingdom pictured as a meal? What would it mean for our congregation to be “of one heart” in that way?

Sources

Scripture: 1 Chronicles 2, 3, 5, 9–13, 15, 27–29; 2 Chronicles 16, 24, 36; 1 Samuel 5, 11–12, 16, 20, 22–23, 25, 27–31; 2 Samuel 1–2, 5, 20–21, 23; Genesis 10, 32, 35, 49; Leviticus 5, 10; Numbers 1, 32; Deuteronomy 8, 18, 23, 33; Joshua 3–4, 7; Judges 6, 20; Ezra 6; Nehemiah 8; Esther 1; Psalm 12; Ecclesiastes 3; Isaiah 11, 25, 57; Jeremiah 31–32; Ezekiel 11, 37; Hosea 3, 6; Micah 5; Zechariah 9; Matthew 2, 8, 16; Luke 22; Acts 1–2, 4, 13; Romans 11, 15; 1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 2; Revelation 7, 19, 21.

Talmud and Midrash: Yoma 22b, 26a; Berakhot 12b, 18a–b; Sukkah 52b; Megillah 12b; Moed Katan 16b; Sanhedrin 49a; Yevamot 76b–77a; Bereshit Rabbah 72:5; Vayikra Rabbah 1:3, 26:7.

Commentators: Rashi on Genesis 49:15; the commentators on Chronicles (Rashi on Chronicles, Radak, Metzudat David) on 1 Chronicles 10:6, 10:14, 11:8 and 11:12–14; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim 11:1.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 5, “Signs of the Times”; Lesson 8, “Crown of Twelve Stars”; Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; Lesson 24, “Table of Abraham”; Lesson 25, “Twelve Thrones”; Lesson 49, “Day of Harvest”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Understanding Edom #4 – Zepho & Vulcan” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnGOWzlCQVk), “Bringing Mashiach Today” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwn6-yKJ1_I), “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef, Part 2” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmrYeHRoiBE) and “The Truth About the Lost Tribes of Israel” (https://youtu.be/RRLA9HYkdgI); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “Elisha the Prophet – Part 9” (https://youtu.be/8I5oE5raExU) and “New World Order – Hiram and the Freemasons – Part 11” (https://youtu.be/xxZF29CUAY4); Benei Avraham, Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David”; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith; our 2 Samuel commentary on chapters 1–5, 21 and 23.

Before we begin

David has been crowned at Hebron by all Israel, and the tribes have feasted three days with him, “for there was joy in Israel” (12:41; KJV 12:40). What does a king do first? In Samuel, David takes Jerusalem, receives Hiram’s builders and beats the Philistines, and only then goes for the Ark (2 Samuel 5–6). The Chronicler keeps the events but changes the order. The moment David has Jerusalem and the nation behind him, he turns to the Ark. The house of David and the Philistine wars (chapter 14) are told afterward, inside the three months the Ark waits in the house of Obed-edom. The message is plain: for the Chronicler, the first business of the kingdom is the Presence of Hashem in the midst of His people.

These chapters tell one story in two attempts. The first (chapter 13) ends in a breach, when Uzza dies and the Ark is set aside. The second (chapter 15) ends in joy, when the Levites carry the Ark on their shoulders “as Moses commanded” and all Israel brings it up with shouting and shofar. Between them stands chapter 14, where the word that named the breach, paratz, names the breakthrough at Baal-perazim. The root פ־ר־ץ appears nine times in these chapters. Hashem breaks out against carelessness with holy things, and breaks through for the king who asks Him first. It is the same holiness, met in two different ways.

Chapters 13 and 14 run parallel to 2 Samuel 5–6, which our 2 Samuel commentary has covered; we will not repeat it, and the web page links to it. We spend our words on what Chronicles adds: David consulting “all the congregation of Israel”; the confession, “we enquired not at it in the days of Saul”; the fame of David in all lands; and above all chapter 15, most of which has no parallel in Samuel: the Levites, the singers and the rule that “none ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites.”

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 13 · “We Enquired Not at It in the Days of Saul”

Read 1 Chronicles 13 in Hebrew and English →

13:1–2 · David asks the whole congregation

“And David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds, and with every leader. And David said unto all the congregation of Israel, If it seem good unto you, and that it be of Hashem our God, let us send abroad unto our brethren every where, that are left in all the land of Israel, and with them also to the priests and Levites which are in their cities and suburbs, that they may gather themselves unto us” (13:1–2).

Second Samuel begins this story with a number: David “gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand” (2 Samuel 6:1). Chronicles begins with a conversation. David consults the officers, then puts the matter to the whole assembly, and names two conditions: that it seem good to the people, and that it be from Hashem. He is the anointed king, and he still asks.

Hebrew lesson: קָהָל (kahal), “congregation, assembly.” Kol kehal Yisrael, “all the congregation of Israel,” is the nation gathered as one before Hashem, as it stood at Sinai on “the day of the assembly” (Deuteronomy 9:10). The returned exiles who first read this book also called themselves hakahal (Ezra 10:12; Nehemiah 8:2), and David’s “our brethren that are left,” acheinu hanish’arim, is the language of the remnant (Isaiah 10:20–22). For the Chronicler’s readers the verse is an invitation: the Ark is your business too.

Hebrew lesson: נִפְרְצָה (nifretzah), “let us send abroad.” The verb is paratz, to break out or burst forth, the word Hashem used to Jacob at Bethel: “thou shalt spread abroad (ufaratzta) to the west, and to the east” (Genesis 28:14). David says, literally, “let us break out and send to our brothers.” Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The Lost Word of the Freemasonry – Part 2,” pauses on that word in Genesis, ufaratzta, “you shall break out, burst forth, break through,” and connects it to Peretz and to the coming of Mashiach. The Chronicler plants the root here as a seed; we will meet it at Perez-uzza, at Baal-perazim and in David’s confession in 15:13.

Our teachers. FFOZ reads the gathering of all Israel as the pattern of the end: as Moses “gathered the whole assembly of the community of Israel,” so “when the Messiah comes down from His place in glory, He gathers the Jewish people from all over the world” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). David gathering “all the congregation” to bring the Presence home is a small picture of that day.

Messianic reading. David’s two conditions, “if it seem good unto you, and that it be of Hashem our God,” became the way the first disciples decided things: “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us” (Acts 15:28). Yeshua said the greatest among his disciples would be “as he that doth serve” (Luke 22:26). David serves the assembly by asking it.

13:3–4 · The confession

“And let us bring again the ark of our God to us: for we enquired not at it in the days of Saul. And all the congregation said that they would do so: for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people” (13:3–4).

The first sentence is not in Samuel. It is the Chronicler’s key to the chapter, and it is a confession: we. David does not say “Saul neglected the Ark.” He says “we did not seek it.” The nation shares the fault of the king it followed, and the nation answers him.

What was the Ark doing in Saul’s days? After the Philistines sent it back, it sat in the house of Abinadab at Kiriath-jearim, and “the time was long; for it was twenty years” before Israel even “lamented after Hashem” (1 Samuel 7:1–2). Through all of Saul’s reign it stayed there, while the Tabernacle stood at Nob and then at Gibeon (16:39; Mishnah Zevachim 14:7). Once, in a battle, Saul called for it and then cut the priest off: “Bring hither the ark of God… And Saul said unto the priest, Withdraw thine hand” (1 Samuel 14:18–19). He wanted the Ark’s help, not its direction.

דָּרַשׁ (darash) again. We studied the Chronicler’s favorite verb at 10:13–14, where Saul “enquired not of Hashem” (velo darash baHashem). Here Israel confesses, lo derashnuhu, “we sought it not.” After Uzza, David will say the same word with a sharper edge: “we sought him not after the due order” (15:13), and the psalm sung when the Ark comes to rest commands, “Seek Hashem and his strength, seek his face continually” (16:11). In Chronicles a reign is measured by one question: did the king seek Hashem?

Messianic reading. Yeshua taught the same measure: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33); “seek, and ye shall find” (Matthew 7:7). Malachi, speaking to the Chronicler’s own generation, promised that “the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple” (Malachi 3:1).

13:5–8 · From Shihor to Hamath: all Israel goes up

“So David gathered all Israel together, from Shihor of Egypt even unto the entering of Hemath, to bring the ark of God from Kirjathjearim. And David went up, and all Israel, to Baalah, that is, to Kirjathjearim, which belonged to Judah, to bring up thence the ark of God Hashem, that dwelleth between the cherubims, whose name is called on it” (13:5–6).

All Israel. The Chronicler’s phrase for the nation acting as one (see 11:1–3) comes six times in these chapters (13:5, 6, 8; 14:8; 15:3, 28). Samuel says “chosen men”; Chronicles says everyone, from the full borders of the promise, Shihor, a branch of the Nile (Joshua 13:3), to the pass of Hamath (Numbers 34:8). The Chronicler’s readers lived in a province a few days’ walk across. He shows them the whole land and the whole people walking to the Ark together, and FFOZ notes that Isaiah’s final ingathering uses the same geography, “from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath” (Isaiah 11:11; End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”).

“Whose name is called on it.” The Hebrew ends abruptly: asher nikra shem, “upon which the Name is called.” The Ark is not God. It is the box of acacia and gold that holds the tablets of Sinai, over which Hashem is yoshev hakeruvim, “enthroned on the cherubim” (Psalm 80:1; 99:1). Our Statement of Faith says it exactly: “The Ark of the Covenant contained the divine commandments, yet the Ark itself was a created object… the created vessel carries, conveys, or manifests the divine, without becoming God.” A vessel that bears the Name must be handled the way the One whose Name it bears has said.

13:9–12 · The threshing floor of Chidon

“And when they came unto the threshingfloor of Chidon, Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark; for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of Hashem was kindled against Uzza, and he smote him, because he put his hand to the ark: and there he died before God” (13:9–10).

For the new cart, Rava’s teaching that David was punished for calling words of Torah “songs,” and Rabbi Yochanan’s comfort that Uzza came to the World to Come, see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 6. Here we notice what Chronicles changes.

Chidon or Nachon? Samuel calls the place “Nachon’s threshingfloor” (2 Samuel 6:6); Chronicles calls it Chidon. The Talmud answers: “It is written Chidon and it is written Nachon. Rabbi Yochanan said: at first Chidon, and in the end Nachon” (Sotah 35b). A kidon is a javelin, the weapon Joshua stretched out over Ai (Joshua 8:18); nachon means established, prepared. The place where judgment struck like a spear became a place of preparation. The same root, kun, will run through chapter 15, where David “prepared a place for the ark” (15:1, 3, 12).

“Before God.” Samuel says Uzza died “by the ark of God”; Chronicles says “before God.” The Chronicler will not let us think of the Ark as a dangerous object with a charge in it. Uzza died in the presence of the living God, who had said, “they shall not touch any holy thing, lest they die” (Numbers 4:15). Rambam counts carrying the Ark on the shoulder as one of the commandments and remembers this day in explaining it: because the Ark was put on a wagon, Hashem made a breach against Uzza (Hilchot Klei HaMikdash 2:12).

Hebrew lesson: פֶּרֶץ עֻזָּא (Peretz Uzza), “the breach of Uzza.” Paratz is what a flood does to a dam and an enemy to a wall. Hashem used it at Sinai, where the priests were told to “sanctify themselves, lest Hashem break forth (yifrotz) upon them” (Exodus 19:22, 24). The Ark holds the tablets of Sinai, and the rules of Sinai still stand around it. David is angry (vayichar leDavid, “it burned to David,” 13:11, the verb just used of Hashem’s anger); then he is afraid: “How shall I bring the ark of God home to me?” (13:12). The fear saves the project. He stops, and in three months he will learn what should have been done.

Messianic reading. The first community of Yeshua’s disciples had its own Perez-uzza. At the very beginning of the new era, with the Spirit newly poured out, Ananias and Sapphira fell dead before the apostles, “and great fear came upon all the church” (Acts 5:5, 11). “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). Grace did not cancel holiness. A congregation that learns the fear of Hashem at the beginning can carry His Presence a long way afterward.

13:13–14 · Three months with Obed-edom

“So David brought not the ark home to himself to the city of David, but carried it aside into the house of Obededom the Gittite. And the ark of God remained with the family of Obededom in his house three months. And Hashem blessed the house of Obededom, and all that he had” (13:13–14).

In our 2 Samuel commentary we told how the Sages describe the blessing (Berakhot 63b) and how Radak and Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Edom #2 – Trump & Herod,” identify Obed-edom as a Levite who had lived in Gath, “a genuine servant of God.” Chronicles is what lets them say so. The man whose house received the Ark appears again as a singer (15:21) and a “doorkeeper for the ark” (15:24), and his sons become gatekeepers, “for God blessed him” (26:4–8). The house that honored the Ark for three months is given the Ark’s gate for generations. The sons of Korah, who shared that gate, sang, “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness” (Psalm 84:10).

His name, Oved, means servant: “thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things” (Matthew 25:21).

Chapter 14 · The Three Months: A House, Sons and Two Victories

Read 1 Chronicles 14 in Hebrew and English →

Read in the Chronicler’s order, these events fill the three months at Obed-edom’s house: while Hashem blesses that house, He is also building David’s. Hashem did not withdraw from David after the breach. He blessed him while he learned.

14:1–2 · Hiram’s cedars, and a kingdom lifted up on high

“Now Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and timber of cedars, with masons and carpenters, to build him an house. And David perceived that Hashem had confirmed him king over Israel, for his kingdom was lifted up on high, because of his people Israel” (14:1–2).

Chronicles adds one word to Samuel’s sentence: lemalah, “on high.” And the reason stands as in Samuel: “because of his people Israel.” Our 2 Samuel commentary on 5:11–12 noted Radak and Metzudat David here: the throne exists for the people, not the people for the throne.

Hiram. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Lebanon & Iran in the End of Days,” describes the old friendship: “King Hiram was even friends with King David… Israel and Lebanon back then were very close allies,” sharing a coast, an alphabet and the cedar trade. The Midrash asks whether this Hiram is Hirah the Adullamite, Judah’s friend in Genesis 38. The Rabbis say they are the same man, who lived near twelve hundred years, “for Hiram was ever a lover of David” (1 Kings 5:1); Rabbi Yehudah ben Rabbi Simon says they are two (Bereshit Rabbah 85:4). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “New World Order – Hiram and the Freemasons – Part 1,” brings the same tradition: “He’s the same friend of Judah, Hira… he lived 1,200 years.” We take it as midrash and as a hint: the house of Judah has had a friend in Tyre since the patriarchs. Hiram himself will send Solomon the cedar for the Temple (2 Chronicles 2).

Messianic reading. The lifting is Hashem’s doing, for the people’s sake. Our Statement of Faith reads Philippians 2 the same way: “God also hath highly exalted him” (Philippians 2:9), “to the glory of God the Father” (2:11). The Son of David does not lift himself. Hashem lifts him, for Israel’s sake and for the nations’.

14:3–7 · Thirteen sons in Jerusalem

“And David took more wives at Jerusalem: and David begat more sons and daughters” (14:3). Thirteen sons are named; Samuel names eleven (2 Samuel 5:14–16), and Chronicles adds Elpalet and Nogah here and in 3:5–8. Neither list names the mothers. Bathsheba appears in this book once, as Bath-shua, mother of “Shimea, and Shobab, and Nathan, and Solomon” (3:5), and her story is never told.

Nathan and Solomon stand side by side in verse 4. Matthew traces Yeshua’s line through Solomon (Matthew 1:6) and Luke through Nathan (Luke 3:31); we discussed the two lines in our 2 Samuel commentary on 5:13–16, and in our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” we took up how the genealogies fit together. The Chronicler’s lists are the backbone of both.

Hebrew lesson: בְּעֶלְיָדָע (Be’elyada), “Baal knows.” Verse 7 keeps a name that Samuel and 1 Chronicles 3:8 give as Elyada, “God knows.” In David’s day baal, “master,” could still be used of Hashem; Hosea promises the day Israel “shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali” (Hosea 2:16). The change from Beeliada to Eliada is that promise carried out in one family.

14:8–12 · Baal-perazim: the God who breaks through

“And when the Philistines heard that David was anointed king over all Israel, all the Philistines went up to seek David. And David heard of it, and went out against them” (14:8).

Chronicles adds “all” to Israel, and where Samuel has David go down “to the hold” (2 Samuel 5:17), Chronicles has him go out against them. The united kingdom is a threat the moment it exists, and its king does not hide.

David asks. “And David enquired of God, saying, Shall I go up against the Philistines? and wilt thou deliver them into mine hand? And Hashem said unto him, Go up; for I will deliver them into thine hand” (14:10). The verb is sha’al, to ask, the root of Saul’s own name. When Saul asked, “Hashem answered him not” (1 Samuel 14:37; 28:6). David asks before the first battle and again before the second.

The breakthrough. “God hath broken in upon mine enemies by mine hand like the breaking forth of waters: therefore they called the name of that place Baalperazim” (14:11). The word that named Uzza’s death now names David’s victory: paratz Elohim… keferetz mayim… Baal Peratzim. Chronicles also changes “before me” (2 Samuel 5:20) to “by mine hand”: the breakthrough is God’s, and the hand is David’s. Our 2 Samuel commentary on 5:17–25 traced the root to Peretz, David’s ancestor, to Micah’s “breaker” (Micah 2:13; Bereshit Rabbah 85:14), and to Ariel Cohen Alloro’s teaching in “The Trinity – Part 12” that the story of Peretz is the Torah’s story of the birth of Mashiach. What we add is the Chronicler’s pairing. The same God who broke out against a careless hand on the Ark breaks through for a king who asks Him. Whether holiness meets us as breach or as breakthrough depends on how we come to it.

The idols. Samuel’s Hebrew says David’s men carried them away (vayissa’em, 2 Samuel 5:21; the KJV has “burned”); Chronicles says “they were burned with fire” (14:12), as the Torah requires (Deuteronomy 7:25). The Chronicler wants his readers, home from Babylon and its gods, to hear that David did it by the book.

14:13–17 · The sound of marching in the treetops

The Philistines come back, and David asks again. This time the answer is different: “Go not up after them; turn away from them, and come upon them over against the mulberry trees. And it shall be, when thou shalt hear a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt go out to battle: for God is gone forth before thee to smite the host of the Philistines” (14:14–15).

Hebrew lesson: קוֹל הַצְּעָדָה (kol hatze’adah), “the sound of marching.” Rashi’s angels in the treetops are in our 2 Samuel commentary; here we listen to the Hebrew. Tza’ad is to step, to march, the word of Hashem the Warrior going before His people: “Hashem, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst (betza’adecha) out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled” (Judges 5:4), and “O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march (betza’adecha) through the wilderness” (Psalm 68:7). The Chronicler’s “God is gone forth before thee” (yatza haElohim lefanecha) is that psalm’s phrase, and Psalm 68 opens with the words Moses said whenever the Ark set out: “Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered” (Psalm 68:1; Numbers 10:35). The Ark is still in Obed-edom’s house, but the God of the Ark is marching ahead of David. FFOZ makes the same connection at the end of the age: when the Ark is seen in the heavenly Sanctuary (Revelation 11:19), “the appearance of the ark indicates that the LORD goes forth to war,” as in Numbers 10:35 (End of Days, Lesson 17, “The Last Trumpet”).

Gibeon. Samuel says the pursuit ran “from Geba until thou come to Gazer” (2 Samuel 5:25); Chronicles says “from Gibeon even to Gazer” (14:16). Isaiah remembered both victories, and remembered them the Chronicler’s way: “For Hashem shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work” (Isaiah 28:21). That same chapter is where Hashem lays “in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone” (Isaiah 28:16), the verse Peter applies to Yeshua (1 Peter 2:6).

“The fame of David went out into all lands.” Verse 17 has no parallel in Samuel: “And the fame of David went out into all lands; and Hashem brought the fear of him upon all nations.” “The fear of him upon all nations” is the language of the conquest: “This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations” (Deuteronomy 2:25). What Joshua’s generation began, David’s completes.

Messianic reading. When the Son of David began to teach, “his fame went throughout all Syria” (Matthew 4:24), and the psalm for the king’s son ends, “His name shall endure for ever… all nations shall call him blessed” (Psalm 72:17). Notice how the Philistines came: “all the Philistines went up to seek David” the moment he was anointed (14:8). When the Son of David was born, Herod likewise “will seek the young child to destroy him” (Matthew 2:13). The anointed king is sought by his enemies before he is sought by his people. And the sound in the treetops, heard and not seen, is how Yeshua described the Spirit: “thou hearest the sound thereof” (John 3:8).

Chapter 15 · “None Ought to Carry the Ark but the Levites”

Read 1 Chronicles 15 in Hebrew and English →

Chapter 15 is the Chronicler’s own. Second Samuel 6:12–16 covers the second attempt in five verses; Chronicles gives it twenty-nine. For a community rebuilding worship after exile, this chapter was a manual. For us it is a lesson in how the Presence is carried.

15:1–3 · A place prepared

“And David made him houses in the city of David, and prepared a place for the ark of God, and pitched for it a tent. Then David said, None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites: for them hath Hashem chosen to carry the ark of God, and to minister unto him for ever” (15:1–2).

Hebrew lesson: הֵכִין מָקוֹם (hechin makom), “he prepared a place.” The verb kun came in 14:2, where Hashem “confirmed” (hechino) David as king, and in the Talmud’s reading of Nachon. Now David prepares. The same verb carries the rest of the book: Hashem will “establish” the throne of David’s son (17:11–12); David will say, “I will therefore now make preparation for it” (22:5) and “I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God” (29:2); and the Temple will rise “in the place that David had prepared” (2 Chronicles 3:1). Hashem establishes the king; the king prepares the place. That is the Chronicler’s David: the father who prepares everything so that the son of peace can build.

The tent. David pitches an ohel for the Ark in Zion while the Tabernacle and the bronze altar stay at Gibeon (16:39–40), until Solomon brings them together (2 Chronicles 5:5). Psalm 132 is David’s vow about this: “I will not give sleep to mine eyes… until I find out a place for Hashem… we found it in the fields of the wood” (sedei ya’ar, the fields of Kiriath-jearim) “… Arise, O Hashem, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength” (Psalm 132:4–8). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “The Truth About the Lost Tribes of Israel,” draws the line from this moment to Hashem’s later words about Jerusalem: from the time “King David made it the capital and brought the Ark of the Covenant there, God said from now on my presence rests in Jerusalem forever.” Psalm 132 says the same: “For Hashem hath chosen Zion… This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell” (132:13–14).

“Then David said.” The Hebrew az, “then,” marks the lesson learned. David quotes the Torah: “At that time Hashem separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of Hashem, to stand before Hashem to minister unto him” (Deuteronomy 10:8), and the rule of the wagons: “unto the sons of Kohath he gave none: because the service of the sanctuary belonging unto them was that they should bear upon their shoulders” (Numbers 7:9). None of this was hidden; the Sages say it was a verse schoolchildren read (Sotah 35a). David’s sin was zeal that moved before it read.

“For ever.” Hashem chose the Levites ad olam, and the prophets hold to that: “neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me” (Jeremiah 33:18); Malachi’s messenger “shall purify the sons of Levi” (Malachi 3:3); Hashem “will also take of them for priests and for Levites” (Isaiah 66:21). Our Statement of Faith confesses that the Torah is not replaced and the Messianic age restores the Temple and its service. FFOZ, following Jeremiah 3:16, notes that in that Temple “there will be no ark of the covenant” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”), because the whole city will be “the throne of Hashem” (Jeremiah 3:17). The vessel may be outgrown; the service of Levi is not.

Messianic reading. “I go to prepare a place for you,” Yeshua told his disciples (John 14:2). David prepared a place for the Presence; the Son of David prepares a place for the people in the Father’s house.

15:4–15 · “Sanctify yourselves”: the Levites take up the Ark

David assembles “the children of Aaron, and the Levites” (15:4): six chiefs with 862 of their brethren, from Kohath, Merari, Gershom and the Kohathite houses of Elizaphan, Hebron and Uzziel (15:5–10; Exodus 6:18, 22; Numbers 3:30). Kohath leads because Kohath carries the Ark. Then he calls the priests Zadok and Abiathar and the six chiefs by name:

“Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of Hashem God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it. For because ye did it not at the first, Hashem our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order” (15:12–13).

The names matter. For the returned community, Levite lineage was no formality. When Ezra gathered his caravan at the river Ahava, “I viewed the people, and the priests, and found there none of the sons of Levi” (Ezra 8:15), and he had to send for them. A chapter that names Uriel, Asaiah, Joel, Shemaiah, Eliel and Amminadab, with their numbers, told those readers that the Levites are not optional.

“We sought him not after the due order.” Here paratz comes for the last time and darash for the second: paratz Hashem Eloheinu banu, ki lo derashnuhu kamishpat. In 13:3 the object of “we sought not” was the Ark; here it is Hashem Himself. The Ark has a mishpat, an ordinance, and seeking Hashem without His ordinance is not seeking Him. The Hebrew of the first clause is compressed almost to breaking, ki lema barishonah lo atem, “because at the first it was not you,” as if David’s sentence stumbled the way the oxen did. Then it rights itself: “So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves” (15:14).

“Sanctify yourselves.” Hitkadshu echoes the command of Sinai (Exodus 19:10, 22). It is also what Ezra told the priests who carried the Temple vessels home from Babylon, “Ye are holy unto Hashem; the vessels are holy also” (Ezra 8:28; see Isaiah 52:11). If Ezra wrote Chronicles, as the Sages say (Bava Batra 15a), the man who wrote this chapter had done what it describes.

On their shoulders. “And the children of the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of Hashem” (15:15). The staves were never to leave the rings (Exodus 25:15); the Talmud rules that whoever removes them is liable to lashes (Yoma 72a). The Sages say the Ark carried those who carried it (Sotah 35a), and the Chronicler says of this day, “God helped the Levites that bare the ark” (15:26).

Messianic reading. “Take my yoke upon you… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:29–30). A yoke is carried on the shoulder, by those who have accepted it. Peter writes in this chapter’s language: “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). Good intentions put the Ark on a cart. Holiness puts it on the shoulder.

15:16–24 · The singers, the instruments and Chenaniah

“And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy” (15:16).

This is the birth of the Temple music. When the foundation of the Second Temple was laid, the priests stood “with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise Hashem, after the ordinance of David king of Israel” (Ezra 3:10; see Nehemiah 12:45–46). Everything the returned exiles rebuilt traces to this verse.

Heman, Asaph and Ethan. The three master singers stand for the three Levite houses, Kohath, Gershom and Merari (6:18–32; KJV 6:33–47). Heman is the grandson of Samuel the prophet (6:18; KJV 6:33): the prophet who anointed David has a grandson leading the song when David’s Ark comes home. Psalms bear their names: Asaph 50 and 73–83, and, if the Ezrahites of the titles are these men, Heman 88 and Ethan 89. The Talmud says David composed the Psalter “by means of ten elders,” Heman and Asaph among them (Bava Batra 14b), and identifies “Ethan the Ezrahite” of Psalm 89 with Abraham (Bava Batra 15a): the song of the covenant with David reaches back to the covenant with Abraham.

