1 Ch. 27: Who's In Charge?

1 Chronicles 27:23 "David did not take the number of the men twenty years old or less, because the LORD had promised to make Israel as numerous as the stars in the sky."

This chapter lists all the stuff David put people in charge of. First we have the divisions of the army. How many? Guess. No peeking. Oh yeah. 11. No. Wait. 1, 2, 3...12. 12 Divisions of 24,000 men. 12 months. And the system they had for figuring these divisions was that each serviceman would serve one month at a time. Each monthly division had its own line of command, as expected.

Month 1 - Jashobeam son of Zabdiel

Month 2 - Dodai the Ahohite

Month 3 - Benaiah son of Jehoiada

Month 4 - Asahel (brother of Joab), the runner guy.

Month 5 - Shamhuth the Izrahite

Month 6 - Ikkesh the Tekoite

Month 7 - Helez the Pelonite

Month 8 - Sibbecai the Hushathite

Month 9 - Abiezer the Anathothite

Month 10 - Maharai the Netophathite

Month 11 - Benaiah the Pirathonite

Month 12 - Heldai the Netophathite

Neat huh?

Each of the 12 tribes had their own "officer." I don't know if that means military officer (with the context, that sounds right) or representative...senator...I don't know for sure.

The number of the people, as ordered by David, led to the problems described in 2 Samuel 24, where God was upset at the counting. Later on in 1 Chronicles, it talks about how Joab's heart wasn't in it, and he didn't even finish the counting. He knew it was a bad idea.

Then its interesting that God had David put overseers over just about everything from the fields, to the fig and sycamore trees to the storehouses to the king's own sons. Everything had a person in charge of it to make sure things were going well, and to be an extension of the king. It's delegation.