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1 Chronicles 29 · a question people ask

29:20 says the assembly bowed "before the LORD and the king". Did they worship David?

In the text

The verse says whom they blessed: "All the assembly blessed the LORD, the God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads and prostrated themselves before the LORD and the king" (29:20). The two Hebrew verbs for bowing here, qadad and shachah, are used elsewhere both before the LORD and before a king. Before the LORD: "The man bowed his head, and worshiped the LORD" (Genesis 24:26). Before a king: "Bathsheba bowed and showed respect to the king" (1 Kings 1:16), and David before Saul "bowed with his face to the earth, and showed respect" (1 Samuel 24:8). Each of these has the same two verbs. The chapter says the assembly blessed the LORD (29:20), and it doesn't say more about what the bowing to the king meant. This answer doesn't add to it.

The verses

“Then David said to all the assembly, “Now bless the LORD your God!” All the assembly blessed the LORD, the God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads and prostrated themselves before the LORD and the king.”
1 Chronicles 29:20 · World English Bible
“The man bowed his head, and worshiped the LORD.”
Genesis 24:26 · World English Bible
“Bathsheba bowed and showed respect to the king. The king said, “What would you like?””
1 Kings 1:16 · World English Bible
“David also arose afterward, and went out of the cave and cried after Saul, saying, “My lord the king!” When Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the earth, and showed respect.”
1 Samuel 24:8 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 1 Chronicles 29

1 Chronicles 29: All things come from you

Seven of the seventeen times the Hebrew Bible uses nadav, to offer willingly, are in this one chapter. David's own gold is a segullah, the word the LORD used for Israel as "my own possession" (Exodus 19:5). And the book that opened with "Adam, Seth, Enosh" (1:1) ends with a son of David on "the throne of the LORD" (29:23).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions