Forever! and other Falsehoods

I Chronicles.17.12

Amichai Lau-Lavie (he/him)

Jun 22, 2025

Wars begin with words before we lift up weapons.

Today, wherever and however we are, a war is our world’s reality and there is much we do not know. What can the ancient words teach us about making sense of what is going on and how to be more calm, more present?

Sometimes these words, these wars, however harmful, speak tough truth.

Sometimes the words are false accusations but the weapons are too painfully real.

And it often begins with slogans, big ideas reduced to headlines.

And slogans are powerful even if they are often false, or just too hollow.

Politicians lie, and so do other so-called solid foundations of society from marketing ads to faith leaders.

We often learn how to navigate and read through slogans - campaign promises + other public lies but how can we live with broken myths and the shattering of what were once the promises we were told would last forever?

We all face the fragile mortality, our own death and that of our loved ones, loss and sudden tragic shifts, instability and changing realities that pull the rug from under the feet of the familiar, for whatever reason.

Nations also go through eras and epic changes that challenge the collective storylines and demand new ways to remain relevant, to reinvent purpose, to somehow hold on to hope and endurance.

In many places in the world right now - we’re feeling it. This war began with words and now we’re at a loss for words though all around us slogans are already in full force along with weapons.

Wartime is often when big promises and ideas that don’t always conform to reality but portray some bigger dream are evoked.

Some slogans offer helpful navigation, aspirational north stars. Some are sketchy propaganda about some illustrious past and future that skims the truth.

It’s important to discern between them.

Take for instance the big promise of ‘forever’ in today’s chapter. The Hebrew word ‘L’olam’ is repeated 8 times in this chapter as a divine promise that the Royal House of David will endure for eternity.

Really?

By the time the authors of Chronicles wrote these words, likely during the later Persian era, they knew it was not reflecting reality. There were no kings in Israel anymore - for hundreds of years. The Persian Empire was not about to change this policy and neither would the Greeks. The House of David was history.

So what’s the purpose of this pompous promise? Wishful thinking? False hopes? Who was it intended for and why?

A closer reading may suggest that they were making a clever claim in an attempt to both repeat old tropes and reimagine their better future.

Today’s chapter repeats a dialogue between King David and Nathan the Prophet, as well as a divine dream that interrupts their prior plans. It’s very similar to what we read in the Book of Samuel’s version, but with a few interesting omissions and changes.

The story narrates what happened when King David announced that he felt shame for sitting in a palace while their God was still dwelling in a modest mobile tent. Nathan initially supports the kings’ decision to build a temple, but then God interrupts his sleep with a dream.

The next day, the prophet tells the king that there’s a change of plans. It won’t be David who will get to build this temple - but his heir - no names are mentioned here. It’s both bad and good news for the king -- along with the denial of his own right to be the builder he does get a big promise of perpetual reign:

ה֥וּא יִבְנֶה־לִּ֖י בָּ֑יִת וְכֹנַנְתִּ֥י אֶת־כִּסְא֖וֹ עַד־עוֹלָֽם׃

He shall build a house for Me, and I will establish his throne forever.

I Chronicles.17.12

The ‘he’ in this verse refers to David’s son - in later versions it will be Solomon. This is just one of the differences between the two versions, giving us an insight into the authorial agenda, what they made of their history - and why ‘forever’ feels so fragile to us but was so important for them.

Chronicles erases David’s flaws from 2 Samuel and adds important layers: He is the king who organized the Levites and the priestly systems, securing provisions, preparing temple rites. David morphs from flawed king to faithful founder, even if he won’t be the one to build the temple.

The Chronicler crafts the promise of forever—not as a historical claim, but as aspirational maneuver. Something will, and must remain.

“forever” in this case can justify a regime without power—Temple over throne, cult over crown. It’s an idea that is meant to hang on to the promise of a people rooted to their story, legacy, land and law - and hope that one day the davidic line will reign again.

This is the seed of the still-surviving messianic dream.

My late teacher Neil Gillman reframed such rhetoric as myth—not as fables, but as narrative bridges:

“…to say that a theological claim is a myth is not synonymous with saying that it is a fiction… Myths are the connective tissues that knit together the data of experience.”

This makes sense when we think of how this book attempted to give its readers something to hold on to, a promise of pride. Prof. Sarah Japhet’s wrote that:

“Chronicles is a comprehensive expression of the perpetual need to renew... it strengthens the bond between past and present and proclaims the continuity of Israel’s faith and history.”

But how do we hang on to broken myths? What hope remains when even the promises feel hollow, and just can’t hold up? We often make up stories about golden chapters of that made-up past when everything was great and will return.

It’s likely that the Chronicles, favoring the Davidic lineage and legacy, insist on forever because that is their only plausible trope, their go-to slogan. Facts are often ignored by what faith imagines the past and future to hold.

Without a king and palace - they still have a high priest and temple - and by insisting that it was David’s idea and project - they make the temple into the continuation of his forever legacy. IThis was one way that helped them reshape identity under occupation, centered around a ritual center that outlasts political collapse, and lives on in their collective imagination.

Although this defiant ‘forever’ does feel like false we can also read it, as Japhet and Gilman suggest, as a creative response to rupture and exile. Broken myths become bridges we build when memory fractures. Somehow they lead to the next level of hope.

What’s also interesting to remember here, and so important these troubled days, is that Chronicles frames peace as a precondition for building a holy temple—something a warrior-king like David cannot embody.