Psalm 89, Ethan’s psalm, is the psalm of the house of David: “I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, Thy seed will I establish for ever” (89:3–4). In our class “The Essence and Mission of Yeshua from a Jewish Perspective” we read those verses with Psalm 132:11 and concluded, “The Messiah must come from the bloodline, the seed of David.” The psalm ends with “the footsteps of thine anointed” reproached (89:51); FFOZ notes that the Sages’ phrase “the footsteps of the Messiah” comes from this verse, and that “the entire psalm is about God’s covenant with David” (End of Days, Lesson 13, “The Name of the Beast”). Heman’s psalm is darker still: “free among the dead… thou hast laid me in the lowest pit” (Psalm 88:5–6). David’s singers sang both the covenant and the pit. Mashiach ben David and Mashiach ben Yosef were already in the choir.

The instruments. Heman, Asaph and Ethan sound “cymbals of brass”; eight men play “psalteries on Alamoth”; six play “harps on the Sheminith to excel” (15:19–21). Alamot and Sheminith are the words in the titles of Psalms 46, 6 and 12; Alamot, from almah, a maiden, is the high register. Hebrew lesson: שְׁמִינִית (Sheminith), “the eighth.” Rashi on Psalm 6:1 explains it as a harp of eight strings. The Talmud teaches that the harp of the Temple had seven strings, the harp of the days of Mashiach will have eight, as it says “upon the Sheminith,” and the harp of the World to Come ten (Arakhin 13b; Psalm 92:3). FFOZ brings the same teaching: “in the Days of the Messiah, the harps will have eight strings (Psalm 6:1), but in the World to Come, the harps will have ten strings” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). David’s harpists on the Sheminith were tuned one string past this world.

Chenaniah. “And Chenaniah, chief of the Levites, was for song: he instructed about the song, because he was skilful” (15:22). The word translated “song” is massa, which means a burden lifted and also a voice lifted; it is the prophets’ word for an oracle (Isaiah 13:1). Some read it of carrying the Ark; most, with the KJV, read it of the music, as verse 27 confirms. Either way, the reason is ki mevin hu, “because he understood.” Skill in holy service is a gift, and the Chronicler names the man who had it.

The priests’ trumpets. Seven priests “did blow with the trumpets before the ark of God” (15:24), because the Torah gives the silver trumpets to “the sons of Aaron, the priests” (Numbers 10:8). Levites sing; priests blow. And among the doorkeepers for the Ark is Obed-edom again.

Messianic reading. Yeshua and his disciples closed the Seder the Levites’ way, with the Hallel: “when they had sung an hymn, they went out” (Matthew 26:30). John saw the end: elders “having every one of them harps” and singing “a new song” (Revelation 5:8–9), and the overcomers “having the harps of God” singing “the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb” (Revelation 15:2–3). The Chronicler’s orchestra at the gate of Zion is the first rehearsal.

15:25–28 · Up to the city of David with joy

“So David, and the elders of Israel, and the captains over thousands, went to bring up the ark of the covenant of Hashem out of the house of Obededom with joy. And it came to pass, when God helped the Levites that bare the ark of the covenant of Hashem, that they offered seven bullocks and seven rams” (15:25–26).

The whole leadership goes: king, elders, captains. For the Sages on the six paces and the offerings, see our 2 Samuel commentary on 6:12–15.

The king in linen. “And David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, and all the Levites that bare the ark, and the singers, and Chenaniah the master of the song with the singers: David also had upon him an ephod of linen” (15:27). Samuel mentions only the ephod. Chronicles adds the me’il butz, the fine linen robe, and tells us who else wore it. The king is dressed exactly like the men carrying the Ark. In 2 Samuel we noted Rambam’s ruling from this scene that whoever lowers himself in joy before Hashem is “the great one, the honored one, who serves out of love” (Hilchot Shofar, Sukkah ve-Lulav 8:15). The Chronicler shows the lowering in cloth: no purple, no crown, the same white as the Levites.

“With shouting, and with sound of the shofar.” “Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of Hashem with shouting, and with sound of the cornet, and with trumpets, and with cymbals, making a noise with psalteries and harps” (15:28). The Hebrew is biteruah uvekol shofar, word for word the line of Psalm 47: “God is gone up with a shout (biteruah), Hashem with the sound of a trumpet (bekol shofar)” (Psalm 47:5). That is the psalm we say before the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, and many read it as the song of this procession: Hashem “goes up” to Zion as His Ark goes up (see also Psalm 68:25).

Messianic reading. Paul described the return of the Son of David in the words of this procession: “with a shout… and with the trump of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). The Talmud puts Psalm 24 in Solomon’s mouth when he brought this same Ark into the Holy of Holies and the gates would not open until he said, “remember the mercies of David thy servant” (Shabbat 30a; 2 Chronicles 6:42). The Ark went up to Zion in David’s day and in Solomon’s, and the gates opened for David’s sake. When the Son of David returns, Zion will lift up its gates again, and the glory will be Hashem’s.

15:29 · Michal at the window

“And it came to pass, as the ark of the covenant of Hashem came to the city of David, that Michal the daughter of Saul looking out at a window saw king David dancing and playing: and she despised him in her heart” (15:29).

Samuel goes on to the quarrel at the palace door and ends with Michal childless (2 Samuel 6:20–23; see our 2 Samuel commentary). Chronicles keeps one verse and stops. Why keep it at all, when the Chronicler leaves out so much that is unflattering?

Because Michal here is not David’s wife. She is “the daughter of Saul,” and this is the last time a child of Saul appears in the book. Saul “enquired not of Hashem” (10:14); under Saul, “we enquired not at” the Ark (13:3); and now Saul’s daughter watches the Ark come home and despises the man who sought it. She is at a window, apart from “all Israel.” The verb for David’s “playing,” mesachek, is the verb used of the whole people in 13:8: the king is doing what all Israel is doing. Michal thinks a king should be above the people. David thinks a king belongs among them before Hashem.

Ariel Cohen Alloro’s teaching from this scene, that true kingship is shiflut, lowliness, is in our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 6. We would say it with the Statement of Faith’s words: honor belongs to the king, worship to Hashem alone, and the king shows it by dancing with the people before the Ark.

Messianic reading. When the Son of David came down the Mount of Olives and “the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice,” some Pharisees said, “Master, rebuke thy disciples,” and he answered, “if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:37–40). In the Temple the children cried “Hosanna to the son of David,” and the chief priests “were sore displeased” (Matthew 21:15). There is always a window, and always someone at it. The Chronicler leaves Michal there and turns to the Ark in its tent and the psalm of thanksgiving (chapter 16). Joy before Hashem is not undignified. Standing apart from it is.

Drawing it together

1. The Presence comes first. The Chronicler moves the Ark to the front of David’s reign because the kingdom exists for the Presence, not the Presence for the kingdom. Before his palace, his wars and his fame, David says, “let us bring again the ark of our God to us.”

2. Seeking Hashem means seeking Him His way. Darash measures every king in Chronicles. Saul did not seek; Israel confessed, “we sought it not”; and the first attempt failed because “we sought him not after the due order.” Zeal is not a substitute for Torah. The Ark goes on Levite shoulders because Moses said so, and no amount of music changes that.

3. The breach and the breakthrough are the same holiness. The root paratz names Uzza’s death, David’s victory and David’s confession. Hashem does not become less holy when He fights for us or more holy when He judges us. How His holiness meets us depends on whether we come carelessly or come asking.

4. The Levites are forever. Chapter 15 is a manual for carrying the Presence: sanctified men, appointed families, named singers, priests with trumpets, a skilled master of song. The returned exiles rebuilt worship from it, and the prophets promise the sons of Levi a place in the age to come. Torah is not replaced; its service is restored.

5. The king goes up among the people. David gathers all Israel, asks their consent, dresses like a Levite and dances with the crowd. His kingdom is “lifted up on high… because of his people Israel.” That is the pattern of the Son of David, whom Hashem has highly exalted, who came “as he that doth serve,” and who will come again “with a shout… and with the trump of God.”

Questions for discussion

1. Why does the Chronicler put the Ark story (chapter 13) before Hiram and the Philistine wars (chapter 14), when 2 Samuel tells them the other way round?
2. “We enquired not at it in the days of Saul” (13:3). Why does David say we? Trace the verb darash through 10:14, 13:3, 15:13 and 16:11.
3. The root paratz appears in 13:2, 13:11, 14:11 and 15:13. Explain how one word can describe a breach, a breakthrough and a confession.
4. What does the Talmud mean by “at first Chidon and in the end Nachon” (Sotah 35b)? How does the root kun connect to 15:1?
5. Our Statement of Faith says the Ark “contained the divine commandments, yet the Ark itself was a created object.” How does that help us read “whose name is called on it” (13:6) and Uzza’s death?
6. How do Obed-edom’s three months (13:14) connect to his later roles in 15:24 and 26:4–8?
7. What did Isaiah remember about Baal-perazim and Gibeon (Isaiah 28:21)?
8. “None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites” (15:2). Which Torah verses is David quoting? Why did Ezra’s generation need this chapter (Ezra 8:15)?
9. What are Alamoth and Sheminith, and what does the Talmud teach about harps of seven, eight and ten strings (Arakhin 13b)? What hint does that give about Mashiach?
10. Chronicles keeps Michal at the window (15:29) but drops her quarrel with David. Why? How does Luke 19:37–40 show the same scene in the life of Yeshua?

Sources

Scripture: 1 Chronicles 3, 6, 10, 12–17, 22, 26, 29; 2 Chronicles 2–3, 5–6; 1 Samuel 7, 14, 28; 2 Samuel 5–6; 1 Kings 5; Genesis 28, 38; Exodus 6, 19, 25; Numbers 3–4, 7, 10, 34; Deuteronomy 2, 7, 9–10; Joshua 8, 13; Judges 5; Ezra 3, 8, 10; Nehemiah 8, 12; Psalms 6, 12, 24, 46–47, 68, 72, 80, 84, 88–89, 92, 99, 132; Isaiah 10–11, 13, 28, 52, 66; Jeremiah 3, 33; Hosea 2; Micah 2; Malachi 3; Matthew 2, 4, 6–7, 11, 21, 25–26; Luke 3, 19, 22; John 3, 14; Acts 5, 15; Philippians 2; 1 Thessalonians 4; Hebrews 10; 1 Peter 1–2; Revelation 5, 11, 15.

Talmud and Midrash: Sotah 35a–b; Berakhot 63b; Yoma 72a; Arakhin 13b; Bava Batra 14b–15a; Shabbat 30a; Mishnah Zevachim 14:7; Bereshit Rabbah 85:4, 85:14.

Commentators: Rashi on Psalm 6:1; Radak and Metzudat David on 2 Samuel 5:12; Radak on 2 Samuel 6:10; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Klei HaMikdash 2:12, and Hilchot Shofar, Sukkah ve-Lulav 8:15.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 13, “The Name of the Beast”; Lesson 17, “The Last Trumpet”; Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Lebanon & Iran in the End of Days” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOUTSoOJA4c), “The Truth About the Lost Tribes of Israel” (https://youtu.be/RRLA9HYkdgI) and “Understanding Edom #2 – Trump & Herod” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZxVH91iHPs); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “The Lost Word of the Freemasonry – Part 2” (https://youtu.be/b7uFsCqdn1Q), “New World Order – Hiram and the Freemasons – Part 1” (https://youtu.be/1WguXGrp3J4) and “The Trinity – Part 12” (https://youtu.be/W-somJq3JsM); Benei Avraham class, “The Essence and Mission of Yeshua from a Jewish Perspective” (https://www.youtube.com/live/NcguCQbsk8E); our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David”; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

The Ark has come home. Chapter 16 opens with it set down in the tent David pitched for it, and then the Chronicler does something no other book does: he writes out the song the Levites sang that day. It is stitched together from three psalms we still pray, Psalm 105, Psalm 96 and Psalm 106, and its center is one short sentence, “Hashem reigneth.” Then he tells us a detail Samuel leaves out. For the rest of David’s reign Israel worshipped in two places: before the Ark in Jerusalem, with song, and before the altar of Moses at Gibeon, with the daily offerings.

Chapter 17 is Nathan’s oracle and the covenant with David, which our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7 covered at length. We will read the Chronicler’s version against Samuel’s, because the differences are the message: no rod of chastening, no name for Saul, and a promise that is not “thy house and thy kingdom” but “Mine house and My kingdom” (17:14). Chapter 18 is David’s wars and officers, parallel to 2 Samuel 8, with quiet changes of its own. Divrei HaYamim was written for a community home from Babylon with no king and a modest Temple, asking whose the kingdom is and whether the promise to David holds. These chapters are the Chronicler’s answer.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 16 · The Ark in the Tent and the Song of Thanks

Read 1 Chronicles 16 in Hebrew and English →

16:1–3 · Bread, meat and wine before the Ark

“So they brought the ark of God, and set it in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it: and they offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings before God. And when David had made an end of offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of Hashem” (16:1–2).

These verses match 2 Samuel 6:17–19, and our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 6 covers the procession, Uzzah, Obed-edom and Michal at the window. David brings the sacrifices (the kohanim did the service) and blesses the people “in the name of Hashem,” the work the Torah gives the sons of Aaron (Numbers 6:27). David is not a kohen of Aaron’s line, yet he stands between Hashem and Israel and blesses them. We will come back to where the line between king and kohen runs at the end of chapter 18.

Hebrew lesson: אֶשְׁפָּר וַאֲשִׁישָׁה (eshpar va’ashishah). Every Israelite, “both man and woman,” goes home with a loaf, an eshpar and an ashishah. The words are rare; the Talmud reads them as a portion of meat, “one-sixth of a bullock,” and a cake, “one-sixth of an ephah” (Pesachim 36b). Peace offerings are eaten by the one who brings them, and David makes the whole nation his guests, as Yeshua would feed the crowds and send them away full (Matthew 14:19–20).

16:4–7 · Asaph and the Levites: to remember, to thank, to praise

“And he appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of Hashem, and to record, and to thank and praise Hashem God of Israel” (16:4).

Here Chronicles leaves Samuel behind. The Chronicler, who cares about the Levites more than any other writer in the Tenakh, tells us that David set up a standing service of song before the Ark, and names the singers.

Three verbs. The Levites are appointed לְהַזְכִּיר (lehazkir), “to cause to remember”; לְהוֹדוֹת (lehodot), “to give thanks”; and לְהַלֵּל (lehallel), “to praise.” The song that follows does all three in order: it calls Israel to remember (16:12, 15), it opens and closes with hodu (16:8, 34), and it ends with the people’s praise (16:36). The kohanim keep their own part: in the Torah they blow the silver trumpets over the offerings “for a memorial (לְזִכָּרוֹן, lezikaron) before your God” (Numbers 10:10), and so “Benaiah also and Jahaziel the priests” stand “with trumpets continually before the ark” (16:6). Levites with harps, kohanim with trumpets, as the Torah divides the work.

Asaph and Obed-edom. Asaph is a Levite of the line of Gershom (6:24–28; KJV 6:39–43), and twelve psalms carry his name. The Talmud says David wrote the Psalms “with the help of ten elders,” Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun among them (Bava Batra 14b). Asaph’s own psalms are the ones that ask “how long?” and remember the sanctuary in ruins (Psalm 74, 79); the man who would give words to the exile is the first appointed to sing before the Ark. Beside him stands Obed-edom, in whose house the Ark rested for three months (16:5, 38; see 13:13–14 and our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 6). The man who kept the Ark in his house now keeps its gate.

“Then on that day David delivered first this psalm to thank Hashem into the hand of Asaph and his brethren” (16:7).

The beginning of daily song. David gave this psalm בָּרֹאשׁ (barosh), “at the head,” for the first time. Seder Olam Rabbah (chapter 14) records that from this day the Levites sang its first half every morning before the Ark and its second half every evening, for forty-three years until the Temple was built. That is why these verses open the morning prayers in our siddur: the paragraph Hodu laHashem kir’u vishmo in Pesukei deZimra is 1 Chronicles 16:8–36, word for word. Every Jew who prays in the morning is singing Asaph’s first psalm.

16:8–22 · “Remember His covenant”: the song from Psalm 105

“Give thanks unto Hashem, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people” (16:8).

These fifteen verses are Psalm 105:1–15 with a handful of changes, and the changes teach. Psalm 105 is a history psalm, from the fathers through Joseph, Moses and the conquest. David gives Asaph only the first part: the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Hashem’s protection of them while they were strangers.

What is changed. Psalm 105:8 says “He hath remembered his covenant for ever.” Chronicles makes it a command, “Be ye mindful always of his covenant” (16:15), זִכְרוּ לְעוֹלָם (zichru le’olam). Psalm 105:12 says “when they were but a few men.” Chronicles says “when ye were but few” (16:19). The song turns from them to you. The Chronicler’s readers had just lived Psalm 105 again: few, strangers, carried “from nation to nation” (16:20), and brought back to “the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance” (16:18). The song tells them to remember, because the covenant is the reason they are home.

Hebrew lesson: הוֹדוּ (hodu), “give thanks.” The root י־ד־ה means both to thank and to confess; the same verb is used when a sinner “shall confess” (Leviticus 5:5). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his two-part video “Lord’s Prayer, Our Father, Pater Nostre – אבינו שבשמים,” dwells on this: to thank is to “recognize that everything that I receive, it’s not for me” (Part 2), and he ties it to confession, “I was wrong, I did a mistake, I’m not perfect” (Part 1). Thanks and confession are one act, admitting that what I have came from Someone else.

A thousand generations. The covenant “which he commanded to a thousand generations” (16:15) has run only a fraction of them so far. Our Statement of Faith rests on this: the covenant with Israel is not replaced, and the land is part of it, for “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29).

“He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he reproved kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm” (16:21–22).

“Touch not mine anointed.” In the plain sense the anointed are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, never anointed with oil but set apart, and the kings reproved are Pharaoh and Abimelech (Genesis 12:17; 20:7). The Talmud gives the verse to a different anointed:

“Touch not mine anointed”: these are the schoolchildren. “And do my prophets no harm”: these are the Torah scholars. (Shabbat 119b)

The same page says the world stands on the breath of children studying Torah. A child learning Torah is as untouchable as a king, because the future of the kingdom is in him. Yeshua spoke in the same spirit: “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).

16:23–33 · “Hashem reigneth”: the song from Psalm 96

“Sing unto Hashem, all the earth; shew forth from day to day his salvation. Declare his glory among the heathen; his marvellous works among all nations” (16:23–24).

The song turns from Israel to the world. Verses 23 to 33 are Psalm 96, the psalm we sing on Friday night to welcome Shabbat. Again the small changes teach.

The new song that is not yet sung. Psalm 96 opens, “O sing unto Hashem a new song.” Chronicles drops the line. The “new song” belongs to the final redemption; FFOZ notes that the Bible mentions it “primarily in connection with the Day of the LORD, the judgment on the nations, and the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom (Psalm 96:1, 98:1, 144:9, 149:1; Isaiah 42:10–13; Revelation 5:9, 14:3)” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). On the day the Ark came to rest, the old songs were enough.

No sanctuary yet. Psalm 96:6 says “strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.” Chronicles says “strength and gladness are in his place” (16:27). Psalm 96:8 says “come into his courts.” Chronicles says “come before him” (16:29). There was no sanctuary and no courts in Jerusalem yet, only a tent, and the singers changed the words to fit what stood in front of them. That is honesty in worship, and also hope: the “place” would become a House in the next generation.

The gods of the peoples. “For all the gods of the people are idols: but Hashem made the heavens” (16:26). The Hebrew plays on the words: the elohim of the nations are elilim, nothings. The one proof offered is creation, the first principle of our Statement of Faith. FFOZ notices that the “eternal gospel” the angel proclaims to every nation in Revelation 14:6–7 is this psalm: “Fear God and give Him glory and the worship due to Him as Creator of everything because the hour of judgment is at hand… renouncing idolatry and turning to the God of Israel as the one ‘who made heaven and the earth’” (End of Days, Lesson 49, “Day of Harvest,” citing Psalm 96:2–3). The good news to the nations, from David’s tent to the last trumpet, begins with one God who made everything.

“Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice: and let men say among the nations, Hashem reigneth” (16:31).

Hebrew lesson: יְהוָה מָלָךְ (Hashem malach), “Hashem reigneth.” The verb is the past form, “has become king,” the shout raised at a coronation: “Absalom reigneth in Hebron” (2 Samuel 15:10). To say Hashem malach among the nations is to announce an enthronement, and the Ark coming to rest in Zion, the throne of the cherubim in the city of the king, is that enthronement in miniature.

Our teachers. FFOZ reads the elders’ acclamation in Revelation 11:17, “thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned,” as an echo of “the common liturgical refrain from the synagogue prayers, ‘The LORD reigns, the LORD has reigned, the LORD will reign forever,’” and notices what happens next: “the doors of the heavenly Temple swing open. The ark of the covenant is revealed,” with Moses’ words whenever the Ark set out, “Rise up, Hashem, and let thine enemies be scattered” (Numbers 10:35; End of Days, Lesson 48, “Seven Thunders”). Put the two scenes side by side. In 1 Chronicles 16 the Ark comes to rest and Israel sings Hashem malach. In Revelation 11 the elders sing Hashem malach and the Ark is seen. The song David gave Asaph is the song of the last day.

Messianic reading. Hashem malach is the heart of the song, and the heart of Yeshua’s preaching: “the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Yeshua did not announce his own kingdom. He announced his Father’s and taught us to pray “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10). The son of David sits on the throne; the kingdom is Hashem’s. The next chapter will say exactly that.

16:34–36 · “Save us, and gather us”: the song from Psalm 106

“O give thanks unto Hashem; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever. And say ye, Save us, O God of our salvation, and gather us together, and deliver us from the heathen… Blessed be Hashem God of Israel for ever and ever. And all the people said, Amen, and praised Hashem” (16:34–36).

The last verses come from Psalm 106, its first verse and its last two. Psalm 106 is the great confession of Israel’s sins from Egypt to the exile; David gives Asaph its frame and leaves out the confession in the middle.

A prayer for ingathering before there was an exile. On the day the Ark came to Zion, with the kingdom at its height, Israel prayed “gather us together.” The commentators on Psalm 106 understand that David spoke of the exile by the Spirit and put the prayer for return in Israel’s mouth ahead of time. The Chronicler’s readers were the ones gathered, a first installment, still praying for the rest. So are we: the Amidah asks Hashem to “gather our exiles,” and Yeshua promised that the Son of Man “shall gather together his elect from the four winds” (Matthew 24:31).

“For his mercy endureth for ever.” כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ (ki le’olam chasdo) becomes the Levites’ standing refrain. They sang it when the Ark entered Solomon’s Temple (2 Chronicles 5:13), and, most moving, when the returned exiles laid the foundation of the Second Temple with nothing but a foundation to look at: “they sang together… because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel” (Ezra 3:11). The Chronicler’s own generation had just sung these words over rubble. He wanted them to know where the words came from (16:41).

“From everlasting to everlasting.” The Mishnah explains the doubled phrase of verse 36:

All who concluded blessings in the Temple used to say “from everlasting.” When the heretics corrupted the faith and said there is only one world, the sages ordained that one should say “from everlasting to everlasting.” (Mishnah Berakhot 9:5; Berakhot 54a)

The phrase confesses two worlds, this one and the one to come, the thirteenth principle of our faith: “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:32). And where Psalm 106:48 commands, “let all the people say, Amen,” Chronicles reports that they did.

16:37–43 · Two places of worship: Asaph before the Ark, Zadok at Gibeon

“So he left there before the ark of the covenant of Hashem Asaph and his brethren, to minister before the ark continually… And Zadok the priest, and his brethren the priests, before the tabernacle of Hashem in the high place that was at Gibeon, to offer burnt offerings unto Hashem upon the altar of the burnt offering continually morning and evening, and to do according to all that is written in the Torah of Hashem” (16:37, 39–40).

This is the detail only Chronicles gives. From this day until the Temple, Israel’s worship had two centers. In Jerusalem, in David’s tent, stood the Ark, and Asaph sang before it. At Gibeon, six miles away, stood the Mishkan Moses built in the wilderness, with Bezalel’s bronze altar (2 Chronicles 1:3–5), and there Zadok offered the daily tamid, with Heman and Jeduthun singing (16:41–42). The Presence was in one place and the altar in another.

How the Mishkan got to Gibeon. The Mishnah traces its journey: Gilgal, then Shiloh for 369 years, then Nob, then Gibeon after Saul destroyed Nob (Mishnah Zevachim 14:4–8; Zevachim 118b). At Nob and Gibeon private altars were permitted again, because the Ark was not with the Mishkan. That is why the text calls Gibeon “the high place” without embarrassment, and why Solomon could go there to offer a thousand burnt offerings and receive his dream (1 Kings 3:4–5). Hashem had not abandoned the altar of Moses because the Ark was elsewhere.

Zadok. He is of the line of Eleazar (5:30–34; KJV 6:4–8), and his house will hold the high priesthood in the Temple to come. FFOZ draws the line forward: “Only those descended from the priestly family of Zadok are privileged to serve in the priesthood and apply the blood of the sacrifices to the altar (Ezekiel 43:19, 44:15)… because ‘they kept charge of My sanctuary when the sons of Israel went astray from Me’” (End of Days, Lesson 20, “Hamon-Gog”). The man keeping the lonely altar at Gibeon is the father of the priests of the Messianic age. Faithfulness in the less glamorous place is how Zadok’s house was chosen.

Why this matters. The song in Jerusalem was new, written by David. The service at Gibeon was old, written by Moses. The Chronicler honors both and ranks them: the offerings are brought “according to all that is written in the Torah of Hashem.” New songs, yes; a new Torah, never. We live in something like that season. Yeshua, the son of David, has come, and the praise of Hashem goes up in his name among the nations; but the altar and the kohanim wait for the House to be built, and we neither spiritualize the altar away nor despise the song. Solomon will bring the Tent of Meeting up into the Temple (2 Chronicles 5:5), and the two services become one. Amos calls the Messiah’s work the raising of “the tabernacle of David that is fallen” (Amos 9:11). As our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 6 noted, Amos’s sukkah is David’s royal house, not this tent of cloth; but our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” showed how the two belong together: the Talmud makes the verse a name of the Messiah, bar nafli, “son of the fallen one” (Sanhedrin 96b), and James quoted it when the first Gentiles came in (Acts 15:16–17). When the Son of David raises his father’s house, the nations will again hear Psalm 96 sung from Zion.

“And all the people departed every man to his house: and David returned to bless his house” (16:43). Samuel goes on to Michal’s rebuke (2 Samuel 6:20–23). Chronicles stops at the blessing. The next words out of David’s mouth in this book are his wish to build Hashem a house.

Chapter 17 · The Covenant with David

Read 1 Chronicles 17 in Hebrew and English →

17:1–6 · “Thou shalt not build Me a house”

“Now it came to pass, as David sat in his house, that David said to Nathan the prophet, Lo, I dwell in an house of cedars, but the ark of the covenant of Hashem remaineth under curtains” (17:1).

