Today’s Scripture Reading
(September 21, 2013): 1 Chronicles 20
One of the
themes of literature is about man’s attempt to replace the gods. It is the real
sin behind the story of the Tower of Babel. The human inhabitants of the city
wanted to build a tower to reach the heavens and begin the process of replacing
the gods. Now, we know that there was actually no danger of our early ancestors
succeeding in reaching heaven. It is impossible to build a tower that can do
that. But the problem was that the inhabitants in and around the area of Babel
desired to reach the heavens and replace the gods – because they believed that
they were so much smarter than the gods were.
And we see
this theme through a number of the epic stories of ancient history. The stories
are variations on the same theme. A man is born and he is special. In some
stories he is a half-god, usually created because of a male god’s attraction to
a beautiful human maiden, and the result of their love is this son. So the man
grows up, and the gods are stupid, they just do not understand what it is like
to live as a man. But this man understands. And he goes out and does the task,
completes the deed, defeats the dragon that the gods could not defeat, and as a
result the man earns a seat on the pantheon of the gods. He is made into a
lower god himself – all because he understands what it is like to live on this
earth as a human.
David wins a
war and he takes the crown of the king. We are told that the crown contained a
talent of gold. The talent was an ancient form of weight, and the reality is
that the value of a talent varied from culture to culture. In Greece, the Attic
talent weighted 26 kilograms (or 57 pounds.) The Roman Talent was a little
larger – it was 32.3 kilograms (or 71 pounds.) Israel early on adopted the Babylonian
talent which was 30.3 kilograms or 67 lbs. So this crown that David had taken
from this king that he had defeated weighed at least 67 lbs. But it might have
weighed even more. Again, Chronicles is written late in the era of the Hebrew
Bible and at some point Israel changed from the Babylonian talent to the heavy
common talent. And the heavy common talent weighed about 130 lbs. This was the
crown that David had placed on his head.
Now, in
ancient times the crown was not actually worn by the king, but it is suspended
over his head on chains – because no king could wear a crown that weighed 130
lbs. But the weight of this crown has caused some experts to question whether
we have really understood the purpose of this crown. They wonder if it is
possible that the crown did not belong to the king, but rather to the gods that
the king served. They ask whether it is possible that somewhere in the city was
a stone statue of a god that had been served by this group of people, and on
that statue sat this 130 lb. crown made of pure gold. But as the nation fell,
so did this god. And the crown was removed from the god and placed on the head
of David – David had essentially taken the place of the gods. And David could
do that because he knew that the God that he served was the only real god – and
all of the stone statues of this world would someday fall down before the God
of Israel. David was able to replace the false god because he was in
relationship with the real God.
For the
Christian, we also known this incredible truth. God is not ignorant of what it
is like to live on this planet as a human. God sent his son to us, not to live
in a palace, but to live in every way as we live – facing the same problems and
temptations that we face. We serve a god who has walked with us, and still
holds the key to the situations that we face every day.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1
Chronicles 21
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