Today’s Scripture Reading (September 13, 2019):
2 Chronicles 5
I
have a habit of misplacing things. An acquaintance of mine has the same habit,
except that he always seems to think that people are stealing from him. But I
know better. With me, I know that is me that is at fault. (I really suspect it
is the same with him, although I know I can’t convince him.) And even if people
are stealing from me, it is only because I am being careless with my things and
letting these unknown people take advantage of me. When I was a teen and still
living at home, a mother and her child came over for a visit. (Obviously, not
with me; the visit was with my mom). The child, who was less than three-years-old,
walked off with some of my money. I am sure that he had a video game that he
wanted to buy (again, sarcasm). So he took my money. His mom later found it and
forced him to come back with the money and apologize for taking it. My thought
at the time was that this kid has no idea what he stole and probably had no
idea why it was wrong. If he had taken a toy to play with, that might be one
thing. My grandkids kidnap toys from my house all the time only to be returned
later, but what is a three-year-old kid going to do with some paper that he has
no idea has any value whatsoever. Again, the fault wasn’t his; it was mine. He
said sorry, and I hugged him and said thank you, and just hoped the event
hadn’t scarred him for life. But, for me, what made matters worse was that I
knew that I was the one to blame. I am, and always have been, careless with my
stuff.
The
author of 2 Chronicles informs us that when the Ark of the Covenant was brought
into the Temple, all that was in it was the two stone tablets containing the
Ten Commandments that God had given to Moses. And while that was a pretty
impressive thing to have in the Ark, apparently the Ark was also missing some
stuff. The Ark was supposed to contain those two stone tablets, but it was also
supposed to hold a gold bowl containing some manna from the desert, and the
staff belonging to Aaron that had budded in the desert. Aaron’s staff and the
bowl of manna had mysteriously disappeared. And we don’t know where.
But
I have an idea. Israel had been careless with the Ark and, for a time, it was
in the possession of the Philistines. The Philistines didn’t know the story
behind any of the items. So the rocks with strange writing on them they left, but
the gold bowl with the chips in it, they took (and probably threw out the food
thinking it was stale. Gold was something they could use and a substance of
which they understood the value). The staff that had budded, well, that was
just a weird souvenir for someone’s kid.
But
the real reason why things were missing from the Ark was not that the
Philistines stole the sacred items, but rather that Israel had been careless
with the unique items that God had given to them, and Israel had lost something
that should have been of immense value to the nation.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Chronicles 6
See also 1 Kings 8:9
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