1 Chronicles 22:8

_BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME TO ME, SAYING, THOU HAST SHED BLOOD ABUNDANTLY, AND HAST MADE GREAT WARS: THOU SHALT NOT BUILD AN HOUSE UNTO MY NAME, BECAUSE THOU HAST SHED MUCH BLOOD UPON THE EARTH IN MY SIGHT._ Thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood. An innate feeling of propriety dictates the purification of the worshipper from all defilement when about to engage in the solemn rites of religion. Above all, persons polluted with blood were prohibited even among the pagan, of which many instances are found in the works of classical writers, (see Homer, 'Iliad,' 6:, 335; Euripides, 'Iphigesia, in Tauris,' 5:, 380; Vigil, 'AEneid,' 6:) The same cause prevented the acceptance of the Jews in their sacred services (Isaiah 1:15), and operated as a disqualification to David's building the temple....

6-16 David gives Solomon the reason why he should build the temple. Because God named him. Nothing is more powerful to engage us in any service for God, than to know that we are appointed thereto. Because he would have leisure and opportunity to do it. He should have peace and quietness. Where God gives rest, he expects work. Because God had promised to establish his kingdom. God's gracious promises should quicken and strengthen our religious service. David delivered to Solomon an account of the vast preparations he had made for this building; not from pride and vain-glory, but to encourage Solomon to engage cheerfully in the great work. He must not think, by building the temple, to purchase a dispensation to sin; on the contrary, his doing that would not be accepted, if he did not take heed to fulfil the statutes of the Lord. In our spiritual work, as well as in our spiritual warfare, w...

Verse 1 Chronicles 22:8. _THOU HAST SHED BLOOD ABUNDANTLY_] Heathens, Jews, and Christians, have all agreed that _soldiers_ of any kind should have nothing to do with Divine offices. Shedding of human blood but ill comports with the benevolence of God or the spirit of the Gospel. _AEneas_, overpowered by his enemies, while fighting for his parents, his family, and his country, finding farther resistance hopeless, endeavours to carry off his aged father, his wife, young son, and his _household gods_; but as he was just come from slaughter, he would not even _handle_ these objects of superstition, but confided them to his father, whom he took on his shoulders, and carried out of the burning of Troy. _Tu, genitor, cape_ sacra _manu_, patriosque penates:...

THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME TO ME ... - Not by Nathan 1 Chronicles 17:4, but on some other occasion 1 Chronicles 28:3. On the bloody character of David’s wars, see 2 Samuel 8:2, 2 Samuel 8:5; 2Sa 10:18; 2 Samuel 12:31; and 1 Kings 11:16....

EXPOSITION From the commencement of this chapter to the close of the First Book of the Chronicles we again travel alone, and, with the exception of parallel passages of a merely ordinary character, have no longer the assistance of comparing different descriptions of the same stretches of history. The present chapter relates David's interested and zealous preparations for the building of the temple (1 Chronicles 22:1); his exhortations and solemn charge to his son and successor (1 Chronicles 22:6); and afterwards his injunctions to the "princes of Israel" (1 Chronicles 22:17-13) to help Solomon....

BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME TO ME,.... The word of prophecy, as the Targum, by the mouth of Nathan the prophet: SAYING; as follows, which though not expressed in the book of Samuel before referred to, is here recorded by divine inspiration: THOU HAST SHED BLOOD ABUNDANTLY; Kimchi thinks this refers to the blood of Uriah, and those gallant men that were slain with him, and to the priests slain by the order of Saul, which David was the occasion of, or accidental cause of, 1 Samuel 22:22 and to many good men among the Gentiles; though it was the intention of the Lord to consume the wicked among them, that they might not prevail over Israel: AND HAST MADE GREAT WARS: with the Philistines, Moabites, c. THOU SHALL NOT BUILD AN HOUSE UNTO MY NAME, BECAUSE THOU HAST SHED MUCH BLOOD UPON THE EARTH IN MY SIGHT an inti

1 Chronicles 22:1 _Then David said, This is the house of the LORD God, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel._ Now he knew where the temple was to be built; and of a certainty he had discovered that long-predestined site of which God said, «Here will I dwell.» This was the very hill whereon Abraham offered up his son Isaac; a hill, therefore, most sacred by covenant to the living God. He delighted to remember the believing obedience of his servant Abraham, and there he would have his temple built. 1 Chronicles 22:2. _And David commanded to gather together the strangers that were in the land of Israel; and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God._ Observe here a very gracious eye to us who are Gentiles. The tem

IV. PREPARATIONS FOR THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE 1. The Preparations and Charge to Solomon CHAPTER 22 _ 1. The material (1 Chronicles 22:1)_ 2. The charge to Solomon (1 Chronicles 22:6) 3. The charge to the princes (1 Chronicles 22:17) God had accepted the sacrifice. The judgment had passed. Prayer had been answered and David, therefore, could truthfully say “this is the house of the LORD God, and this is the altar of the burnt-offering for Israel.” The place had therefore been pointed out on which the temple was to be reared. And from now on up to the twenty-eighth verse of chapter 26 all concerns the house which is to be built. The temple is

1 CHRONICLES 22:2 TO 1 CHRONICLES 29:30. The whole of this section is the work of the Chronicler, though it is probable that he utilised some earlier sources in compiling it; a good deal of OT material is woven into it, but it has no parallel in earlier books, as in the case of the Chapter s so far considered. 1 CHRONICLES 22:2. DAVID'S PREPARATION FOR THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE. This is an imaginative elaboration of 2 Samuel 7:1; 2 Samuel 7:13....

SAYING. See 1 Chronicles 17. 1Ch 28:3. 2 Samuel 7:13....