'And David assembled all the princes of Israel, the princes of the
tribes, and the captains of the companies that ministered to the king
by course, and the captains over the thousands, and captains over the
hundreds, and the stewards over all the substance and possession of
the king, and of his sons, with the officers, and with the mighty men,
and with all the valiant men, unto Jerusalem. 2. Then David the king
stood up upon his feet, and said, Hear me, my brethren, and my people:
As for me, I had in mine heart to build an house of rest for the ark
of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had
made ready for the building: 3. But God said unto me, Thou shalt not
build an house for My name, because thou hast been a man of war, and
hast shed blood. 4. Howbeit the Lord God of Israel chose me before all
the house of my father to be king over Israel for ever: 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 to make me king
over all Israel: 5. And of all my sons, (for the Lord hath given me
many sons), he hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of
the kingdom of the Lord over Israel. 6. And He said unto me, Solomon
thy son, he shall build My house and My courts: for I have chosen him
to be My son, and I will be his father. 7. Moreover I will establish
his kingdom for ever, if he be constant to do My commandments and My
judgments, as at this day. 8. Now therefore in the sight of all Israel
the congregation of the Lord, and in the audience of our God, keep and
seek for all the commandments of the Lord your God: that ye may
possess this good land, and leave it for an inheritance for your
children after you for ever. 9. 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 the Lord 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. 10.
Take heed now; for the Lord hath chosen thee to build an house for the
sanctuary: be strong, and do it.'--1 CHRON. xxviii. 1-10.
David had established an elaborate organisation of royal officials,
details of which occupy the preceding chapters and interrupt the
course of the narrative. The passage picks up again the thread dropped
at chapter xxiii. 1. The list of the members of the assembly called in
verse 1 is interesting as showing how he tried to amalgamate the old
with the new. The princes of Israel, the princes of the tribes,
represented the primitive tribal organisation, and they receive
precedence in virtue of the antiquity of their office. Then come
successively David's immediate attendants, the military officials, the
stewards of the royal estates, the 'officers' or eunuchs attached to
the palace, and the faithful 'mighty men' who had fought by the king's
side in the old days. It was an assembly of officials and soldiers
whose adherence to Solomon it was all-important to secure, especially
in regard to the project for building the Temple, which could not be
carried through without their active support. The passage comprises
only the beginning of the proceedings of this assembly of notables.
The end is told in the next chapter; namely, that the Temple-building
scheme was unanimously and enthusiastically adopted, and large
donations given for it, and that Solomon's succession was accepted,
and loyal submission offered by the assembly to him.
David's address to this gathering is directed to secure these two
points. He begins by recalling his own intention to build the Temple
and God's prohibition of it. The reason for that prohibition differs
from that alleged by Nathan, but there is no contradiction between the
two narratives, and the chronicler has already reported Nathan's words
(chap. xvii. 3, etc.), so that the motive which is ascribed to many of
the variations in this book, a priestly desire to exalt Temple and
ritual, cannot have been at work here. Why should there not have been
a divine communication to David as well as Nathan's message? That
hands reddened with blood, even though it had been shed in justifiable
war, were not fitted to build the Temple, was a thought so far in
advance of David's time, and flowing from so spiritual a conception of
God, that it may well have been breathed into David's spirit by a
divine voice. Sword in one hand and trowel in the other are
incongruous, notwithstanding Nehemiah's example. The Temple of the God
of peace cannot be built except by men of peace. That is true in the
widest and highest application. Jesus builds the true Temple.
Controversy and strife do not. And, on a lower level, the prohibition
is for ever valid. Men do not atone for a doubtful past by building
churches, founding colleges, endowing religious or charitable
institutions.
The speech next declares emphatically that the throne belongs to David
and his descendants by real 'divine right,' and that God's choice is
Solomon, who is to inherit both the promises and obligations of the
office, and, among the latter, that of building the Temple. The
unspoken inference is that loyalty to Solomon would be obedience to
Jehovah. The connection between the true heavenly King and His earthly
representative is strongly expressed in the remarkable phrase: 'He
hath chosen Solomon ... to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of
Jehovah,' which both consecrates and limits the rule of Solomon,
making him but the viceroy of the true king of Israel. When Israel's
kings remembered that, they flourished; when they forgot it, they
destroyed their kingdom and themselves. The principle is as true
to-day, and it applies to all forms of influence, authority, and
gifts. They are God's, and we are but stewards.