Our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7 studied this oracle: why David could not build, the wordplay on bayit, Rambam’s law that the kingship belongs to David’s house forever (Hilchot Melachim 1:7–9), the Qumran scroll on the Branch of David, and the Brit Hadashah’s use of the promise. Here we read the Chronicler’s version against Samuel’s and ask why he changed what he changed.

“Rest” is gone. Samuel begins, “when the king sat in his house, and Hashem had given him rest round about from all his enemies” (2 Samuel 7:1). Chronicles says only “as David sat in his house.” The Chronicler knows David’s wars are still ahead (chapters 18 to 20) and that the rest of Deuteronomy 12:10, the condition for building the House, came only with Solomon, whose name means peace. David asked a little early.

“Thou shalt not.” Samuel’s answer is a question, “Shalt thou build me an house?” (2 Samuel 7:5). Chronicles makes it plain: “Thou shalt not build me an house to dwell in” (17:4), לֹא אַתָּה תִּבְנֶה, “not you shall build.” Someone will. David gives the reason elsewhere: “Thou hast shed blood abundantly… thou shalt not build an house unto my name” (22:8; 28:3).

“From tent to tent.” Chronicles has Hashem say He has gone “from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another” (17:5), and it is natural to hear in it the stations of the Mishkan we listed in chapter 16: the wilderness, Gilgal, Shiloh, Nob, Gibeon, and now David’s tent. Hashem has been a traveler with His people and never complained. He will accept a House; He never demanded one.

17:7–10 · “Hashem will build thee a house”

“I took thee from the sheepcote, even from following the sheep, that thou shouldest be ruler over my people Israel” (17:7).

This is nearly word for word with Samuel, and the shepherd taken from behind the flock is the picture our Statement of Faith quotes from Ezekiel 34 and 37 for the Messiah. One small change follows.

“Waste them.” Samuel says the children of wickedness will not “afflict them any more” (2 Samuel 7:10). Chronicles says they will not “waste them any more” (17:9), לְבַלֹּתוֹ (levaloto), to wear out, the verb Daniel uses for the horn that “shall wear out the saints of the most High” (Daniel 7:25). The Chronicler’s readers had been worn out by Babylon; the promise attached to the house of David is that the wearing-out will end. Then: “Hashem will build thee an house” (17:10). David wanted to build Hashem a bayit, a building; Hashem will build David a bayit, a dynasty. Hebrew has one word for both, and that is the point.

17:11–15 · “In Mine house and in My kingdom for ever”

“And it shall come to pass, when thy days be expired that thou must go to be with thy fathers, that I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons; and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me an house, and I will stablish his throne for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son: and I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee: But I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom for ever: and his throne shall be established for evermore” (17:11–14).

Set these verses next to 2 Samuel 7:12–16 and read the differences one at a time.

1. “Of thy sons.” Samuel says the seed “shall proceed out of thy bowels.” Chronicles says “which shall be of thy sons” (17:11). By the Chronicler’s day everyone knew which son: “of all my sons… he hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of Hashem over Israel” (28:5). “Of thy sons” points to a choice among many, the first hint that the promise is about the chosen one, not simply the next king.

2. No rod. Samuel continues, “If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men” (2 Samuel 7:14). Chronicles has no such sentence. It goes straight from “he shall be my son” to “I will not take my mercy away from him.” Two answers, and we hold both. First, the Chronicler writes after the rod has fallen: Solomon sinned and the kingdom was torn; Judah sinned and went to Babylon. His readers needed to hear that the mercy had not departed, and that is the clause he keeps. Second, the sages read Samuel’s verse first of all about Solomon. Chronicles lifts its eyes past Solomon to the son of David in whom there is nothing to chasten. Hebrews quotes the clause both books share, “I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son” (Hebrews 1:5), and not the clause about iniquity, because it speaks of Yeshua, “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26).

3. Saul is not named. Samuel says, “as I took it from Saul.” Chronicles says, “from him that was before thee” (17:13). The Chronicler gave Saul one chapter, his death, and will not name him here. The house that lost the mercy fades; the house that keeps it fills the rest of the book.

4. “Mine house and My kingdom.” This is the change that matters most. Samuel reads, “And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee” (2 Samuel 7:16). Chronicles reads, “But I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom for ever” (17:14). The subject changes from thy house to I will settle him, וְהַעֲמַדְתִּיהוּ (veha’amadtihu), “I will cause him to stand.” And the house and the kingdom are no longer David’s. They are Hashem’s.

What the commentators say. Metzudat David and the other commentators read “Mine house” as the Temple and “My kingdom” as the kingship over Israel, which is Hashem’s own, lent to the house of David. The Chronicler returns to this language again and again: Solomon sits “upon the throne of the kingdom of Hashem over Israel” (28:5); “Solomon sat on the throne of Hashem as king” (29:23); Jeroboam fights “the kingdom of Hashem in the hand of the sons of David” (2 Chronicles 13:8). No other book of the Tenakh seats David’s son on Hashem’s own throne. The kingdom of Israel is Hashem’s kingdom, and the son of David is the man Hashem stands in it.

Our teachers. Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” drew the line our Statement of Faith draws: “‘Son’ is a royal title in the Tanakh… The King Messiah is the Son in this Jewish sense: chosen, anointed, and seated at Hashem’s right hand to rule in His name. The throne is Hashem’s; the Son sits beside it.” Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef,” says the same of Solomon: God “specifically chose King Solomon to be my son… the idea is that I chose him, right? That’s what son means.” He is echoing the Chronicler’s own gloss: “I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father” (28:6). Sonship in this covenant is election to the throne, and the throne is Hashem’s.

Messianic reading. The angel’s words to Miriam follow Chronicles, not Samuel: “the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:32–33). God gives the throne; the kingdom has no end. That is “I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom for ever.” Yeshua never claimed a kingdom apart from the Father’s, and at the end he gives it back: “then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father… that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:24, 28). Revelation says it in Chronicles’ own words: “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Messiah” (Revelation 11:15). The kingdom is Hashem’s, and His Messiah reigns in it. The Chronicler wrote that down centuries before Bethlehem.

Psalm 89, Ethan’s psalm of this covenant (see 15:16–24), complains that the promise seems broken, down to “the footsteps of thine anointed” reproached (Psalm 89:51). Chronicles answers: the kingdom was never David’s to lose.

17:16–22 · “Who am I, O Hashem God?”

“And David the king came and sat before Hashem, and said, Who am I, O Hashem God, and what is mine house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?” (17:16).

David sits before the Ark; the sages learned from this that only the kings of David’s house may sit in the Temple court (Sotah 40b). In Chronicles he sits where Asaph has just been singing “Hashem reigneth.” He has heard that Hashem will seat him in Hashem’s kingdom, and his first word is “Who am I?” Where Samuel’s David says “is this the manner of man?” (2 Samuel 7:19), Chronicles’ David says Hashem has “regarded me according to the estate of a man of high degree” (17:17): You have looked at me as a man of the highest rank, though I came from behind the sheep. The promise is too big for him. Grace always is.

“O Hashem, there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee… And what one nation in the earth is like thy people Israel, whom God went to redeem to be his own people” (17:20–21).

Hashem’s tefillin. The Talmud says this verse, in the Chronicler’s wording, is written in the tefillin of the Master of the world (Berakhot 6a, citing 1 Chronicles 17:21; see our 2 Samuel commentary). One God, one people. Then: “thy people Israel didst thou make thine own people for ever” (17:22). The covenant with Israel and the covenant with David stand or fall together in this prayer, as they do in Paul, who opens Romans with “the seed of David according to the flesh” and closes his argument with “all Israel shall be saved” (Romans 1:3; 11:26).

17:23–27 · “Thou hast blessed, and it is blessed for ever”

“Therefore now, Hashem, let the thing that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and concerning his house be established for ever, and do as thou hast said. Let it even be established, that thy name may be magnified for ever” (17:23–24).

David asks Hashem to do what He has promised, and gives the reason: “that thy name may be magnified.” The house of David exists so that Hashem’s name is great. That is why Yeshua taught us to say “Hallowed be thy name” before “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:9–10).

Hebrew lesson: יֵאָמֵן (ye’amen), “let it be established.” Twice David prays ye’amen, “let it be made firm,” from the root of amen and emunah, faith. The people said Amen to Asaph’s song (16:36); now David says Amen to Hashem’s promise. Faith in the Tenakh is saying Amen to the promise and asking Hashem to make it stand.

The last word. Samuel’s prayer ends with a request: “with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed for ever” (2 Samuel 7:29). Chronicles ends in the past tense: כִּי־אַתָּה יְהוָה בֵּרַכְתָּ וּמְבֹרָךְ לְעוֹלָם, “for Thou, Hashem, hast blessed, and it is blessed for ever” (17:27). For the returned exiles the Chronicler lets David say that the blessing on his house has already been spoken and cannot be unspoken, as Balaam said of Israel: “he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it” (Numbers 23:20).

Chapter 18 · The Kingdom Established

Read 1 Chronicles 18 in Hebrew and English →

18:1–8 · Philistines, Moab, Hadarezer: brass for the sea

“Now after this it came to pass, that David smote the Philistines, and subdued them, and took Gath and her towns out of the hand of the Philistines. And he smote Moab; and the Moabites became David’s servants, and brought gifts” (18:1–2).

Chapter 18 is 2 Samuel 8, and our 2 Samuel commentary covers the wars, the horses and Deuteronomy 17, the dedicated gold and “judgment and justice.” Here we read what Chronicles adds, leaves out, or changes.

Gath and Moab. Samuel says David took “Metheg-ammah,” a phrase nobody is sure of (2 Samuel 8:1). Chronicles says plainly “Gath and her towns.” Samuel also records the measuring lines by which Moab was judged (2 Samuel 8:2); Chronicles says only that Moab became tributary. The Chronicler does not erase what Samuel tells, and our 2 Samuel commentary gives Rashi’s explanation. But Moab was Ruth’s people, whose line the genealogies set at the head of Judah (2:10–15), and he lets the mercy of that lineage stand without the harsh detail.

“And David smote Hadarezer king of Zobah unto Hamath, as he went to stablish his dominion by the river Euphrates” (18:3).

To the Euphrates. The song of chapter 16 said, “Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan” (16:18). Here David’s hand reaches the Euphrates, the border Hashem named to Abraham (Genesis 15:18). The covenant Asaph sang about in the tent is drawn on the map two chapters later.

Hadad is help. The king’s name, הֲדַדְעֶזֶר (Hadad’ezer), means “Hadad is help.” Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Damascus in the End of Days,” explains that “Hadad was one of the gods of the Arameans,” that Ben-Hadad, “son of Hadad,” became a title for the kings of Damascus the way Pharaoh was in Egypt, and that “kings like to pretend that they’re sons of God.” Set that against chapter 17. Hadarezer is “helped by Hadad”; David is called a son by Hashem’s choice, and this chapter says twice who his help was: “Thus Hashem preserved David whithersoever he went” (18:6, 13).

“Likewise from Tibhath, and from Chun, cities of Hadarezer, brought David very much brass, wherewith Solomon made the brasen sea, and the pillars, and the vessels of brass” (18:8).

What the brass was for. This clause is the Chronicler’s own. Samuel says David took “exceeding much brass” and stops. Chronicles tells us where it went: the great sea on twelve oxen, the pillars Jachin and Boaz, the vessels of the court (1 Kings 7:15–26). Every war in this chapter is read backward from the Temple. David fights; Solomon builds (22:14). Here is the pattern our Statement of Faith sees in the two comings of Messiah: the son of Yosef fights, suffers and gathers; the son of David, the man of peace, builds. In David and Solomon the two roles are father and son. In Yeshua they are one man in two comings.

18:9–13 · Tou’s gifts, Edom’s garrisons, and “Hashem preserved David”

“Now when Tou king of Hamath heard how David had smitten all the host of Hadarezer king of Zobah; he sent Hadoram his son to king David… and with him all manner of vessels of gold and silver and brass. Them also king David dedicated unto Hashem, with the silver and the gold that he brought from all these nations; from Edom, and from Moab, and from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines, and from Amalek” (18:9–11).

A king who was not conquered. Tou gives freely; Hadarezer had been his enemy. A prince of Hamath comes to the son of Jesse with gold, silver and brass, and Isaiah saw the scene enlarged: “the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising” (Isaiah 60:3). The Chronicler’s readers remembered another foreign king, Cyrus, who sent them home with the Temple’s vessels (Ezra 1:7–11). A Gentile king sending Israel up to build is how this book ends (2 Chronicles 36:23), and how the age to come begins. David keeps none of it: “Them also king David dedicated (הִקְדִּישׁ, hikdish) unto Hashem,” and the Chronicler later names the Levite in charge of these “spoils won in battles” set aside “to maintain the house of Hashem” (26:26–27). Amalek is on the list because of Ziklag (1 Samuel 30): the gold of Israel’s oldest enemy ends up in the treasury of the Temple.

“Moreover Abishai the son of Zeruiah slew of the Edomites in the valley of salt eighteen thousand. And he put garrisons in Edom; and all the Edomites became David’s servants. Thus Hashem preserved David whithersoever he went” (18:12–13).

Edom serves. Samuel credits David with this victory, Psalm 60 credits Joab, Chronicles credits Abishai; our 2 Samuel commentary gave Radak’s reconciliation. The result is what matters: “all the Edomites became David’s servants,” as Isaac told Esau, “shalt serve thy brother” (Genesis 27:40). Rambam reads Balaam’s prophecy twice over, once of David and once of the King Messiah, and for one line he cites this victory: “Edom shall be a possession” (Numbers 24:18), this is David, as it says, “and all they of Edom became David’s servants” (Hilchot Melachim 11:1, quoting 2 Samuel 8:14). What David did in part, the Messiah does in full, and Obadiah ends that hope with the Chronicler’s own thought: “saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be Hashem’s” (Obadiah 1:21).

Hebrew lesson: וַיּוֹשַׁע יְהוָה (vayosha Hashem), “Hashem preserved.” Twice the Chronicler writes the refrain (18:6, 13). The verb is יָשַׁע (yasha), to save, the root of the name יֵשׁוּעַ, Yeshua. The King James says “preserved”; the Hebrew says “Hashem saved David.” The swords of David and Abishai are in the chapter, but the summary gives the saving to Hashem. The angel told Joseph to name the child Yeshua “for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21), and Yeshua said, “the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do” (John 5:19). The salvation is Hashem’s; the son of David is the one through whom it comes.

18:14–17 · Judgment and justice, and the king’s officers

“So David reigned over all Israel, and executed judgment and justice among all his people” (18:14).

Our 2 Samuel commentary on 8:15 studied this verse with the Talmud (Sanhedrin 6b). Our Statement of Faith quotes it to show that Hashem delegates judgment to His appointed king, as He did to Moses, the judges, David and Solomon, and that this is how we understand why the Father “hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22).

“And Joab the son of Zeruiah was over the host; and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud, recorder. And Zadok the son of Ahitub, and Abimelech the son of Abiathar, were the priests; and Shavsha was scribe; And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites; and the sons of David were chief about the king” (18:15–17).

Benaiah. Zadok is listed first, and we saw in chapter 16 where he was serving: at the altar in Gibeon. Benaiah son of Jehoiada captains the royal guard and will later take Joab’s place over the army (1 Kings 2). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Jesus in the Talmud,” lists him among the many in the Tenakh who carry the title son of God: “there was a great warrior, great leader at the times of King David called Benayahu, which literally means son of God.” The name בְּנָיָהוּ can be heard that way, ben-Yahu, and it can also be read from the root בָּנָה, to build, “Yah has built.” The man who guards the son whom Hashem calls His own is named for the God who builds the house.

“The sons of David were chief.” Here is the change readers notice first. Samuel’s Hebrew says David’s sons were kohanim, “priests” (2 Samuel 8:18, כֹּהֲנִים; the KJV has “chief rulers”). Chronicles says, “the sons of David were chief about the king” (18:17), הָרִאשֹׁנִים לְיַד הַמֶּלֶךְ, “the first ones at the hand of the king.” Our 2 Samuel commentary gave the Targum’s and Rashi’s reading of Samuel, “great ones.” The Chronicler simply says what that means. He writes for a community in which the priesthood is the backbone of national life, and he will not let the word kohanim rest on men of Judah even as a figure of speech. The sons of David are princes. The sons of Aaron are priests. The Torah fixed that boundary at Korah’s rebellion and at Uzziah’s censer (Numbers 16; 2 Chronicles 26:16–21).

Our teachers. Ariel Cohen Alloro’s play on Samuel’s wording, Shlomo as five times kohen, is in our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 8, with Psalm 110 and Zechariah 6:13. Here we add FFOZ, which draws the line from the side of Ezekiel’s Temple: “Ezekiel’s prophecies about the Third Temple limit participation in the priesthood to the Levitical family of Zadok. The Davidic Messiah from the tribe of Judah does not qualify for the job. Nevertheless, the Messiah has a big role in the Temple and its services,” as “the Prince” (nasi) (End of Days, Lesson 20, “Hamon-Gog,” on Ezekiel 44–46). That is our position. Yeshua is of Judah, “of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood” (Hebrews 7:14); his priesthood is “after the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:4), in the heavenly sanctuary, for “if he were on earth, he should not be a priest” (Hebrews 8:4). On earth the sons of Zadok serve at the altar, the sons of David sit at the king’s right hand, and the Messiah is the Prince before whom both serve Hashem. Our Statement of Faith keeps the same distinction between honor and worship, and Chronicles will make it explicit at the very end of the book, when the people bow to Hashem and to the king in one verse and mean two different things by it.

Drawing it together

1. The song came before the House. David could not build the Temple, but he wrote its music. Asaph’s first psalm opens our morning prayers, and its refrain, “for his mercy endureth for ever,” was sung over the foundation of the Second Temple and will be sung in the third.

2. The kingdom is Hashem’s. The Chronicler changed one line of the covenant, “thy house and thy kingdom” to “Mine house and My kingdom,” and built the rest of his book on it. Luke, Paul and Revelation read the promise the same way: the throne is given, the kingdom is the Father’s, and the Son delivers it up at the end. That is our confession about Yeshua: the Son whom Hashem has seated, not Hashem Himself.

3. The mercy does not depart. Chronicles drops the rod and keeps the mercy. For readers who had already felt the rod, that was the word they needed, and David’s prayer ends in the past tense: “thou hast blessed, and it is blessed for ever.”

4. Two places, one Torah. For a generation the Ark stood in Jerusalem and the altar at Gibeon, and Israel served Hashem in both, “according to all that is written in the Torah.” David’s new song did not replace Moses’ altar. We live between the song and the altar, honoring both, waiting for the Son of David to raise the fallen tent and bring the service together.

5. Hashem saved David. The wars of chapter 18 end twice with vayosha Hashem, “Hashem saved.” The spoils went to the Temple, Edom’s servitude pointed to the Messiah’s victory, and the king’s sons were princes, not priests. The salvation belongs to Hashem; the son of David is the one through whom it comes. His name, Yeshua, says exactly that.

Questions for discussion

1. What three things were the Levites appointed to do before the Ark (16:4), and how does the song in 16:8–36 do each of them?

2. The song changes Psalm 105’s “he hath remembered his covenant” into “be ye mindful always of his covenant.” Why would readers home from Babylon need the command rather than the statement?

3. How does the Talmud read “Touch not mine anointed” (Shabbat 119b)? What does Yeshua say about children that matches it?

4. Psalm 96 says “in his sanctuary”; 1 Chronicles 16 says “in his place.” What does that change teach about honesty and hope in worship?

5. What does Hashem malach announce? How does FFOZ connect that refrain and the Ark to Revelation 11?

6. Why did Israel worship in two places during David’s reign, and what governed the service at Gibeon?

7. List the four differences we traced between 1 Chronicles 17:11–14 and 2 Samuel 7:12–16. Which matters most, and why?

8. “I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom.” How do Luke 1:32–33, 1 Corinthians 15:24–28 and Revelation 11:15 read the kingdom the same way, and how does this fit our Statement of Faith on who Yeshua is?

9. Where did the brass of Hadarezer’s cities end up (18:8), and how does that show the pattern of the father who gathers and the son who builds?

10. Why does Chronicles call David’s sons “chief about the king” rather than “priests”? What do FFOZ, Hebrews 7–8 and Ezekiel 44 say about the Messiah and the priesthood?

Sources

Scripture: 1 Chronicles 2, 6, 13–15, 22, 26, 28–29; 2 Chronicles 1, 5, 13, 26, 36; 2 Samuel 6, 7, 8, 15; 1 Samuel 30; 1 Kings 2, 3, 7; Genesis 12, 15, 20, 27; Leviticus 5; Numbers 6, 10, 16, 23, 24; Deuteronomy 12, 17; Ezra 1, 3; Psalms 50, 60, 74, 79, 89, 96, 105, 106, 110; Isaiah 60; Ezekiel 34, 37, 43–46; Daniel 7; Amos 9; Obadiah 1; Matthew 1, 6, 14, 19, 22, 24; Mark 1; Luke 1; John 5; Acts 15; Romans 1, 11; 1 Corinthians 15; Hebrews 1, 7, 8; Revelation 5, 11, 14.

Talmud and Midrash: Mishnah Berakhot 9:5 (Berakhot 54a); Berakhot 6a; Shabbat 119b; Pesachim 36b; Sotah 40b; Bava Batra 14b; Sanhedrin 6b, 96b; Mishnah Zevachim 14:4–8 and Zevachim 118b; Seder Olam Rabbah 14.

Commentators: Metzudat David and the commentators on 1 Chronicles 17:14 and on Psalm 106:47; Radak on 2 Samuel 8:13; Rashi on 2 Samuel 8:1–2, 8:18; Targum Jonathan on 2 Samuel 8:18; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim 1:7–9 and 11:1.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 20, “Hamon-Gog”; Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; Lesson 48, “Seven Thunders”; Lesson 49, “Day of Harvest”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Jesus in the Talmud” (https://youtu.be/kfF0-q-g2XI), “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef” (https://youtu.be/HUxIh1LdM3o) and “Damascus in the End of Days” (https://youtu.be/R6EnR_h4iIg); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “Lord’s Prayer, Our Father, Pater Nostre – אבינו שבשמים – Part 1 of 2” (https://youtu.be/tewnhIeY_J0) and “Lord’s Prayer, Our Father, Pater Nostre – אבינו שבשמים – Part 2 of 2” (https://youtu.be/tlnzgDyf8zo); Benei Avraham, Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David”; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith; our 2 Samuel commentary on chapters 6, 7 and 8.

Before we begin

These three chapters are the last of David’s wars and the first stone of the Temple. Chapter 19 is the war with Ammon and Aram, told almost as in 2 Samuel 10. Chapter 20 takes the crown of Rabbah and kills the last giants of Gath, and before the crown it skips the darkest chapter of David’s life: where 2 Samuel 11 says “But David tarried still at Jerusalem” and goes on to the roof and Bathsheba, the Chronicler says “But David tarried at Jerusalem” and goes straight to the crown. Chapter 21 is the census, the plague, the angel with the drawn sword over Jerusalem, and the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Its last word is the first verse of chapter 22: “This is the house of Hashem God” (22:1).

Our 2 Samuel commentary has already walked through the war with Ammon (chapter 10), the fall of Rabbah (chapter 12), the giants (chapter 21) and the census and the threshing floor (chapter 24). We will not retell those stories. We will read what the Chronicler adds, leaves out and changes, and ask why. He adds a Satan where Samuel had the anger of Hashem, an angel standing between earth and heaven, fire from heaven, and a sword going back into its sheath. He changes fifty shekels of silver into six hundred of gold. He leaves out Bathsheba. And he ends where Samuel could not, with David pointing at a Jebusite’s threshing floor and saying, this is the place. For the returned exiles who first read this book, standing by a small second Temple, that was the point. For us it is the same point, one step on: the Son of David stood in that house and called it “my Father’s house” (John 2:16), and the prophets say it will stand again when he comes.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 19 · The War with Ammon, Retold

Read 1 Chronicles 19 in Hebrew and English →

19:1–5 · A kindness refused

“And David said, I will shew kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, because his father shewed kindness to me” (19:2).

The story is 2 Samuel 10:1–5, and our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 10 tells it: Nahash’s kindness to David’s family (Bamidbar Rabbah 14:1), the princes’ suspicion, the half-shaved beards, and David’s tact in sending the shamed men to wait at Jericho. Two things are worth seeing in the Chronicler’s telling.

What the Chronicler changes. In Samuel the princes say David’s men have come “to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it” (2 Samuel 10:3). In Chronicles they have come “to search, and to overthrow, and to spy out the land” (19:3). The city has become the land. That is how fear works: a kindness misread becomes a plot against everything. The Chronicler also sets this story right after the conquests of chapter 18, so that the first thing we see after the victories is the king trying to be kind to a neighbor.

Hebrew lesson: נָחָשׁ (Nachash), “serpent.” The king of Ammon is named Serpent, the word of Genesis 3:1. The kabbalists note that nachash and mashiach both equal 358, and Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Edom #5 – Gog & Mashiach,” says it in one line: “Mashiach 358 neutralizes Nachash 358.” A hint only, but the story is a small picture of it. From Serpent’s house comes a shame, from the shame a war, from the war a crown on David’s head (20:2), and from Ammon in the end Naamah the Ammonitess, mother of Rehoboam and so a mother of the line of Mashiach (1 Kings 14:21). The Talmud says Hashem told Moses to spare Moab and Ammon because “two good doves I have to bring out of them, Ruth the Moabitess and Naamah the Ammonitess” (Bava Kamma 38b). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The Trinity – Part 05,” says that in Lot were hidden two sparks of Mashiach: “from the nation of Amon came Naamah… It means, the Mashiach must come from these two.” Serpent’s people shame David’s servants, and Hashem still draws the Messiah’s line through them.

19:6–15 · Two fronts, and Joab’s prayer

“Hanun and the children of Ammon sent a thousand talents of silver to hire them chariots and horsemen out of Mesopotamia, and out of Syriamaachah, and out of Zobah” (19:6).

The Chronicler’s numbers. Chronicles adds the price, a thousand talents of silver, and the place, Aram Naharaim, the land Abraham left. Samuel counted men (2 Samuel 10:6); the Chronicler counts chariots (19:7). Keep the thousand talents in mind. In chapter 21 David will refuse a free threshing floor and pay six hundred shekels of gold for an altar. Ammon spends a fortune to buy a war; David spends a smaller one to buy peace with God.

Joab’s prayer. Joab sees the battle “before and behind,” splits the army with Abishai, and makes a pact of brothers (19:12). Then:

“Be of good courage, and let us behave ourselves valiantly for our people, and for the cities of our God: and let Hashem do that which is good in his sight” (19:13).

Our 2 Samuel commentary gave Radak’s reading, phrase by phrase. Here we add two things. First, the shape of the sentence: chazak ve-nitchazkah, “be strong, and let us strengthen ourselves,” then the outcome handed to Hashem. Eli used the same words when he heard his house would fall: “It is Hashem: let him do what seemeth him good” (1 Samuel 3:18). The Son of David used them on the Mount of Olives: “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). It is a strange thing to hear the son of Zeruiah pray the prayer of Gethsemane. Joab murdered Abner and will murder Amasa, and he prays rightly here, and Hashem answers.

