Day 175 (2 Chronicles 10-12) - Year 8

Tara-Leigh Cobble· Host0:00

[upbeat music] Hey, Bible readers. I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today we covered a lot of the same territory as yesterday, but Chronicles did provide us a few new details, so I'm going to focus mainly on those. During the time of the divided kingdom, the 10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom reject the Levites as priests. So not only do the Levites get fired from their jobs, but they're also evicted from their homes. So all the Levites leave the tribal lands they've been appointed to serve, and they move to Judah in the Southern Kingdom. These priests have served under the relatively good leadership of David and Solomon, and that sticks with them for a while. They have set their hearts to seek God, and for three years they help keep the Southern Kingdom on the straight and narrow. But it eventually starts to fall apart, as we saw yesterday. It's unclear whether the hearts of the Levites also turn away from God, or whether King Reh just stops caring and disregards God's laws and purposes for the Levites. King Reh has a lot of wives and concubines, and as his family grows, he distributes his sons throughout the regions, making sure to provide for them and find them wives. They seem to serve sort of like governors in the region, helping to make sure his power and influence take root in every part of the Southern Kingdom. But as his power grows, his heart turns away from God. Weakness has a way of reminding us of our needs, whereas strength has a way of prompting us to lean into autonomy and foolish forgetfulness.