Category: Chronicles

The end of the genealogies! One of the main points of the genealogies in today’s reading is that temple worship was being restored after the Exile with great care for the choice of staff. God had designated the Levites as the only tribe to serve in the Tent of Meeting; there was no change of law when they moved worship from the Tent of Meeting to the Temple, so that practice continued until the entire nation was exiled from their land by the Babylonians (again, much later than David’s time). They understood when they returned from exile that re-establishing worship according to God’s design would require the service of the Levites. They were careful to ascertain that the Temple servants they employed were in fact qualified by their genealogy, as were those serving in the offices of priests and High Priest. This would have been very important to the recorders and first readers of these genealogies. It was because of their nation’s unfaithfulness that they had been punished with exile in the first place. Once removed from their land, they weren’t certain if they would ever be restored to it, if they would survive as a people, or if they would enjoy their special relationship with God again. When God gave them a second chance, they didn’t want to blow it by failing to observe all that God had commanded in the Law, just as their forefathers had been careful in Moses’s day.

The books of Chronicles relate the same history that the books of Samuel and Kings relate, but they are specific to the tribe of Judah. Some of the history is copied verbatim from Samuel and Kings, but some of the accounts are fleshed out. These books are some of the places in Scripture where people think they find contradictions in God’s word, but we must understand that Chronicles offers a closer view into the events. The effect is something like a close-up photo of a part of an object: the photo of the object as a whole and the photo of the part may not look like the same thing.

From the genealogies of the returning exiles, verse 9:35 zooms in on the tribe of Benjamin to focus on Saul’s genealogy – for the second time in this passage. Although the book of I Chronicles is all about David, his story starts with Saul, for the nation’s kingdom began with Saul. In case anyone wanted to claim that Saul’s heirs should have been the rightful kings, the writer was careful to cover that base and justify David’s becoming the second king of Israel. Saul had failed to keep the word of the Lord, and to even inquire of the Lord. David didn’t take the kingdom, but the Lord turned it over to him for good reason upon Saul’s death.

With all of this business taken care of, we are ready to resume the history of David’s reign over the nation of Israel. We intersperse the story with the psalms because this is the historical context of many of the psalms. David of course wrote many of the psalms, but many of the other psalms were either written in his day or in the context of the temple worship service he instituted for the nation. As a man after God’s own heart, meaningful worship of God was important to David; this became a passion of his life, as you will see, and he established practices for the temple worship. Since David was a musician, music was an important part of the temple worship he established. In his day the music program flourished, with psalmists like Asaph. You saw in the genealogies that the musicians were on duty night and day, and were so important that they lived in the rooms of the temple designed by David, and did no other work. Much of what David implemented became institutions of temple worship throughout the nation’s history up to the Exile, to be re-established by the returning exiles.

The genealogies in I Chronicles seem to go on forever; however, it should be obvious that they are far from complete. Likely they simply covered the names and relationships that were known to the returning exiles, which probably were the most notorious or most pertinent to the people who had returned and needed to establish their family relationships. Again, more time was spent in the tribe of Levi to establish who would serve where in the Temple, should they ever be fortunate enough to re-institute Temple worship. Possibly they were also establishing inheritance of the land to which they were returning. Remember how important that was to God?

Note that there wasn’t much to say about some of the tribes, and some of the tribes aren’t mentioned at all. That is because some tribes had no descendants returning from exile; they are considered lost tribes. Yesterday’s reading in Psalm 78 reminded us how many times God showed mercy to Israel, and how He was merciful despite their lack of sincerity toward Him. These genealogies show that there were limits to His mercy.

Some of the names of the men David put in charge of the music in the house of the Lord will be seen in the introductions to the psalms. Asaph is one. He was the worship leader’s right-hand man. The worship leader Asaph served was a grandson of the prophet Samuel. I like knowing these connections, as they make the reading seem more real. That is another reason to value these genealogies, tiresome as their reading may be.

The reminder about Reuben losing his birthright as the firstborn son is important because that explains why sometimes in poetry and prophecy Israel is referred to as Ephraim. The reason for that is the poet doesn’t always want to use the word “Israel”; that’s not very satisfying to the creative writer, to use the same word all the time. To enjoy some variety, Israel is sometimes referred to by the name of the firstborn son. Even though history says that was Reuben, Jacob removed that honor from him and gave it to Joseph. But also recall that at that same time Jacob decreed that Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh would be reckoned as his. This effectively gave Joseph double the honor normally given to a firstborn son! So that is the reason Israel is sometimes referred to as Ephraim. When you see it in poetry or prophecy, know that the name is referring to the nation of Israel and not just the tribe of Ephraim.

These chapters tell us that the expulsion of the land’s previous inhabitants continued well into the days of the kings; Hezekiah was a later king. Also note that some of the tribe of Simeon settled in land outside of what God had promised them, and they were missed when the other Israelites were forced into exile. They were still living there at the time these genealogies were written, upon the Jews’ return from exile. This is significant because it means that this tribe was not lost as some of the other tribes were after failing to return from exile. That is a word of hope!

What dull reading! Those names are impossible to follow, aren’t they? But each one represents a soul treasured by God. One day our names will be as meaningless to anyone who might read about us; but we will not be forgotten by the One who treasures each of us!

The books of I and II Chronicles were written in a time far distant from the beginning of the kingdom of Israel about which we are currently reading. They were written after the end of that kingdom, after Israel was destroyed as a nation and its people punished with exile. The Chronicles were written on the return of the exiles to their homeland.

The purpose of repeating these genealogies at the beginning of Chronicles was to establish and record the lineage of the families of God’s chosen people returning from exile. This would have been important to establish things like who should serve the nation as priests and Levites, as High Priest. They would also have been interested in who the rightful king should be, if they were ever fortunate enough to be an autonomous kingdom again. Where should that record start? Obviously, at the very beginning!

Imagine what happened to the records of the nation whose capital city was burned to the ground: its records would have been destroyed. That has important consequences for the One who has made a promise the fulfillment of which those records could prove, if they had only been preserved. We may not enjoy these genealogies, but they are reminders of God’s faithfulness to Adam and Eve and all their descendants to raise up a son of Eve to crush Satan’s head as He promised. They are reminders of God’s faithfulness to fulfill His promise to Abraham that through him all nations of the earth would be blessed. They are reminders of God’s faithfulness to His promise that David’s throne would be established forever. To a nation returning from exile following God’s punishment, uncertain whether there existed any longer a covenant relationship between them and God, these genealogies were precious. We will see them yet one more time in Scripture – in the New Testament, where they will remind us of all of these promises and God’s faithfulness to them. So even though we don’t enjoy them, we can rejoice in the reality they represent!

These genealogies are pretty quick reading for me.