1 Chronicles

In 2 Chronicles 11:13-17, the priests and Levites took their stand with Rehoboam because he was the lesser of two evils. Granted, he allowed them to worship the Lord, but in the end, he was just as spiritually bankrupt as his northern counterpart. The alliance was doomed from the start, and any such alliance we forge today is doomed, too.

The truth is that, if we fail in all our earthly plans and the whole world comes crashing down around us, we will succeed if we have carefully followed and obeyed God. Conversely, if we succeed in all our grand schemes but fail in faith and obedience, we will have truly failed indeed.

More specifically, when God revealed that David would not build the tabernacle, David did not throw a tantrum. He did not grumble about the lost opportunity to magnify the Lord. He did not rail against the glory that he would not receive among the nations. He did not take offense that his plan was rejected.

In this world, we have all sorts of relationships demanding our allegiance. Examples include family, community, nation, and political party. While it is absolutely admirable to be loyal to such things, our ultimate allegiance should be to doing the right thing.

It is curious that six of David’s mightiest men are related. It suggests that there was something about their families that made it more likely for them to become heroes, but what could that something be?

It is easy to overlook Sheerah. This is the only time she appears in the Bible, and we are given almost no information about her life. She appears as a side-note in the middle of a genealogical record where most generations are given no more than a namedrop. Yet, there are two things that I would point out.