1 Chronicles 29:10

DAVID'S BLESSING OF JEHOVAH BEFORE THE PEOPLE

"Wherefore David blessed Jehovah before all the assembly; and David said, Blessed be thou, O Jehovah, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Thine, O Jehovah, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Jehovah, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come of thee, and thou rulest over all; and in thy hand is power and might; and in thy hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as all our fathers were: our days on earth are as a shadow, and there is no abiding. O Jehovah our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee a house for thy holy name cometh of thy hand, and is all thine own. I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of my heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now I have seen with joy thy people, that are present here, offer willingly unto thee. O Jehovah, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this forever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee; and give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart, to keep thy commandments, thy testimonies, and thy statutes, and to do all these things, and to build the palace, for which I have made provision."

"The palace" (1 Chronicles 29:1,19). Only in these two verses is this term applied to the temple. "It is the Hebrew form of a Persian word used generally to designate the residence of the Persian monarch, as in Esther 1:2,5; 2:3,8; Nehemiah 1:1; and in Daniel 8:2."[2]

"David blessed Jehovah" (1 Chronicles 29:10). We normally think of God's blessing men, not the other way around; but we learn from 1 Chronicles 29:20, below, that when David commanded the people to "Bless Jehovah," they did so by worshipping God and offering sacrifices, all of this being exactly what David did here. Thus we conclude that those who truly worship God indeed do "bless God."

Dentan said of this paragraph, "It is an excellent illustration of the Chronicler's high conception of God, and of man's proper relation to him."[3] This is a fair example of the views of critical scholars who deny the authenticity of Chronicles, treating it as an invention of the Chronicler, and not as a record of events that really happened. We believe that David spoke the words which the writer of Chronicles attributed to him, there being no good reason whatever for denying them to David.

As we have frequently noted, the real reason behind the rejection, by some writers, of Chronicles is the effective denial it provides for the radical critics' late-dating of the Pentateuch.

Chronicles is not a fabrication. "A fabrication would have fitted more neatly (with few variations). The differences found in Chronicles are due to the independence of traditions (authorities); and recent archaeological finds further authenticate this."[4]