What! David had 19 sons, not counting the sons of his concubines. Wow,….this guy. It occurs to me that Solomon’s downfall was women. I wonder if the “seed” of that sin was inherited from Dad, who clearly loved the ladies?
I like Abigail, so when I read that she and David had a son together, I expect great things. Oddly, their son Daniel never appears again, apart from the reference to his ancestry. Perhaps he died as a young man. I guess we’ll won’t know until we get to heaven. There is an old Jewish tradition that says he was one of four perfect people in Biblical times. I wouldn’t base any doctrine on that, though.
You don’t realize it as we read down through the names, but this list quickly takes us from the height of Israel to it’s downfall, the Babylonian captivity and back to the restoration of the temple. This would have to be written many years later, no where near the time of David or Solomon. I even see the names of several of the prophets included here. I didn’t know they were related to the royal blood line. That’s interesting. Since God didn’t always anoint the oldest son to be king in his father’s place, it isn’t too much of a stretch to say that one of these guys could have been king if the cards had fallen a different way. They had the pedigree for it.
I have to laugh as I read some of these names. And I can’t follow the genealogy…it isn’t logical. For instance, in Chapter 4 verse 5 there is a man named Ashur, and he has a son named Tekur. Okay. Then when Ashur’s two wives are listed with their children, there is no mention of Tekur. Where did he come from? Why not mention his mother? Was she a concubine, is that why she wasn’t mentioned?
And then, with no reference to his mother or father, the author says “there as a man named Jabez…
Now, Jabez is a great example for us of what to pray for. But here in this account I am expecting to hear about his family tree…and there’s nothing. I suspect that Jabez’s father read this and said “hey, what’s the deal…where’s my name?”
I read towards the end of today’s passage about the conquest of Gerar by the tribe of Simeon. I am slightly taken aback by the viciousness of the Israelites, attacking a people who were not bothering them. I can only rectify it in my mind by reminding myself that God gave the Israelites this property hundreds of years ago with the directive to purge all of the people living in it. They failed at that time, but are still trying to complete the task. In fact, if they had done as commanded, we wouldn’t have nearly the number of wars or bloodshed today. Having said that, no wonde the Middle East is always in such an uproar. There are people living there today whose ancestors were killed by the Israelites. That has to be hard to assimilate. Knowing that Christianity comes from Jewish heritage, how can these people ever set aside these old grudges and become Christians? They have a huge hurdle to overcome that we don’t have here in the U.S.
Gerar was a fertile land in south central Israel. It’s near modern day Gaza. Both Abraham and Isaac wanted to live there because the ground was so fertile. In Genesis 26 Isaac reaps “100 fold” what he planted….that’s pretty good soil. In fact, that area still produces today.
Looking back on everything I have written today I realize that there are no lessons, no insights… just musings. Sometimes in our reading the Bible is like that. Things that we read today aren’t “unlocked” in our minds until some distant time when they are needed. For the moment in m y case, it seems that all the insights are “locked away”.
Faithfully,
PR