Without a doubt, today’s reading could be dubbed as one of those boring chapters of the Bible. However, in all its lists and names and people we don’t know, it does give us a little more insight into how things operated in King David’s time, his most “comfortable” time as leader anyway. The first thing that warmed my heart right from the start was the fact that the secretary was called out by name. Shemaiah, in verse 6, was chosen to record the names and assignments of each Levite, and that document may have been one of the documents used to compile some of the text we see today. Beautiful. Also, I got a sense of community after reading this chapter. However, that sense of community also came with a dread of future complications, particularly after lots were cast to give families duties and assignments. I felt they did this with good intentions at heart. They didn’t want to rock the boat, so to speak and appoint some families to more “illustrious” duties and other families to do all the grunt work. Know what I mean? But in casting lots and assigning duties “by chance” (God’s will, actually), they will inevitably get people who a) don’t want to do the duties they are assigned, b) might be better at other duties for which others are responsible or c) a whole bunch of other stuff we can’t begin to list here. But I’m pretty sure God knows all this already. Still, the setup is founded on goodness and love for the Lord, so I think God sometimes lets us roll with the good stuff with intentions of helping us deal with the bad stuff later.
Writing prompt: beyond the names
What did you see in today’s text beyond lists of names?
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