Today’s Scripture Reading (September
30, 2013): 1 Chronicles 29
Heritage
means something to us. We are proud to be descended from someone important and
feel somehow ashamed to find those in our family tree that did not measure up.
It is not that their successes or failures are in any way ours, but we almost
automatically draw ourselves closer to our good ancestors and distance
ourselves from the bad. We even go as far as to try to draw character
similarities between us and people that we may be related to but we have never met.
The passage
of hereditary titles down a family line assumes something very similar. We
expect there to be a transference of character throughout the family line. It
is the idea behind the phrase that “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” It
is also the reason for the snobbish attitude of established families with “old
money.” It is not really the age of the money that is at issue; what is
important is the established character behind that money.
Solomon had
already proved himself to be of a similar character to David. It was the reason
why he was being confirmed for the second time as king (the first time was around
the time of the conspiracy by Solomon’s older half-brother – Adonijah – against
their father, David.) But Solomon was not the only person being confirmed in
this verse. In Jewish thought, the King was only half of the power structure of
the nation, and the one standing on the other side of that power structure was
the High Priest.
As the reign
of David drew to a close, the position of High Priest was shared between two
men – Abiathar and Zadok. But Abiathar chose to support Adonijah in his rebellion.
It was only Zadok that had the character to stick with David even during the
tough moments of the King’s reign. And David had the character to stick with
Zadok. As Solomon is confirmed as king, Zadok is confirmed as the High Priest.
And for the next few hundred years, the house of David and the House of Zadok
would walk hand in hand in the job of leading the nation.
But by the
time of Jesus, both houses had disappeared from the power structure of the
nation. Between the beginning of the reign of Herod and his family as Kings of
Israel (Herod was not a descendant of David – or even a member of any of the
tribes of Israel) and the destruction of temple, 28 different High Priests
served in the temple in Jerusalem, and all but two were from four power hungry
non-Zadokite families. The result was a nation that had long ago left the
ideals that had been raised up by David and Zadok.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2
Chronicles 1
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