Second, hold the phrase hatov be’einav ya’aseh, “let Him do what is good in His eyes.” In chapter 21 Ornan the Jebusite will say the same words to David (21:23). These three chapters are framed by one sentence of surrender, once from Israel’s general to God, once from a Gentile to Israel’s king.

Aram flees, Ammon runs back inside its walls, “then Joab came to Jerusalem” (19:15). The siege is unfinished. In Samuel that unfinished siege is the setting of David’s great sin. In Chronicles it is the setting of a silence.

19:16–19 · Aram makes peace

Aram calls up the Arameans from beyond the Euphrates, under Hadarezer’s captain Shophach. David himself crosses the Jordan and breaks them: “seven thousand men which fought in chariots, and forty thousand footmen” (19:18). Samuel says seven hundred chariots and forty thousand horsemen (2 Samuel 10:18); the commentators read the seven hundred as chariot units and the seven thousand as the men in them.

“And when the servants of Hadarezer saw that they were put to the worse before Israel, they made peace with David, and became his servants” (19:19). Samuel says “made peace with Israel.” The Chronicler’s eyes are on the king. Every nation around the land has now bowed: Philistia, Moab, Zobah, Damascus, Edom (chapter 18), and Aram beyond the river. Ammon is alone behind its walls.

Messianic reading. “The kings of the earth set themselves… against Hashem, and against his anointed” (Psalm 2:2), and the psalm ends with an invitation, not a slaughter: “Kiss the Son… Blessed are all they that put their trust in him” (Psalm 2:12). Aram’s servants made peace and served David. FFOZ reads Isaiah the same way: in the Messiah’s day the nations are “no longer the baddies in the story but the personal servants of the Messiah” (End of Days, Lesson 19, “Banner on a Mountain”).

Chapter 20 · The Crown, the Silence and the Last Giants

Read 1 Chronicles 20 in Hebrew and English →

20:1–3 · “But David tarried at Jerusalem”

“And it came to pass, that after the year was expired, at the time that kings go out to battle, Joab led forth the power of the army, and wasted the country of the children of Ammon, and came and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried at Jerusalem. And Joab smote Rabbah, and destroyed it” (20:1).

Read this next to 2 Samuel 11:1. Both begin “at the time when kings go forth to battle,” and both say “But David tarried at Jerusalem.” In Samuel the next sentence is, “David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof” (2 Samuel 11:2). In Chronicles the next sentence is, “And Joab smote Rabbah.” Bathsheba, Uriah, the letter, Nathan’s parable, “Thou art the man,” the dead child, the birth of Solomon: two chapters of Samuel are folded into one Hebrew word, yoshev, “sitting.”

What the Chronicler is doing. This is no accident. He also leaves out Amnon and Tamar, Absalom, Sheba and Adonijah. He keeps the census (chapter 21), because the census ends at the Temple site, and the Temple is his subject. He writes for a community back from Babylon, and he writes of David the way a son writes of his father: truly, but not everything.

What the sages say. The Talmud’s famous page:

Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani said in the name of Rabbi Yonatan: Whoever says David sinned is nothing but mistaken. (Shabbat 56a)

The same page gives Rav’s answer, that Rebbi, “who descends from David, turns the verse over and expounds it in David’s favor,” and Rav’s own verdict from Kings: “save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite” (1 Kings 15:5). Our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 11 set out both sides and the way we read it at Benei Avraham, in our class “The Real Jewish Reason We Need a Messiah”: whatever the law allowed, “the thing was evil in the eyes of Hashem” (2 Samuel 11:27), and Hashem’s eyes are the court that matters.

So what do we make of the silence? Three things.

First, silence is not denial. The Chronicler assumes his readers have Samuel. He even names Bathsheba as Solomon’s mother, “Bathshua the daughter of Ammiel” (3:5). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The 4 sons from the Passover Haggadah – Part 16,” noticed it: “In the Divrei HaYamim, we call his mother Batshuah.” He also pays David the compliment the Chronicler pays by silence: when Nathan rebuked him, David “don’t find excuses… He said, immediately,” I have sinned. The Chronicler and the Talmud both honor a king who, when caught, did not argue.

Second, the sages’ own rule allows it. Rabbi Yochanan taught in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai that David was not fit for that deed, and it happened “to tell you that if an individual sinned, we say to him, Go to the individual” (Avodah Zarah 4b–5a). Samuel tells the sin so that sinners can learn repentance from David. Chronicles tells the Temple so that builders can learn devotion from him.

Third, the Brit Hadashah does the opposite, on purpose. Matthew’s genealogy names “her that had been the wife of Urias” (Matthew 1:6). He could have written “Bathsheba,” or nothing. He writes the sin into the Messiah’s family record. The Chronicler protects the house of David by silence; Matthew honors the Son of David by showing the house he was willing to be born into. We need both, so that we know the Son of David came for men like David.

The crown. “And David took the crown of their king from off his head, and found it to weigh a talent of gold” (20:2). Our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 12 gave the Talmud’s discussion of this crown (Avodah Zarah 44a). The Chronicler adds one word: David “found” its weight. He weighed it, as he will later weigh out gold for the threshing floor. In this book David’s wealth is always on its way to the Temple (22:14; 29:2–5).

The hard verse. “And he brought out the people that were in it, and cut them with saws” (20:3). Our 2 Samuel commentary did not soften it, and neither will we. The Chronicler, who leaves out Bathsheba, leaves this in. He is not writing a whitewash. He keeps what bears on the house of Hashem and lets go of what does not.

20:4–8 · The sons of the giant fall

Four giants fell in 2 Samuel 21:15–22; the Chronicler gives three. He leaves out Ishbi-benob, the giant who nearly killed a fainting David. He does not want to show David faint. Our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 21 tells that story (Sanhedrin 95a) and the sages’ word that the giants were the sons of Orpah, who kissed Naomi and turned back while Ruth clung (Sotah 42b).

Elhanan and Lahmi. “Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite” (20:5). Here the Chronicler quietly solves a problem. Samuel reads as if Elhanan killed Goliath himself (2 Samuel 21:19). The Targum and Rashi answered that Elhanan is David; Radak preferred the plain reading of Chronicles, and the King James translators carried “the brother of” back into Samuel in italics.

Six fingers and six toes. The last giant, with twenty-four fingers and toes, “defied Israel” (20:7), vayecharef, the word used of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:10, 26). Goliath fell to David; his brother to Elhanan of Bethlehem, David’s town; the last of them to “Jonathan the son of Shimea David’s brother.” “They fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants” (20:8). What David began alone with a sling, his house finished. FFOZ reminds us who the Rephaim were thought to be: the giants of Canaan, “who were rumored to be descendants of the Nephilim (Deuteronomy 2:20–21)” (End of Days, Lesson 3, “The Day and the Hour”). Moses killed Og, Joshua drove out the Anakim, and David’s house killed the last of them.

Messianic reading. “By the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants” is the pattern of the Messiah’s victory too. The Son of David strikes the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15), and his servants share the work: “the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Romans 16:20). Then, without a pause, the Chronicler turns from the last giant to a new adversary.

Chapter 21 · The Census, the Angel and the Threshing Floor

Read 1 Chronicles 21 in Hebrew and English →

21:1–6 · “And Satan stood up against Israel”

“And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel” (21:1).

Samuel says: “And again the anger of Hashem was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel” (2 Samuel 24:1). Same census, same verb, vayaset, “he incited,” and a different subject. This is the sharpest difference between the two books. Take it slowly.

Hebrew lesson: שָׂטָן (satan), “adversary.” There is no definite article here. It is not ha-satan, “the Satan” of Job 1:6 and Zechariah 3:1, but satan, “an adversary.” In the Tenakh the word is often human: the Philistines feared David would be “an adversary to us” (1 Samuel 29:4), and Hashem “stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite” (1 Kings 11:14). And once the adversary is an angel of Hashem, who “stood in the way for an adversary against” Balaam, “and his sword drawn in his hand” (Numbers 22:22–23). Keep that verse in mind. In fifteen verses an angel of Hashem will stand over Jerusalem with his sword drawn in his hand.

Whatever the Chronicler means by the word, the sentence points one way. The adversary “stood up against Israel,” the posture of a prosecutor, and “provoked David,” the work of a tempter. FFOZ explains the double role: “The Hebrew name Satan… and the Greek Diabolos… are not personal names; they are titles that mean ‘adversary’ in the sense of a courtroom prosecutor (e.g., Job 1; Zechariah 3)… He’s not above engaging in entrapment (tempting us to sin and then accusing us for succumbing)” (End of Days, Lesson 1, “The Beginning of Days,” citing Exodus Rabbah 17:5). Another lesson gives the Talmud’s line: he “incites a person to sin in this world, then testifies against him in the World to Come” (End of Days, Lessons 29–30, “Satan in Chains”). That is 21:1: he stands up in the court above and provokes in the palace below.

How the sages hold the two verses together. Radak on 2 Samuel 24:1 says the impulse in David’s heart to count “is the Satan, as it says in Chronicles.” Reish Lakish said:

Satan, the evil inclination and the angel of death are all one. (Bava Batra 16a)

The same page records Rabbi Levi’s view that Satan in Job acted for the sake of Heaven (Bava Batra 16a). In Jewish thought the adversary is not a second god. He is an angel with a job, and the job is given him by Hashem. Our class “Unlocking the Depth of Yom Kippur” said it the way we teach it: “Satan in Judaism, he’s not really the enemy of God. He works for God… He is appointed by God to be our accuser. He has his job.” Our class “Why We Created Our Own Siddur at Benei Avraham” added, “God is in control of all things, and He uses evil to punish us.” Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef,” says “God is also in charge of the evil He created,” with “bad angels” whose job is “to ruin it… that’s what God programmed them to do.” We take the insight and leave the system around it. The insight is Scripture’s own: when a spirit went out to deceive Ahab, Hashem said, “Go forth, and do so” (1 Kings 22:22).

So Samuel and Chronicles are not two theologies but two levels of one event. Samuel gives the first cause: Israel had sinned, Hashem was angry, and the anger was allowed to work. Chronicles gives the instrument. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Revelations from Jerusalem,” moved between the two without strain: “David starts a census… you’re not supposed to do that… that Satan tricked him into it.” The Brit Hadashah holds both: “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust” (James 1:13–14), and yet “Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat” (Luke 22:31), which he could not do unless allowed.

What we lean toward. We read 21:1 as the heavenly accuser of Job and Zechariah, acting under Hashem’s hand, with Israel’s sin as his opening. The Chronicler is not correcting Samuel; he is explaining it. “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I Hashem do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7).

Why was counting a sin? Our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 24 gave the Talmud’s answers: David once called Hashem an inciter (1 Samuel 26:19) and was made to stumble “in a matter that even schoolchildren know,” the half-shekel ransom of Exodus 30:12 (Berakhot 62b); and Israel may not be counted by heads even for a mitzvah (Yoma 22b). We add the Chronicler’s own gloss, later in his book: David did not count those under twenty, “because Hashem had said he would increase Israel like to the stars of the heavens,” and Joab “finished not, because there fell wrath for it against Israel” (27:23–24; we come back to those verses in their place). You do not count what Hashem promised would be past counting (Genesis 15:5). FFOZ notes what kind of count it was: a biblical census counts men fit for war, and “David’s census serves a similar function” (End of Days, Lesson 49, “Day of Harvest”). David wanted to know his strength.

Joab’s protest. Chronicles gives Joab a longer and better speech than Samuel:

“Hashem make his people an hundred times so many more as they be: but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord’s servants? why then doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel?” (21:3).

His first clause is Moses’ blessing, “make you a thousand times so many more as ye are” (Deuteronomy 1:11). His second is the real argument: they are yours already. A man counts what he is afraid of losing. His third names the result: ashmah, guilt on all Israel. “Nevertheless the king’s word prevailed” (21:4). The Chronicler adds that Joab left out Levi and Benjamin, “for the king’s word was abominable to Joab” (21:6). Levi was never numbered with the hosts (Numbers 1:49); for Benjamin the commentators suggest reasons, among them that the Temple would stand in its portion. The text gives only Joab’s disgust, and counts it to his credit.

The numbers. Chronicles gives 1,100,000 for Israel and 470,000 for Judah; Samuel gives 800,000 and 500,000 (2 Samuel 24:9). One harmonization is that the Chronicler’s Israel includes the twelve standing divisions of chapter 27 (twelve of 24,000, or 288,000 men, near the 300,000 difference). What neither book disputes is that the count was made and that it was wrong.

21:7–13 · Three choices, and the hand of Hashem

“And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he smote Israel” (21:7).

In Samuel David’s heart smites him first. In Chronicles God smites first, then David speaks.

“And David said unto God, I have sinned greatly… for I have done very foolishly” (21:8).

Hebrew lesson: נִסְכַּלְתִּי (niskalti), “I have acted foolishly.” The word is rare. Samuel said it to Saul at Gilgal, “Thou hast done foolishly” (1 Samuel 13:13), and Saul said it of himself when David spared him a second time, “I have sinned… I have played the fool” (1 Samuel 26:21). Now David uses Saul’s word of himself. The difference between the kings was never that one sinned and the other did not. It was what came next. Saul’s confession was followed by nothing. David’s is followed by a choice, a prayer, a purchase and an altar.

The three choices. Three years of famine; three months before the sword of enemies; or “three days the sword of Hashem, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of Hashem destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel” (21:12). Samuel says seven years of famine; Radak’s reconciliation is in our 2 Samuel commentary. Chronicles adds two things to the third choice: it calls the plague “the sword of Hashem,” and it names the angel from the start, because the angel is going to stop at a threshing floor. Famine, sword and pestilence are the Torah’s three (Leviticus 26:25–26) and Revelation’s: “to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death” (Revelation 6:8). FFOZ, teaching those riders, says, “Following conquest, war, and famine, the Angel of Death rides forth on the pale horse” (End of Days, Lesson 7, “Four Horsemen”). David was shown the horsemen and told to choose one.

“Let me fall now into the hand of Hashem; for very great are his mercies: but let me not fall into the hand of man” (21:13).

Our 2 Samuel commentary gave Rashi’s and Radak’s reasons, and Rabbi Palvanov’s summary, “I prefer something that comes directly from Hashem than something that depends on people.” The Chronicler’s Hebrew makes the point by itself: in verse 12 the plague is “the sword of Hashem,” and in verse 13 David asks to fall “into the hand of Hashem.” He chooses the sword in Hashem’s own hand, because the hand that holds it is merciful.

21:14–17 · The angel between earth and heaven

“And as he was destroying, Hashem beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of Hashem stood by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite” (21:15).

“Hashem beheld.” Chronicles adds ra’ah Hashem, “Hashem saw.” The Talmud asks what He saw and gives four answers, set out in our 2 Samuel commentary: Jacob; the ashes of Isaac; the atonement money; the Temple (Berakhot 62b). On this mountain the verb to see has a history. Abraham “lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off” (Genesis 22:4) and named it Hashem yireh, “as it is said to this day, In the mount of Hashem it shall be seen” (22:14). There an angel called from heaven, “Lay not thine hand upon the lad” (22:12). Now Hashem says to an angel over the same mountain, “stay now thine hand.” Shmuel’s answer, that He saw the ashes of Isaac, is the one the Targum to Chronicles carries at this verse, and the Chronicler names the mountain in his second book: “mount Moriah, where Hashem appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan” (2 Chronicles 3:1).

“It is enough.” Rav. Rabbi Elazar read it as “the great one”: take the great one among them, through whom many debts can be paid, and at that hour Abishai son of Zeruiah died (Berakhot 62b). Rabbi Palvanov mentioned the tradition in his class “Revelations from Jerusalem”: “Some say maybe it was just one person who was worth that many people.”

What David saw. Here is a verse Samuel does not have:

“And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of Hashem stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces” (21:16).

David “lifted up his eyes, and saw,” Abraham’s words on the same hill. What he saw was charbo shelufah be-yado, “his sword drawn in his hand.” That phrase belongs to three scenes in the Tenakh: the angel who stood against Balaam “as an adversary” (Numbers 22:23, 31), the captain of Hashem’s host before Jericho (Joshua 5:13), and this angel over Jerusalem. Balaam’s angel stopped a curse against Israel. Joshua’s angel opened the land. David’s angel stands over the city that will hold the Temple, and he is stopped. The adversary of verse 1 and the angel of verse 16 are not the same figure, but the Chronicler lets us hear the echo: the only other angel of Hashem called a satan drew his sword to save Israel from a curse. Rabbi Palvanov, in the same class, described the scene as the text does: the angel “pauses right there on the Temple Mount and looks like it’s suspended between heaven and earth.”

The elders in sackcloth. Samuel shows David alone with the angel. Chronicles shows “David and the elders of Israel” on their faces together: the king sinned, and the elders fast with him.

“Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned… but as for these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, O Hashem my God, be on me, and on my father’s house; but not on thy people” (21:17).

Messianic reading. Our 2 Samuel commentary read this prayer with John 10:11 and Isaiah 53:6. Chronicles sharpens it with two additions: “Is it not I,” taking the whole guilt, and “but not on thy people,” asking a clean exchange, his house for the nation. David could ask it and not do it, because he was the guilty one. The Son of David asked nothing for himself and did it, near this same place, outside the wall: “to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

21:18–25 · The full price

“Then the angel of Hashem commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and set up an altar unto Hashem in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite” (21:18).

In Samuel, Gad simply comes. In Chronicles the angel speaks to Gad. The destroying angel becomes the angel who shows where the altar goes; the same messenger carries the sword and the word. Rambam’s laws of the Temple begin with the commandment to build (Exodus 25:8) and a sanctuary that moved from Gilgal to Shiloh to Nob to Gibeon until it came to “the eternal house” (Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 1:1–3). This is the chapter where the moving stops.

Ornan threshing wheat. “And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat” (21:20). Only Chronicles tells us this. One other man in Scripture was threshing wheat when an angel of Hashem came: Gideon (Judges 6:11), who built an altar and saw fire come out of the rock. Ornan’s floor will see the same in six verses. And Yeshua told Peter that Satan had asked to “sift you as wheat” (Luke 22:31). The adversary of verse 1 has sifted Israel, seventy thousand have fallen, and the sifting stops on a floor where a Gentile is threshing wheat. Yeshua’s next words were, “But I have prayed for thee.” David’s prayer on his face in verse 17 is that kind of prayer.

“For the full price.” “Then David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshingfloor… thou shalt grant it me for the full price: that the plague may be stayed from the people” (21:22).

This is the Chronicler’s most deliberate change of wording. In Samuel David will buy “at a price,” bimchir. In Chronicles he says be-kesef malé, “for full silver,” twice (21:22, 24). Those are Abraham’s words to the sons of Heth about the cave of Machpelah: “for as much money as it is worth (be-kesef malé) he shall give it me” (Genesis 23:9). The phrase occurs nowhere else. David at the threshing floor is Abraham at the cave. Both were offered the land free. Both refused. Both paid in full before witnesses. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Revelations from Jerusalem,” drew the line from Ephron to Ornan: “Nobody should ever doubt that we purchased it. We have the title deed.” The Midrash counts three places whose purchase the nations cannot dispute, because Scripture records the price: Machpelah, Joseph’s tomb at Shechem, and the Temple (Bereshit Rabbah 79:7).

Ornan answers as Ephron did, with a better heart: “Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meat offering; I give it all” (21:23). There is Joab’s phrase, now from a Jebusite to David. Our 2 Samuel commentary told who the sages say Ornan was: a former king of the Jebusites, a ger toshav who had left idolatry (Avodah Zarah 24b). A Gentile offers everything for the altar and a Jewish king insists on paying. Isaiah’s picture of the end has both: “the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls… to beautify the place of my sanctuary” (Isaiah 60:10, 13). FFOZ draws it out: unlike Moses, who asked Israel for the terumah, the Messiah “summons the nations to raise a contribution” for the Temple (End of Days, Lesson 19, “Banner on a Mountain”). Ornan was the first.

“Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for Hashem, nor offer burnt offerings without cost” (21:24).

Hebrew lesson: חִנָּם (chinnam), “for nothing.” The word David refuses is the word of sinat chinnam, baseless hatred, the sin that destroyed the second Temple (Yoma 9b). The first altar on this mountain could not be built chinnam. A gift to God must be mine before it can be His, and it has to cost me.

Six hundred shekels of gold. “So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight” (21:25). Samuel says fifty shekels of silver. The Talmud reconciles them: fifty from each of the twelve tribes, six hundred in all, so that the whole nation owned the place (Zevachim 116b). Another explanation: fifty for the floor and oxen, and six hundred for the whole site. The Chronicler says “for the place,” ba-makom, the Torah’s word for the one place Hashem would choose (Deuteronomy 12:5). Samuel priced a threshing floor. Chronicles prices the place, in gold, because by the time he wrote everyone knew what the place was.

21:26–30 · Fire from heaven, and the sword goes back

“And David built there an altar unto Hashem, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon Hashem; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering” (21:26).

Fire from heaven. Samuel ends with “the plague was stayed.” Chronicles says how David knew he was heard, and that puts his altar in a short list: Aaron’s first offering (Leviticus 9:24), Gideon’s rock (Judges 6:21), Solomon’s dedication on this same spot (2 Chronicles 7:1), and Elijah on Carmel (1 Kings 18:38). The Talmud counts five things the second Temple lacked: the Ark, the fire, the Shechinah, the Holy Spirit, and the Urim and Tummim (Yoma 21b). The returned exiles had an altar on this spot, but no fire from heaven. The Chronicler is telling them what the place was given with, and what they were waiting to get back.

The sword returns to its sheath. “And Hashem commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof” (21:27).

Only Chronicles says this. Hashem had said “stay now thine hand” in verse 15; the sword stayed drawn until the offering went up. The pause was mercy; the sheathing was atonement. Hashem would later say through Ezekiel, over a Jerusalem that had forgotten this altar, “I Hashem have drawn forth my sword out of his sheath: it shall not return any more” (Ezekiel 21:5). In David’s day it returned.

Messianic reading. In the garden across the valley, a thousand years later, Peter drew a sword to defend the Son of David, and he said, “Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11; Matthew 26:52). The sword over Jerusalem went home when an offering went up on Moriah. Yeshua sheathed Peter’s sword because the offering was about to go up again. “Ye are bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20): not chinnam. David on his face under a drawn sword is the picture of Mashiach ben Yosef; fire on the altar and the sword going home is the promise of Mashiach ben David.

Why David did not go to Gibeon. The Tabernacle of Moses and its altar “were at that season in the high place at Gibeon. But David could not go before it to enquire of God: for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of Hashem” (21:29–30). The Chronicler answers the question a Torah-observant reader would ask: why did David offer outside the Tabernacle? Because Hashem answered him here, by fire, and because a man who has just watched a drawn sword over Jerusalem does not walk to Gibeon with the plague barely stopped. Solomon will offer at Gibeon once more (2 Chronicles 1:3–6) and then bring Ark and Tabernacle together into the house on this floor.

“This is the house” (22:1). The chapter division cuts the story one verse short. Its real last line is:

“Then David said, This is the house of Hashem God, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel” (22:1).

Zeh hu, “this is it.” For more than four hundred years the Torah spoke of “the place which Hashem your God shall choose” (Deuteronomy 12:5) and never named it. The Sifrei reads that verse’s “seek” as a command, seek it through a prophet and find it, and cites David’s vow: “I will not give sleep to mine eyes… until I find out a place for Hashem” (Psalm 132:4–5). The Talmud tells how the search went, in the tradition we met at 9:22: David and Samuel sat at Naioth in Ramah and worked out from Moses’ blessing of Benjamin, “he shall dwell between his shoulders” (Deuteronomy 33:12), that the Temple would stand in Benjamin’s portion, a little below the highest point of the land, as the shoulders are below the head (Zevachim 54b). The search ended at a threshing floor, when an angel stopped and fire fell.

What the sages say about the place. Rambam gathers the tradition:

It is a tradition held by all that the place where David and Solomon built the altar, in the threshing floor of Aravnah, is the place where Abraham built the altar and bound Isaac upon it, and the place where Noah built when he came out of the ark, and the altar on which Cain and Abel offered, and on it Adam the first man offered when he was created, and from there he was created. The sages said: Adam was created from the place of his atonement. (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:2)

The Mishnah calls the rock in the Holy of Holies the Even Shetiyah, the foundation stone, from which the world was founded (Mishnah Yoma 5:2; Yoma 54b). Rabbi Palvanov stood near it when he taught “Revelations from Jerusalem”: “It’s the foundation stone, Even HaShetiyah… the point from which Hashem created the universe.” The sages’ chain is remez, not archaeology, and we hold it as such. But its meaning is the Chronicler’s own: the place of man’s atonement is one place, chosen before David was born and found by David on his knees.

Jacob’s word. At Bethel Jacob said, “this is none other but the house of God” (Genesis 28:17). The Talmud notices that Abraham called the place a mountain, Isaac a field, and Jacob a house, and that Isaiah’s promise uses Jacob’s word, “the house of the God of Jacob” (Isaiah 2:3; Pesachim 88a). David uses it too: zeh hu beit Hashem. Rambam rules that the holiness of this place never departed, even in ruin, because “the sanctity of the Temple and of Jerusalem is because of the Shechinah, and the Shechinah is never annulled” (Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 6:16). FFOZ says why this is not antiquarian: “When the Temple falls, the people go into exile. When Hashem redeems His people, the Temple is rebuilt,” and “Maimonides ranks the rebuilding of the Temple as one of the chief criteria that the Jewish people will use to identify the Messiah” (End of Days, Lesson 19, “Banner on a Mountain”; Hilchot Melachim 11:1, 4). Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” said the same of Yeshua: he is known by what he does, “the kingdom restored, the House built, the exiles home,” begun as the son of Yosef and finished as the son of David.

Messianic reading. “This is the house.” The Son of David walked into it and said, “My house shall be called the house of prayer” (Matthew 21:13; Isaiah 56:7). He did not say the house was finished with; he said it would be left desolate “till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of Hashem” (Matthew 23:38–39). Zechariah says who builds it in the end: “the man whose name is The Branch… he shall build the temple of Hashem… and he shall be a priest upon his throne” (Zechariah 6:12–13). And when all is done, John sees a city with no temple, “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it” (Revelation 21:22). FFOZ reads that rightly: the Temple is not abolished there, but “the earthly copy has now completely given way to the heavenly original.” Note the two names John keeps distinct: God Almighty, and the Lamb. The house belongs to Hashem. The Son of David is the one who builds it, prays in it, and is offered for it.

David paid for the place with gold, built an altar, and saw fire fall. Then he said, this is it. The rest of 1 Chronicles is what he did about it.

Drawing it together

1. One story at two levels. Samuel says Hashem’s anger moved David; Chronicles says an adversary stood up and provoked him. The adversary is real, and he works for Hashem, not against Him. “I Hashem do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7).

2. The Chronicler’s silence is not a lie. He leaves out Bathsheba and keeps the census; Matthew leaves out nothing. One book shows the king as Hashem intended him, for a people rebuilding; the other shows the family the Messiah was born into. “Go to the individual” (Avodah Zarah 4b–5a) explains why the sin was written at all.

