The King's Accountants: Dominion in the Details Text: 1 Chronicles 27:25-31
Introduction: The Sanctity of Spreadsheets
We live in a gnostic age. Our culture, and sadly, much of the modern church, has swallowed the lie that there is a great chasm between the "spiritual" world and the "material" world. The spiritual world is the world of prayer meetings, quiet times, and perhaps the occasional evangelistic crusade. The material world is the world of budgets, agriculture, human resources, and logistics. The first is considered the domain of piety; the second is, at best, a necessary evil, and at worst, a carnal distraction.
Into this dualistic confusion, the Word of God drops passages like 1 Chronicles 27. At first glance, this is the kind of text that causes the eyes of the modern reader to glaze over. It is a list of names and job titles. It feels like reading the administrative directory of an ancient government. There are no dramatic battles, no soaring psalms, no prophetic visions. And for that very reason, it is a profound theological statement. It is a declaration that God is intensely interested in the details of a well-run kingdom. He is the God of logistics. He cares about storehouses and vineyards, about cattle and camels, about who is managing what.
This passage is a mortal enemy to the kind of spirituality that wants to float three feet off the ground. It nails our feet to the soil of God's good earth and reminds us that the dominion mandate given to Adam was never rescinded. David's kingdom, a type and shadow of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus, was not an ethereal concept. It was a tangible, functioning, productive enterprise. It had wealth, it had assets, it had a complex economy, and it required skilled and faithful men to oversee it all. This list is not biblical filler; it is a snapshot of postmillennial optimism in action. It is what a nation looks like when it begins to understand that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. This is the theology of the spreadsheet, the sanctity of the inventory sheet, and the glory of a balanced budget. God is building His kingdom in the real world, with real stuff, and He calls His people to be faithful stewards of it all.
The Text
Now Azmaveth the son of Adiel was over the king’s storehouses. And Jonathan the son of Uzziah was over the storehouses in the country, in the cities, in the villages and in the towers. Ezri the son of Chelub was over the workers of the field who cultivated the soil. Shimei the Ramathite was over the vineyards; and Zabdi the Shiphmite was over the produce of the vineyards stored in the wine cellars. Baal-hanan the Gederite was over the olive and sycamore trees in the Shephelah; and Joash had charge of the stores of oil. Shitrai the Sharonite was over the cattle which were grazing in Sharon; and Shaphat the son of Adlai was over the cattle in the valleys. Obil the Ishmaelite was over the camels; and Jehdeiah the Meronothite was over the donkeys. Jaziz the Hagrite was over the flocks. All these were officials over the possessions which belonged to King David.
(1 Chronicles 27:25-31 LSB)
The Infrastructure of Blessing (v. 25-28)
The list begins not with the army or the priests, but with the nation's wealth and the sources of its production. This is foundational.
"Now Azmaveth the son of Adiel was over the king’s storehouses. And Jonathan the son of Uzziah was over the storehouses in the country, in the cities, in the villages and in the towers." (v. 25)
A godly kingdom is a prosperous kingdom, and prosperity requires careful management. Notice the distinction. There are central, royal storehouses, and then there is a distributed network of storage throughout the land. This is not a picture of a centralized, socialist bureaucracy hoarding all the grain. This is a picture of a wise government that understands supply chains and strategic reserves. This is prudence. This is foresight. It is the principle of Joseph in Egypt. A nation that honors God will be blessed by God, and that blessing includes material abundance. But abundance without stewardship is just a prelude to ruin. God blesses the work of our hands, and then He calls us to manage that blessing wisely, to save, to store, and to prepare for the future. Envy despises a full storehouse; wisdom builds one.
From storage, we move to production:
"Ezri the son of Chelub was over the workers of the field who cultivated the soil. Shimei the Ramathite was over the vineyards; and Zabdi the Shiphmite was over the produce of the vineyards stored in the wine cellars." (v. 26-27)
Here is the dignity of labor. Ezri is not a prince or a general; he is the secretary of agriculture. He oversees the foundational work of civilization: farming. Before you can have poets and priests, you must have plows and plowmen. This is not "unskilled labor." This is the essential craft of turning God's soil into God's provision. To despise the farmer is to despise your daily bread.
And then we have the vineyards. God's provision is not merely for sustenance but also for celebration. The Bible is not a book for teetotalers. Wine makes glad the heart of man (Psalm 104:15). A thriving kingdom is a joyful kingdom, a feasting kingdom. And this requires not just a man over the vines (Shimei) but another man over the finished product in the cellars (Zabdi). This is specialization. This is expertise. One man knows horticulture; another knows logistics and fermentation. This is the glory of a complex and productive society, where different men with different gifts work together under the king's authority.
