Bible Commentaries
1 Chronicles 23

Verses 1-22

XXIV

THE ARMY; CIVIL ORGANIZATION; INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE; RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION

1 Chronicles 23:1-29:22

The scriptural materials for the life of David present him as a great poet, and we are accustomed to think of him in the light of his poetry, particularly of his elegies and psalms. We think of him as a great warrior from his youth up in the successful campaigns he waged in pushing out the boundaries of the kingdom until they fulfilled the promise to Abraham. Then we think of him as a legislator, as he devised many useful laws, but we seldom give him due credit for his organizing power. A great writer has said that what Alfred the Great did for England, and what Napoleon did for France, David did for his kingdom in the way of organization. I will take up the items of this organization and give you a clear conception of it.

I. The army.

His army roll showed 288,000 men. It would have been a great burden to a small kingdom like this to keep up a standing army of 288,000 men; so he divided his army into twelve great corps. Only one corps would serve a month; in the course of the entire year the 288,000 men would have served each one of them one month. In that way the spirit of military drill and organization was kept up. In case of war he could call out the whole 288,000 and have a vast army of drilled men. So his army organization, we will say, consisted of 288,000 men, twelve army corps of 24,000 each, each corps serving one month in the year, coming on in succession. Each corps was subdivided into, say, twenty-four regiments of 1,000 men each, and each regiment into ten companies of 100 men each, something like the "century" of the Roman Legion, a centurion commanding 100 men. These were the subdivisions of the main army. There was a bodyguard always kept near the king’s person. I do not recall that anywhere the number of this bodyguard is given. Sometimes they are called "Cherethites" and "Pelethites." Whatever their name, it was a permanent bodyguard of which Benaiah was the commander.

Then there was an order of men sometimes compared to the knighthood, the 600; the original organization of this 600 was in the Cave of Adullam, when David was an outlaw, and it was perpetuated all through his life. This 600, every one a hero and champion, was divided into two bands of 300 each. These bands were divided into companies of 100 each, and the one hundreds were divided into twenties. The six captains over the hundreds and the chief captain over all make the famous seven. The captains over the twenties make the famous thirty. Every man of this band of 600 was an experienced warrior and had signalized himself on many eventful occasions, and every one of the thirty and every one of the seven, that is, the thirty-seven officers, were especially famous.

Let us see if we have this army organization clear: 288,000 divided into twelve corps of 24,000 each; each corps commanded by its own general, with Joab as general-in-chief; each 24,000 serving one month and no more unless there was a war. In addition to that, a bodyguard, the famous 600; the three captains of the first 300 were the most worthy; the three captains of the other 300 were somewhat less worthy. Each 100 was divided into twenties; the captains over the twenties make the thirty worthies; then the six captains over the one hundreds, and a chief captain of the 600 make the thirty-seven worthies. That is David’s military organization.

II. The civil organization.

The civil organization was based upon the law of Moses. Each tribe was governed by its prince, and by a graded system of subordinate judges, chiefs of thousands, chiefs of hundreds, chiefs of fifties, and chiefs of tens, and the ordinary affairs pertaining only to the tribes were attended to by these men. That wag derived from the Mosaic administration, but in David’s time we come to quite a different need, the matters relating to God and his kingdom. For this work David appointed 6,000 Levites as judges and he distributed them over the whole territory. They represented the national affairs only.