3. Hashem’s angel carries the sword and the word. The same angel that destroyed told Gad where the altar should go, and sheathed his sword when the offering went up. David chose rightly: “let me fall now into the hand of Hashem; for very great are his mercies.”

4. Nothing for God is bought for nothing. Be-kesef malé, “for the full price,” are Abraham’s words at Machpelah and David’s at the threshing floor. Ornan gave all; David paid all; the price is recorded so no one can dispute the place. The Son of David paid the full price on the same mountain.

5. This is the house. The Torah’s unnamed place was found by a king on his face, marked by an angel, and lit by fire from heaven. Its holiness has never departed. The Son of David called it his Father’s house, and will, as the Branch, build it; and at the very end the copy gives way to the original, where “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.”

Questions for discussion

1. What does the Chronicler change in the princes’ speech (19:3; 2 Samuel 10:3), and what does the change show about fear?

2. Joab says, “let Hashem do that which is good in his sight” (19:13), and Ornan says the same words to David (21:23). What do the two sentences have in common, and what is different?

3. Compare 1 Chronicles 20:1 with 2 Samuel 11:1–2. What did the Chronicler leave out, and why? Which of the three reasons offered is strongest?

4. Matthew 1:6 names “her that had been the wife of Urias.” Why would Matthew include what the Chronicler left out?

5. How does 1 Chronicles 20:5 help us read 2 Samuel 21:19? What did the Targum, Rashi and Radak each say about Elhanan?

6. 2 Samuel 24:1 says Hashem moved David; 1 Chronicles 21:1 says Satan did. How do Radak, Bava Batra 16a, FFOZ and our Yom Kippur class hold the two together? What does James 1:13–14 add?

7. Why was it a sin to count Israel (Exodus 30:12; Berakhot 62b; Yoma 22b; 1 Chronicles 27:23–24)? What did Joab understand that David did not?

8. “His sword drawn in his hand” marks three scenes: Numbers 22, Joshua 5 and 1 Chronicles 21. What do they have in common, and how does the third end differently?

9. Why does the Chronicler have David say be-kesef malé, “for the full price” (21:22, 24)? Where else does the phrase occur, and how does Zevachim 116b reconcile fifty shekels with six hundred?

10. What is new in 21:26–27 compared with 2 Samuel 24:25? How do the fire and the sheathed sword point to Yeshua, and why does the commentary insist the Temple is not spiritualized away in Revelation 21:22?

Sources

Scripture: 1 Chronicles 3, 18–22, 27, 29; 2 Chronicles 1, 3, 7; 2 Samuel 10–12, 21, 24; 1 Samuel 3, 13, 17, 26, 29; 1 Kings 11, 14, 15, 18, 22; Genesis 3, 15, 22, 23, 28; Exodus 25, 30; Leviticus 9, 26; Numbers 1, 22; Deuteronomy 1, 2, 12, 33; Joshua 5; Judges 6; Psalm 2, 132; Isaiah 2, 45, 53, 56, 60; Ezekiel 21; Zechariah 3, 6; Job 1; Matthew 1, 21, 23, 26; Mark 10; Luke 22; John 2, 10, 18; Romans 16; 1 Corinthians 6; James 1; Revelation 6, 21.

Talmud and Midrash: Shabbat 56a; Pesachim 88a; Yoma 9b, 21b, 22b, 54b; Mishnah Yoma 5:2; Sotah 42b; Bava Kamma 38b; Bava Batra 16a; Sanhedrin 95a; Avodah Zarah 4b–5a, 24b, 44a; Zevachim 54b, 116b; Berakhot 62b; Bamidbar Rabbah 14:1; Bereshit Rabbah 79:7; Shemot Rabbah 17:5; Sifrei Devarim on Deuteronomy 12:5; Targum to 1 Chronicles 21:15.

Commentators: Radak on 2 Samuel 21:19, 24:1, 24:13–14; Targum Jonathan and Rashi on 2 Samuel 21:19; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 1:1–3, 2:1–2, 6:16, and Hilchot Melachim 11:1, 4.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 1, “The Beginning of Days”; Lesson 3, “The Day and the Hour”; Lesson 7, “Four Horsemen”; Lesson 19, “Banner on a Mountain”; Lessons 29–30, “Satan in Chains”; Lesson 49, “Day of Harvest”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Revelations from Jerusalem” (https://youtu.be/SxzIBUZSiP4), “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef” (https://youtu.be/HUxIh1LdM3o) and “Understanding Edom #5 – Gog & Mashiach” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJv-1glv5EM); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “The Trinity – Part 05” (https://youtu.be/d0XTJ9jhqHI) and “The 4 sons from the Passover Haggadah – Part 16” (https://youtu.be/2wG2JyhU6RA); Benei Avraham classes, “Unlocking the Depth of Yom Kippur” (https://youtu.be/y4mq10EdZVg), “Why We Created Our Own Siddur at Benei Avraham” (https://youtu.be/47vZdUvRlro) and “The Real Jewish Reason We Need a Messiah” (https://youtu.be/bS6xdApTxco); our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David”; our 2 Samuel commentary on chapters 10–12, 21 and 24; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

Chapter 21 ended with fire from heaven on the threshing floor of Ornan, and chapter 22 opens with David saying what the fire meant: “This is the house of Hashem God.” From here to the end of the book the Chronicler shows us something no other biblical writer does: an old king who knows he will not build the Temple, and who spends his last strength making sure his son can. David gathers stone, iron, bronze and cedar, counts the Levites, divides the kohanim into courses, and hands it all to Solomon: “Arise therefore, and be doing” (22:16).

Kings has none of this preparation; it tells instead of Adonijah’s coup and the old king’s last words, a charge to keep the Torah and orders about Joab and Shimei (1 Kings 1–2). The Chronicler writes for a community home from Babylon, and gives them David the organizer. Chapter 22 is the charge to Solomon. Chapter 23 counts the Levites and tells them what they are for now that the Ark no longer needs carrying: “to stand every morning to thank and praise Hashem” (23:30). Chapter 24 divides the sons of Aaron into twenty-four courses; the eighth lot falls to a house called Abijah, and a thousand years later a kohen of that course named Zechariah will stand at the incense altar and hear that his son will go before the Lord “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:5, 17). The Brit Hadashah opens inside the order David set up here. And the shape of these chapters is the shape of our hope: the father who fought the wars gathers everything, and the son whose name means peace builds.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 22 · The Father Gathers, the Son Will Build

Read 1 Chronicles 22 in Hebrew and English →

22:1 · “This is the house of Hashem God”

“Then David said, This is the house of Hashem God, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel” (22:1).

Our notes at the end of chapter 21 treated this verse as the climax of the threshing-floor story: Jacob’s word house (Genesis 28:17), the sages’ chain from Adam to Abraham to David on this one spot, and Rambam’s ruling that the holiness of the place never departed. We will not repeat it. We add one thing. The verse names not only the house but the altar, and the altar is “for Israel”: a Gentile’s threshing floor, bought by a king, becomes the one place where the whole nation is atoned for. Zeh hu, “this is it.” Everything that follows is about this ground.

22:2–5 · Stone, iron, bronze and cedar

“And David commanded to gather together the strangers that were in the land of Israel; and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God” (22:2).

The first workers on the Temple are גֵּרִים (gerim), “strangers.” These were the non-Israelites living under Israel’s rule, not converts; the Talmud notes that formal converts were not accepted in the days of David and Solomon, when no one could be sure they came for Heaven’s sake rather than for the king’s table (Yevamot 24b). So these were the nations, living among Israel, put to work on the house of Hashem.

Isaiah saw it as a sign of the end of days: “the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to Hashem… even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer… for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people” (Isaiah 56:6–7). The stranger who swings a hammer on the Temple stones is the first draft of the stranger who prays in the finished house. FFOZ’s End of Days says the same of the Temple to come: “The nations readily donate both the laborers and the materials for the construction project,” and adds, “This is like the days of King Solomon when he employed craftsmen from Tyre and brought cedars from Lebanon” (Lesson 19, “Banner on a Mountain”).

Hewn stone, but no iron on the altar. David’s masons cut אַבְנֵי גָזִית (avnei gazit), “hewn stones,” for the house. The Torah forbids hewn stone for the altar: “if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it” (Exodus 20:25). The Mishnah explains: “iron was created to shorten the days of man, and the altar was created to lengthen the days of man; it is not right that what shortens should be lifted over what lengthens” (Middot 3:4). So the stones were dressed at the quarry, and “there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building” (1 Kings 6:7).

“And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails for the doors of the gates, and for the joinings; and brass in abundance without weight” (22:3).

Iron for nails and hinges, yes; iron on the altar, no. David, who shed too much blood to build the house, prepares the iron and leaves the altar to the laws of peace. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Revelations from Jerusalem,” recalls that “King David left for his son, for King Solomon, all the wealth and he said, ‘Use this to build the temple,’” and calls iron “the element of King David.” The metal of his wars becomes the nails of the house of peace.

“Also cedar trees in abundance: for the Zidonians and they of Tyre brought much cedar wood to David” (22:4).

Hiram of Tyre had sent cedar for David’s own house (14:1); now it comes for Hashem’s.

“And David said, Solomon my son is young and tender, and the house that is to be builded for Hashem must be exceeding magnifical, of fame and of glory throughout all countries: I will therefore now make preparation for it” (22:5).

Hebrew lesson: נַעַר וָרָךְ (na’ar va-rach), “young and tender.” On the day Abner died David called himself rach, “tender,” anointed but without strength (2 Samuel 3:39). Now he uses the word for his son, who by the sages’ reckoning was about twelve (Seder Olam Rabbah 14; Rashi on 1 Kings 3:7). A boy cannot plan a building meant to be famous in every land, so the father plans and leaves the boy to build.

22:6–10 · “Thou hast shed blood abundantly… his name shall be Solomon”

“But the word of Hashem came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight” (22:8).

Here David tells us why he did not build; Nathan’s prophecy (2 Samuel 7; 1 Chronicles 17) only said the son would, and Kings speaks only of “the wars which were about him” (1 Kings 5:3). See our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7 for the Midrash that softens the blow: the house would carry David’s name (Midrash Tehillim 62:4; Psalm 30:1; Shabbat 30a).

What the sages say about the blood. The wars were commanded. So what was the fault? The Midrash on Psalms has David ask exactly that, and has Hashem answer that all the blood David shed was before Him like the blood of deer and gazelles, which the Torah permits (Deuteronomy 12:15, 22); and still, “you shall not build” (Midrash Tehillim 62). The point is not guilt but fitness. A house whose whole purpose is atonement and peace is not to be raised by hands famous for the sword, even a righteous sword. Radak adds a harder note: among so much bloodshed there may also have been innocent blood, as David himself confessed over the priests of Nob (1 Samuel 22:22). Hashem used the warrior to win the ground and the psalmist to fill the house with song; He only would not let the warrior lay the stones.

“Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days” (22:9).

Hebrew lesson: אִישׁ מְנוּחָה (ish menuchah), “a man of rest,” and שְׁלֹמֹה (Shlomo), from שָׁלוֹם (shalom), “peace.” The Torah tied the Temple to rest before David was born: “when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about… then there shall be a place which Hashem your God shall choose” (Deuteronomy 12:10–11; see Sanhedrin 20b). David had rest for a season (2 Samuel 7:1) and then more wars came. Solomon’s rest would be complete, so the house would be his. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “Emmanuel, Jesus and the fig tree – Part 15,” points to the Tenakh’s picture of Solomon’s reign, “each one is rest under his vine and under his fig,” and calls it “the way the Torah describes a time of peace… after Shlomo built the Beit HaMikdash” (1 Kings 4:25; Micah 4:4). That is the verse the prophets reach for when they describe the days of Mashiach.

“He shall build an house for my name; and he shall be my son, and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever” (22:10).

This is Nathan’s promise (17:11–14) in David’s own mouth. Notice what the Chronicler leaves out, here and in 17:13: the warning of 2 Samuel 7:14, “if he commit iniquity, I will chasten him.” For the Chronicler the promise stands alone: a son, a house, a throne forever. Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” summed it up: “He will come from David’s own body. He will build a House for Hashem’s name. His throne will last forever,” and it read the sonship as a royal title; our Statement of Faith likewise calls Yeshua “the Son of God, the anointed King.” Hebrews opens with this line (Hebrews 1:5), and the angel told Miriam her son would receive “the throne of his father David… and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:32–33).

Messianic reading. Here is the pattern of our Statement of Faith, drawn in a single family. The father fights, is refused as the builder, and gathers everything. The son of peace receives it and builds. Yeshua came first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef, refused by the builders, gathering a people and a treasury of promises. He will come again in the pattern of Mashiach ben David, in whose days the house will stand. Rambam makes building the Sanctuary the proof of the Messiah (Hilchot Melachim 11:4), and Zechariah saw the Branch who “shall build the temple of Hashem… and he shall be a priest upon his throne” (Zechariah 6:12–13). David preparing is where we live; Solomon building is what we wait for.

22:11–13 · “Be strong, and of good courage”

“Only Hashem give thee wisdom and understanding, and give thee charge concerning Israel, that thou mayest keep the Torah of Hashem thy God. Then shalt thou prosper, if thou takest heed to fulfil the statutes and judgments which Hashem charged Moses with concerning Israel: be strong, and of good courage; dread not, nor be dismayed” (22:12–13).

David is quoting. “Be strong and of a good courage… be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed” is what Moses and then Hashem said to Joshua (Deuteronomy 31:7–8; Joshua 1:6–9). Solomon is a new Joshua, who completes what his master began and is told that success depends on the Torah: “This book of the Torah shall not depart out of thy mouth… for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous” (Joshua 1:8) becomes “then shalt thou prosper, if thou takest heed to fulfil the statutes.” Behind both stands the law of the king (Deuteronomy 17:18–20).

Why this matters. David does not say the building will make Solomon great; he says keeping the Torah will make the building prosper. Jeremiah said so in its gate (Jeremiah 7:4), and Yeshua in its courts (Matthew 21:13). Our Statement of Faith holds that the Torah is not replaced; David’s charge is the Torah-shaped foundation under the Temple itself.

22:14–16 · “In my trouble I have prepared”

“Now, behold, in my trouble I have prepared for the house of Hashem an hundred thousand talents of gold, and a thousand thousand talents of silver; and of brass and iron without weight… and thou mayest add thereto” (22:14).

Hebrew lesson: בְעָנְיִי (ve’onyi), “in my affliction,” or “in my poverty.” Rashi on Chronicles reads it as poverty freely chosen: David denied himself and set aside for the house what he might have spent on his court. Other commentators allow “by my toil.” Either way the word is a confession, not a boast; the man who could have lived like a king lived like a steward. The commentators explain the enormous figures as the spoils of David’s wars, dedicated to Hashem (18:11), while the gift from his own estate comes in 29:4.

“Arise therefore, and be doing, and Hashem be with thee” (22:16). קוּם וַעֲשֵׂה (kum va’aseh), “arise and do.” Everything has been prepared, and now the son has to move; grace does not cancel work, it makes work possible. And “thou mayest add thereto” is the father’s humility: the son’s generation will have its own gift to bring.

22:17–19 · The charge to the princes

“Is not Hashem your God with you? and hath he not given you rest on every side? for he hath given the inhabitants of the land into mine hand; and the land is subdued before Hashem, and before his people” (22:18).

“The land is subdued before Hashem” is the language of the conquest (Numbers 32:22, 29), and when Joshua achieved it, “the land was subdued before them,” Israel set up the Tabernacle at Shiloh (Joshua 18:1). David has finished Joshua’s work. The land is subdued a second time, and so, a second time, Hashem’s dwelling can be set up in it, now in stone.

“Now set your heart and your soul to seek Hashem your God; arise therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of Hashem God, to bring the ark of the covenant of Hashem… into the house that is to be built to the name of Hashem” (22:19).

Hebrew lesson: לִדְרוֹשׁ (lidrosh), “to seek.” This is the Chronicler’s favorite word for the right relationship with Hashem. Saul died because he “enquired not of Hashem” (10:14, lo darash); David will tell Solomon, “if thou seek him, he will be found of thee” (28:9). The building is not the goal; the seeking is, and the building houses it. Its purpose is to bring in the Ark: “Arise, O Hashem, into thy rest (menuchah); thou, and the ark of thy strength” (Psalm 132:8).

Chapter 23 · The Levites, Counted and Set to Praise

Read 1 Chronicles 23 in Hebrew and English →

23:1–2 · Solomon made king; the leaders gathered

“So when David was old and full of days, he made Solomon his son king over Israel. And he gathered together all the princes of Israel, with the priests and the Levites” (23:1–2).

“Old and full of days” is what the Torah says of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 25:8; 35:29). There is nothing here of Adonijah’s feast (1 Kings 1); Chronicles will admit that Solomon was made king “the second time” (29:22), which quietly acknowledges a hurried first time. But the picture the Chronicler wants us to keep is a father at peace, a son installed, and Israel’s leaders assembled to receive the order of the house. Our Statement of Faith teaches that death is a sleep until the resurrection, and the Chronicler’s calm fits it.

23:3–6 · Thirty-eight thousand Levites, and four kinds of work

“Now the Levites were numbered from the age of thirty years and upward… thirty and eight thousand. Of which, twenty and four thousand were to set forward the work of the house of Hashem; and six thousand were officers and judges: Moreover four thousand were porters; and four thousand praised Hashem with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith” (23:3–5).

Four jobs. Twenty-four thousand assist in the house. Six thousand are שֹׁטְרִים וְשֹׁפְטִים (shotrim ve-shoftim), “officers and judges,” the Torah’s phrase for the courts in every gate (Deuteronomy 16:18), for Levi was the teaching tribe (Deuteronomy 33:10). Four thousand are gatekeepers (chapter 26), and four thousand are musicians (chapter 25), playing “the instruments which I made.” David did not only write the psalms; he built the instruments (Amos 6:5).

The age of thirty was not arbitrary. Our Benei Avraham class “Becoming B’nei Mitzvah: A Journey of Covenant, Calling, and Joy” walked through the ages of life in Torah: “At 25 years of age, Numbers 8:24 talks about how Levites would begin the Temple service apprenticeship. They would start learning, and then at 30 years of age they would begin full service,” and added, “at this age also Yeshua and King David began public leadership.” Yeshua “began to be about thirty years of age” (Luke 3:23), the age of a Levite entering full service.

“And David divided them into courses among the sons of Levi, namely, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari” (23:6).

Hebrew lesson: מַחְלְקוֹת (machlekot), “divisions” or “courses.” The word governs the next five chapters. Levi’s three sons had their wilderness duties from Numbers 3–4: Kohath carried the holy vessels on their shoulders, Gershon the curtains, Merari the boards. David keeps the old houses and gives them new work.

23:7–11 · The sons of Gershon

Gershon’s two houses are Laadan (called Libni in 6:2, Hebrew numbering) and Shimei. One small line carries the chapter’s heart: “Jeush and Beriah had not many sons; therefore they were in one reckoning, according to their father’s house” (23:11). Two small families were counted as one so that they would have a full place in the rotation; the weak houses were not crowded out by the strong. In the house of Hashem the small family stands its week like the great one.

23:12–20 · The sons of Kohath: Aaron set apart, and Moses’ sons among the Levites

“The sons of Amram; Aaron and Moses: and Aaron was separated, that he should sanctify the most holy things, he and his sons for ever, to burn incense before Hashem, to minister unto him, and to bless in his name for ever” (23:13).

Here the Chronicler pauses to say what a kohen is. Three things, all “for ever”: to handle the most holy things, to burn incense, and to bless in the Name. The third is the Priestly Blessing of Numbers 6:22–27, the one piece of the Temple service that never stopped. Kohanim still rise in the synagogue and say those words (Sotah 38a). When the Chronicler wrote “for ever,” he meant it, and so do we.

“Now concerning Moses the man of God, his sons were named of the tribe of Levi” (23:14).

Moses is the greatest of the prophets, and his sons are ordinary Levites: not kohanim, not kings. When Moses asked for a successor, the Midrash hears him asking for his own sons, and Hashem answers, “Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof” (Proverbs 27:18): Joshua, who never left the tent, would lead (Rashi on Numbers 27:16; Bamidbar Rabbah 21:14). Greatness in Israel is not inherited, and the Chronicler’s community, proud of its pedigrees, needed to hear it from the family of Moses himself.

“The sons of Moses were, Gershom, and Eliezer. Of the sons of Gershom, Shebuel was the chief” (23:15–16).

What the sages say about Shebuel. Judges tells of a young Levite who became priest of Micah’s idol and then of the tribe of Dan, and names him at the very end: “Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh” (Judges 18:30), where “Manasseh” is written with a raised nun that the sages say was hung there to spare the honor of Moses, the real name underneath. What became of Jonathan? The Talmud answers from our verse: “When David saw that money was very dear to him, he appointed him over the treasuries, as it says, ‘Shebuel the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, was ruler of the treasures’ (26:24). Was his name Shebuel? Was it not Jonathan? Rabbi Yochanan said: he returned to God (shav la-El) with all his heart” (Bava Batra 110a). שְׁבוּאֵל (Shevuel) is שָׁב לָאֵל, “he came back to God.” The grandson of Moses who served an idol repented, and David gave him a post that turned his weakness into a strength. That is what a king of Israel does with a penitent.

23:21–23 · The sons of Merari: daughters who inherited

“And Eleazar died, and had no sons, but daughters: and their brethren the sons of Kish took them” (23:22).

Eleazar of Merari left only daughters, and the sons of his brother Kish married them. That is the Torah’s law for the daughters of Zelophehad: they inherit their father and marry within their father’s tribe, “so shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe” (Numbers 27:1–11; 36:6–8). Eleazar’s house did not vanish; in 24:28–29 both Eleazar and Kish are still listed. A law given in the wilderness was quietly kept in David’s Jerusalem. That is what Torah faithfulness mostly looks like: not dramatic, just kept.

23:24–27 · From thirty to twenty: “they shall no more carry the tabernacle”

“These were the sons of Levi… from the age of twenty years and upward. For David said, Hashem God of Israel hath given rest unto his people, that they may dwell in Jerusalem for ever: And also unto the Levites; they shall no more carry the tabernacle, nor any vessels of it for the service thereof. For by the last words of David the Levites were numbered from twenty years old and above” (23:24–27).

Verse 3 counted from thirty; verse 24 counts from twenty. The Torah itself has two numbers, thirty in Numbers 4:3 and twenty-five in Numbers 8:24: at twenty-five a Levite came to learn and at thirty to serve (Chullin 24a). The Talmud then explains David’s change. The age limits applied only in the wilderness, where the work was carrying on the shoulder. In Shiloh and in the Temple, where the work was song and gatekeeping, a Levite was disqualified only by the loss of his voice, never by his years (Chullin 24a; Rambam, Hilchot Klei HaMikdash 3:7–8).

Hebrew lesson: הֵנִיחַ (heni’ach), “He has given rest.” The root is menuchah again, as in 22:9. “That they may dwell in Jerusalem for ever”: the Hebrew says that He dwells, וַיִּשְׁכֹּן (va-yishkon), the verb of the Shechinah. Hashem has taken up residence, so His porters may put down the poles. For more than four hundred years the Levites had been defined by what they carried. Now a whole tribe has to be told what it is for, and David’s answer fills the rest of the chapter: they are for praise.

23:28–32 · “To stand every morning to thank and praise Hashem”

“Because their office was to wait on the sons of Aaron for the service of the house of Hashem… And to stand every morning to thank and praise Hashem, and likewise at even; And to offer all burnt sacrifices unto Hashem in the sabbaths, in the new moons, and on the set feasts… And that they should keep the charge of the tabernacle of the congregation” (23:28–32).

The new job description has three layers. The Levites assist the kohanim: courts and chambers, the purifying of all holy things, the showbread and grain offerings (Leviticus 2). They keep the calendar’s offerings “by number, according to the order,” the Shabbat, new moon and festival sacrifices of Numbers 28–29, which our Mussaf still recites. And they “keep the charge,” מִשְׁמֶרֶת (mishmeret), of the holy place and of the kohanim (Numbers 18:3–5); from this root comes מִשְׁמָר (mishmar), the word for a priestly “watch” or course. In the middle of the list stands the verse that gives the chapter its heart:

“And to stand every morning to thank and praise Hashem, and likewise at even” (23:30).

Hebrew lesson: לְהֹדוֹת וּלְהַלֵּל (lehodot ulehallel), “to thank and to praise.” These are the two verbs of Jewish prayer. Hodu, “give thanks,” opens the psalm David gave Asaph (16:8), and ve-hallel, “and praised,” closes it (16:36); they still open our morning service. The Levites’ song was tied to the two daily offerings (Numbers 28:3–4), and the Talmud teaches that our daily prayers correspond to them: Shacharit for the morning tamid, Minchah for the afternoon (Berakhot 26b). Every Jew who prays morning and afternoon is standing where David stood the Levites. The Levites had a psalm for each day of the week (Mishnah Tamid 7:4), and FFOZ’s End of Days sees their choir behind the one John hears in heaven: the last martyrs “form a heavenly choir patterned after the Levitical choir that chanted psalms, songs, and liturgical refrains in the earthly Temple” (Lesson 50, “Babylon Has Fallen”; Revelation 15:3). The heavenly service is modeled on the earthly one, not the other way around.

Our teachers. FFOZ describes the Levites’ place in words the Chronicler would have liked: “They stand before God for Israel and before Israel for God… On behalf of the other tribes, they perform the divine service: the sacrificial rites, liturgical duties, and atonement ceremonies. On behalf of Hashem, they facilitate the divine revelation, instruction, and blessing that flow into the world through the Sanctuary” (End of Days, Lesson 34, “Camp of Israel”). In the Messianic Era, the lesson says, the Levites gather around the Messiah in Zion, Israel around the Levites, and the nations around Israel. The order David set up becomes the pattern of the whole world’s worship.

Messianic reading. When Luke opens his Gospel, the service David ordered is running as written: “the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense” (Luke 1:10; see Acts 3:1). And when John sees the throne, the twenty-four elders hold “harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints” (Revelation 5:8). “Every morning… and likewise at even” turns out to have been a rehearsal.

Chapter 24 · Twenty-Four Courses by Lot

Read 1 Chronicles 24 in Hebrew and English →

24:1–6 · Eleazar and Ithamar, Zadok and Ahimelech

“The sons of Aaron; Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. But Nadab and Abihu died before their father, and had no children: therefore Eleazar and Ithamar executed the priest’s office” (24:1–2).

The chapter begins with a wound. Two of Aaron’s four sons died on the day the Tabernacle was dedicated, when they brought “strange fire” (Leviticus 10:1–2). Every kohen who ever served descended from the two who were left, and the warning stands under the roster: the service of the house is not to be improvised.

“And David distributed them, both Zadok of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar… Among the sons of Eleazar there were sixteen chief men of the house of their fathers, and eight among the sons of Ithamar” (24:3–4).