The agricultural portfolio continues:
"Baal-hanan the Gederite was over the olive and sycamore trees in the Shephelah; and Joash had charge of the stores of oil." (v. 28)
Olive trees are a long-term investment. They take years to mature and become productive. A king who is planting and managing olive groves is a king who is building for his grandchildren. This is the opposite of the short-sighted, spend-it-all-now mentality of our modern secular states, which are content to rack up trillions in debt for our descendants to worry about. A godly ruler builds generational wealth. He plants trees whose shade he may never sit in. And again, we see the pattern: a man over the raw materials (Baal-hanan) and a man over the processed goods (Joash). From tree to table, everything is ordered and managed.
The Kingdom's Livestock (v. 29-31)
The Chronicler then moves from agriculture to animal husbandry, another key component of the national wealth.
"Shitrai the Sharonite was over the cattle which were grazing in Sharon; and Shaphat the son of Adlai was over the cattle in the valleys. Obil the Ishmaelite was over the camels; and Jehdeiah the Meronothite was over the donkeys. Jaziz the Hagrite was over the flocks." (v. 29-31)
This is not just a list of animals; it's a display of specialized dominion. Different animals require different environments and different kinds of care. So you have one expert for the cattle on the plains of Sharon and another for the cattle in the valleys. You have a camel expert, a donkey expert, and a sheep-and-goat expert. Godly dominion requires knowledge, skill, and attention to detail.
But look at the names. Obil is an Ishmaelite. Jaziz is a Hagrite. These are not Israelites. They are descendants of Ishmael and Hagar. David, the king of Israel, was not interested in their ethnicity; he was interested in their competence. He found the best camel man and the best shepherd he could, and he put them to work. This is a true meritocracy. In the kingdom of God, faithfulness and skill are the currency of advancement. David was building a thriving, multi-ethnic administration, not based on some modern, godless diversity quota, but on the practical wisdom of putting the right man in the right job, regardless of his background. He was taking the skills found among the nations and consecrating them to the service of Jehovah and His anointed king.
The passage concludes with a summary statement:
"All these were officials over the possessions which belonged to King David." (v. 31)
This is the key. All this wealth, all this productivity, was not for the personal enrichment of these officials. They were stewards. The possessions belonged to the king. They were managing the king's assets on the king's behalf. And David himself understood that the possessions ultimately belonged to God. This is the biblical model of stewardship. God owns everything. He delegates authority and responsibility to His anointed king, and the king, in turn, delegates that authority to faithful and competent men under him. This is sphere sovereignty in practice. It is a beautiful hierarchy of responsibility, from God down to the man watching the donkeys.
Stewards of the True King
This entire chapter is more than just a historical record of David's cabinet. David's kingdom was a type, a foreshadowing, of the kingdom of his greatest Son, Jesus Christ. If David's earthly kingdom required such detailed administration, how much more the cosmic kingdom of our Lord?
Jesus Christ is the true King who owns all things. "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me," He said (Matthew 28:18). He is the one to whom all the storehouses, all the fields, all the vineyards, and all the cattle on a thousand hills truly belong. And He, like David, has appointed officials to oversee His possessions. That is us. That is the Church.
You are an official over the possessions of King Jesus. Your home, your bank account, your business, your job, your skills, your children, your time, these are not ultimately your own. They are the King's property, and you have been appointed as a steward. The question this text forces upon us is simple: Are we being faithful? Are we managing the King's assets with wisdom, diligence, and foresight?
Some of you have been appointed by God to be an "Ezri," to work with your hands, cultivating the soil in your particular vocation. Do you do it with excellence, for the glory of the King? Some of you are a "Zabdi," managing the finished product, whether in logistics, or sales, or administration. Do you see your work as sacred, as an essential part of the King's business? Some of you are an "Obil the Ishmaelite," possessing a particular, perhaps unusual, skill set. Are you putting that skill to work for the advancement of Christ's kingdom, or are you squandering it?
This passage dignifies the mundane. It tells the farmer, the rancher, the warehouse manager, the vintner, and the accountant that their work is kingdom work. Building a successful business, running an orderly home, planting a garden, balancing a budget, these are not distractions from our spiritual life. When done in faith, they are the very substance of our spiritual life. They are how we exercise dominion. They are how we build a civilization that honors the King of kings.
Let us therefore repent of our gnostic dualism. Let us see that Christ's lordship extends to the wine cellars and the cattle pens. And let us get to work, each in our appointed station, as faithful officials over the possessions of our great King, so that when He returns, He may find us diligently managing His affairs, and say to us, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master."