1 Chronicles 3:1-24

content/bible_journal/1chronicles_3:1-24.md

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+title = "1 Chronicles 3:1–24"
+date = "2023-09-04"
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+
+### [Read the passage.](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/1Chronicles3.1-24)
+
+The descendants of Judah have been listed, up to the generation of David, more
+or less. Now the focus zooms in on the line of the kings. First, David's sons
+are listed, arranged by their birthplace and their mothers. Bath-shua's (that
+is, Bathsheba) sons are not listed in birth order, as Solomon is the second of
+her son's mentioned in 2 Samuel (and the only one named). Her first died due to
+the judgement on David's sin concerning her husband Uriah. Most of David's
+children are not mentioned elsewhere, but the ones that are don't have
+well-known stories for good reasons.
+
+From here, brothers and sisters are not mentioned as the genealogy follows
+direct descent from Solomon to Josiah. After Josiah, the kingdom of Judah does
+not pass cleanly from father to son because of foreign influence, from both
+Egypt and Babylon. A king would be deposed and his brother set up in his place,
+or his uncle in some cases. Eventually Judah is fully conquered and the royal
+family is taken captive while Jeconiah (a.k.a. Jehoiachin in 2 Kings) was king.
+This genealogy establishes that Zerubbabel is in the line of David. This
+Zerubbabel was the leader of the exiles who returned to rebuild Jerusalem.
+
+There seems to be some debate about whether the families listed in verses 21 to
+24 are desendend from each other or are other Davidic families contemporary
+with Zerubbabel. The impetus for this view is an early date for the text, close
+to the time of Zerubbabel's life. This seems too much like _eisegesis_ to me,
+imposing a meaning onto the text, when what we want to be doing is _exegesis_,
+extracting meaning out of the text. This text lists the sons of a father, picks
+one of those sons and names his sons, over and over. I believe there is still
+enough time between the return of the exiles and the reconstruction of the
+temple and the proposed date of the compilation of Ezra-Nehemiah (they were
+originally one book) for the author of 1 Chronicles to know about 6 generations
+after Zerubbabel and also be Ezra himself. The Chronicler wasn't necessarily
+Ezra either, but that is the tradition.
+
+* * *
+
+Your words are true forever.