Matthew 23:23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”

Men can dedicate their whole lives to God but still find it difficult to be right.

Numbers 11:16-17 English Standard Version

16 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. 17 And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone.

This was the foundational principle for the Sanhedrin.

Numbers 11:24-25 English Standard Version

24 So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. And he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. 25 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it.

What did they stop? Obviously the Sanhedrin of Jesus’ time did not have the Spirit resting upon them. Let us continue to see what had happened.

Numbers 11:26-29 English Standard Version

26 Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. 27 And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” 28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” 29 But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”

And here we are today, thanks be unto our Lord Jesus Christ, fulfilling Moses’ word.

Historically it appears the tradition that began with Moses choosing the 70 was heavily influenced by the conqueror Alexander the Great and the practices of the Greek Senate.

Perhaps that is where things went wrong.

1 Chronicles 17:2 And Nathan said to David, “Do all that is in your heart, for God is with you.”

Perhaps King David was not concerned with the security of the Ark. The scriptures do not tell us with any certainty what his thinking was at the time. Perhaps security was my concern and I am just projecting my own personal insecurity into the scriptures. What other issues might have been at play here.

I can see something in this opening verse that speaks to how a prophet needs to be careful in how he chooses his words. That verse can be read, “Do whatever you want. God will approve.”

Obviously not because the very next thing said to Nathan was that David was not to build a temple. David went ahead with his plan anyway and made preparations for Solomon to build the temple.

We will never know what would have happened if Nathan had rephrased his speech and said, “God is with you, ask Him what he wants.” Rather than keeping to our hearts desires, maybe it would be best to ask God what He wants.

Now we are getting into murky territory and just providing our own opinions, insecurities and wants in place of what might really have been going on in David’s heart.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Too bad that verse wasn’t available to David at the time, but he knew his heart needed testing.

Psalm 26:2 Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind.

Those were David’s own words. Perhaps what David wanted wasn’t evil, just unnecessary. Perhaps it was something he didn’t quite understand about the significance of the Ark.

Exodus 25 English Standard Version

17 “You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. 21 And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. 22 There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

Without a proper understanding of the mercy seat, perhaps David felt like God would not speak to his people Israel if they did not have this artifact. Is it possible David allowed the Ark to become a worship idol? Men’s hearts do that, don’t they? Or am I once again projecting my own troubled thoughts? We do that, don’t we? The Word has a way of exposing us.