Study Desk

Lord, you indeed are God, and you have promised this good thing to your servant.

Be strong! Let’s prove ourselves strong for our people and for the cities of our God. May the Lord’s will be done.”

David said to God, “I have sinned greatly because I have done this thing. Now, please take away your servant’s guilt, for I’ve been very foolish.”

Then God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, but when the angel was about to destroy the city, the Lord looked, relented concerning the destruction, and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough, withdraw your hand now!” The angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

David said to God, “Wasn’t I the one who gave the order to count the people? I am the one who has sinned and acted very wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Lord my God, please let your hand be against me and against my father’s family, but don’t let the plague be against your people.”

but David could not go before it to inquire of God, because he was terrified of the sword of the Lord’s angel.

Then David said, “This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”

Then he summoned his son Solomon and charged him to build a house for the Lord God of Israel.

“My son,” David said to Solomon, “It was in my heart to build a house for the name of the Lord my God,

“Now, my son, may the Lord be with you, and may you succeed in building the house of the Lord your God, as he said about you.

Above all, may the Lord give you insight and understanding when he puts you in charge of Israel so that you may keep the law of the Lord your God.

“The Lord your God is with you, isn’t he? And hasn’t he given you rest on every side? For he has handed the land’s inhabitants over to me, and the land has been subdued before the Lord and his people.

Now determine in your mind and heart to seek the Lord your God. Get started building the Lord God’s sanctuary so that you may bring the ark of the Lord’s covenant and the holy articles of God to the temple that is to be built for the name of the Lord.”

As for Moses the man of God, his sons were named among the tribe of Levi.

For David said, “The Lord God of Israel has given rest to his people, and he has come to stay in Jerusalem forever.

They were assigned by lot, for there were officers of the sanctuary and officers of God among both Eleazar’s and Ithamar’s descendants.

These had their assigned duties for service when they entered the Lord’s temple, according to their regulations, which they received from their ancestor Aaron, as the Lord God of Israel had commanded him.

All these sons of Heman, the king’s seer, were given by the promises of God to exalt him, for God had given Heman fourteen sons and three daughters.

There were among Jerijah’s relatives 2,700 capable men who were family heads. King David appointed them over the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh as overseers in every matter relating to God and the king.

Then King David rose to his feet and said, “Listen to me, my brothers and my people. It was in my heart to build a house as a resting place for the ark of the Lord’s covenant and as a footstool for our God. I had made preparations to build,