These 6,000 Levites had the following functions:

1. They were what we would call "federal judges" – judges over matters that pertained to the general government.

2. Sanitary officers.

3. They were charged with education. There never was such a spirit of general education as grew up in this organization of David. First of all, there were the schools of the prophets. They were kept up and had been ever since Samuel’s time. In these schools of the prophets they studied the whole law of God, and particularly music, vocal and instrumental. They also studied everything that related to the prophetic office. That was the curriculum of the schools of the prophets, and that was where David got his education. These 6,000 Levites, each one in his own section, had charge of the educational work, and the result was that when Solomon came to the throne you find him the most thoroughly educated man since the days of Moses. Dr. Taylor, in his King of Israel, well says:

The preeminence attained by Solomon in all the branches of education is, to my mind, an evidence of the advanced condition of the nation generally in this department; since, unless a good foundation of elementary knowledge had been imparted to the youth of the land as a whole, it is hardly possible to account for the appearance of such a man as Solomon in that age. No doubt he was endowed with preternatural wisdom; but this, as is usual in the economy of Providence, would be engrafted upon a high degree of ordinary culture; and the question forces itself upon the historical student, "Who were his tutors, and who taught them?" You do not find the loftiest mountains rising isolatedly from some great plain. The highest mountains are never solitary peaks. They belong usually to some great chain, and are merely the loftiest elevations in a country the general character of which is mountainous; and in the same way the greatest scholars appear, not among ignorant people, but among those who have a high average of education, and in countries where a good substratum of instruction is enjoyed by the common average of the community. The historian, Froude, has put this thought admirably when he says, "No great general ever arose out of a nation of cowards; no great statesman or philosopher out of a nation of fools; no great artist out of a nation of materialists; no great dramatists, except when the drama was the passion of the people. Greatness is never more than the highest degree of an excellence which prevails around it, and forms the environment in which it grows." Now if these views be correct, the rise of Solomon, who was so conspicuous for his intellectual culture and scientific attainments, may be regarded as a proof that in the reign of David, and more particularly, perhaps, in the zenith of his administration, education was extensively diffused, and earnestly fostered by him among the tribes.

When we come to study Solomon, in his time, we will find a reference to the wise men of the day. These were the men who grew out of David’s educational system. Solomon is but the product of the educational department set us by David. Let us now see what we have learned about these Levites:

1. They were federal judges, passing sentence on all matters pertaining to the nation at large.

2. They were sanitary men, looking after all matters pertaining to the health of the people.

3. They were educational men.

4. They were the stewards of what is called the "royal property." We would call it now, in our government, "revenue." By a single paragraph we are told of David’s overseers of the treasure houses of the tribes, of the vineyards, of the orchards, pastures, etc., so that there must have been what in England would be called "crown-lands," land that belonged to the general government. In every tribe and in every important place you would see a treasure house.

Let us see what that treasure house was for. The system of worship provided for a central place of worship, and for the support of those who conducted matters at the central place of worship there was a tithe in cattle, grain, vineyards, etc., so you see that it would be necessary to have storehouses all over the nation where these tithes could be gathered up. It took a very consummate organization to put all these matters in such working order that there could be no deficiency in the royal treasury from any part of the land, nothing deficient in sanitary conditions. Nothing anywhere escaped the Argus eyes of the judicial system of government. Moreover, David developed commerce.

III. An international commerce.

This was a tremendous item in the contribution to the wealth of the nation. The kingdom produced more than it could use in the way of clothes, and it was necessary to export surplus products and to bring in things that could not be produced at home. You can imagine the continuous stream of caravans from Damascus to Egypt and from Tyre to Arabia, across the country. It would be necessary to carry to foreign countries various kinds of produce in exchange for the things brought to David from them. In Solomon’s time you will see an enlargement of this commerce. He not only reached the Atlantic Ocean, as in David’s time, through the fleets of Tyre, but China and India by means of the fleet at Eziongeber on the Gulf of Akabah. David would want cedars from Lebanon, and would want to employ skilled artisans and architects. David was a great builder. He built a fine palace for himself, and he built many fine buildings in Jerusalem. In paying for these artisans, architects, and materials from foreign countries he would use the surplus products of his own kingdom, carrying from Judah to Tyre by caravan, to Damascus by caravan, to Egypt, to Arabia. This necessitated treasure-houses and storehouses, and David had them by his system of organization.

