Digging Deeper Daily: By Daily Bible Reading PodcastSample

2CHRONICLES 26-27:
King Joash didn’t end so well, did he?! He ordered the murder of Jehoiadah’s son Zechariah. Time and time again Judah’s kings needed to learn not to be proud, and that certainly happened to Joash’s son Amaziah, who was assassinated like his father.

Jesus mentioned a Zechariah in Matthew 23 who was “murdered between the temple and the altar.” I previously was mistaken in saying in the intro to 2Chronicles 26 that Joash murdered the son of Jehoida. The Zechariah that Joash murdered was the son of Jehoida, but the one Jesus mentioned is Zechariah “the son of Berekiah, the grandson of Iddo,” who was the prophet who wrote the book of Zechariah. (Zech. 1:1) So evidently two men named Zechariah were killed in the temple about 300 years apart. Incidentally, the name Zechariah means ‘Yahweh has remembered’.

ECCLESIASTES 3:
Chapter 2 ended with a significant conclusion or two:

Ecc. 2:24 NLT So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God.
25 For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him?
26 God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to those who please him. But if a sinner becomes wealthy, God takes the wealth away and gives it to those who please him. This, too, is meaningless—like chasing the wind.

MATTHEW 16:24—17:
Yesterday we heard the words that remind me of Jim Elliot’s words. He was one of five martyrs who was killed when they were trying to make initial contact with the Waodani tribe. Jim Elliot wrote in one of his notebooks, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” We’ll start by re-reading those words of Jesus at the end of chapter 16, so that we get a good transition to chapter 17.