For Teaching

1 Chronicles 16: What the Passage Says

112 claims across 43 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 1 Chronicles 16 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

David's men bring the ark of God into the tent he has prepared for it, and burnt offerings and peace offerings are presented there. David blesses the people, gives food to every man and woman, and appoints Levites to serve before the ark with music and thanks. Most of the chapter is the song of thanksgiving David hands to Asaph and his fellow singers, which calls Israel to remember God's covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and calls all the earth to praise the LORD. The chapter closes by listing who stays with the ark in Jerusalem and who serves at the tabernacle in Gibeon, and then everyone goes home.

Claim by Claim

16:1
- They brought the ark of God.
- They set the ark inside the tent that David had pitched for it.
- They offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before God.
16:2
- David finished offering the burnt offering and the peace offerings.
- David blessed the people in the name of the LORD.
16:3
- David distributed food to every one of Israel, both man and woman.
- Each person received a loaf of bread.
- Each person received a portion whose nature is uncertain, either a cut of meat or a date cake.
- Each person received a raisin cake.
16:4
- David appointed some of the Levites to minister before the ark of the LORD.
- They were appointed to invoke and commemorate the LORD.
- They were appointed to give thanks to the LORD.
- They were appointed to praise the LORD, the God of Israel.
16:5
- Asaph was the chief.
- Zechariah was second to Asaph.
- The others were Jeiel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Mattithiah, Eliab, Benaiah, Obed-edom, and Jeiel.
- They played harps and lyres.
- Asaph sounded the cymbals.
16:6
- Benaiah and Jahaziel were priests.
- Benaiah and Jahaziel blew trumpets continually before the ark of the covenant of God.
16:7
- On that day David first appointed thanksgiving to the LORD.
- David committed this song of thanks to the hand of Asaph and his brothers.
16:8
- Give thanks to the LORD.
- Call upon his name.
- Make known his deeds among the peoples.
16:9
- Sing to him.
- Sing praises to him.
- Speak of all his wondrous works.
16:10
- Glory in his holy name.
- Let the heart of those who seek the LORD rejoice.
16:11
- Seek the LORD and his strength.
- Seek his face continually.
16:12
- Remember the wondrous works he has done.
- Remember his wonders.
- Remember the judgments of his mouth.
16:13
- Those addressed are the seed of Israel his servant.
- Those addressed are the sons of Jacob, his chosen ones.
16:14
- He is the LORD our God.
- His judgments are in all the earth.
16:15
- Remember his covenant forever.
- He commanded his word to a thousand generations.
16:16
- The LORD made this covenant with Abraham.
- The LORD swore this oath to Isaac.
16:17
- The LORD confirmed it to Jacob as a statute.
- The LORD confirmed it to Israel as an everlasting covenant.
16:18
- The LORD said he would give the land of Canaan to them.
- The land of Canaan is the measured portion of their inheritance.
16:19
- They were few in number.
- They were very few.
- They were strangers in the land.
16:20
- They wandered from nation to nation.
- They wandered from one kingdom to another people.
16:21
- He allowed no man to oppress them.
- He rebuked kings on their account.
16:22
- He said not to touch his anointed ones.
- He said to do his prophets no harm.
16:23
- All the earth is to sing to the LORD.
- Proclaim his salvation from day to day.
16:24
- Declare his glory among the nations.
- Declare his wondrous works among all the peoples.
16:25
- The LORD is great.
- The LORD is greatly to be praised.
- He is to be feared above all gods.
16:26
- All the gods of the peoples are worthless idols.
- The LORD made the heavens.
16:27
- Splendor and majesty are before him.
- Strength and gladness are in his place.
16:28
- Families of the peoples are to ascribe to the LORD.
- Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
16:29
- Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name.
- Bring an offering and come before him.
- Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.
16:30
- All the earth is to tremble before him.
- The world is firmly established.
- The world will not be moved.
16:31
- Let the heavens be glad.
- Let the earth rejoice.
- Let them say among the nations that the LORD reigns.
16:32
- Let the sea roar, and all that fills it.
- Let the field exult, and everything in it.
16:33
- Then the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the LORD.
- He is coming to judge the earth.
16:34
- Give thanks to the LORD.
- He is good.
- His steadfast love endures forever.
16:35
- Say: Save us, O God of our salvation.
- Gather us and deliver us from the nations.
- The purpose is to give thanks to your holy name.
- The purpose is to glory in your praise.
16:36
- Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.
- All the people said Amen.
- All the people praised the LORD.
16:37
- He left Asaph and his brothers there before the ark of the covenant of the LORD.
- They were to minister before the ark continually.
- They were to do so according to each day's requirement.
16:38
- Obed-edom and their brothers numbered sixty-eight.
- Obed-edom was the son of Jeduthun.
- Obed-edom and Hosah were to be gatekeepers.
16:39
- Zadok the priest and his brothers the priests were left before the tabernacle of the LORD.
- The tabernacle was at the high place in Gibeon.
16:40
- They were to offer burnt offerings to the LORD on the altar of burnt offering continually, morning and evening.
- They were to act according to all that is written in the law of the LORD.
- The LORD commanded that law concerning Israel.
16:41
- With them were Heman and Jeduthun and the rest of those chosen.
- Those chosen were designated by name.
- They were to give thanks to the LORD.
- His steadfast love endures forever.
16:42
- With them Heman and Jeduthun had trumpets and cymbals for those who sounded them.
- They had instruments for the song of God.
- The sons of Jeduthun were at the gate.
16:43
- All the people departed, each to his house.
- David returned to bless his household.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

