Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 1.

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OK, this passage is a list of genealogies.  I struggle with finding something for me to approach in most of the genealogies in the Bible.  I am going to start with something I never noticed before.  The passage lists that Ham, the son of Noah, had two descendants named Sheba and Dedan.  Then a little later it tells us that Abraham had two grandson with those same names (these were from Abraham’s concubine Keturah).  Another thing I find interesting is that after listing Esau’s son and some of his grandsons, the passage lists the descendants of Seir.  We are never told who Seir’s ancestors were.  What we know is that Mount Seir, which was the center of the land lived in by Esau’s descendants, we named after Seir.  Further, we are given to understand elsewhere that the descendants of Seir were the people occupying the land which became Edom when Esau first lived there.  I believe that Seir and his descendants are listed here because the descendants of Esau and the descendants of Seir assimilated each other to become the Edomites, rather than the descendants of Esau displacing and replacing the descendants of Seir.

Finally, I want to look at one last name: Timna.  The name Timna appears three times in this passage.  The first time it refers to either a daughter-in-law of Esau, or a grandson of Esau (the Hebrew manuscripts we have of 1 Chronicles does not have the words “and of” in verse 36.  That comes from the Septuagint which may have translated from Hebrew manuscripts which were lost long ago).  The next time Timna appears in verse 39 it refers to a daughter of Seir (actually, the wording could mean she was a more distant descendant of Seir).  Finally in verse 51 it refers to Timna as one of the chiefs of Edom.  If the first reference refers to a daughter-in-law of Esau, then it probably refers to the same person as the second reference.  That would actually make sense and would explain why the descendants of Esau merged with the descendants of Seir.  If all three references to someone named Timna are referring to the same person, it tells us something interesting about the role of women in that area.  If the Timna who was a chief of the Edomites was Esau’s daughter-in-law, it suggests a society where women could rise to roles of authority.  Combining that with Deborah as mentioned in the Book of Judges would throw doubt on our usual understanding of the male-domination of that society.

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