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- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
1 Chron. 7-8
I truly don’t get the organization and purpose of these genealogies. The descendants of Dan and Zebulon aren’t mentioned at all. Naphtali gets a one-liner – four sons credited as Bilhah’s, who was Rachel’s handmaid. Judah and Benjamin, however are listed twice with different names each time. My guess is that one of the lists is of actual sons while the other is of prominent descendants. Outside of that, any rhyme or reason in these listings is lost on me. Perhaps the Chronicler was simply gathering all the information he could find in one place and this is what he came up with. In that case, it seems Dan, Zebulon, and Naphtali had limited to no records available. And I’d say Judah and Benjamin had a lot more detail in their records due to the relative stability of the nation of Judah compared with that of Israel.
Since I’m dwelling on questions and speculations at the moment, let me add one more thing. I’m guessing most of these lists have to do with prominent descendants from each tribe. Thus, they list heads of clans and other leaders. That makes me think that the occasional daughters mentioned in the lists must have also been leaders after some fashion. 1 Chronicles 7:24 supports this thought. “His daughter was Sheerah, who built Lower and Upper Beth-horon and Uzzen-sheerah”.
1 Chron. 9
These genealogical records are obviously not complete. That’s part of why I think the records primarily trace clan heads and other leaders. I noticed, though, that at least a couple of the tribes had full counts of the fighting men from some point prior to the exile. Those numbers were sizable.
When we get to chapter 9, however, the Chronicler shifts to post-exile records. Technically, these records involved only 5 tribes – Rachel’s two sons, Judah and Benjamin, Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, and the Levites. There are brief genealogies of a few of the returned exiles and a count of their associated relatives.
It occurred to me that this is the remnant. It is a mere fraction of the population prior to the execution of God’s wrath. That tells us something. It tells us, “How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.” (Matt. 7:14).
1 Chron. 10
1 Chronicles 10 is almost a verbatim copy of 1 Samuel 31. I think the only difference is that the Chronicler tacks a brief commentary on to the end of this historical record. He notes Saul’s unfaithfulness to God and his failure to seek God for guidance. Assuming he put these records together as part of a fresh start for the returning exiles, I’d say he wanted the people to take a good, hard look at what got them where they were. Ideally, remembering what went wrong before should halp prevent making the same wrong turn going forward. Stay faithful; seek God. It isn’t complicated. But it sure isn’t easy.