In the next chapters we will read of his many blood soaked victories in the local and not so local battlefields.

There’s also something honest here in admitting that the same man whose hands spilled the blood that built a nation will not be the same one to build the sacred center.

In the flawed forever of this story -- at least the dream of peace as rock bottom ground and north star aspiration - remains a solid constant still guiding our way.

Forever might begin today. May peace prevail.

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Below the Bible Belt

Forever! and other Falsehoods

I Chronicles.17.12

Wars begin with words before we lift up weapons.

Today, wherever and however we are, a war is our world’s reality and there is much we do not know. What can the ancient words teach us about making sense of what is going on and how to be more calm, more present?

Sometimes these words, these wars, however harmful, speak tough truth.

Sometimes the words are false accusations but the weapons are too painfully real.

And it often begins with slogans, big ideas reduced to headlines.

And slogans are powerful even if they are often false, or just too hollow.

Politicians lie, and so do other so-called solid foundations of society from marketing ads to faith leaders.

We often learn how to navigate and read through slogans - campaign promises + other public lies but how can we live with broken myths and the shattering of what were once the promises we were told would last forever?

We all face the fragile mortality, our own death and that of our loved ones, loss and sudden tragic shifts, instability and changing realities that pull the rug from under the feet of the familiar, for whatever reason.

Nations also go through eras and epic changes that challenge the collective storylines and demand new ways to remain relevant, to reinvent purpose, to somehow hold on to hope and endurance.

In many places in the world right now - we’re feeling it. This war began with words and now we’re at a loss for words though all around us slogans are already in full force along with weapons.

Wartime is often when big promises and ideas that don’t always conform to reality but portray some bigger dream are evoked.

Some slogans offer helpful navigation, aspirational north stars. Some are sketchy propaganda about some illustrious past and future that skims the truth.

It’s important to discern between them.

Take for instance the big promise of ‘forever’ in today’s chapter. The Hebrew word ‘L’olam’ is repeated 8 times in this chapter as a divine promise that the Royal House of David will endure for eternity.

Really?

So what’s the purpose of this pompous promise? Wishful thinking? False hopes? Who was it intended for and why?

A closer reading may suggest that they were making a clever claim in an attempt to both repeat old tropes and reimagine their better future.

Today’s chapter repeats a dialogue between King David and Nathan the Prophet, as well as a divine dream that interrupts their prior plans. It’s very similar to what we read in the Book of Samuel’s version, but with a few interesting omissions and changes.

The story narrates what happened when King David announced that he felt shame for sitting in a palace while their God was still dwelling in a modest mobile tent. Nathan initially supports the kings’ decision to build a temple, but then God interrupts his sleep with a dream.

ה֥וּא יִבְנֶה־לִּ֖י בָּ֑יִת וְכֹנַנְתִּ֥י אֶת־כִּסְא֖וֹ עַד־עוֹלָֽם׃

He shall build a house for Me, and I will establish his throne forever.

I Chronicles.17.12

Chronicles erases David’s flaws from 2 Samuel and adds important layers: He is the king who organized the Levites and the priestly systems, securing provisions, preparing temple rites. David morphs from flawed king to faithful founder, even if he won’t be the one to build the temple.

The Chronicler crafts the promise of forever—not as a historical claim, but as aspirational maneuver. Something will, and must remain.

“forever” in this case can justify a regime without power—Temple over throne, cult over crown. It’s an idea that is meant to hang on to the promise of a people rooted to their story, legacy, land and law - and hope that one day the davidic line will reign again.

This is the seed of the still-surviving messianic dream.

My late teacher Neil Gillman reframed such rhetoric as myth—not as fables, but as narrative bridges:

“…to say that a theological claim is a myth is not synonymous with saying that it is a fiction… Myths are the connective tissues that knit together the data of experience.”

This makes sense when we think of how this book attempted to give its readers something to hold on to, a promise of pride. Prof. Sarah Japhet’s wrote that:

“Chronicles is a comprehensive expression of the perpetual need to renew... it strengthens the bond between past and present and proclaims the continuity of Israel’s faith and history.”

But how do we hang on to broken myths? What hope remains when even the promises feel hollow, and just can’t hold up? We often make up stories about golden chapters of that made-up past when everything was great and will return.

It’s likely that the Chronicles, favoring the Davidic lineage and legacy, insist on forever because that is their only plausible trope, their go-to slogan. Facts are often ignored by what faith imagines the past and future to hold.

Although this defiant ‘forever’ does feel like false we can also read it, as Japhet and Gilman suggest, as a creative response to rupture and exile. Broken myths become bridges we build when memory fractures. Somehow they lead to the next level of hope.

What’s also interesting to remember here, and so important these troubled days, is that Chronicles frames peace as a precondition for building a holy temple—something a warrior-king like David cannot embody.

In the next chapters we will read of his many blood soaked victories in the local and not so local battlefields.

There’s also something honest here in admitting that the same man whose hands spilled the blood that built a nation will not be the same one to build the sacred center.

In the flawed forever of this story -- at least the dream of peace as rock bottom ground and north star aspiration - remains a solid constant still guiding our way.

Forever might begin today. May peace prevail.

Discussion about this post

Chronicles erases David’s flaws from 2 Samuel and adds important layers: He is the king who organized the Levites and the priestly systems, securing provisions, preparing temple rites. David morphs from flawed king to faithful founder, even if he won’t be the one to build the temple.