Scripture Daily

Context No. 781 of 4322 · 1 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

1 Chronicles 9:17-27: in context

17The gatekeepers: Shallum, Akkub, Talmon, Ahiman, and their brothers (Shallum was the chief), 18who previously served in the king’s gate eastward. They were the gatekeepers for the camp of the children of Levi. 19Shallum was the son of Kore, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah, and his brothers, of his father’s house, the Korahites, were over the work of the service, keepers of the thresholds of the tent. Their fathers had been over the LORD’s camp, keepers of the entry. 20Phinehas the son of Eleazar was ruler over them in time past, and the LORD was with him. 21Zechariah the son of Meshelemiah was gatekeeper of the door of the Tent of Meeting. 22All these who were chosen to be gatekeepers in the thresholds were two hundred twelve. These were listed by genealogy in their villages, whom David and Samuel the seer ordained in their office of trust. 23So they and their children had the oversight of the gates of the LORD’s house, even the house of the tent, as guards. 24On the four sides were the gatekeepers, toward the east, west, north, and south. 25Their brothers, in their villages, were to come in every seven days from time to time to be with them, 26for the four chief gatekeepers, who were Levites, were in an office of trust, and were over the rooms and over the treasuries in God’s house. 27They stayed around God’s house, because that was their duty; and it was their duty to open it morning by morning.

Chronicles, which counts and names everyone, pauses over the temple gatekeepers, and takes them seriously. Shallum and his brothers, descendants of Korah, are the keepers of the thresholds, two hundred and twelve of them, stationed on all four sides of the house, east and west and north and south. Their relatives rotate in from the villages every seventh day. The chief four oversee the storerooms and the treasuries. And they lodge around the house of God, because, the passage says, it was their duty to open it morning by morning.

On paper it is a modest job: guard the doors, hold the keys, open up each day. But Chronicles will not let it read as menial. Twice it calls the gatekeepers' position an office of trust, and it notes that they were appointed to it by David the king and Samuel the seer themselves. The line descends from Korah, whose fathers once rebelled and were swallowed up, and here that same family is entrusted with the keys of God's house. Someone has to be there before dawn, faithful and dull and reliable, to unlock the doors so that everyone else can come in and worship. The Chronicler treats that daily, unglamorous faithfulness as an honor worth recording. A psalm would later say the same thing: better one day as a doorkeeper in the house of God than a thousand elsewhere.

Chronicles calls the humble job of unlocking the doors each morning an office of trust. What faithful, unglamorous role have I looked down on, when simply being reliable in it is its own kind of honor?

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