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David Makes Arrangements for Temple Services
First Chronicles 23:1 to 26:32

David started making the arrangements for Temple services
several years before the end of his life.

At the end of David’s life, after he had already effectively turned the reins of government over to Solomon (First Chronicles 23:1), he undertook the task of organizing and ensuring the perpetuation of a religious structure. His concern for the worship of YHVH in the Temple went beyond the material preparations that he had made for the construction of the physical building (to see link click Ep – David Makes Preparations for the Temple). Of even more lasting significance were the arrangements that he made for the organization of its ministering personnel, the Levites. Guided by ADONAI through his prophets (Second Chronicles 29:25), the king exercised his administrative genius to establish a system of procedures that helped maintain legitimate worship under his successors, which also provided the operational framework for promoting the revival of Torah during the days of Ezra (see the commentary on Ezra-Nehemiah Ap – The Revival of Temple Worship), and that continued to meet the needs of the LORD’s worshiping community during Yeshua’s day (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Ak – The Birth of John the Baptist Foretold).

In the last year of his life, David took a census of the male Levites thirty years old or more and he found that they numbered 38,000 at that time. His fundamental idea was to divide the men of the tribe into four operational units (First Chronicles 23:4):

24,000 the work of the Temple (23:7 to 24:31),

4,000 choir and musicians (First Chronicles 25:1-31),

4,000 gatekeepers, treasurers and other officials (First Chronicles 26:1-28), and

6,000 officials and judges (First Chronicles 26:29-32).

The priests, the musicians, and doubtless the Temple Levites as well, were specifically assigned to twenty-four different divisions. These subdivisions provided a means for rotating them in the service of the LORD on a monthly basis.518