The address to the assembly ends with the exhortation to these leaders
to 'observe,' and not merely to observe, but also to 'seek out' God's
commandments, and so to secure to the nation, whom they could guide,
peaceful and prosperous days. It is not enough to do God's will as far
as we know it; we must ever be endeavouring after clearer, deeper
insight into it. Would that these words were written over the doors of
all Senate and Parliament houses! What a different England we should
see!
But Solomon was present as well as the notables, and it was well that,
in their hearing, he should be reminded of his duties. David had
previously in private taught him these, but this public 'charge'
before the chief men of the kingdom bound them more solemnly upon him,
and summoned a cloud of witnesses against him if he fell below the
high ideal. It is pitched on a lofty key of spiritual religion, for it
lays 'Know thou the God of thy fathers' as the foundation of
everything. That knowledge is no mere intellectual apprehension, but,
as always in Scripture, personal acquaintanceship with a Person, which
involves communion with Him and love towards Him. For us, too, it is
the seed of all strenuous discharge of our life's tasks, whether we
are rulers or nobodies, and it means a much deeper experience than
understanding or giving assent to a set of truths about God. We know
one another when we summer and winter with each other, and not unless
we love one another, and we know God on no other terms.
After such knowledge comes an outward life of service. Active
obedience is the expression of inward communion, love, and trust. The
spring that moves the hands on the dial is love, and, if the hands do
not move, there is something wrong with the spring. Morality is the
garment of religion; religion is the animating principle of morality.
Faith without works is dead, and works without faith are dead too.
But even when we 'know God' we have to make efforts to have our
service correspond with our knowledge, for we have wayward hearts and
obstinate wills, which need to be stimulated, sometimes to be coerced
and forcibly diverted from unworthy objects. Therefore the exhortation
to serve God 'with a perfect heart and with a willing mind' is always
needful and often hard. Entire surrender and glad obedience are the
Christian ideal, and continual effort to approximate to it will be
ours in the degree in which we 'know God.' There is no worse slavery
than that of the half-hearted Christian whose yoke is not padded with
love. Reluctant obedience is disobedience in God's sight.
David solemnly reminds Solomon of those 'pure eyes and perfect
judgment,' not to frighten, but to enforce the thought of the need for
whole-hearted and glad service, and of the worthlessness of external
acts of apparent worship which have not such behind them. What a deal
of seeming wheat would turn out to be chaff if that winnowing fan
which is in Christ's hand were applied to it! How small our biggest
heaps would become!
The solemn conditions of the continuance of God's favour and of the
fulfilment of His promises are next plainly stated. God responds to
our state of heart and mind. We determine His bearing to us. The
seeker finds. If we move away from Him, He moves away from us. That is
not, thank God! all the truth, or what would become of any of us? But
it is true, and in a very solemn sense God is to us what we make Him.
'With the pure Thou wilt show Thyself pure; and with the perverse Thou
wilt show Thyself froward.'
The charge ends with recalling the high honour and office to which
Jehovah had designated Solomon, and with exhortations to 'take heed'
and to 'be strong, and do it.' It is well for a young man to begin
life with a high ideal of what he is called to be and do. But many of
us have that, and miserably fail to realise it, for want of these two
characteristics, which the sight of such an ideal ought to stamp on
us. If we are to fulfil God's purposes with us, and to be such tools
as He can use for building His true Temple, we must exercise
self-control and 'take heed to our ways,' and we must brace ourselves
against opposition and crush down our own timidity. It seems to be
commanding an impossibility to say to a weak creature like any one of
us, 'Be strong,' but the impossible becomes a possibility when the
exhortation takes the full Christian form: 'Be strong in the Lord, and
in the power of His might.'