2 Chronicles 8:12

2 Chronicles THE DUTY OF EVERY DAY2 Chronicles 8:12 - 2 Chronicles 8:13 . This is a description of the elaborate provision, in accordance with the commandment of Moses, which Solomon made for the worship in his new Temple. The writer is enlarging on the precise accordance of the ritual with the regulations laid down in the law. He expresses, by the phrase which we have taken as our text, not only the accordance of the worship with the commandment, but its unbroken continuity, and also the variety in it, according to the regulations for different days. For the verse runs on, ‘on the Sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts, three times in the year, even in the Feast of unleavened bread, and in the Feast of weeks, and in the Feast of Tabernacles.’ There were, then, these characteristics in the ritual of Solomon’s Temple, precise compliance with the Divine commandment, unbroken continuity, and beautiful flexibility and variety of method. But passing altogether from the original application of the words, I venture to do now what I very seldom do, and that is, to take this verse as a kind of motto. ‘Even according as the duty of every day required’; the phrase may suggest three thoughts: that each day has its own work, its own worship, and its own supplies, ‘even as the duty of every day required.’ Each day has its own work.

Of course there is a great uniformity in our lives, and many of us who are set down to one continuous occupation can tell twelve months before what, in all probability, we shall be doing at each hour of each day in the week. But for all that, there is a certain individual physiognomy about each new day as it comes to us; and the oldest, most habitual, and therefore in some degree easiest and least stimulating, work has its own special characteristics as it comes again to us day by day for the hundredth time. So there are three pieces of practical wisdom that I would suggest, and one is-be content to take your work in little bits as it comes. There is a great deal of practical wisdom in taking short views of things, for although we have often to look ahead, yet it is better on the whole that a man should, as far as he can, confine his anticipations to the day that is passing, and leave the day that is coming to look after itself. Take short views and be content to let each day prescribe its tasks, and you have gone a long way to make all your days quiet and peaceful. For it is far more the anticipation of difficulties than the realisation of them that wears and wearies us. If a man says to himself, ‘This sorrow that I am carrying, or this work that I have to do, is going to last for many days to come,’ his heart will fail.

12–16 (cp. 1 Kings 9:25 ). Solomon’s arrangements for the Temple Worship This paragraph is in the main an expansion of 1 Kings 9:25 . 12 . on the altar of the Lord, which he had built before the porch ] This refers to the great brasen altar of burnt-offering ( 2 Chronicles 4:1 ). In 1 Kin. the statement is that Solomon burnt incense upon the altar that was before the Lord (referring to the altar of incense; cp. Exodus 30:1-10 ). Such an act, according to the Chronicler, was of the nature of trespass, being punished in the case of Uzziah with leprosy ( 2 Chronicles 26:16 ), and was therefore not to be attributed to such a king as Solomon.