Zadok is of Eleazar’s line through Phinehas (5:30–34, Hebrew numbering; KJV 6:4–8). Ahimelech son of Abiathar is of Ithamar’s line, the house of Eli, already marked for removal (1 Samuel 2:30–36; see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 8). Solomon would depose Abiathar “that he might fulfil the word of Hashem, which he spake concerning the house of Eli” (1 Kings 2:27), and from then on the high priesthood was Zadok’s: “the first high priest of Solomon’s Temple,” as FFOZ’s End of Days puts it (Lesson 20, “Hamon-Gog”). We said at 5:34 and at the end of chapter 18 what that means for our doctrine: Ezekiel’s Temple keeps the altar for the sons of Zadok (Ezekiel 44:15), the Son of David serves there as the Prince, and Yeshua’s priesthood “after the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 7) stands beside Aaron’s, not in its place. Here is the chapter where that priesthood got its calendar.

“Thus were they divided by lot, one sort with another” (24:5).

Why by lot? Because both houses had produced leaders, and neither would accept being ranked below the other by a man’s decision. The lot, גּוֹרָל (goral), takes the choice out of human hands: “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of Hashem” (Proverbs 16:33; see Acts 1:26). The order of service is Hashem’s to give.

What the sages say about the number. The Talmud traces the twenty-four courses through three stages: Moses established eight, four from Eleazar and four from Ithamar; Samuel made them sixteen; David made them twenty-four (Taanit 27a; Rambam, Hilchot Klei HaMikdash 4:3). Each course served a week, Shabbat to Shabbat (Mishnah Sukkah 5:7–8), and beside it stood a ma’amad, a “standing” of ordinary Israelites from its district who came up to pray by the daily offering (Taanit 27a–b). The whole nation, by rotation, was present at the tamid.

“And Shemaiah the son of Nethaneel the scribe, one of the Levites, wrote them before the king, and the princes, and Zadok the priest, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar… one principal household being taken for Eleazar, and one taken for Ithamar” (24:6).

The lot is public and written down; the commentators explain that the houses of Eleazar and Ithamar drew alternately until Ithamar’s eight were placed. The returned exiles had to prove their lineage from exactly such records (Ezra 2:62–63). The written roster is the memory that lets a scattered people reassemble its service.

24:7–19 · The twenty-four lots, and the eighth to Abijah

“Now the first lot came forth to Jehoiarib, the second to Jedaiah, the third to Harim, the fourth to Seorim, the fifth to Malchijah, the sixth to Mijamin, the seventh to Hakkoz, the eighth to Abijah, the ninth to Jeshua…” (24:7–11), and so on to “the four and twentieth to Maaziah. These were the orderings of them in their service to come into the house of Hashem… as Hashem God of Israel had commanded him” (24:18–19).

Twenty-four names, many never heard of again. But some carry history.

Jehoiarib, the first. The Talmud records that when the First Temple fell, it was the ninth of Av, “the watch of Jehoiarib,” and the Levites were singing Psalm 94, “he shall bring upon them their own iniquity” (Taanit 29a). The course that drew the first lot was on duty for the last day. Centuries later Mattathias, father of the Maccabees, is “of the sons of Joarib” (1 Maccabees 2:1): the house that stood in the sanctuary when it burned cleansed it again at Chanukah.

Abijah, the eighth. “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth” (Luke 1:5). Luke’s Zechariah is a kohen of the eighth lot in this chapter. Only four priestly clans came back from Babylon: Jedaiah, Immer, Pashhur and Harim (Ezra 2:36–39). The Talmud says the prophets of that generation redivided those four into twenty-four courses and gave them the old names, so that David’s order would not be lost (Taanit 27a), and Nehemiah lists Abijah again among the priestly houses of the return (Nehemiah 12:4, 17). Zechariah’s week came round because David cast lots a thousand years before and the returnees refused to let the lots die.

Luke follows the Temple’s own procedure: “his lot was to burn incense” (Luke 1:9), for the daily tasks too were assigned by lot (Mishnah Tamid 5:2; Yoma 26a). FFOZ’s End of Days sets the scene: “a priest chosen by lot took coals from the altar of burnt offering, entered the Sanctuary, and placed them on the golden altar… This is the scene behind Luke’s account of Zechariah, the father of John the Immerser” (Lesson 47, “Tribulation”).

The message inside was about the end of days: Zechariah’s son would go before the Lord “in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children” (Luke 1:17), Malachi’s last word (Malachi 4:5–6). In our Benei Avraham class “Gilgul & Tikkun in Elijah, John the Baptist, Yeshua, Enoch and Metatron,” we read it this way: “This is what the angel Gabriel announced to Zechariah when foretelling Yochanan’s birth… John’s mission therefore was calling Israel to repentance and preparing the way for Yeshua.” Our Statement of Faith is careful here: Yochanan came “in the spirit and power” of Elijah, not as Elijah reincarnated, and said so himself (John 1:21). We take the insight and leave the framework. When Zechariah’s speech came back, a kohen of Aaron blessed the coming of the Son of David, “an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:69; see Jeremiah 33:17–18).

Twenty-four. In John’s vision, “round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting” (Revelation 4:4). FFOZ’s End of Days suggests that these elders “might serve a role similar to that of the twenty-four ‘standing men’ who represented all Israel in the Second Temple… Perhaps the twenty-four elders seated in the presence of the Most High represent all Israel before the throne of God” (Lesson 46, “Scroll with Seven Seals”). The heavenly court keeps David’s arithmetic. “As Hashem God of Israel had commanded him” (24:19): David did not invent the priesthood; he scheduled it. The authority is Torah’s, the order is David’s, and both are binding.

24:20–31 · The rest of the Levites, and the lot that makes small and great equal

“And the rest of the sons of Levi were these: Of the sons of Amram; Shubael: of the sons of Shubael; Jehdeiah. Concerning Rehabiah: of the sons of Rehabiah, the first was Isshiah…” (24:20–21).

This list takes the Kohathite houses of chapter 23 one generation further down: Shubael, Moses’ grandson who “returned to God,” now has a son, Jehdeiah. These are the men who will actually stand their weeks under Solomon. The order is handed from fathers to sons, which is the only way an order survives.

“The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi: the sons of Jaaziah; Beno” (24:26).

Hebrew lesson: בְּנוֹ (beno), “his son.” The King James gives Merari a descendant named “Beno.” The Hebrew word is almost certainly not a name; beno means “his son,” and the verse lists “the sons of Jaaziah his son.” The translators made a man out of a pronoun. Eleazar’s house, which continued through his daughters (23:22), is listed again beside Kish’s (24:28–29); the line held.

“These likewise cast lots over against their brethren the sons of Aaron in the presence of David the king, and Zadok, and Ahimelech… even the principal fathers over against their younger brethren” (24:31).

The Levites are placed by the same lot, before the same witnesses, as the kohanim, and the last phrase is the chapter’s conclusion: the head of a great house and the head of a small one drew on equal terms. The next chapter will say it of the singers too: “as well the small as the great, the teacher as the scholar” (25:8). In the house of Hashem there is no seniority before the lot. In this order a family counted “in one reckoning” because it had few sons (23:11) stands as fully as the house of Zadok. Yeshua told his disciples, “whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (Matthew 20:27); David’s lots built that principle into the Temple’s calendar.

Drawing it together

1. The father gathers; the son of peace builds. David, forbidden to build because of blood, prepares everything and hands it to a son named Peace. That is the pattern our Statement of Faith sees in the two comings of Mashiach: Yeshua came first as Mashiach ben Yosef, refused as the builder; he will come again as Mashiach ben David, and the house will stand. We live in the years of preparation.

2. The Temple rests on Torah, not the other way around. David’s charge makes the building’s success depend on “the statutes and judgments which Hashem charged Moses with” (22:13). The strangers hew the stones, but iron never touches the altar. Obedience is the foundation under the foundation.

3. When the carrying stops, the praise begins. Once Hashem dwelt in Jerusalem, David gave the Levites a new work: “to stand every morning to thank and praise Hashem, and likewise at even” (23:30). Our Shacharit and Minchah stand on that verse, and the choir John hears in heaven is modeled on it.

4. The order of Hashem’s house is received by lot, not seized by strength. Great families and small drew on equal terms before witnesses, and a Levite wrote it down. The returned exiles rebuilt the courses on David’s pattern, which is why Luke can say “the course of Abijah” a thousand years later and be understood.

5. Repentance has a place in the roster. Moses’ sons were plain Levites; Moses’ grandson served an idol and came back, and David made him treasurer. Shebuel, “he returned to God,” stands in the list with Zadok. The house of Hashem is served by the faithful and by the restored, and the lot does not tell them apart.

Questions for discussion

1. Why could the Temple be built of hewn stone while the altar could not? What does Middot 3:4 say about iron?
2. David gathered “the strangers that were in the land” to quarry the stones. How does Isaiah 56:6–7 turn that fact into a hope for the end of days?
3. “Thou hast shed blood abundantly… thou shalt not build.” How do the Midrash and Radak explain the fault, and why do we say it is about fitness rather than guilt?
4. Explain the Hebrew behind “a man of rest” and “Solomon.” How does Deuteronomy 12:10–11 tie rest to the Temple?
5. David’s charge to Solomon borrows the words spoken to Joshua. What does that teach about Solomon’s task, and about the place of Torah in it?
6. What did Chullin 24a conclude about the ages of twenty-five, thirty and twenty for Levites? Why did David’s “last words” lower the age?
7. Who was Shebuel, according to Bava Batra 110a, and what does his story show about David as a king and about repentance?
8. “To stand every morning to thank and praise Hashem, and likewise at even.” Which parts of our own daily prayer come from this verse, and how does Revelation picture the same service?
9. Only four priestly clans returned from Babylon. How did the courses come to be twenty-four again, and why does that matter for reading Luke 1:5?
10. In Ezekiel’s Temple the sons of Zadok keep the altar and the Son of David is the Prince (see our notes on 5:34 and 18:17). How does that help us hold together Yeshua’s priesthood “after the order of Melchizedek” and the continuing service of the kohanim?

Sources

Scripture: 1 Chronicles 10, 14, 16–18, 21–29; 2 Samuel 3, 7; 1 Kings 1–6; Genesis 25, 28, 35; Exodus 20; Leviticus 2, 10; Numbers 3–4, 6, 8, 18, 27–28, 32, 36; Deuteronomy 12, 16–17, 31, 33; Joshua 1, 18; Judges 18; 1 Samuel 2, 22; Ezra 2; Nehemiah 12; Psalms 30, 110, 132; Proverbs 16, 27; Isaiah 56; Jeremiah 7, 33; Ezekiel 44; Amos 6; Micah 4; Zechariah 6; Malachi 4; Matthew 20–21; Luke 1, 3; John 1; Acts 1, 3; Hebrews 1, 7; Revelation 4–5, 15; 1 Maccabees 2.

Talmud and Midrash: Yevamot 24b; Middot 3:4; Sotah 38a; Bava Batra 110a; Sanhedrin 20b; Shabbat 30a; Chullin 24a; Mishnah Sukkah 5:7–8; Mishnah Tamid 5:2, 7:4; Berakhot 26b; Taanit 27a–b, 29a; Yoma 26a; Seder Olam Rabbah 14; Midrash Tehillim 62; Bamidbar Rabbah 21:14.

Commentators: Rashi on Chronicles 22:14; Rashi on 1 Kings 3:7 and Numbers 27:16; Radak on 1 Chronicles 22:8; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Klei HaMikdash 3:7–8, 4:3; Hilchot Melachim 11:4.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 19, “Banner on a Mountain”; Lesson 20, “Hamon-Gog”; Lesson 34, “Camp of Israel”; Lesson 46, “Scroll with Seven Seals”; Lesson 47, “Tribulation”; Lesson 50, “Babylon Has Fallen”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Revelations from Jerusalem” (https://youtu.be/SxzIBUZSiP4); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “Emmanuel, Jesus and the fig tree – Part 15” (https://youtu.be/h_MLnLsE7v8); Benei Avraham classes, “Becoming B’nei Mitzvah: A Journey of Covenant, Calling, and Joy” (https://youtu.be/h4J3ghnvv2k) and “Gilgul & Tikkun in Elijah, John the Baptist, Yeshua, Enoch and Metatron” (https://youtu.be/jMsCu9bMGlY); our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David”; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

These three chapters are lists: singers, gatekeepers, treasurers, judges, soldiers, tribal princes, farm managers, counselors. There is not one story in them, and a reader in a hurry will turn the page. We ask you not to. Chapters 23 and 24 arranged the Levites and the priests. Chapters 25 to 27 finish the work: the music of the House, the guarding of its gates, the keeping of its treasure, the courts of the land, and then the kingdom itself, month by month, tribe by tribe, field by field. All of it is set in David’s last years (23:1; 26:31), with the Temple still unbuilt. David cannot build the House. He can make sure that everything is in order when his son does.

That is why these chapters matter to us. Our Statement of Faith says the Messianic king will “restore the kingdom of David, rebuild the Temple, gather the dispersed of Israel, and restore Torah observance in its fullness.” These chapters show what a restored kingdom of David looks like from the inside: not only a throne, but a choir, a watch at every gate, honest treasurers, judges in every district, and a king who knows the name of the man over his camels. The phrase that holds the batch together comes twice, once of the singers and once of the gatekeepers: they cast lots “as well the small as the great” (25:8; 26:13). In the House of Hashem, the place you stand is given, not grabbed.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 25 · Prophets with Harps

Read 1 Chronicles 25 in Hebrew and English →

25:1–3 · Those who prophesy with harps

“Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals” (25:1).

Two things are strange here. First, the choir is appointed by David “and the captains of the host.” Army officers help choose the singers; the Chronicler does not separate worship from the life of the nation. Second, the singers prophesy. Hebrew lesson: הַנִּבְּאִים (ha-nib’im), “those who prophesy.” The word stands in the scroll as הנביאים, which can be read simply as ha-nevi’im, “the prophets,” and is read aloud as ha-nib’im, “the prophesying ones.” Either way, the Chronicler has chosen the vocabulary of prophecy for musicians, and he does it three times in three verses: the sons of Asaph “prophesied according to the order of the king” (25:2), and Jeduthun “prophesied with a harp, to give thanks and to praise Hashem” (25:3). The classical commentators explain that the song is called prophecy because the psalms they sang were composed by the Holy Spirit, and the singing itself was done under that Spirit.

Three men, three houses. Heman is a Kohathite, Asaph a Gershonite, and Jeduthun, whom most commentators identify with Ethan, a Merarite (15:17–19; see our notes on 6:16–32). All three sons of Levi stand at the harp, and their names are written over the Psalms: twelve “of Asaph” (Psalms 50, 73–83), three “to Jeduthun” (Psalms 39, 62, 77), one “of Heman the Ezrahite” (Psalm 88). The Talmud counts all three among the ten elders through whom David wrote the Psalter (Bava Batra 14b; see 16:4–7). So when the Chronicler says these men prophesied, he is not speaking loosely. Their words are in our Bibles. We pray them every morning.

Music and prophecy. When Samuel sent the newly anointed Saul home, he told him he would meet “a company of prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, before them; and they shall prophesy: and the Spirit of Hashem will come upon thee” (1 Samuel 10:5–6). When three kings came to Elisha, the prophet said, “But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of Hashem came upon him” (2 Kings 3:15). The Talmud draws the rule from Elisha:

The Shechinah does not rest upon a man through gloom, nor through laziness, nor through laughter, nor through lightheadedness, nor through idle talk, but through the joy of a mitzvah, as it is said, “But now bring me a minstrel…” (Shabbat 30b)

Rambam made it the prophets’ own practice: “the sons of the prophets have before them a psaltery, a drum, a flute and a harp, and they seek prophecy” (Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah 7:4).

Our teachers. FFOZ reads these same two verses and says that such songs “come forth as prophetic utterances, and the accompanying music acts as a catalyst for spiritual inspiration and prophecy” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). Another lesson sets the two kings we have just met beside Solomon: “Saul prophesied in the Spirit, David wrote his psalms under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and Solomon received wisdom through the Spirit” (End of Days, Lesson 24, “Table of Abraham”). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The Tale of the Seven Beggars by Rabbi Nachman – Part 4,” brings Rebbe Nachman’s teaching (Likutei Moharan 54) on the player’s hand that gathers the spirit, “like Saul had a bad spirit, so you need the music.” We leave his kabbalistic frame and keep the insight: a skilled hand on the strings can separate a good spirit from a bad one. David’s harp did that for Saul (1 Samuel 16:23). Now he builds that harp into the House, a choir trained and scheduled, singing “according to the order of the king” (25:2). Order and Spirit are not enemies.

25:4–7 · Heman the king’s seer, and the two hundred eighty-eight

“All these were the sons of Heman the king’s seer in the words of God, to lift up the horn. And God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters” (25:5).

Heman has fourteen sons, and the last nine have names that hardly sound like names: Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti, Romamti-ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, Mahazioth. Many readers have noticed that, read in order, they form a Hebrew prayer: Be gracious to me, Hashem, be gracious to me; You are my God; I have magnified and exalted help; sitting in hardship I spoke; give many visions. We cannot prove the Chronicler meant it. A man who named his sons like that lived with his prayers in his mouth.

Who was Heman? Chronicles has told us, and we traced the line at 6:16–32: Heman the singer was the son of Joel, the son of Samuel (6:18; KJV 6:33). Samuel’s mother was Hannah, who sang at Shiloh, “mine horn is exalted in Hashem… he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed” (1 Samuel 2:1, 10). Now her great-grandson is “the king’s seer in the words of God, to lift up the horn.” The commentators read the phrase two ways: to raise the voice loud in song, or that God lifted Heman’s horn, his standing, by giving him so many children. Either way, the horn Hannah sang about is lifted in the House her son never saw, and Zechariah the priest would one day sing the same line over the Son of David: “he hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:69).

What the sages say. Rashi finds Heman’s sons in an unexpected place: the rebellion of Korah. Why did a man as clever as Korah throw his life away? “His eye misled him,” Rashi answers. Korah foresaw “a great chain coming out from him: Samuel, who was weighed against Moses and Aaron… and twenty-four watches standing from his sons’ sons, all of them prophesying by the Holy Spirit, as it is said, ‘All these were the sons of Heman’” (Rashi on Numbers 16:7, quoting our verse). Korah was a Kohathite, and Heman descends from him through Samuel (6:18–23). Korah saw the choir and thought it proved he was right. He was wrong about himself and right about the choir.

Two hundred eighty-eight. “So the number of them, with their brethren that were instructed in the songs of Hashem, even all that were cunning, was two hundred fourscore and eight” (25:7). Chapter 23 counted four thousand Levites who “praised Hashem with the instruments” (23:5). The 288 are the trained core, kol ha-mevin, “everyone who understands.” They are 24 courses of 12, and 12 is exactly the number the Mishnah later fixes as the minimum choir: “There are never fewer than twelve Levites standing on the platform, and they may add without limit” (Mishnah Arakhin 2:6). The same Mishnah says the song was sung “with the mouth,” the instruments only sweetening it. The weekly program ended with Psalm 92 on Shabbat, “for the day that is wholly Sabbath and rest for everlasting life” (Mishnah Tamid 7:4), the psalm of the “instrument of ten strings”; we gave the Talmud’s and FFOZ’s teaching on the harps of seven, eight and ten strings at 6:16–32 and 15:21 (Arakhin 13b). David’s choir was rehearsing for a song it had not yet been given.

25:8–31 · The lot: small and great, teacher and scholar

“And they cast lots, ward against ward, as well the small as the great, the teacher as the scholar” (25:8).

Then come twenty-four lots in twenty-three verses, all but the first ending the same way: “he, his sons, and his brethren, were twelve.” The first falls to Joseph of the house of Asaph, the second to Gedaliah of Jeduthun, and so on through the three houses until all twenty-four courses are filled. The last ten lots all go to Heman’s sons, ending with Hothir, Giddalti, Mahazioth and Romamti-ezer.

Hebrew lesson: מֵבִין עִם־תַּלְמִיד (mevin im talmid), “the one who understands with the student.” The KJV’s “the teacher as the scholar” is this phrase. The word talmid, “disciple,” which fills the Brit Hadashah and every yeshiva, appears exactly once in the whole Tenakh: here, of a boy learning to sing in the House of Hashem. The first talmid in the Bible is a chorister, and he draws his lot from the same jar as his master.

Why lots? Because “the lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of Hashem” (Proverbs 16:33). David did not want the first course given to the most famous family or the finest voice. He wanted it given by Heaven. The same method chose the priestly courses (24:5) and will choose the gates (26:13), and it outlasted two Temples: when “a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia” went in to burn incense, “his lot was” to do it (Luke 1:5, 9), and Abijah is the eighth lot of 24:10.

Twenty-four. The number runs through the whole batch: twenty-four courses of kohanim (24:7–18), twenty-four courses of singers (25:9–31), twenty-four posts for the gatekeepers (add up 26:17–18), twenty-four thousand soldiers each month (27:1). How the courses grew from eight to twenty-four, and how a ma’amad of ordinary Israelites stood with each one, we set out in chapter 24 (Taanit 27a). The whole people took its turn before Hashem.

Our teachers. FFOZ sees these twenty-four in the twenty-four elders around the throne, who “offer before the throne the worship and praise offered by the nation… each one holding a harp” (End of Days, Lesson 46, “Scroll with Seven Seals”; Revelation 5:8; see chapter 24). The harps of Revelation 5 are the harps of 1 Chronicles 25. John saw the Temple choir in heaven, still in courses of twenty-four.

Messianic reading. The Son of David also sang. On his last night, “when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives” (Matthew 26:30): the Hallel, Psalms 113 to 118, which the Levites sang over the Pesach lambs. Peter calls David “a prophet” whose psalm was fulfilled in Yeshua’s resurrection (Acts 2:30–31), and Yeshua said the things written “in the psalms, concerning me” must be fulfilled (Luke 24:44). Paul added the rule David’s lots teach: “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40). The Spirit gives the gifts, “dividing to every man severally as he will” (1 Corinthians 12:11). That is a lot cast in heaven.

Chapter 26 · Gates, Treasuries and Courts

Read 1 Chronicles 26 in Hebrew and English →

26:1–11 · The gatekeepers’ families, and the man God blessed

“Concerning the divisions of the porters: Of the Korhites was Meshelemiah the son of Kore, of the sons of Asaph” (26:1).

The gatekeepers come from two houses: the Korahites (this Asaph is Ebiasaph, 9:19, not the singer) and the Merarites under Hosah. The Hebrew calls them sho’arim, from sha’ar, gate. They were armed guards, and the text keeps saying so: “mighty men of valour” (26:6), “strong men” (26:7, 9), “able men for strength for the service” (26:8). They kept the four sides of the House, opened it every morning, and guarded the chambers and the treasuries (9:24–27).

The sons of Korah. The men guarding the doors of Hashem’s House are the descendants of the man who tried to force his way into the priesthood. We told their story at 9:17–27: “the children of Korah died not” (Numbers 26:11), they repented and sang (Sanhedrin 110a), and their descendants wrote the gatekeepers’ own hymn, “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God” (Psalm 84:10). Korah wanted the high priest’s censer. His children asked only for the threshold, and Hashem gave them the threshold and the song.

Obed-edom, “for God blessed him.” “Moreover the sons of Obed-edom were, Shemaiah the firstborn… Peulthai the eighth: for God blessed him” (26:4–5). This is the Obed-edom who kept the Ark for three months after Uzzah died (13:14). Our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 6 and our notes on chapter 13 gave the Talmud’s count of his blessing (Berakhot 63b–64a) and the tradition, from Radak and from Rabbi Palvanov in his class “Understanding Edom #2 – Trump & Herod,” that the “Gittite” was a Levite who had lived among the Philistines. Here Chronicles shows the blessing itself: eight sons, grandsons who were “mighty men of valour,” sixty-two men of one family in the service of the House (26:8). A Levite from the edge of the land becomes keeper of the south gate. And of Hosah’s sons the text adds, “Simri the chief, (for though he was not the firstborn, yet his father made him the chief)” (26:10). Hashem’s House is full of chiefs who were not firstborn.

26:12–19 · Lots for the gates

“And they cast lots, as well the small as the great, according to the house of their fathers, for every gate” (26:13).

The same words as the singers. The east gate falls to Shelemiah, the north to his son Zechariah, “a wise counsellor” (26:14), the south to Obed-edom and the storehouse to his sons, the west to Shuppim and Hosah. Then the daily roster: six on the east, four north, four south, two and two at the storehouse, four at the causeway and two at Parbar (26:17–18). Twenty-four posts.

The east gate. The east was the king’s side, “the king’s gate eastward” (9:18), the gate Ezekiel sees kept for the prince (Ezekiel 44:2–3; see our notes on 9:17–27). Six men guarded it, more than the north or the south. Zechariah the wise counsellor drew the north. The lot teaches even the wise where to stand.

The watch at night. At 9:27 we described the night watch the Mishnah preserves, the officer going his rounds with torches and the sleeping watchman whose garment was burned (Mishnah Middot 1:1–2), and the two sayings of Yeshua that remember it (Mark 13:34–35; Revelation 16:15). FFOZ, following Edersheim, reads the second the same way: “the one who ‘stays awake and keeps his clothes’ is the disciple who remains vigilant, keeping the commandments” (End of Days, Lesson 50, “Babylon Has Fallen”). Twenty-four posts a day, and a man awake at each.

Messianic reading. Yeshua called himself “the door of the sheep,” and said that the one who climbs in another way “is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1, 7). Korah tried the other way. His sons kept the door. Order does not end when danger ends: in the city John saw, the gates stand open and are still kept (Revelation 21:12, 25).

26:20–28 · The treasuries of the House and the dedicated things

“And of the Levites, Ahijah was over the treasures of the house of God, and over the treasures of the dedicated things” (26:20).

There are two treasuries. The otzrot beit ha-Elohim held what the House needed to run: tithes, offerings, vessels, stores. The otzrot ha-kodashim, the treasuries of the holy things, held what people had dedicated, above all the spoil of war. Gershonites keep the first (26:21–22). Moses’ own descendants keep the second (26:24–26).

Shebuel the son of Gershom, the son of Moses (26:24). This is the verse the Talmud quotes when it tells how Jonathan, the renegade Levite of Judges 18, came back to God and was given the treasury, “when David saw that money was exceedingly dear to him” (Bava Batra 110a); we told the story at 23:16. David puts a man who loves money in charge of the money, because the man has repented and because a man who knows his temptation guards against it best. Whether or not we take the identification as history, the lesson is the Chronicler’s own: the House is safe in the hands of a family that came back.

What was in the treasury. “Out of the spoils won in battles did they dedicate to maintain the house of Hashem. And all that Samuel the seer, and Saul the son of Kish, and Abner the son of Ner, and Joab the son of Zeruiah, had dedicated” (26:27–28). Look at that list. Samuel, who never saw the Temple. Saul, who lost the kingdom. Abner, who led the long war against David’s house and was murdered in Hebron. Joab, who murdered him. Every one of them had set apart spoil for Hashem’s House, going back to the days of Shiloh, as the captains had after Midian (Numbers 31:54), and David’s Levites kept all of it, under one honest hand, for Solomon to use. The Temple was built with the gifts of David’s enemies as well as his friends. Hashem’s House gathers up Israel’s whole history, the parts we are proud of and the parts we are not. The Mishnah later rules that there must never be fewer than three treasurers and seven supervisors over the Temple’s money (Mishnah Shekalim 5:2); the House was never run by one man with the keys.

