Ha! You only thought we were done reading lists of biblical names! 😉

I have again taken the liberty of making a small adjustment from the reading plan so I can group these 3 chapters of 1st Chronicles together and keep tomorrow’s post to just the psalms.

This week’s posts have been rather lengthy so I’m going to keep today’s brief.

I expect I’m not the only reader who was rather gob-smacked at the sheer size of this operation.

“Then David said, “From all the Levites, 24,000 will supervise the work at the Temple of the Lord. Another 6,000 will serve as officials and judges. Another 4,000 will work as gatekeepers, and 4,000 will praise the Lord with the musical instruments I have made.” ‭1 Chronicles‬ ‭23‬:‭4‬-‭5‬ ‭NLT‬‬

This is bigger than a mega-church.

There are 38,000 employees.

The congregation is the size of a small country.

Four THOUSAND people on the praise team.

🤯😵‍💫

Of course, they never all showed up at once. The priests were divided by lot into 24 teams called “courses.” Josephus explains that they worked in 8-day shifts from Sabbath to Sabbath. I suspect that each shift overlapped a bit with another and that they technically worked 7.5 days twice a year. The ancient Hebrew calendar had a year of 360 days (plus the 2 solstices and 2 equinoxes) and that maths neatly into 15 days for each group.

The priestly courses continued to (basically) function on this schedule right up until the Babylonian Captivity. When the second temple was built, they restarted the schedule and it continued (with a few historical interruptions) until that temple was destroyed in 70AD.

We even see it in the NT:

“One day Zechariah was serving God in the Temple, for his order was on duty that week.” Luke‬ ‭1‬:‭8‬ ‭NLT‬‬

David (and God) wanted things done in an organized way. The schedule was worked out and people assigned while the temple was being built so when it was finished, there was no delay. Everyone was ready and knew where to go and what to do.

The group I find most interesting of course is the music team. There were 288 leaders (trained and skillful musicians) who directed the 4000 mentioned above. The 288 were divided into 24 teams of 12 each. They probably followed the same serving schedule as the priests doing 2, 8-day shifts per year.

🤨 What did they do the rest of the time? Must be rough only working 2 weeks a year! Cushy government job.

I doubt they just sat around at the beach. I would guess that they spent the rest of their time…

• Developing their music skills, practicing, and teaching music lessons.
• Running other businesses.
• Growing and preserving food (this is still an agrarian society after all)
• Manufacturing and mending clothing, tools, and other domestic necessities.

Most music people I’ve ever worked with would probably quit the praise team if they were only put on the schedule 2 weeks out of the year. I don’t think these Levites took it personally or got their feelings hurt. The system for scheduling was such that it absolutely mitigated any favoritism or preference.

I’m sure you noticed how much confidence these people have in the casting of lots. They used this method to assign the Levites to serving teams.

Today we ask people to take a gifts assessment, a personality test, and fill out a ministry profile. Then we consider age, gender, marital status, background check, and availability and then work out teams like this…

In ancient Israel they just threw the dice. That’s so much easier.

🤨 Hold on… YOU don’t do math to put a team together. With your math skills? Ha! You’d probably end up with a puppy assigned to play the banjo. 🐶🪕

😑 Thanks. I’ll just move on. The point I was getting to was…

There was no competition on these teams. Or among them. There weren’t hotshot personalities or Divas. There couldn’t be – because none of them got to arrange things according to how it suited them.

“The musicians were appointed to their term of service by means of sacred lots, without regard to whether they were young or old, teacher or student.”
‭‭1 Chronicles‬ ‭25‬:‭8‬ ‭NLT‬‬

You would have a new kid next to a master. The young weren’t considered too inexperienced and the old weren’t considered – well… too old. They both had to acknowledge that it was by the will of the LORD that they were scheduled to work together.

If you serve on any kind of ministry team, that might be a good thing to remember.