The main thread throughout the story seems to be that humans decide that they know better than God and constantly want to do their own thing, yet God continues to pursue them in his grace and also work miracles to their advantage, even though, sooner rather than later (should that be never?), his people will forget what he has done for them. Isn't God amazing to put up with people like us? His grace is fantastic.
I also love how the authors, with the benefit of hindsight, include such wonderful asides which need no explanation because the comment says it all. Take for example 2 Chronicles 8:11:
Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter up from the City of David to the palace he had built for her, for he said, “My wife must not live in the palace of David king of Israel, because the places the ark of the LORD has entered are holy.”My question is: If Solomon married a woman who would 'defile' the holy places, why did he marry her in the first place? There was no real reason for the writer of 2 Chronicles to include this, but it's comments like this one which help piece together a bigger picture of what might have gone wrong for Solomon. The same goes for the comments about the relative time frames for building the temple (7 years) and his house (13 years).
My point is, sometimes we read bits in the bible which seem random, out of place and irrelevant, but this should be a signal for us to look a little deeper and maybe read between the lines to see why such a comment was inspired by God to be included in his book.
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