It would make an interesting exercise to find out exactly how many
believers actually read the Chronicles genealogies every year. They
must be amongst the most difficult to get any practical lessons
from. And yet " whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience
and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope" (Rom. 15:4).
Any words inspired by God's Spirit must reveal His Spirit, His mind,
to us. As with all the Bible, these chapters seem to yield little
at first reading. Yet prayerful reading surely must open
them up to us. I have used my present Bible for the last 14 years,
and each year I've ploughed through 1 Chronicles 1-9, writing a
few comments in the margin each time. So here are my lessons from
Chronicles:
- Occasionally we learn background information which sheds new
light on the historical records. For example, David several times
laments the hardness of heart to be seen in " the sons of
Zeruiah" . I assumed that Zeruiah was a man- until considering
1 Chron.2:16, which says that Zeruiah was a sister of David. The
fact that the hardness of those three men seems to be associated
with their mother would lead us to conclude that David's sister
Zeruiah was an extremely hard woman. Inevitably there must have
been strands of hardness in David too (consider his treatment
of Uriah, his intended massacre of Nabal's encampment, torturing
the Ammonites etc.); and yet more often than not, we get the impression
that David was a real softy. His experience of life made him progressively
more soft, whilst his sister and nephews went the other way. Truly
could he comment towards the end of it all: " Thy gentleness
hath made me great" . By way of exhortation we need to soberly
consider the fact that we are either getting harder, or softer.
There is no in between status. The softness and gentleness of
the Lord Jesus, the great antitype of David, mixed as it was with
that firmness of resolve and purpose (remember how He steadfastly
set His face to go to Jerusalem!) is surely something to really
appreciate about Him, something to rise up to, to be truly inspired
by.
- Another example of this is the background to 'Gog' given in
1 Chron. 5- he was an apostate Jew who went away from the God
of Israel, attracted by the grazing grounds to the north east
of Israel, and who eventually ended up living permanently in the
land of Israel's enemies, the land of the Hagarenes (sons of Hagar,
i.e. the Arabs) and Assyria. The Gog of Ez. 38 may well be an
apostate Jew (after the pattern of Rabshakeh) who leads an invasion
of his ancient homeland. He attacks because he loves cattle (Ez.
38:11,12)- which was a characteristic of the Gog of 1 Chron. 5.
Is it significant that most Russian leaders have been Jews?
- The people recorded here lived many centuries ago. And
yet God has preserved His record of them for us to see in such
detail- surely proof enough that He is truly sensitive to each
one of His children, His memory does not become dimmed by time.
God's sensitivity to us is something to marvel at. When the Lord
Jesus died, amidst all the pain God felt, there were no flashing
lights up in the sky for people in say England or Russia or China.
People went on with their daily affairs, their petty arguments,
their petty excitements. And God's joy at His Son's glorious resurrection
was not directly reflected to this planet either. And this is
what deceives us all; God does not show His feelings, His sensitivity,
directly, and therefore we are tempted to think that our righteousness
does not really make His heart jump for joy; and to feel that
our secret failings really cause Him very little pain. It was
the mission of Israel's prophets, chapter after chapter, to show
God's people the error of this way of thinking.
- These records seem to stress the weakness and occasional strength
of these children of God. This is one of the major lessons from
Chronicles. Every now and then, the list of names is interrupted
by a piece of information which indicates God's awareness of their
spirituality. For example, the fact some men had more than one
wife or a wife from a nation other than Israel is often recorded
(1 Chron. 1:32; 2:3,26,35,48; 4:18; 5:1; 7:14; 8:8). The way these
interruptions occur in the lists of names stands out. This is
surely to indicate two things: that many faithful men (e.g. Abraham
and Caleb, 1 Chron. 1:32; 2:46) made mistakes in this area of
life, and secondly that all down the centuries God has not forgotten
that they married out of the faith, or that they allowed the pressures
of their surrounding world to influence them to break away from
the ideal one man: one woman standard of Eden. These two facts
provide us with both warning and comfort, in that although God
is sensitive to failure, He is still able to justify men, to count
them as if they are righteous for the sake of their covenant relationship
with Him, even though (e.g.) their married life was not completely
in order.
- Israel's sinfulness seems to be emphasized in other 'interruptions'
in the flowing list of names. Thus it is sometimes stressed that
a man did not have many children (e.g. 2:4,6,16), as if to indicate
that God's blessing was not with him (there seems an undoubted
connection in Old Testament times between blessing and number
of sons). Thus statements like " Jether died
without children...Sheshan had no sons but daughters...Shimei
had sixteen sons and six daughters; but his brethren had not many
children, neither did all their family multiply" (2:32,34;
4:27) would have been read as highly significant in spiritual
terms. Some outstanding weaknesses amongst the patriarchs
are recorded (e.g. 5:1), and the fact that the duty of the priests
was to " make an atonement for the Israel" (6:49) appears
to be an obvious detail added in passing- until it is appreciated
that these records are highlighting the weakness of Israel. This
is one of the major lessons from Chronicles.
- Some of the names given to children seem to hint at a weakness
in the parents. One wonders why Caleb called his illegitimate
son " Haran" (2:46), after the city which Abraham
left behind in order to attain God's promises. When a passage
is repeated twice, surely God wishes us to perceive something.
