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1 Chronicles 28 Bible study: If you seek him
In 28:9, "the LORD searches all hearts" and "If you seek him" are one Hebrew verb, darash: the LORD searches, and Solomon is to seek. And the throne Solomon is chosen for is called "the throne of the LORD’s kingdom" (28:5), words the WEB uses nowhere else.
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“You, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“In one chapter David warns Solomon, "if you forsake him", and tells him the LORD "will not fail you nor forsake you".”
Is that in 1 Chronicles 28, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
The throne of the LORD's kingdom
"David assembled all the princes of Israel" (28:1) to Jerusalem, stood up, and said, "Hear me, my brothers and my people!" (28:2). Then he traces a chain of choosing. "However the LORD, the God of Israel, chose me out of all the house of my father to be king over Israel forever. For he has chosen Judah to be prince; and in the house of Judah, the house of my father; and among the sons of my father he took pleasure in me to make me king over all Israel" (28:4). Then, "Of all my sons (for the LORD has given me many sons), he has chosen Solomon my son to sit on the throne of the LORD’s kingdom over Israel" (28:5). One Hebrew verb, bachar, carries the choosing five times in the chapter (tap chosen): David and Judah (28:4), then Solomon (28:5, 28:6, 28:10). And look whose throne it is. The WEB speaks of "the throne of the LORD’s kingdom" only here (28:5). In chapter 17 the LORD called the kingdom his own: "I will settle him in my house and in my kingdom forever" (17:14). At the end of the book, "Solomon sat on the throne of the LORD as king instead of David his father" (29:23).
Where it leads to Jesus
He who searches the minds and hearts
1 Chronicles 28:9leads toRevelation 2:23
"for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts" (28:9). In Revelation, the one who says, "I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever" (Revelation 1:18), speaks to the assembly in Thyatira as "The Son of God, who has his eyes like a flame of fire" (Revelation 2:18), and says, "all the assemblies will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts" (Revelation 2:23). Revelation doesn't cite 1 Chronicles 28, and no link between the Hebrew and Greek words is claimed, so setting the two side by side is a reading. Some see the Son of God saying of himself what David says of the LORD in 28:9. Others read each on its own terms: 28:9 is David's charge to Solomon, and Revelation 2:23 is a warning to one assembly, which goes on, "I will give to each one of you according to your deeds" (Revelation 2:23).
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Questions people ask about 1 Chronicles 28
That was a taste
The rest of 1 Chronicles 28 is waiting in Favor
- An if, and a word for strong
- The LORD searches, and Solomon seeks
- Plans in writing
- A house of rest, a footstool
- The pattern, from Moses to David
- Words first said to Joshua, again
- 9 questions as you read
- 10 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it
תַּבְנִיתtavnitsay tav-NEET
Brown-Driver-Briggs gives "construction, pattern, figure"; Strong's, "structure; by implication, a model, resemblance". It comes four times in the chapter, and these are its only uses in 1 Chronicles. Three times the WEB has plans: "the plans for the porch of the temple" (28:11), "the plans of all that he had by the Spirit" (28:12), and "the plans for the chariot, and the cherubim" (28:18). The fourth is "all the works of this pattern" (28:19). It is the word of the LORD's command to Moses: "the pattern of the tabernacle" (Exodus 25:9), and "See that you make them after their pattern, which has been shown to you on the mountain" (Exodus 25:40).
For your group
1 Chronicles 28 Bible study questions
- 1David told Solomon to serve God "with a perfect heart and with a willing mind" (28:9). What makes a willing mind hard for you, and what helps?
- 2"the LORD searches all hearts" (28:9). Is that a comfort to you, a worry, or both? Why?
- 3It was in David's heart to build, and God said no (28:2-3), yet David handed Solomon everything for the work (28:11-21). What could you prepare this year for someone else to carry on?
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home