16:1: The ark of God was a gold-covered wooden chest holding the stone tablets of the covenant; it was treated as the place where God's presence met Israel, and it was normally kept behind a curtain in a tent shrine. There was no temple yet, so David had set up a new tent for it in Jerusalem. A burnt offering was an animal killed and burned whole on the altar, given entirely to God. A peace offering (sometimes called a fellowship offering) was burned only in part; the rest was eaten as a shared meal by the worshipers, so it went with celebrations.
16:2: Blessing the people "in the name of the LORD" means speaking a set form of words over them asking God's favor, a formal, public act, usually done by priests.
16:3: The three items are less certain than they look. The Hebrew word behind "a portion of meat" occurs only here and in the parallel passage, and translators have guessed at a cut of meat, a date cake, or simply a measured portion; the KJV's "flagon of wine" is another such guess. A raisin cake was pressed dried grapes, a compact festival food.
16:4: The Levites were members of the tribe of Levi, set apart for work at the sanctuary. Those who were not descended from Aaron could not serve as priests at the altar, so they did the supporting work: music, guarding the gates, and caring for the equipment. The KJV's "to record" translates a Hebrew verb meaning to bring to mind or to invoke, here a technical term for a kind of public praise that keeps God's deeds in the nation's memory.
16:5: The two instruments are the nevel and the kinnor, both stringed and both plucked; the exact difference between them is unknown, so translations vary between "lyre" and "harp." Cymbals were large bronze plates used to mark the beat. Note that Jeiel appears twice in this list; the Hebrew text as it stands names ten men with one name repeated, and it is unclear whether this is two different men or a copying slip.
16:6: "The ark of the covenant" is the same chest as in verse 1, named for the covenant tablets kept inside it. The trumpets here are the straight silver trumpets blown only by priests, used for signals and ceremony, not the curved ram's horn.
16:7: The song that follows in verses 8–36 is made up of material found elsewhere in the book of Psalms: verses 8–22 match Psalm 105:1–15, verses 23–33 match Psalm 96, and verses 34–36 match Psalm 106:1 and 47–48. The Chronicler presents it as the piece David handed over to the temple singers.
16:10: "Glory ye in his holy name" uses glory as a verb, meaning to boast about something or make it the thing you are proud of.
16:11: "Seek his face" is court language: to seek someone's face is to seek an audience with them, to come into their presence, as a subject would with a king.
16:12: "The judgments of his mouth" means the legal rulings and sentences God has spoken out loud, not disasters he has sent.
16:13: Israel and Jacob are the same man under two names, so both halves of the line address the same people: his descendants. The wording here differs slightly from Psalm 105:6, which reads "Abraham his servant."
16:15: A covenant was a formal binding agreement, close to a treaty, spelling out promises and obligations and sealed by an oath. Ancient treaties were often between a ruler and a subject people; this one is presented as God's sworn commitment to a family and its descendants.
16:16: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are three generations of one family (grandfather, son, grandson), so the point is that the same promise was renewed to each of them in turn.
16:18: Canaan is the older name for the territory later known as Israel. "The share you inherit" translates a term for a permanent family landholding, the sort passed from parent to child and not meant to be sold off; the land was later divided among the tribes by casting lots.
16:19: "Foreigners" here means resident aliens, people living in a country long-term without owning land there or holding the rights of native families, and so dependent on local goodwill for protection.
16:21: "He suffered no man to do them wrong" means he allowed no one to. In the KJV, suffer almost always means permit. "Reproved" means rebuked or warned sharply.