1 Chron. 8:30-34 is repeated in 9:36-40. The reason seems to be
that the name 'Baal' was used by the leaders of Israel. Gibeon's
children included Kish and Baal , Kish's son was king
Saul, Saul had a son called Eshbaal as well as
Jonathan, David's beloved friend; and Jonathan had a son called
Meribbaal . These are not the names as recorded elsewhere;
evidently the Chronicles record is highlighting the fact that
there was a strand of weakness for idols in the family of Saul,
including in Jonathan- who was a type of us in his friendship
of David / Jesus. Surely this helps us to better relate to him;
his love of David, his appreciation of David's righteousness,
his belief that David would have the future Kingdom, struggled
against the fact that the worldly influence of his father and
great-grandfather still rubbed off upon him.
- " These are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom
before any king reigned over the children of Israel...."
(1:43) seems a rather irrelevant statement- until it is appreciated
that the point is being made that Israel's desire for a king was
influenced by the fact the surrounding peoples had them.
- The repeated reference to the possession of concubines can
be read as an indication of Israel's weakness in abandoning the
ideal standards of God regarding marriage. Yet we read that even
David had concubines (3:9)- as if to show the extent of Israel's
weakness in the area of marriage.
- However, occasionally there are implications of spiritual strength
in the records (e.g. 4:10). And more than this; several times
the apparent weaknesses of men are covered over by God's imputed
righteousness, and because God saw the ultimate end. Thus Boaz's
marriage to a Gentile is not recorded; simply " Boaz begat
Obed" (2:12), whereas others' marriage out of the faith is
recorded in the same chapter (2:3,34). In harmony with this theme
of imputed righteousness, there is no mention of Dan in these
genealogies of the tribes of Israel- because the serpent was his
symbol? (Dan is likewise omitted in Rev. 7:4). " The sons
of Simeon were Nemuel and Jamin...and Shaul" (4:24); but
Gen. 46:10 shows that Shaul was Simeon's son by a wrong, casual
relationship. Yet this is not recorded in Chronicles, even though
so many other weaknesses are. Surely this is to demonstrate how
if God imputes righteousness for a repented of sin, there really
is no record of this kept by Him. This and other such lessons
from Chronicles only come from digging under the surface.
- The genealogy of the sons of Korah, the gatekeepers of
the temple, is recorded in 9:17-19. It can be shown from the genealogies
that they were brought up by their second cousin, Phinehas. They
obeyed the command to leave the tents of their father Korah when
he was consumed in the earthquake. Num. 16:27 mentions Dathan
and Abiram's children standing outside their tents at this time,
but there is the pointed omission of Korah's children; they had
left the tents. We can therefore build up a picture of Phinehas
as a zealot for the purity of God's Truth (Num. 25), yet mixed
with compassion, as shown by the way he took those children of
Korah under his wing, and brought them up soundly in the Truth,
with the result that wrote at least 11 of the Psalms and protected
the purity of temple worship. It should be noted that Samuel was
a Korahite (6:33-38).
- 1 Chron. 9:22 drops in the information that
‘All these which were chosen to be porters in the gates were two
hundred and twelve. These were reckoned by their genealogy in
their villages, whom David and Samuel the seer did ordain in their
set office”. This gives us an insight into David’s mind when he
was fleeing from Saul. The last time that Samuel and David
are seen together is when David fled for his life from his own
house – before Saul was dead and David on the throne.
- We have to ask why these genealogies were prepared. It is quite
likely that they were first formalized in the time of Hezekiah,
but I would suggest that they were completed at the time of the
restoration, when there was a problem in finding a High Priest
and priesthood because it was hard to prove who was descended
from Aaron, presumably because the genealogies were destroyed
when the temple was burnt (1) . The
genealogies give much emphasis to the descendants of Aaron, far
more than to the other tribes. There are a number of references
to faithless men being punished by invasions (e.g. 5:6). Ezra
8 contains a genealogy recorded in similar style and language
to these in Chronicles. Nehemiah made a special study of the genealogies
in order to find an acceptable priesthood (Neh. 7:5,64). So there
were Israel returning from captivity, led by a faithful remnant
of the priests, looking back through their history, right back
to Abraham and beyond, and seeing that their history was shot
through with failure. Such self-examination extended even to considering
the names parents gave their children. Marriage out of the faith
was a problem at the time of the restoration, and therefore the
records of the genealogies stress how this had been a problem
in the past- and had still not been forgotten by God (Ezra 9:1,2).
The prophets foretold that Israel's restoration would only come
once they achieved a suitable recognition of their sinfulness.
And the Isaiah's prophecies of the restoration from Babylon are
without doubt applicable to the establishment of the Kingdom at
Christ's return; which means that Israel at the time of the restoration
should represent us now, on the brink of the second coming and
the full re-establishment of Israel's Kingdom. The coming of that
blessed time may well be dependent upon our self-examination,
to the point of really taking a breath when we realize the extent
of our personal and collective shortcomings all down the years.
The priests who wrote those records in Chronicles were writing
down the result of their national self-examination. This was the
record of their lessons from Chronicles. Each of the genealogies
say something about the people they are concerned with; and thus
2 Chron. 12:15 RVmg. speaks of how the acts of Rehoboam are reflected
in the reckoning of the genealogies.
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