Wednesday Bible Study: Hit song

As far as I can tell, Chapter 16 has no real basis in Samuel.  I doubt that it ' s actually original, but the source material has been lost. This shows the Chronicler ' s usual obsession with lists of meaningless names, but the main act is a song. Now seems as good a time as any to mention that the Book of Psalms is traditionally attributed  to David, but that ' s nonsensical. It was compiled centuries after his death, if he ever existed. Presumably this song reflects theology at the time Chronicles was written, probably in the 4th Century BCE, in the Second Temple period. I ' ll just make a couple of points that I think are noteworthy. In the KJV, what appears here as a cake of raisins in Verse 3 is translated as a flagon of wine. I can ' t account for the discrepancy, but I will say that the Bible is generally in favor of drinking alcohol, which conflicts with much of modern Protestantism, so it ' s possible these translators of the New International Version favored the non-alcoholic version. The song seems ambivalent about polytheism. The Lord (I assume the text has Adonai rather than Yahweh) is " is to be feared above all gods, which seems to acknowledge that other gods exist, but "all the gods of the nations are idols,  but theLord made the heavens. " And then "28 Ascribe to theLord, all you families of nations,ascribe to theLord glory and strength. " The Israelites are God ' s chosen people, but this seems to call upon others to acknowledge...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs