Read the Bible with Me!

Welcome to the Pauline Family's "Year of the Bible"! I'm reading the Bible clear through this year, and I invite you to read along with me. But first, let us pray: 

My God, I adore and thank your loving and wise Providence, manifested on every page of Sacred Scripture. You have always been close to sinful and erring humanity, and have indicated the way and given hope. Amid the shadows of error and corruption, you kindled the light of your truth; amid universal corruption, you are the Just One; amid so much idolatry, humanity in every corner of the earth has cultivated a sincere worship of you.
Let my reading today increase my trust in your goodness, your mercy, and your unfailing faithfulness.

Today's chapters are 1 Chronicles 8-10 and (for Lent) Psalm 65.

In the genealogy of tribe of Benjamin, we have a careful notation of the ancestry and descendants of King Saul. The tribe of Benjamin will be significant to the Chronicler because it became part of the southern kingdom. (It will be significant to Christians because it is the tribe St Paul traced his origins to! See Philippians 3:5.)

In Psalm 65, Pope John Paul highlights "one event: the Lord is also able to dominate and silence the tumult of the ocean waters, which in the Bible are the symbol of chaos, opposed to the order of creation (cf. Jb 38:8-11). This is a way of exalting the divine victory, not only over nothingness, but also over evil: this is why the 'tumult of the peoples' (cf. Ps 65:8), that is, the rebellion of the proud, is also associated with the motif of the 'roaring of the seas' and the 'roaring of their waves.' (Pope John Paul II, Psalms and Canticles: Meditations on the Psalms and Canticles of Morning Prayer, page 115).

Start reading 1 Chronicles here and Psalm 65 here.

If you are looking for a solid but approachable companion to the Bible, I can wholeheartedly recommend A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament by John Bergsma and Brant Pitre. Although the authors are top-level Scripture scholars, they write for "real" readers. Notes include recent findings from archaeology and ancient manuscripts, and how each book of the Bible has been understood by the Church Fathers and used in Liturgy.