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

Once again we have a passage which is a genealogy.  One of the things which I find interesting is that there are several names which appear which do not clearly indicate who their immediate ancestor was.  For example in verse seven of chapter two it says that Achar (which is a variant on Achan) was the son of Karmi.  We only know Karmi’s descent because in Judges 7 when it speaks of Achan’s sin it tells us that Achan was the son of Karmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah.  Then later on while discussing descendants of Judah who were not from the same clan as David, it mentions Jabez.  It says that Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, but does not tell us who either they or his father were.  After mentioning Jabez, and his prayer, the passage starts up the genealogy again by introducing Kelub, Shuhah’s brother and his sons, but it does not tell us who Kelub’s father was, or who Shuhah was.  As I was going through to see if I wanted to list other examples of men listed here whose ancestry was ambiguous, I came across something interesting.  It mentions Mered, who had at least two wives.  One of his wives was of the tribe of Judah, another one was Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh.  Clearly Mered was a man of some significance, since he married a daughter of Pharaoh, but we know no more about him than the reference to him here.  I will note that the Midrash (a compilation of traditions and commentaries about the Jewish Scriptures) contains some things about Mered and his wife Bithiah, but those references seem to be conjecture and not based in any actual knowledge.

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