IV. The religious organization.

The religious organization surpassed anything that this world has ever known. At no time in the history of the world, in any nation, was there ever such a perfect organization of religious service. After David was made king of all Israel at Hebron, where he had been reigning over Judah seven years, he captured Jerusalem and made that the central place of worship, and there the great feasts were celebrated. He is going to have a system of worship that will not only impress the minds of his own people, but all people who come in touch with them, so that in the days of the captivity the Babylonians would say, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion," and they would reply, "How can we sing the songs of Zion in a strange land?" and would hang their harps on the willow trees.

There were 38,000 Levites over thirty years of age in this religious organization, 6,000 of whom were set apart for judges, sanitary officers, and educators, leaving 32,000 for the Temple service. These 32,000 men were divided as follows: 24,000 into twenty-four courses of 1,000 each, set apart to minister at the sanctuary; in other words to be servants of the priests for anything the priests would want done; 4,000 set apart as porters; and 4,000 as singers. The priests, that is, the sons of Aaron, were classified into twenty-four courses. This classification continued until the New Testament time. Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, belonged to the course of Abia, and when it came his turn to go and act as priest in the Temple, it was determined by lot, and the lot fell upon him to offer incense as priest. The priests were divided into twenty-four courses, and the singers divided. There were twenty-four bands of these singers, not all present at one time, but all could be grouped at national festivals, when the Passover came, or Feast of Tabernacles, or Pentecost, or the great day of Atonement; then the entire 4,000 singers would be there with their various instruments of music; the cymbal band, the psaltery band, the harp band, the trumpet band, Alamoth, or female choir, Sheminith, or male choir – everybody in that 4,000 would understand just what services were requisite on his part, and just when. One twenty-fourth of the time he had to be there, and on all national occasions he had to be there. Offerings take into consideration the sabbatic cycle, which consisted of the weekly sabbath, every seventh day; the new-moon sabbath, every lunar month; the annual sabbaths, the Passover, Tabernacle, and Pentecost festivals; the land sabbath, all of every seventh year; the jubilee sabbath, every fiftieth year, each and all with its appropriate and imposing ritual, you get some idea of David’s religious system.

When we come to study the book of Psalms, one of the most attractive books in the whole Bible, we will there find that the service of the second temple was based upon David’s plan, and led to our present arrangement of the Psalms. No writer has yet, with sufficient vividness, described the worship at Jerusalem in the Old Testament times. Rev. J. H. Ingraham, the Episcopalian, who committed suicide, attempted to describe it in letters that a daughter of an Egyptian Jew wrote to her father about how the Temple service impressed her in the time of Christ. These letters are found in his Prince of the House of David.

That was the religious organization. One living in any part of the country, from Hamath on the northwest to the Euphrates on the northeast, to Edom on the southeast, to Philistia on the southwest, and a case coming up, there was an appropriate officer to whom his case would be referred; everything was arranged for – judicial, executive, and legislative. Some things were attended to in the national convention. This occurred when the great festivals brought the people together in the grand convocation, or when something of special importance was to be done with reference to succession, as we saw when David called the whole nation to accept his son Solomon as king.

QUESTIONS

1. In what spheres was David great?

2. Describe his army organization: (1) How many enrolled? (2) How divided, and why? (3) What the subdivisions?

3. Describe David’s body-guard. Who the commander?

4. Describe the organization of his famous 600; (1) Its divisions; (9) Its subdivisions; (3) Who the famous thirty-seven?

5. Describe the civil organization: (1) What part derived from the Mosaic administration? (2) What additions in David’s time? (3) What the functions of the 6,000 Levites? (4) What proof of the diffusion of education by David? (5) What was the treasure-house?

6. Describe his system of international commerce: (1) Its necessity; (2) How carried on? .

7. Describe his religious organization: (1) How does it compare with the other religious organizations of the world? (2) How many and who constituted it? (3) Its divisions and subdivisions? (4) Its relation to the book of the Psalms?