16:22: To anoint someone was to pour olive oil on their head as a public sign that they had been marked out for a particular role, most often king or priest. Here the word is applied to the wandering ancestors of Israel, who held no such office, the sense is simply that God had claimed them as his own.
16:23: Salvation means being rescued or kept safe.
16:24: The KJV's "heathen" and "nations" translate a single Hebrew word meaning the other peoples of the world, those who are not Israel. It is a plain word for foreign nations and does not carry the contempt that "heathen" has picked up in English.
16:25: "Feared" in this older English sense means held in awe and treated with reverence, not frightened of.
16:26: The Hebrew word for "idols" here is a mocking one: it means worthless things or nothings, and it deliberately echoes the ordinary word for gods. An idol was a carved or cast image of a god, treated as the place where that god was present.
16:27: "In his place" means in his sanctuary, the dwelling where he is worshiped. "Honour" here carries the sense of majesty, the weight and impressiveness of a king.
16:28: "Kindreds of the people" means the families and clans of the nations. "Give unto the LORD glory and strength" does not mean handing God something he lacks; the Hebrew verb means to credit or acknowledge, to state publicly that glory and strength belong to him.
16:29: "Bring an offering" uses the word for a gift or tribute of the kind a subject brings to a ruler. "The beauty of holiness" is genuinely ambiguous in the Hebrew: it can mean the splendor of God's holy dwelling, or holy attire, the special garments worn for worship. Translators have gone both ways for centuries.
16:30: "That it be not moved" pictures the earth as a building set on foundations that cannot be shaken loose. The point is stability, not that the earth never moves.
16:31: "The LORD is king" is an acclamation, the shout raised when a new king takes the throne, the crowd announcing publicly who now rules.
16:33: In Hebrew, to judge the earth means to rule it and set it right, settling disputes and ending injustice. That is why the forest is described as cheering rather than dreading his arrival.
16:34: The word behind "faithful love" is hesed, which has no single English equivalent. It means loyal, committed kindness of the sort owed within a lasting relationship, mercy, but mercy that keeps its word. Older Bibles render it "mercy," "lovingkindness" or "steadfast love."
16:35: This line asks to be gathered and rescued from among the nations, which assumes Israelites scattered abroad. It is taken from Psalm 106:47, and it fits the situation of readers long after David's time rather than David's own day.
16:36: "Amen" is a Hebrew word meaning something like "it is firm" or "truly." Said by a crowd at the end of a prayer or blessing, it is how the people signed on to what had just been spoken.
16:38: Gatekeepers guarded the entrances to the sanctuary, controlling who and what could come in, a role that mattered because access to a holy place was strictly limited. The verse is awkward in Hebrew: Obed-edom is named twice, and it is unclear whether one man or two men of the same name are meant.
16:39: The tabernacle was the portable tent-sanctuary made in Moses's time, distinct from the new tent David had just pitched in Jerusalem. A high place was an open-air worship site, usually on raised ground with an altar. Gibeon lay about six miles northwest of Jerusalem, so at this point Israel had two working centers of worship: the ark in Jerusalem, the old tabernacle and its altar at Gibeon.
16:40: This is the standing daily sacrifice, one lamb burned in the morning and one in the evening, laid down in the law of Moses. "Without fail" translates a word meaning continually, on an unbroken schedule.
16:41: Heman and Jeduthun led choirs, the way Asaph did. Some psalms in the Bible still list their names at the top.
16:42: "Instruments for the songs of God" means instruments reserved for sacred music rather than ordinary entertainment.
16:43: To bless his household means to speak a formal blessing over his own family, the same kind of act David performed for the whole people in verse 2.

Read 1 Chronicles 16