Messianic reading. Yeshua “sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury,” and praised the widow with two mites (Mark 12:41–44); “these words spake Yeshua in the treasury, as he taught in the temple” (John 8:20). He did not despise the dedicated things; he watched who gave them and how. In the Messianic age the treasuries fill again from the nations: “they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of Hashem” (Isaiah 60:6). Spoil dedicated by Saul and gold brought by the nations end up in the same storeroom, because the House belongs to the One who “searcheth all hearts” (28:9).

26:29–32 · Officers and judges in the land

“Of the Izharites, Chenaniah and his sons were for the outward business over Israel, for officers and judges” (26:29).

Not every Levite served in Jerusalem. Chapter 23 set aside six thousand to be “officers and judges” (23:4). Here they are: Chenaniah’s family “for the outward business,” Hashabiah with 1,700 men west of the Jordan, and Jerijah with 2,700 heads of families over Reuben, Gad and half Manasseh east of it, “sought for” and found at Jazer of Gilead “in the fortieth year of the reign of David” (26:31), his last.

Hebrew lesson: שֹׁטְרִים וְשֹׁפְטִים (shotrim ve-shoftim), “officers and judges.” These are the Torah’s own words: “Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates” (Deuteronomy 16:18). The shofet decides; the shoter enforces. The Torah also seats “the priests the Levites” in the highest court (Deuteronomy 17:9), and Rambam rules that it is a mitzvah for kohanim and Levi’im to sit on the Great Sanhedrin (Hilchot Sanhedrin 2:2). David is doing Deuteronomy. The tribe with no land of its own is spread through every tribe’s land, as Moses blessed it: “They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy Torah” (Deuteronomy 33:10).

“In all the business of Hashem, and in the service of the king.” The pairing closes both halves of the passage (26:30, 32). The same Levites handle both. There is no wall between religious and civil in David’s kingdom, because the kingdom is Hashem’s. Jehoshaphat later used the same pairing (2 Chronicles 19:11), and chapter 28 says it outright: Solomon sits “upon the throne of the kingdom of Hashem over Israel” (28:5). We drew out that language at 17:14 and will return to it at the end of the book. The king’s business is Hashem’s business carried out by a man.

Messianic reading. Isaiah’s promise for the end of days is not only a king but courts: “I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning” (Isaiah 1:26). Ezekiel sees the Levitical priests of the future House doing what Chenaniah’s sons did: “in controversy they shall stand in judgment” (Ezekiel 44:24). Yeshua told the twelve they “shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28). The kingdom of Mashiach will need judges at Jazer of Gilead as much as singers on the Temple steps. David trained both.

Chapter 27 · The Kingdom, Month by Month

Read 1 Chronicles 27 in Hebrew and English →

27:1–15 · Twelve divisions of twenty-four thousand

“Now the children of Israel after their number… which came in and went out month by month throughout all the months of the year, of every course were twenty and four thousand” (27:1).

Chapter 27 walks out of the Temple into the kingdom. David’s army is not a standing army. It is twelve divisions of 24,000, each on duty one month a year, 288,000 in all. Notice the number: 288 trained singers, 288,000 trained soldiers. Twenty-four times twelve, in the House and in the land.

Who commands. The twelve commanders are the mighty men of chapter 11, now with a month each: Jashobeam, first of the Three (11:11), for Nisan; Benaiah, who killed the lion in the pit on a snowy day (11:22), for Sivan; and so on to Heldai “of Othniel” for Adar, a descendant of the first judge of Israel (Judges 3:9). The first month’s commander is “of the children of Perez” (27:3), the royal clan of Judah, the line of David and of Mashiach (Ruth 4:18; Matthew 1:3). The year opens under the banner of Perez.

Asahel. The fourth commander died early in David’s reign at Hebron, under Abner’s spear at Gibeon (see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 2). The text knows it: “Asahel the brother of Joab, and Zebadiah his son after him” (27:7). A fallen man keeps his month, and his son fills it. Benaiah, for his part, is “the son of Jehoiada, a chief priest” (27:5; in the Hebrew, ha-kohen belongs to Jehoiada): his father was “the leader of the Aaronites” (12:28; KJV 12:27), and a kohen’s son commands the third division, as the Torah knew a priest in the camp (Deuteronomy 20:2).

Why this matters. Everyone served, and no one served all the time. A farmer from Zebulun gave Hashem’s king one month and went home for eleven. The kingdom rested on ordinary men taking their turn, as the ma’amadot did in the Temple. Yeshua described that servant: “when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10).

Our teachers. FFOZ reads the numbered army of Revelation 7 against the censuses of the Torah and of David: “The 144,000 function as the hosts of Hashem and the mighty men of King Messiah,” and the 144,000, twelve thousand from each tribe, are “an elite band of warriors, comparable to David’s mighty men” (End of Days, Lesson 49, “Day of Harvest”). David’s twelve divisions, each under one of the mighty men, are the earthly draft of that heavenly roll.

27:16–22 · The princes of the tribes

“Furthermore over the tribes of Israel: the ruler of the Reubenites was Eliezer the son of Zichri” (27:16).

Thirteen names: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Aaron (Zadok, who will anoint Solomon), Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Naphtali, Ephraim, the two halves of Manasseh, Benjamin and Dan. Gad and Asher are missing, and no one knows why for certain. The Chronicler is not embarrassed by a gap. He gives what he has.

Three names worth a pause. “Of Judah, Elihu, one of the brethren of David” (27:18). The commentators suggest this is Eliab, David’s eldest brother, the tall one Samuel almost anointed (1 Samuel 16:6), who sneered at David in the valley of Elah, “I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart” (1 Samuel 17:28). Decades later the king has made his big brother prince of Judah. “Of Benjamin, Jaasiel the son of Abner” (27:21). The son of the general who fought David for Saul’s house is David’s prince over Saul’s tribe; Abner’s blood was on Joab’s hands, not David’s, and David proved it by raising Abner’s son. “Of the children of Ephraim, Hoshea” (27:20): the birth-name of Joshua (Numbers 13:8, 16). The kingdom of David was twelve tribes under one king, and the returned exiles who first read Chronicles, a remnant mostly of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, were being shown what the whole was supposed to look like.

Why this matters. The tribes are not a stage Israel outgrew. We noted at 9:35–44 Rambam’s ruling, which FFOZ brings, that the Messiah himself will settle who belongs to which tribe (Hilchot Melachim 12:3). Ezekiel’s future city and John’s New Jerusalem both have twelve gates named for the tribes (Ezekiel 48:31–34; Revelation 21:12), and the sealed of Revelation 7 are counted tribe by tribe. The princes of 1 Chronicles 27 are a first draft of that roll.

27:23–24 · The number that was not written

“But David took not the number of them from twenty years old and under: because Hashem had said he would increase Israel like to the stars of the heavens. Joab the son of Zeruiah began to number, but he finished not, because there fell wrath for it against Israel; neither was the number put in the account of the chronicles of king David” (27:23–24).

In the middle of the lists the Chronicler stops and remembers the census. We have told that story in our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 24 and in our notes on 1 Chronicles 21, with the Talmud’s reasons (Berakhot 62b; Yoma 22b) and Rabbi Palvanov’s summary from his class “Revelations from Jerusalem,” “We don’t take censuses.” Three things in these two verses are new.

First, the age. David “took not the number of them from twenty years old and under.” Twenty is the Torah’s age for the army and the census: “from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war” (Numbers 1:3). In our Benei Avraham class “Becoming B’nei Mitzvah: A Journey of Covenant, Calling, and Joy,” we walked through the Bible’s milestones: “twenty years of age, the Bible says, is the proper age for military service and being counted in a national census. That’s from Numbers 1:3,” with twenty-five and thirty for the Levites’ apprenticeship and full service. David kept to the Torah’s age. The sin was not in counting boys.

Second, the reason. “Because Hashem had said he would increase Israel like to the stars of the heavens.” This is the only place Scripture says why David left some uncounted. He remembered the promise to Abraham: “tell the stars, if thou be able to number them… So shall thy seed be” (Genesis 15:5). A man does not count what Hashem has promised to make uncountable (Hosea 1:10; Yoma 22b). It is not that numbers are unholy. Rashi says of the census in the wilderness, “because they are dear to Him, He counts them all the time” (Rashi on Numbers 1:1). Hashem may count His children; a king may not count them to measure his own strength. In Revelation the counting is done again, by Heaven: “there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel” (Revelation 7:4). Counted by Hashem, Israel is sealed. Counted by Joab, Israel is struck.

Third, the book. “Neither was the number put in the account of the chronicles of king David.” The Hebrew is divrei ha-yamim la-melech David, “the words of the days of King David,” the name our own book bears. The Chronicler gave Joab’s totals at 21:5, but he tells us that David’s royal annals never entered the number Hashem struck. “There fell wrath” is ketzef, the wrath Moses feared after Korah (Numbers 17:11; KJV 16:46). The king’s own record left a blank on purpose, so that every reader will ask why.

27:25–31 · The king’s stewards

“And over the king’s treasures was Azmaveth the son of Adiel… All these were the rulers of the substance which was king David’s” (27:25, 31).

Twelve men again: over the treasures, the storehouses, the plowmen, the vineyards and the wine, the olives and the oil, the cattle in Sharon and in the valleys, the camels, the donkeys and the flocks.

Reading it with 1 Samuel 8 open. When Israel asked for a king, Samuel warned them: “he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants” (1 Samuel 8:14). Here is a king with fields, vineyards and oliveyards, and servants set over them. The Torah does not forbid a king property; it forbids him to multiply silver and gold, horses and wives “to himself” (Deuteronomy 17:16–17). What Chronicles tells us, two chapters on, is what David did with it: “I have of mine own proper good, of gold and silver, which I have given to the house of my God” (29:3). The stewards managed an estate whose owner had already decided where it was going. That is the Torah’s answer to Samuel’s warning: not a king without property, but a king who holds it as a steward.

An Ishmaelite over the camels. “Over the camels also was Obil the Ishmaelite… and over the flocks was Jaziz the Hagerite” (27:30–31). Camels belong to the sons of Ishmael, and David put a son of Ishmael over them. The Hagrites were the enemies Reuben and Gad defeated east of the Jordan (5:21); now a Hagrite keeps the king’s flocks. Isaiah saw where this leads: “The multitude of camels shall cover thee… All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee: they shall come up with acceptance on mine altar” (Isaiah 60:6–7). Kedar and Nebaioth are Ishmael’s sons (Genesis 25:13). FFOZ brings the Talmud’s discussion of that verse: in the Messianic Era the nations will keep the Torah’s standards so well that “the flocks of Kedar and the rams of Nebaioth will be received on the altar” (End of Days, Lesson 25, “Twelve Thrones,” citing Avodah Zarah 24a). Obil’s camels are a small down payment on that day.

Messianic reading. Yeshua’s picture of the kingdom is a picture of stewards: “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household…? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing” (Luke 12:42–43). Paul applied it to himself: “it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). Twelve named men over oil and donkeys are not a footnote to the kingdom of Hashem. They are what it is made of.

27:32–34 · The king’s counselors

“Also Jonathan David’s uncle was a counsellor, a wise man, and a scribe: and Jehiel the son of Hachmoni was with the king’s sons: and Ahithophel was the king’s counsellor: and Hushai the Archite was the king’s companion: and after Ahithophel was Jehoiada the son of Benaiah, and Abiathar: and the general of the king’s army was Joab” (27:32–34).

The chapter ends in the king’s inner room. Jonathan, “David’s uncle” (the Hebrew dod can mean a close kinsman; some commentators think of Jonathan son of Shimea, David’s nephew, 20:7), is counselor and scribe. Jehiel is tutor to the princes. Then two names that carry the weight of the darkest chapters David ever lived through.

Ahithophel and Hushai. Chronicles never tells the story of Absalom’s revolt. It leaves out the whole of 2 Samuel 13 to 20. Yet here, in one line, it names the counselor whose advice “was as if a man had enquired at the oracle of God” (2 Samuel 16:23) and who went over to Absalom, and the friend who went back into Jerusalem to “defeat the counsel of Ahithophel” (2 Samuel 15:34). And it says “after Ahithophel,” because Ahithophel hanged himself when his counsel was refused (2 Samuel 17:23). See our 2 Samuel commentary on chapters 15 to 17. The Chronicler, who spared David the telling, could not list David’s court without the shadow falling across the page.

What the sages say. The Mishnah names Ahithophel among the four commoners who have no share in the World to Come, with Balaam, Doeg and Gehazi (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:2). The Talmud reads “bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days” (Psalm 55:23) of him: he died at thirty-three (Sanhedrin 106b). Yet the sages do not let us despise his learning. Pirkei Avot teaches humility from him: David “learned only two things from Ahithophel, yet he called him his master, his guide and his familiar friend” (Avot 6:3, on Psalm 55:13). Great wisdom in the service of pride ends in a noose. Great wisdom in the service of the king ends in a House.

Hushai, the king’s friend. Re’a ha-melech, “the king’s companion,” is an office. But Hushai also earned the word: he came to the fleeing king “with his coat rent, and earth upon his head” (2 Samuel 15:32) and then walked back into the enemy’s city for him. Yeshua gave the title to his talmidim, “I have called you friends” (John 15:15), and said what Hushai knew: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Messianic reading. David wrote of Ahithophel, the sages say, in Psalm 41: “mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me” (Psalm 41:9). On the night he was betrayed, Yeshua quoted that verse of Judas (John 13:18). Both counselors sold their king; both went out and hanged themselves (2 Samuel 17:23; Matthew 27:5). The pattern of the Son of David was written in David’s own house. And the Son of David will not need an Ahithophel: “the spirit of counsel and might” rests on him (Isaiah 11:2). Our Statement of Faith is careful here: that Spirit is Hashem’s, given to the king. David had to borrow wisdom and was sometimes betrayed by it. Mashiach is given it in full.

Joab, last. “And the general of the king’s army was Joab” (27:34). The chapter that recorded Joab’s unfinished census ends with Joab’s name. He will still be there when David dies, and Solomon will deal with him (1 Kings 2:5–6, 28–34). The Chronicler leaves him in his place without comment, as David had to.

Drawing it together

1. The Spirit sings on a schedule. The Temple’s music was prophecy (25:1–3), and it was also twenty-four courses of twelve trained men drawn by lot, with a weekly psalm and a fixed orchestra. Order did not quench the Spirit; it carried it. “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40) is a Temple rule before it is a congregational one.

2. The lot levels the House. “As well the small as the great, the teacher as the scholar” (25:8; 26:13). The one talmid in the Tenakh drew his lot beside his master, and Zechariah the wise counsellor got the north gate. In Hashem’s House the place you stand is given.

3. Repentance builds the House. Korah’s sons keep the gates and write Psalm 84. Moses’ grandson, who once served an idol, keeps the treasury. Spoil dedicated by Saul and Abner pays for Solomon’s Temple. Hashem gathers up what men ruined and builds with it.

4. Hashem’s business and the king’s business are one business. The Levites served “in all the business of Hashem, and in the service of the king” (26:30), and the throne is “the throne of the kingdom of Hashem” (28:5). A kingdom of Hashem on earth needs judges in Gilead, stewards over oil and camels, and a militia that serves a month and goes home. These lists are what the kingdom of Mashiach will be made of.

5. Count what Hashem counts, not what you want to possess. David would not number the boys “because Hashem had said he would increase Israel like to the stars” (27:23), and the royal annals would not record the total. Israel is a promise, not a sum. When Heaven counts, Israel is sealed, twelve thousand of every tribe (Revelation 7:4).

Questions for discussion

1. Why does 1 Chronicles 25 call the Temple singers prophets? Bring 1 Samuel 10:5–6, 2 Kings 3:15 and Shabbat 30b into your answer.
2. Who was Heman, and how is he related to Samuel and Hannah? What does Rashi on Numbers 16:7 say Korah saw in Heman’s sons?
3. Explain “the small as well as the great, the teacher as the scholar” (25:8). What is unusual about the Hebrew word talmid here?
4. Where does the number twenty-four appear in chapters 24 to 27, and how does FFOZ connect it to the twenty-four elders of Revelation 5?
5. The gatekeepers were sons of Korah. How does Psalm 84:10 read differently once you know who wrote it?
6. Chronicles says of Obed-edom, “for God blessed him” (26:5). What does chapter 26 show that blessing to have been, and how does it answer 13:14?
7. Samuel, Saul, Abner and Joab all appear in the list of those who dedicated spoil to the House (26:27–28). What does that list say about whose gifts Hashem’s House is built from?
8. What does “in all the business of Hashem, and in the service of the king” (26:30) tell us about the kingdom of David? Compare 28:5.
9. What three new things do 27:23–24 add to the story of the census? Why does it matter that the number was left out of “the chronicles of King David”?
10. Ahithophel and Hushai are both in David’s court list. How do they foreshadow Judas and the disciples Yeshua called friends (Psalm 41:9; John 13:18; John 15:13–15)?

Sources

Scripture: 1 Chronicles 5, 6, 9, 11–13, 15, 20–24, 28–29; 2 Chronicles 19; 1 Samuel 2, 8, 10, 16–17; 2 Samuel 2, 6, 13–17; 1 Kings 2; 2 Kings 3; Genesis 15, 25; Numbers 1, 13, 16–17, 26, 31; Deuteronomy 16–17, 20, 33; Judges 3, 18; Ruth 4; Psalms 39, 41, 50, 55, 62, 73–84, 88, 92, 113–118; Proverbs 16; Isaiah 1, 11, 60; Ezekiel 44, 48; Hosea 1; Matthew 1, 19, 26–27; Mark 12–13; Luke 1, 12, 17, 24; John 8, 10, 13, 15; Acts 2; 1 Corinthians 4, 12, 14; Revelation 5, 7, 16, 21.

Talmud and Midrash: Bava Batra 14b, 110a; Shabbat 30b; Arakhin 13b; Mishnah Arakhin 2:6; Mishnah Tamid 7:4; Taanit 27a; Sanhedrin 106b, 110a; Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:2; Berakhot 62b, 63b–64a; Yoma 22b; Avodah Zarah 24a; Mishnah Middot 1:1–2; Mishnah Shekalim 5:2; Pirkei Avot 6:3.

Commentators: Rashi on Numbers 1:1 and 16:7; Radak and Metzudat David on 1 Chronicles 25 and 27; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah 7:4, Hilchot Sanhedrin 2:2, Hilchot Melachim 12:3; Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services (on Revelation 16:15), as cited by FFOZ.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; Lesson 24, “Table of Abraham”; Lesson 25, “Twelve Thrones”; Lesson 46, “Scroll with Seven Seals”; Lesson 49, “Day of Harvest”; Lesson 50, “Babylon Has Fallen”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Understanding Edom #2 – Trump & Herod” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZxVH91iHPs) and “Revelations from Jerusalem” (https://youtu.be/SxzIBUZSiP4); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “The Tale of the Seven Beggars by Rabbi Nachman – Part 4” (https://youtu.be/s_uBtWHPEHM); Benei Avraham class, “Becoming B’nei Mitzvah: A Journey of Covenant, Calling, and Joy” (https://youtu.be/h4J3ghnvv2k); our 2 Samuel commentary on chapters 2, 6, 15–17 and 24; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

These are the last two chapters of 1 Chronicles, and they are one scene. David, old and near death, calls every leader in Israel to Jerusalem and tells them what Hashem has done: He chose Judah, Jesse’s house and David, and now He has chosen Solomon “to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of Hashem over Israel” (28:5). He hands his son the written plan of the Temple. He gives his own gold, the princes give theirs, and David prays the prayer Jews still say every morning: “Thine, O Hashem, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory… thine is the kingdom” (29:11). The congregation bows to Hashem and to the king, Solomon is anointed a second time, and David dies “full of days, riches, and honour.”

The Chronicler has been building toward this since Adam. Nine chapters of names led to David; nineteen chapters of David led to the Temple he was not allowed to build. Now the old king gives everything away, the plan, the gold, the throne and the praise, and says why: “all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee” (29:14).

For us these chapters carry two of the clearest sentences in our Statement of Faith: “Hashem searcheth all hearts” (28:9), under the principle that Hashem knows all thoughts and deeds, and “they worshipped Hashem, and the king” (29:20), under the principle that Hashem alone is worthy of worship, marking the difference between honor to Hashem’s anointed and worship of Hashem alone. Our commentary on chapters 1–3 introduced the book, Divrei HaYamim, written after the exile with the Temple, the Levites and the house of David at its center. Everything said there comes to rest here.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 28 · The Assembly and the Pattern

Read 1 Chronicles 28 in Hebrew and English →

28:1–8 · “Hear me, my brethren, and my people”

“And David assembled all the princes of Israel… unto Jerusalem. Then David the king stood up upon his feet, and said, Hear me, my brethren, and my people” (28:1–2).

וַיַּקְהֵל דָּוִיד (vayakhel David), “and David assembled,” is the word that opens the building of the Mishkan: וַיַּקְהֵל מֹשֶׁה, “And Moses gathered all the congregation” (Exodus 35:1). The Chronicler wants us to hear Moses in David’s voice. Moses gathered Israel to build a sanctuary from a pattern shown him on the mountain; David gathers Israel to build a House from a pattern written by Hashem’s hand. Moses did not enter the land; David will not build the House. Each prepares, charges his successor to “be strong and of good courage,” and steps aside. The parallel will grow through both chapters.

David is old; Kings tells us he could not keep warm (1 Kings 1:1). Yet “he stood up upon his feet,” and he calls the princes “my brethren” before “my people,” as the law of the king requires: his heart must not be “lifted up above his brethren” (Deuteronomy 17:20). He repeats why he may not build (28:3; see our commentary on chapter 22), and he gives the House two names: בֵּית מְנוּחָה (beit menuchah), “a house of rest,” for an Ark carried, captured and parked for a generation (Psalm 132:8), and “the footstool of our God.” The throne is in heaven; the Ark is where its feet touch the earth (Isaiah 66:1). Hashem is not housed by the House. He rests His feet there.

Four choices. “Howbeit Hashem God of Israel chose me… for he hath chosen Judah to be the ruler; and of the house of Judah, the house of my father; and among the sons of my father he liked me… And of all my sons… he hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of Hashem over Israel” (28:4–5).

Hashem’s choice, בָּחַר (bachar), runs down four steps: Judah, Jesse’s house, David, Solomon. This is the genealogies of chapters 1–9 in one sentence. The Chronicler spent two and a half chapters on Judah because Hashem “chose Judah to be the ruler” (28:4; Genesis 49:10), named Jesse’s seven sons because Hashem chose the youngest, and listed David’s many sons because Hashem chose one. None was the obvious choice.

Hebrew lesson: כִּסֵּא מַלְכוּת יְהוָה (kisei malchut Hashem), “the throne of the kingdom of Hashem.” We drew out this language at 17:14, where Samuel’s “thy house and thy kingdom” became “mine house and my kingdom.” Here it reaches the throne itself: “the throne of the kingdom of Hashem” (28:5), and soon “Solomon sat on the throne of Hashem” (29:23). The Chronicler writes for a community with no king, under a Persian governor, and tells them the kingdom never belonged to David’s house in the first place. It belongs to Hashem, who gives it into the hands of David’s sons to hold for Him. That is why the loss of a visible king was not the loss of the kingdom, and why the hope for a son of David outlived the exile.

“I have chosen him to be my son.” “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” (28:6). This is 2 Samuel 7:14 with a name attached, and the Chronicler’s own gloss on what the word means. We quoted Rabbi Palvanov’s reading of this verse at 17:13, from his class “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef”: “I specifically chose King Solomon to be my son… that’s what son means.” Our Statement of Faith calls Yeshua “the chosen and anointed King” and reads Son the same way: a royal title of choice, used of all Israel (Exodus 4:22), of Solomon here, and of the King Messiah (Psalm 2:7; Hebrews 1:5). The title given to Solomon by election is given to the Son of David by election, in its fullest sense; it never makes the son into the Father who chose him.

A condition. “I will establish his kingdom for ever, if he be constant to do my commandments” (28:7). The promise to David’s house is unconditional (17:13–14); the promise to any one king is not. Solomon’s throne depends on אִם־יֶחֱזַק (im yechezak), “if he be strong” in the commandments, and the Chronicler, who knows how Solomon’s story ends (1 Kings 11), lets the “if” stand. Then David turns to all Israel: “keep and seek for all the commandments of Hashem your God” (28:8). A people who want the Temple must keep the Torah the Temple serves.

28:9–10 · “Know thou the God of thy father”

“And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for Hashem searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever. Take heed now; for Hashem hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it” (28:9–10).

This is the heart of the chapter, and the verse our Statement of Faith quotes under its tenth principle. David’s last charge to his son is not about cedar or gold. It is about the heart, because the One the House is for sees the heart.

Three words. דַּע (da), “know”: not “know about,” but the closest knowledge there is. לֵב שָׁלֵם (lev shalem), “a perfect heart,” better “a whole heart”: the root of shalom and of Shlomo himself. David tells Solomon to be what his name says, and Kings will measure him by this very word: “his heart was not perfect (shalem) with Hashem his God, as was the heart of David his father” (1 Kings 11:4). And נֶפֶשׁ חֲפֵצָה (nefesh chafetzah), “a willing soul,” a soul that delights. Service without delight is labor; with delight it is worship.

Hashem searches. כָל־לְבָבוֹת דּוֹרֵשׁ יְהוָה, “all hearts Hashem searches,” and in the next clause the same verb turns round: “if thou seek (tidreshenu) him, he will be found of thee.” Hashem searches us; we search Him; the two searches meet (Jeremiah 29:13; Matthew 7:7). “The imaginations of the thoughts” (יֵצֶר מַחֲשָׁבוֹת) is the language of Genesis 6:5. The God who saw every heart before the Flood sees Solomon’s. That is a warning and a comfort at once: nothing hidden can be held against us later, because nothing was ever hidden.

Why this matters. Our Statement of Faith is careful here: Hashem alone knows all hearts by His own nature, and when Yeshua “knew their thoughts” (Matthew 12:25) it was insight given by the Father, as Elisha knew what Gehazi had done (2 Kings 5:26). David does not tell Solomon that the king will see hearts. He tells him that Hashem sees the king’s.

28:11–19 · The pattern written by His hand

“Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof… and of the place of the mercy seat, And the pattern of all that he had by the spirit…” (28:11–12).

Hebrew lesson: תַּבְנִית (tavnit), “pattern.” The word comes from בָּנָה (banah), “to build”: a tavnit is a build-plan. It is the word of Exodus 25: “after the pattern (tavnit) of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it” (Exodus 25:9), and “make them after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount” (Exodus 25:40). Moses received a tavnit on Sinai; David hands Solomon a tavnit in Jerusalem. Solomon’s House, like the Mishkan, is built from a plan that did not begin with a man.

