1 Chronicles 24

1 Chronicles 24:1

DIVISION OF THE SONS OF AARONIn chapter 24, David gives the divisions of the sons of Aaron into orders to serve in the temple. Aaron’s sons were priests, and this record takes us back to the time they were in the wilderness. The tenth chapter of Leviticus records the sin of Nadab and Abihu and their resulting death.

1 Chronicles 24:3

This is a very highly organized procedure that David is putting into force. David not only bought the property where the temple is to stand, he gathered the building materials, and now he organizes the priests to serve. This is my reason for saying that the temple was David’s temple, not Solomon’s temple.

1 Chronicles 24:5

There were twenty-four orders. These sons were organized into orders. One group would come and do their work under the direction of one of the sons, then another group under the direction of another son would come and replace them. I think it must have been quite interesting to watch. Not long ago I had the privilege of watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace in London. What a ceremony, what a show that is! I have a suspicion that the kings of the past would be surprised to see how it is being done today, and I’m not sure they would be in favor of it. I think they really overdo the pageantry. However, I imagine that when the Levites changed shifts for temple service it was done with precision and order. The families of the Levites had grown so in number that it would be impossible for all of them to serve at once. As we have seen, from the time of Moses to the time of David, the Levites had increased from about eight thousand to thirty-eight thousand. For this reason David divided them into orders. In the next section, the sons of Kohath are divided, and following them, the sons of Merari were divided. David planned that each family would carry on the service of the temple.