Day Thirty-One -- Organizing, Financing, and Building

1 Chronicles 24:1 to 2 Chronicles 7:10

In this version of how the temple was built, we hear of vast preparations orchestrated by David before he handed the kingdom over to his son Solomon.  The assignments of the Levites are handed out and an astronomical amount of riches are amassed to finance the construction and fabrication of all the furniture, appointments and ornaments.  The account certainly does a lot to show how masterful and organized a leader David is, but I have to feel a little sorry for Solomon.  David seems to treat him as if he would be incapable of pulling off any of this on his own.  We are told, however, that there is a heavenly blueprint for the temple that God apparently shared with David, and so we are given a  justification for all of David's instructions.

The way that so many of the children of the great biblical leaders failed to follow in the ways of their fathers, it is heartening that David trusted his son to fulfill such elaborate plans and instructions.  Maybe old David knew his son well enough that he trusted that if God were to offer Solomon anything he wanted, Solomon would ask for wisdom above everything else.  In many ways that wisdom did more than just help Solomon be a wise king; it helped him to serve the LORD God.