I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading. I had been using One Year Bible Online, but it was time for a change. As I have been reading through the Book of 1 Chronicles this time I realized that finding spiritual truths is not the only reason for reading the Bible. Some sections, such as today’s passage, reveal things about how the Bible was put together. Knowing that can help us understand the message God has for us in other parts of the Bible.

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

    This passage continues the genealogies of the sons of Jacob. It contains a list of those who returned to Jerusalem and surroundings after the Babylonian Exile. This makes it clear that this book was compiled around that time. Now I know that there are those who claim that this book was compiled as part of the effort by those coming to Judea from Babylon were the rightful inhabitants and rulers of the area around Jerusalem. There is certainly some truth to that. However, those whom I have heard make that argument go on to imply that those who came from Babylon were not who they claimed to be and that these writings should be taken with a grain of salt. My problem with that argument is that these genealogies would be arranged in a more consistent manner if they were made up in order to support the claim. As a point on this, some of the tribal genealogies contain a total number of warriors, others are merely the lists of descendants of a particular patriarch. This suggests that these genealogies were compiled from other sources, some of which retained the number of warriors, others of which over the years had had that left out.