1 Chronicles 1-2; Psalms 43-44: Once again we come to a part of the Bible that it is super tempting to scan or skim through. After all who can even pronounce those names. lol. Each time I read them though God puts together more pieces to the puzzle. These names as I read were very familiar, Abishai, Joab, and Asahel. We read in the last few days how Asahel chased after Abner an enemy commander and was speared and killed. Then later when Abner changed sides and came to David’s side to help bring him the Kingdom of Israel Joab killed Abner for revenge. David mourned and in the entire country saw his contrite spirit, but David did not forget what Joab did and in the end his wrong would be remembers through generations. Those things I remembered from our reading, but what I did not realize was that Joab, Asahel and Abishai were David’s nephews! WHAT??? As I read the genealogy it was right there.
1 Chronicles 2:13 “Jesse fathered Eliab his firstborn, Abinadab the second, Shimea the third, 14Nethanel the fourth, Raddai the fifth, 15Ozem the sixth, David the seventh. 16And their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail. The sons of Zeruiah: Abishai, Joab, and Asahel, three.”
You may be saying, Okay Page so what is the big deal? The big deal is that with our western mind set we see places as broad and spread out. We don’t know most of the people in our government personally. We know our families but even they are not always close in proximity or relationship. That is not the way that Palestine or Israel was or is today. It is all super close. You can drive from one end of the country to the other in a matter of a couple of hours. People know each other, well. They know their families and their histories. Because there just aren’t near as many of them, many times people are family somewhere down the line. Therefore the genealogy is super important because as you trace a family line you find that blood can be thicker than water. In this case also Chronicles was written after the dispersion where Israel had been sent by God to Babylon. They were returning and the question of who would lead them spiritually was at hand. Again, the family lines were so important because a Davidic king no longer sat on the throne, but the temple needed to be lead by a priest from the right family line.
If Joab had not been family. I wonder if David would not have killed him. I know he would have handled the situation differently.
The challenge to us today is to not skim or scan even those scriptures that are hard. You never can tell when you will find a nugget that God wants you to treasure.