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Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
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1 Chronicles 23:3-5
“The Levites thirty years old or more were counted, and the total number of men was 38,000. David said, ‘Of these, 24,000 are to supervise the work of the Temple of the Lord and 6,000 are to be officials and judges. 4,000 are to be gatekeepers and 4,000 are to praise the Lord with the musical instruments I have provided for that purpose.’”
God is into numbers.
Do you remember I told you that at the beginning of the Book of Numbers? Well, Chronicles includes a lot of numbers too. David wasn’t totally paranoid about numbers but he did spend a lot of time finding out numerical facts about his people. True, God was cross with him once but on all the other occasions, God seems to have been in favour of it.
God makes records. Every hair on our head, we are told, is numbered (see Matthew 10:30). He records everything we say, do or think, so the sheer fact of recording something is not itself evil (see Romans 14:12 - it’s a ‘Ring of Truth’!).
David counted the Levites who were with him. The purpose of this was, again, to try and ensure that the work of the Temple was done correctly and well. David loved his God and wanted excellence, everything done ‘fit’ for the King. He was also aware from listening and practice that people don’t always naturally do what is right. Unfortunately, this was also true of the priests (Levites) - those who should have known better.
As the priesthood had effectively come to an end, he decided to resurrect it. But in order to do so, he had to find out who was who, particularly in the context of the High Priesthood. He needed to find out those who were the true descendants of Aaron.
Notice verse 14 where Moses’ sons were considered part of the Tribe of Levi. Levi’s tribe - the Levites, had been set apart by God as the priestly line (see Numbers 16 & 17). Aaron’s (& Moses’) parents were both Levites and the privilege of the priesthood remained with their family and descendants. (Incidentally David was, of course, of the Tribe of Judah.)
So David re-established the priesthood in anticipation of the building of the Temple. He counted 38,000. Of those 38,000, he set apart 24,000 to look after the work of the Temple. 6,000 were to be officials and judges to oversee the community, with a further 4,000 to be gatekeepers. An additional 4,000 were to be set apart to “praise the Lord”. They were to sing and play the instruments he had “provided for that purpose.”
Over the next few chapters, David went into more detail about the specific roles allocated to the different Levite descendants. We will see later that although David wrote some Psalms, so did Asaph who was one of those appointed by David to sing and “for the ministry of prophesying accompanied by harps, lyres and cymbals” - “under the King’s supervision” (1 Chronicles 25:1-2).
Sounds pretty radical and formal, doesn’t it?
But, maybe there is a pattern here for us to consider, even if we don’t follow it.
Whilst we enjoy spontaneous, open-style worship, remember the larger the gathering the more ‘organised’ the format is likely to become. Remember also the special dimension experienced at the larger worship gathering.
However, the ‘key element’ is always the ‘praise and worship of God’.
(Excellence and the best of our ability are also expected.)
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