The list runs from the porch to the golden cherubim (28:11–18). Notice the plurals, “candlesticks” and “tables”: the Mishkan had one of each, Solomon’s House ten (1 Kings 7:49; 2 Chronicles 4:8). The pattern is the same; the scale is greater. And David’s summary tells where the plan came from: הַכֹּל בִּכְתָב מִיַּד יְהוָה עָלַי הִשְׂכִּיל, “All this… Hashem made me understand in writing by his hand upon me” (28:19). It was given, and given in writing.

What the sages say. The Jerusalem Talmud reads this verse as the end of a chain: the scroll of the Temple was given to Moses, Moses gave it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to David, who gave it to Solomon (Jerusalem Talmud, Megillah 1:1). Rashi on Chronicles brings the same tradition, with Samuel handing it to David. The sages will not let the Temple be an invention, and the Mekhilta says why there must be a pattern at all: the Sanctuary below is set opposite the Sanctuary above (Mekhilta on Exodus 15:17).

Our teachers. FFOZ reads Exodus 25:9 the same way: “The LORD instructs Moses to build the Tabernacle according to the pattern revealed to him on the mountain, that is, the pattern of the heavenly Temple. Jewish teaching explains that God showed Moses the heavenly Sanctuary and instructed him to build the Tabernacle and its furnishings as ‘a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things’ (Hebrews 8:5)” (End of Days, Lesson 19, “Banner on a Mountain”). The same lesson notes that Hashem then told Moses “to raise a voluntary contribution” to build it, which is what David does in the next chapter.

Messianic reading. Hebrews 8:5 quotes Exodus 25:40 to say the earthly priests “serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things,” and Stephen tells the whole chain in four verses: Moses made the tabernacle “according to the fashion that he had seen,” David “desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built him an house” (Acts 7:44–47). We do not read Hebrews as the end of the earthly House. A copy of a heavenly thing is honored, not discarded. The pattern stands in heaven and on earth, until John’s vision brings the two together: the holy city coming “down from God out of heaven” (Revelation 21:2).

28:20–21 · “Be strong and of good courage: He will not fail thee”

“Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for Hashem God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work” (28:20).

Every phrase is Moses to Joshua: “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not… he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee” (Deuteronomy 31:6–8; Joshua 1:5–9). The Hebrew is word for word: חֲזַק וֶאֱמַץ… לֹא יַרְפְּךָ וְלֹא יַעַזְבֶךָּ. Joshua’s task was to bring Israel into the land; Solomon’s is to bring Hashem’s House into the land. Each is told the work is bigger than he is and that Hashem will not let go until it is done. David adds one phrase Moses did not: “even my God.” Verse 9 asked Solomon to know the God of his father; verse 20 promises that the God of his father will be with him.

Then the practical word: the courses are ready, and so is “every willing skilful man” (כָּל־נָדִיב בַּחָכְמָה, 28:21), the willing and wise of Exodus 35:10, 21. Hebrews gives Solomon’s promise to every believer, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5), and Yeshua closed his commission with it: “lo, I am with you alway” (Matthew 28:20). The one who gives the work gives the presence that finishes it.

Chapter 29 · The Offering, the Prayer and the Throne

Read 1 Chronicles 29 in Hebrew and English →

29:1–5 · “The palace is not for man, but for Hashem God”

“Solomon my son, whom alone God hath chosen, is yet young and tender, and the work is great: for the palace is not for man, but for Hashem God” (29:1).

Solomon is נַעַר וָרָךְ (na’ar va-rach), “a youth and tender”; the sages say he was twelve when he began to reign (Seder Olam Rabbah 14). Rach is the word David used of himself at Hebron, “I am this day weak (rach), though anointed king” (2 Samuel 3:39). The father who began tender hands the work to a tender son.

Hebrew lesson: בִּירָה (birah), “the palace.” A late word, from the Persian period: “Shushan the palace” (Esther 1:2). The Chronicler uses it of the Temple (29:1, 19), and the Talmud follows him: “the whole Sanctuary is called birah” (Yoma 2a). A birah is where a king lives, and this one “is not for man, but for Hashem God.”

David’s own gift. “Because I have set my affection to the house of my God, I have of mine own proper good, of gold and silver… three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir” (29:3–4). Chapter 22 listed what David had set aside from the wars. Now he adds his סְגֻלָּה (segulah), “mine own proper good,” his private treasure. It is Hashem’s word for Israel: “ye shall be a peculiar treasure (segulah) unto me” (Exodus 19:5). David gives Hashem his segulah because Israel is Hashem’s.

Then the question that moves everything: “And who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto Hashem?” (29:5). The Hebrew is מִי מִתְנַדֵּב לְמַלֹּאות יָדוֹ, “who offers himself willingly to fill his hand?” To fill the hand is the Torah’s idiom for ordaining priests (Exodus 28:41; Leviticus 8:33), and the words Moses used at the golden calf, “Consecrate yourselves to day to Hashem” (Exodus 32:29). The gold once given to the calf is given to the House.

29:6–9 · “With perfect heart they offered willingly”

“Then the chief of the fathers and princes of the tribes of Israel… offered willingly… Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered willingly, because with perfect heart they offered willingly to Hashem: and David the king also rejoiced with great joy” (29:6, 9).

Hebrew lesson: נָדַב (nadav), “to give freely.” The root appears seven times in the chapter. In the Torah it is the word of the Mishkan: “of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart” (Exodus 25:2), “whosoever is of a willing heart” (Exodus 35:5), until Moses had to stop the people bringing (Exodus 36:5–7). A nedavah is the one offering that cannot be commanded. The Temple, like the Mishkan, is built out of what nobody was required to give.

One word is a window into the Chronicler’s own day: “drams” is אֲדַרְכֹנִים (adarkonim), darics, the Persian coin of his readers, by which Ezra weighed the gold brought to the rebuilt House (Ezra 8:27).

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov’s word that iron is “the element of King David,” which we gave at 22:3 from his class “Revelations from Jerusalem,” was spoken over this very list: “5,000 talents of gold, 10,000 talents of silver, 18,000 talents of copper, and 100,000 talents of iron.” He goes on to read בַּרְזֶל (barzel) as an acronym of the four mothers of the tribes, Bilhah, Rachel, Zilpah and Leah; we take that lightly, as remez. The plain text supports the direction: the largest gift by far was the humblest metal, the one for nails and hinges. A House is held together by what no one admires.

The joy. The people rejoiced not at the total but “because with perfect heart (lev shalem) they offered willingly.” The whole heart David asked of Solomon shows up first in the people. “Not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).

29:10–19 · David’s blessing: “Thine, O Hashem, is the greatness”

“Blessed be thou, Hashem God of Israel our father, for ever and ever. Thine, O Hashem, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Hashem, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all… Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name” (29:10–13).

In the siddur. These verses are said every morning. In Pesukei deZimra the congregation stands for Vayevarech David, “And David blessed,” 1 Chronicles 29:10–13, followed by Nehemiah 9:6–11 and the Song of the Sea; in many congregations tzedakah is given at the words “both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all.” Verse 11 is also sung when the Torah is taken from the Ark. And בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהוָה, “Blessed be thou, Hashem,” is the formula of every berachah, found in Scripture only here and in Psalm 119:12; the Men of the Great Assembly who fixed the blessings (Berakhot 33a) were the Chronicler’s own readers.

The five words. Ha-gedulah, ha-gevurah, ha-tiferet, ha-netzach, ha-hod… ha-mamlachah. Anyone who has heard of the sefirot will recognize the names. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “Lord’s Prayer, Our Father, Pater Nostre – אבינו שבשמים – Part 1 of 2,” says it directly: “Chronicles, the first, chapter 29, is a prayer of David, and all the root of the [sefirot] from kingdom appears there, so Kabbalah is part of the Bible.” We offer this as remez. What is beyond doubt is that David used every one of these words of Hashem alone: “Thine… thine… thine.”

The close of the Lord’s Prayer. The same video shows what readers have long noticed: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever” (Matthew 6:13) is David’s blessing. The oldest manuscripts of Matthew lack the line; the Didache, one of the earliest manuals of the believing community, already closes the prayer with a doxology of this shape. Whoever first said it, it is a Jew answering Yeshua’s prayer with David’s words. FFOZ shows how well they fit: the Our Father is a prayer for the kingdom, and “Thy kingdom come” asks Hashem to fulfill Ezekiel 36–37 “by sending the Messiah to bring the redemption and establish His kingdom… appointing the Davidic King to shepherd over Israel, rebuilding the Temple, and causing His Dwelling Presence to forever reside in Zion” (End of Days, Lessons 29–30, “Satan in Chains”). David prays “thine is the kingdom” on the day he hands the kingdom to his son with the plan of the Temple. Yeshua’s disciples pray the same words while they wait for the Son of David to finish both.

“Of thine own have we given thee.” “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee” (29:14). The Mishnah makes this verse the rule of all giving:

Rabbi Elazar of Bartota says: Give Him of what is His, for you and what is yours are His. And so it says of David: “for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.” (Pirkei Avot 3:7)

Paul says the same: “of him, and through him, and to him, are all things” (Romans 11:36), the verse our Statement of Faith quotes under its first principle. Everything we give Hashem was His before we gave it. That does not make the gift meaningless. It makes it honest.

“Strangers and sojourners.” “For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding” (29:15). These are Abraham’s words to the Hittites (Genesis 23:4), and Hashem’s words about all Israel: “the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me” (Leviticus 25:23). David says them as king of the whole land, in the city where he has bought the Temple’s site. He owns nothing, and the Brit Hadashah says the same of all the faithful (Hebrews 11:13). The last phrase has a play in it: וְאֵין מִקְוֶה, “there is none abiding,” literally “there is no hope,” no mikveh. Jeremiah calls Hashem Mikveh Yisrael, “the hope of Israel” (Jeremiah 17:13). There is no hope in our days. There is hope in Him.

Two prayers. “Thou triest the heart” (29:17): the searcher of hearts from 28:9 returns, and David submits his own gift to the search. For the people he asks Hashem to “prepare their heart unto thee” (29:18), which is Jeremiah’s new covenant in advance, Torah written on the heart (Jeremiah 31:33). For Solomon: “give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart (lev shalem)” (29:19). In 28:9 David commanded the whole heart. Now he asks Hashem to give it. A father can command; only Hashem can give.

29:20–22 · “They worshipped Hashem, and the king”

“And David said to all the congregation, Now bless Hashem your God. And all the congregation blessed Hashem God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads, and worshipped Hashem, and the king. And they sacrificed sacrifices unto Hashem, and offered burnt offerings unto Hashem, on the morrow after that day, even a thousand bullocks, a thousand rams, and a thousand lambs… And did eat and drink before Hashem on that day with great gladness” (29:20–22).

Our Statement of Faith quotes this verse under its fifth principle, We believe that Hashem alone is worthy of worship. It is the most important verse in these chapters for what Benei Avraham confesses, so we go slowly.

The Hebrew. וַיִּקְּדוּ וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲווּ לַיהוָה וְלַמֶּלֶךְ, vayikdu vayishtachavu la-Hashem ve-la-melech. Two verbs, bowing the head and prostrating, one act, and two objects of those same verbs: to Hashem and to the king. The congregation did not perform one gesture toward Hashem and a lesser one toward Solomon. They bowed once, and the text says it was to both.

What the word means. The KJV translates hishtachavah “worshipped,” but the word is a posture, not a theology. The Tenakh uses it for Joseph’s brothers bowing to Joseph (Genesis 43:26), David to Saul (1 Samuel 24:8), the sons of the prophets to Elisha (2 Kings 2:15), and Israel to the golden calf (Exodus 32:8). Our Statement of Faith says it exactly: hishtachavah “can mean either covenantal honor or idolatrous worship depending on the context and the heart of the one bowing. The distinction is not in the outward gesture, but in whether the act is directed toward Hashem alone or whether it treats a created being as God.”

Here the context could not be clearer. The congregation has just heard David say “Thine is the kingdom.” The king they bow to is the king who has just bowed. No one in that assembly thought Solomon was God. They honored the man on whom Hashem had set “the kingdom of Hashem,” and the next morning more than three thousand animals were offered, every one “unto Hashem.”

What the sages say. The Torah commands honor to the king. From “thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee” (Deuteronomy 17:15) the sages derive that “his awe shall be upon you” (Sanhedrin 22a; Kiddushin 32b), and they rule that a king who waives his honor has not waived it, because the honor belongs to the office Hashem gave him (Kiddushin 32b). Rambam opens his laws of kings with it: “Great honor is accorded to the king, and his awe and fear are placed in the heart of every man” (Hilchot Melachim 2:1). The same Torah that says “thou shalt have no other gods before me” commands Israel to bow to the king it appoints, because the two acts are not the same act. One is avodah, worship; the other is kavod, honor. Esther shows the line from the other side: Mordechai would not bow to Haman (Esther 3:2), and Rashi explains why: Haman had made himself an object of worship. When a man demands to be treated as a god, the bow becomes idolatry, and a Jew does not bow.

Our teachers. Our class “Facing Each Other: The Secret of the Aleph and the Trinity” drew the line in these words: a Jewish reading of how Hashem reveals Himself “keeps all prayer and worship directed to Hashem alone, just as Yeshua did.” Our class “The Essence and Mission of Yeshua from a Jewish Perspective” explained how a king’s throne and Hashem’s reign fit together: “Hashem reigns through David… when the righteous king of Israel rules on his earthly throne, it is spiritually Hashem himself ruling.” That is 29:23 exactly.

Messianic reading. This verse is the clearest picture in the Tenakh of how we relate to Yeshua. People bowed to him, with this same word in its Greek dress: the wise men (Matthew 2:11), the leper (Matthew 8:2), the women at the tomb (Matthew 28:9). Missionaries use those verses to prove that Yeshua is God; opponents use them to prove the disciples were idolaters. First Chronicles 29:20 shows that both are wrong. Israel bowed to Hashem and to the king in one breath, and the Chronicler recorded it without a flicker of unease. Honor to the king Hashem appointed is part of worshipping Hashem, because it honors His choice.

Yeshua kept the line himself: “Thou shalt worship Hashem thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Matthew 4:10). He taught his disciples to pray to the Father. When John fell down before the angel in Revelation, the angel said, “See thou do it not… worship God” (Revelation 22:9). Yet the same book shows the heavenly court saying in one breath, “Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever” (Revelation 5:13). To Him that sits on the throne, and to the Lamb; to Hashem, and to the king. The Brit Hadashah ends where Chronicles ends, and Paul tells how it resolves: every knee bows to Yeshua “to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11). The bow to the king returns as glory to Hashem, or it is not a bow that Hashem’s king would accept.

Our Statement of Faith puts it in a sentence: “we honor Yeshua because Hashem has appointed him.” We do not pray the Shema or the Amidah to him. We bless his name, praise his greatness and pray for his return, and all of it goes up to the Father who sent him. First Chronicles 29:20 is where we learned that.

The next day the people “did eat and drink before Hashem… with great gladness,” as the Torah said of the place Hashem would choose (Deuteronomy 12:7). The House is not yet built, and already Israel eats before Hashem in its city; Yeshua promised his disciples the same table “in my kingdom” (Luke 22:30).

29:23–25 · Solomon anointed the second time, and the throne of Hashem

“And they made Solomon the son of David king the second time, and anointed him unto Hashem to be the chief governor, and Zadok to be priest. Then Solomon sat on the throne of Hashem as king instead of David his father, and prospered; and all Israel obeyed him… And Hashem magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and bestowed upon him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in Israel” (29:22–25). Verse 22 closes the feast and opens the enthronement, so we take its second half here.

“The second time.” The first time was in a hurry: Adonijah had declared himself king, and Zadok, Nathan and Benaiah rushed Solomon down to Gihon on the king’s mule (1 Kings 1). Chronicles leaves the whole story out, as it leaves out the stories of Bathsheba and Absalom; the only earlier enthronement it records is 23:1, “he made Solomon his son king over Israel.” Either way, the first was a crisis and the second is a covenant: all Israel present, the offerings made, the prayer prayed, the anointing done “unto Hashem.” The Talmud teaches that kings of David’s house were not normally anointed at all, since the kingship was theirs by promise; they were anointed only when there was a dispute, Solomon because of Adonijah, Joash because of Athaliah, Jehoahaz because of his brother (Horayot 11b; Keritot 5b). The second anointing settled what the first had claimed: “all the sons likewise of king David” gave him their hand (29:24), Adonijah included.

Zadok. Abiathar had backed Adonijah and would be removed, fulfilling the word against Eli’s house (1 Kings 2:27), and Zadok becomes sole High Priest; his line, and its place at the altar of the Temple to come, we traced at 5:34 and in chapter 24. What matters here is the pairing: king and priest are appointed in one verse, as Zechariah saw “the two anointed ones” (Zechariah 4:14).

“Solomon sat on the throne of Hashem.” וַיֵּשֶׁב שְׁלֹמֹה עַל־כִּסֵּא יְהוָה לְמֶלֶךְ. Only Chronicles says this of a man (here, and 2 Chronicles 9:8). The throne is Hashem’s; Solomon sits on it “as king,” and “instead of David his father,” lest anyone think he sits there in his own right. Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” said it of Mashiach: “The throne is Hashem’s; the Son sits beside it.” Here the son of David sits upon it, and the Chronicler is not afraid of the sentence, because he has just told us whose kingdom it is (29:11). A man on Hashem’s throne is not Hashem. He is Hashem’s king. So too the “royal majesty (hod)” bestowed on Solomon (29:25) is the fifth of David’s five words, “thine… is the majesty” (29:11), lent as Moses put of his hod on Joshua (Numbers 27:20).

The last chapter of the Bible has the same doubled throne, “the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22:3). We read it in the Chronicler’s words: the throne is Hashem’s, and the Son of David sits on it as His king, as Solomon did, in the Father’s name and to the Father’s glory.

Messianic reading. “The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32): the throne is given, not taken. And, as we said at 17:14, Paul tells how it will finally be handed back: “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father… that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:24, 28). Solomon held Hashem’s throne for Him. The Son of David will do the same, and when the last enemy is destroyed he will return it. The kingdom was Hashem’s at the beginning and will be Hashem’s at the end, which is what David prayed.

29:26–30 · “Full of days, riches, and honour”

“Thus David the son of Jesse reigned over all Israel. And the time that he reigned over Israel was forty years; seven years reigned he in Hebron, and thirty and three years reigned he in Jerusalem. And he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour: and Solomon his son reigned in his stead” (29:26–28).

The seven years were really seven and a half (2 Samuel 5:5); the Talmud finds the missing half year in the months David was stricken after the matter of Bathsheba (Sanhedrin 107a–b; see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 2). Even in the summary, the Chronicler’s silence about David’s sin leaves a shadow in the arithmetic.

“A good old age.” בְּשֵׂיבָה טוֹבָה, “in a good old age,” is what the Torah says of Abraham, “an old man, and full of years” (Genesis 25:8). The Chronicler gives David the death of the father of the nation, and adds “riches, and honour,” the two things David said come from Hashem alone (29:12). He ends with what he confessed he never owned. Kings tells of David’s deathbed words about Joab and Shimei (1 Kings 2:1–9); Chronicles has none of it. He is painting the king whose House his readers served in, at his best: the man who gathered, gave, prayed and handed over. The prophets promised a David to come (Ezekiel 34:23–24), and the Chronicler shows what that David looks like.

Death is sleep. Kings says “David slept with his fathers” (1 Kings 2:10). Peter at Shavuot said, “he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day… For David is not ascended into the heavens” (Acts 2:29, 34), and Paul, “David… fell on sleep” (Acts 13:36). Our Statement of Faith confesses that death is sleep until the resurrection, and David is Scripture’s own example. The Talmud tells how he died on Shabbat in the middle of learning Torah, which the Angel of Death could not interrupt until he was distracted (Shabbat 30a). And yet when Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi wanted a coded message that the new moon had been sanctified, the password was דָּוִד מֶלֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי וְקַיָּם, “David king of Israel lives and endures” (Rosh Hashanah 25a). Jews still sing it. The king is asleep and the kingship is alive, because it was never his; it was Hashem’s, given to his seed “for ever.”

The seers’ books. “Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer, With all his reign and his might, and the times that went over him, and over Israel, and over all the kingdoms of the countries” (29:29–30).

Three prophets wrote David’s life: Samuel, who anointed him; Nathan, who brought the promise and the rebuke; Gad, who stood with him in the wilderness and at the threshing floor. The Talmud takes this verse as the key to the authorship of Samuel: Samuel wrote his book, and Gad and Nathan completed it (Bava Batra 15a). The Chronicler has not hidden the longer story; he has chosen what to set beside the Temple. And the book’s last verse speaks of הָעִתִּים אֲשֶׁר עָבְרוּ עָלָיו, “the times that went over him.” The book called “the words of the days” ends by speaking of “the times.” David had said, “My times are in thy hand” (Psalm 31:15). The days passed over him, over Israel and over all the kingdoms, and the One who holds the times kept His word.

Drawing it together

1. The kingdom is Hashem’s. “The throne of the kingdom of Hashem” (28:5), “thine is the kingdom” (29:11), “Solomon sat on the throne of Hashem” (29:23). David’s house holds the kingdom for its Owner. That is why the exile did not end it, why Yeshua receives it from the Father, and why he will give it back (1 Corinthians 15:24–28).

2. Honor to the king, worship to Hashem. Israel “worshipped Hashem, and the king” in one bow and offered every sacrifice to Hashem alone (29:20–21). The gesture is the same; the direction decides. We honor Yeshua as the king Hashem has set on Hashem’s throne, and all of it returns as glory to the Father.

3. The pattern is given. From Sinai to Zion the House is built from a tavnit that came “in writing by his hand” (28:19; Exodus 25:9, 40; Hebrews 8:5). Torah worship is not improvised, and the earthly copy of the heavenly House is honored until the two come together (Revelation 21).

4. Whole hearts, willing hands. Lev shalem runs through both chapters (28:9; 29:9, 19). Hashem searches hearts, so the only gift worth giving is the one given freely and whole, and “of thine own have we given thee” (29:14) is the law of all giving.

5. The father prepares, the son of peace builds. David the man of war gathers the gold, the plan and the people, and sees his son enthroned before he sleeps. Yeshua came first in the pattern of the suffering son of Joseph and will return in the pattern of the son of David. The preparation and the building are one kingdom, and both are Hashem’s.

The whole book. First Chronicles opened with a single name, “Adam” (1:1), and ends with a king asleep and his son on the throne of Hashem. In between, the Chronicler walked his readers from the first man to Abraham, from Abraham to Judah, from Judah to Jesse, from Jesse to David (chapters 1–9), and then showed David doing one thing: bringing the Ark home and preparing a House for it (chapters 10–29). He left out David’s worst days and kept the Levites’ names, because he wrote for people who had come back to a ruined city with a Torah scroll and a list of priestly courses and needed to know the thread had not been cut. From Adam to David’s last prayer, the book is a genealogy of the kingdom of Hashem, handed from Hashem to a people, to a tribe, to a house, to a son. The story goes on in the second book, where Solomon goes up to Gibeon and the building begins (2 Chronicles 1–3). But the first book ends here, with the gold weighed, the plan in Solomon’s hand, the old king asleep, and the kingdom confessed to be Hashem’s.

For Benei Avraham the thread runs on. Matthew begins his Gospel as Chronicles begins, with a genealogy, and ends it as Chronicles ends, with a son of David saying that all authority has been given to him (Matthew 28:18). Our Statement of Faith lists seven things at its heart, and the last is “The Kingdom of Hashem.” That is David’s last word too: “Thine is the kingdom, O Hashem.”

Questions for discussion

1. Find the words and actions in 1 Chronicles 28–29 that echo Moses at the Mishkan (Exodus 25, 35–36; Deuteronomy 31). Why would the Chronicler want David to look like Moses?

2. In 28:4–5 Hashem’s choice runs through Judah, Jesse, David and Solomon. What does “the throne of the kingdom of Hashem” add that 2 Samuel 7 did not say?

3. What does Rabbi Palvanov say “son” means in 28:6? How does our Statement of Faith use the same idea for Yeshua?

4. Our Statement of Faith quotes 28:9 under the principle that Hashem knows all hearts. What three things does David ask of Solomon in that verse, and how does 1 Kings 11:4 measure Solomon by one of them?

5. What is a tavnit? Where does the Torah use the word, and how does Hebrews 8:5 use it?

6. Why does the Jerusalem Talmud say the Temple plan was handed down from Moses? What does that protect against?

7. Pirkei Avot 3:7 builds a rule of giving on 29:14. State the rule in your own words. How does 2 Corinthians 9:7 fit the people’s joy in 29:9?

8. 29:20 says the congregation “worshipped Hashem, and the king.” Name other places where hishtachavah is used of bowing to a human being. How does our Statement of Faith use this verse, and how does Revelation 5:13 show the same pattern?

9. According to Horayot 11b, why was Solomon anointed when most kings of David’s line were not? What was different about the “second time”?

10. The Chronicler ends with David “full of days,” asleep, while Jews still sing “David king of Israel lives and endures.” How do those fit together in our confession of death as sleep and the kingdom as Hashem’s?

Sources

Scripture: 1 Chronicles 1–3, 5, 17, 22–24; 2 Chronicles 1–4; 2 Samuel 3, 5, 7; 1 Kings 1–2, 7, 11; Genesis 6, 23, 25, 43, 49; Exodus 4, 15, 19, 25, 28, 32, 35–36; Leviticus 8, 25; Numbers 27; Deuteronomy 12, 17, 31; Joshua 1; 1 Samuel 24; 2 Kings 2, 5; Ezra 2; Nehemiah 9; Esther 1, 3; Psalms 2, 31, 119, 132; Isaiah 66; Jeremiah 17, 29, 31; Ezekiel 34, 36–37; Zechariah 4; Matthew 2, 4, 6–8, 12, 28; Luke 1, 22; Acts 2, 7, 13; Romans 11; 1 Corinthians 15; 2 Corinthians 9; Philippians 2; Hebrews 1, 8, 11, 13; Revelation 5, 21–22.

Talmud and Midrash: Pirkei Avot 3:7; Berakhot 33a; Shabbat 30a; Yoma 2a; Rosh Hashanah 25a; Kiddushin 32b; Sanhedrin 22a, 107a–b; Horayot 11b; Keritot 5b; Bava Batra 15a; Seder Olam Rabbah 14; Jerusalem Talmud, Megillah 1:1; Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael on Exodus 15:17.

Commentators: Rashi on Chronicles 28:19; Rashi on Esther 3:2; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim 2:1; Didache 8 (on the close of the Lord’s Prayer).

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 19, “Banner on a Mountain”; Lessons 29–30, “Satan in Chains”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef” (https://youtu.be/HUxIh1LdM3o) and “Revelations from Jerusalem” (https://youtu.be/SxzIBUZSiP4); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “Lord’s Prayer, Our Father, Pater Nostre – אבינו שבשמים – Part 1 of 2” (https://youtu.be/tewnhIeY_J0); Benei Avraham classes, “Facing Each Other: The Secret of the Aleph and the Trinity” (https://youtu.be/IpJ-HT8Hhpw) and “The Essence and Mission of Yeshua from a Jewish Perspective” (https://www.youtube.com/live/NcguCQbsk8E); our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David”; our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 2; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.