1 Chronicles 26
David’s guards at the worship center
David organizes security guards
1King David divided the worship center’s security guards into work groups. As David had done earlier, with priests and other people in Levi’s tribe, he divided them by their extended families known as clans. Here are the families that guarded the entrances into the worship area. [1]Guards from Korah’s clan:
Meshelemiah, from Asaph’s family. 2Meshelemiah had seven sons: Zechariah, the oldest, was followed in order of birth by Jediael, Zebadiah, Jathniel, 3Elam, Jehohanan, and Eliehoenai.
4Obed-edom had eight sons, in birth order: Shemaiah, Jehozabad, Joah, Sachar, Nethanel, 5Ammiel, Issachar, and Peullethai. God had certainly blessed Obed-edom.
6Obed-edom’s son Shemaiah had four sons of his own—all four grew into skilled and powerful leaders in their families. 7Shemaiah’s sons were: Othni, Rephael, Obed, and Elzabad. Two other men in the extended family group were especially gifted as well: Elihu and Semachiah.
8There were 62 men in Obed-edom’s family group—each one capable of pulling guard duty at the worship center. 9In Meshelemiah’s family, there were 18 men, all of whom were capable guards.
10Guards from Merari’s family:
Hosah, descended from Merari, had four sons and a total of 18 men in his family group—all capable guards. He appointed his son, Shimri, to lead the family even though Shimri wasn’t the oldest. 11Hosah’s other sons in order of rank: Hilkiah, Tebaliah, and Zechariah. Counting Hosah’s sons, there were 13 men in the family.
12These men guarded the worship center. Each man was given a duty assignment, just like the priests and others from Levi’s tribe.
13They threw sacred dice [2] to get their assignments by chance, which left the roll of the dice to God. It didn’t matter who they were. No one got special treatment.
14The first assignment went to Meshelemiah’s [3] family. He would guard the East Gate. His son Zechariah, a wise advisor, would guard the North Gate.
15Obed-edom would guard the South Gate, while his sons were assigned storage rooms at the supply center.
16Shuppim and Hosah got the West Gate and the Shallecheth Gate on the uphill road into the courtyard.
17The duty roster required six guards on the East Gate, four guards on the North Gate and the South Gate, along with two at a time on the storehouse. 18There were six guards on the West Gate. There were four at the Shallecheth Gate by the road up into the worship area—with two of them inside the courtyard. [4] 19These were the families related to Korah and Merari who guarded the worship center and gates into the area. 20David chose Ahijah, from Levi’s tribe, to protect the worship center’s wealth of assets, which worshipers donated as offerings to the LORD’s house. [5]
21Jehiel’s family led the guards who protected the treasury at the worship center. He was from the extended family of Ladan, and he was part of the larger family group known as the Gershon clan. 22Jehieli had two sons: Zetham and Joel. They oversaw the treasury at the worship center.
23Other leaders helped protect the treasury, as well. They came from the families of Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. 24Guards from Amram’s family: Shebuel was the chief executive officer at the treasury. He descended from the family of Gershom, who was the son of Moses. 25Shebuel was also related to the family of Gershom’s brother, Eliezer. Those relatives included Rehabiah, Jeshaiah, Joram, Zichri, and Shelomoth.
26Shelomoth and his family took charge of the royal treasures donated by the king, his officials, and military officers. The military included top commanders along with those who commanded a battalion of 1,000, and those who commanded a company of 100.
27Military commanders donated part of the valuables they looted from defeated enemies. That wealth helped pay for maintenance of the worship center of the LORD. 28This royal treasury included gifts donated by the LORD’s prophet Samuel. And it included gifts donated by King Saul the son of Kish, along with Saul’s military commander, Abner the son of Ner. The treasury included gifts donated by David’s commander, too: Joab the son of Zeruiah.
29Guards from Izhar’s family:
Kenaniah and his sons worked as officials and judges throughout Israel.
30Guards from Hebron’s family:
Hashabiah’s clan of 1,700 men directed the LORD’s work and the king’s orders among Israelites east of the Jordan River.
31Jerijah led the entire Hebron family. Hebron family history reports that King David gave him the job of governing Israel east of the Jordan. Forty years into David’s reign, the king wanted to find a wise leader. So he ordered a search of Israel’s family genealogies, looking for a standout leader. That’s how they found out about Jerijah, from the town of Jazer in Gilead Territory, east of the Jordan River.
32So, David gave Jerijah’s family the responsibility of governing all the tribes east of the Jordan River: Reuben, Gad, and half a tribe known as West Manasseh. Jerijah had 2,700 family leaders to help him direct the LORD’s work and the king’s orders east of the Jordan River.
Footnotes
There was just one entrance into the tent worship center that the Hebrews originally created at God’s instructions (Exodus 27:14). Solomon’s Temple, the first Jewish Temple, had several gateways into the sprawling courtyards around the sanctuary. So did the Temple in the time of Jesus’s ministry.
The Hebrew term more literally says the people threw or drew “lots.” The “lots” may have been stones or animal bones marked in a way that produced random outcomes for “yes” or “no” answers, or for determining who goes first in a group. The idea is like throwing dice, with the high number going first. It’s also a little like “heads” or “tails” from a coin toss. Many people at the time taught that God controlled the outcome. So, the dice spoke for God. In that sense, to those folks, the outcome wasn’t random. God controlled the dice and everything else in his world.
“Meshelemiah” is another way to spell the name “Shelemiah.” Both show up in Bible translations.
This verse is a guess in any Bible translation. That’s because there’s an unknown word at a critical point in the Hebrew sentence. The word is parbar. The meaning, so far, is unknown. Guesses include: courtyard, colonnade, temple courtyard, road. Four guards protect the west entrance and two stand guard at the parbar. Context clues don’t help much in trying to figure out what a parbar is.
“The LORD’s house” was a way of talking about a sacred space where the people of God could come to worship. From the time of Moses to King David, it was a tent surrounded by a courtyard made of curtains. David’s son Solomon built the first permanent worship center, the Jerusalem Temple. It lasted about 400 years, until Babylonian invaders tore it down in 586 BC. Jews rebuilt the Temple, but Roman invaders tore it down in AD 70. It has never been rebuilt. Today, Jerusalem’s most famous landmark sits on the site of the Temple: a 1400-year-old Muslim shrine known as the Dome of the Rock.
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