Sunday,  June 1st
Reading for today:   1st Chronicles 23-25

Yes....I read every name.   Most of them didn't catch my eye at all.   Here are men who are leading the country, and have the respect and perhaps the admiration of a nation around them...and their names don't even look familiar.   I think it's the 103 Psalm that reflects on this, saying "the life of life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like the flowers of the field, the wind blows over them and their place remembers them no more".    I noticed something else that I stored away...   David assigned the Levites jobs.  24k to supervise, 6k as judges, etc., 4k as gatekeepers and 4k as musicians.    Who did the actual work?    It must have been the rest of the people.   It wasn't the job of the Levite to do everything apparently.  Why would you need 24, supervisors?   Wow.  That seems like a lot to me.   They must have been supervising all of Israel.   There's no way that 2/3rds of the people would supervise the other 1/3.

I was wondering about why they would cast lots for jos, and something I read in the margin gave me the idea that they were casting lots for "on duty" time.   If it was impartial, no one could pick the best time of year (when they weren't planting, etc.).   The levites had their own fields, and their own homes to manage.  If you were on duty during the planing season, that would make it hard.   Casting lots allowed it to be fair.

That probably answers part of the first question as well.   Not all 4,000 people guarded the gates at the same time, nor did all 4,000 play music, or supervise, etc.   They took turns.   That's a novel idea.   I think they were still doing this in early New Testament times in the local synagogue.   Each family had a turn at reading the Scripture for the day, and the schedule was planned out in advance...so was the passage.
Here's something incredible from Luke 4:21.  Jesus, following the reading/family plan laid out in advance reads a passage prophesying about himself, and then sits down and says "today this passage has been fulfilled in your hearing".   Boom.

That doesn't have much to do with 1 Chronicles, but it's still cool.