Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 10-12.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

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Today’s passage summarizes what the book of 1 Kings said about the death of King Saul and David’s rise to power.  It does tell us a few new things.  In particular, it gives us the idea that warriors went to support David while Saul was still alive.  It looks like there were four waves of warriors who went to support David (or perhaps five).  In the order they are described here.  There were men who went to join David while he was based at Ziklag under the Philistine ruler of Gath.  Then the writer tells us that some men joined David when he was at the stronghold in the wilderness.  Depending on how you read the passage, there may have been two waves of men who came to follow David while he was at the stronghold, one wave from the tribe of Gad, and another wave of Benjaminite and Judean warriors.  The writer also tells us that some warriors deserted from King Saul and came over to David as he mustered with the Philistines to go to war against King Saul in what became King Saul’s last battle.  The passage does remind us that David and his followers did not join in that battle because the Philistine commanders were convinced that David would switch sides in the middle of the battle.  The writer seems to suggest that the men who joined David at this point may have done so because he was not taking part in the battle.  Finally, there were the warriors who came to David once he was established at Hebron after King Saul’s death.  The way I read this, men trickled in to support David in Hebron, with a few large groups officially representing some of the tribes, until basically all of Israel was supporting David.  The key take away from this passage is that David did not seize the throne, but gradually more and more of the Israelites threw their support behind him until he had the loyalty of the entire nation.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 7-9.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

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Another tough read.  I really think there is value in tracking the names in this passage and how they are connected, but just as I start to see a thread I think maybe I should follow I lose it in the “noise” of all of these names.  Perhaps as I keep reading this year after year I will see one of those threads finally come out.  In the meantime, the first thing I did notice is in the genealogy of Ephraim’s descendants.  We know from Genesis that Ephraim was born to Joseph in Egypt and lived his entire life in Egypt.  Yet this passage seems to tell us that two of Ephraim’s sons were killed when they tried to raid livestock from near the city of Gath.  Related to that the passage seems to say that Ephraim’s granddaughter, Sheerah, built three towns in the land of Canaan.  That doesn’t entirely make sense because the people of Israel left Egypt long after the grandchildren of Ephraim would have been dead.  Which suggests to me that the way this passage lists descendants would have been understood differently by the writer than how we understand it.  Related to that, it seems to me that at several points when the writer switches from the genealogy of one tribe to another he also switches the way in which he recounts these genealogies.  Which brings me to the fact that this passage contains a hint about when this book was compiled.  In chapter 9 the writer tells us that he is listing some of those who were among the first to dwell in the land of Israel after the Babylonian Exile.  That tells us that this Book was compiled after the Jews returned to the area of Israel after the Babylonian Exile.  So, I believe the reason we see the changes in the way that some of the genealogies are recorded is because the sources which the writer relied upon varied in the way in which they presented genealogies.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Chronicles 5-6.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

This is the third day in a row where the Bible passage is basically a genealogy.  There is a little more to these passages than that, but they are primarily genealogies.  There are things we can learn from these genealogies, but those things are easy to miss.  I am quite sure that I miss quite a few of them.  In fact, I am going to say right now that I have not seen any spiritual lessons in today’s passage, but I am going to comment on the things that stood out to me and see if as I write about them, something beyond the “well, that’s interesting” comes to me as I write.  The first thing I noticed was that in the list of sons of Reuben it lists four men.  Then it says, “The sons of Joel:…” and lists what appears to be a lineage which ends with Beerah who was carried into exile by Tiglath-pileser.  It appears that Joel was a descendant of Reuben, but it is not clear who his father was.  My suspicion is that the reason we don’t know who Joel’s father was is because a copying error at some point dropped that connection.

When we come to the genealogies of the Levites the first thing I noticed was that the descendants of Levi reused names to a greater degree than the other lines I have looked at so far.  Along with the genealogies of the Levites the passage also mentions some of the cities given to the Levites.  Interestingly, at least to me, Hebron was given to the Levites as a city of refuge.  I found that interesting because David made Hebron his capital when he was king of just the tribe of Judah, before he became king of all of Israel and moved his capital to Jerusalem.  Another thing I noticed was that Gibeon was one of the cities listed here as being given to the Levites.  I noted that because Gibeon was the city of Canaanites who made a treaty with the Israelites under Joshua by using deception.  Then I saw that there was a translator’s note which said that Gibeon appeared in the Septuagint, but not in the other manuscripts we have of this passage.  Which caused me to notice that the passage does not mention the pasturelands of Gibeon, even though it does for the other cities given to the Levites.

Finally, that led me to look up some information on Geba.  From that I learned the Gebah was fairly close to Jerusalem, to Bethlehem (from whence King David hailed), and to Gibeah (from whence King Saul hailed).  I am not sure there is any significance to that, but I find it interesting to see connections between King David and the cities of the Levites.  Although making a connection between David and Gebah may be a stretch.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Chronicles 2-4.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

Wow, this is a tough read.  When I read it to myself I get lost in who was descended from who and completely lose track of where I am in the genealogy.  Reading it out loud for the video makes it a little better, but I still lose track of the genealogy.  I am actually kind of looking forward to how much my pronunciation of these names will improve in a couple of years, assuming God allows me to continue these videos.

I mentioned in my video while reading the passage that it mentions that Sheshan had no sons, only daughters (chapter 2 verse 34).  Then it tells us that Sheshan gave one of his daughters as a wife to his Egyptian slave and their children were counted as his descendants so as to claim his inheritance.  This becomes relevant as it shows that descent can be counted through the mother’s lineage in Scripture for those who argue that Jesus cannot be counted as a descendant of King David because Joseph was not His biological father.  So, Jesus can be counted as a descendant of David through the ancestry of Mary, His mother.  Most people do not need this passage to understand that, but there are those who take a legalistic understanding and this passage, along with several other passages, is in the Bible to show them their error.

I will comment on one more thing.  There is a book called “The Prayer of Jabez” based on verses nine and  ten of chapter four.  If it was not for that book I may never have noticed that Jabez is dropped into the passage there with no connection to anyone else in the genealogy.  We just have these two verses referring to Jabez and his prayer, but it never mentions who his father, or mother, was.  Nor does it mention any of his children.  Just a strange little insert there.  I would love to know why the writer inserted this bit about Jabez.  I  think the writer, or perhaps a later scribe, wanted to give a shout out to Jabez without anyone noticing and stuck this in here figuring that by the time someone noticed it would be too late to take it out.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.