I am using 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.

    In today’s passage we come to the reason why these extensive genealogical lists are included, the list of the families of those who returned from Exile. The genealogical lists contained up to here were designed to establish the connection of the returning Exiles to the people who lived in the land before the Exile. However, in addition to these genealogies we learn a few interesting things.

    The passage mentions that two of Ephraim’s sons were killed while on a livestock raid near Gath. Ephraim was the son of Joseph and lived his entire life in Egypt. Yet two of his sons went on a livestock raid up near Gath. This tells us that the Israelites did some far ranging raiding from their base in Egypt, at least in the early days. There is no hint of this in either Genesis or Exodus, but it explains why the Pharaoh got nervous about this numerous people living in his land. This mention provides evidence that the Israelites living in Egypt were a warrior people before being enslaved by the Pharaoh.

    Later in this passage, when it lists Saul’s family it mentions that the members of Saul’s clan all lived close to each other in Jerusalem. This intrigues me because we are led to believe that the Israelites did not control Jerusalem until David conquered the city after Saul’s death. This raises a couple of questions about when the members of Saul’s clan moved to Jerusalem. One possibility is that they moved there after the death of Saul but before David conquered the city. We know that Shimei, a member of Saul’s clan, was a politically influential person in Jerusalem by the time Absalom rebelled against David. It seems strange that David would allow members of Saul’s clan to rise to such prominence in his capital city. However, perhaps they were already living there and had some prominence when he captured it?