9:20 - Phineas stands out because he is specifically cited as a man who the Lord was with. This is a reference to the Phineas from Numbers Chapter 25 who had great zeal for the Lord. When people were desecrating God's house, he ran them through with a spear and saved the Israelite people from utter destruction at God's hands. He was a man who guarded the house of the Lord and the gatekeepers in this passage are men that follow in his footsteps. Zeal for the name of the Lord - that's also known as a lifestyle of worship.
9:35ff - Why is the genealogy of Saul repeated (Also in I Chronicles 8:29ff)? Well for one, it is a literary device to bring the readers back into focus as the Chronicler is about talk about the death of Saul. Secondly, the Chronicler wants to make it very clear that there were non-Hebrew people in Saul's line. This may explain why Saul was so frequently willing to turn away from God and worship other idols...but it also shows us that God is willing to use people of any background to do His will. God's heart for all nations will be a theme that pops up pretty frequently in I Chronicles.
10:14 - The writer of I Chronicles makes it very clear - Saul died because he failed to understand that the one and only true ruler of Israel and the world is God. He rejected the authority of God and so he was removed by God. Only destruction comes when we choose to worship ourselves over God in life.
2 comments:
So what happened with the geneologies? At what point in history did they stop and why? Do you know if they continued, is it part of Jewish custom to trace your ancestory back?
The genealogies still exists, just not in the bible. The Jewish people have a huge oral and literary tradition of commentaries, laws, history, etc. outside of the bible. There are Orthodox Jews that can trace their ancestry back to Abraham - how cool would that be?
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