I've been slogging through the beginning of 1st Chronicles for a fortnight or so and it begins with a LOOOOONG geneology of seemingly every single person in the country formerly known as Israel (which at the time of writing may or may be Judah, Israel, or Judaelastan - 17th Province of Babylon... okay, I made that last name up). Anyway, I'm a sucker for lists and even though I can't pronounce half the names on the list, it kind of makes me wonder about the geneology of these people and why it was so important to them.
Here are the geneologies I can remember...
I am Will Robison III, my Dad is Will Robison Jr, and my Grandpa is Will Robison Sr..
Or
Anakin begat Luke and Leia who begat a passel of annoying literary Jedi kids that hopefully will never see the inside of a movie theater.
But back in the day, geneologies were important for a variety of reasons. First, being a nomadic people, Israel was essentially one giant family that had been given one kick ass inheritance - an entire land of milk and honey... and a personal relationship with God. Of course, land being important the Israelites had to be able to show that they were, in fact, part of the family by being able to trace their family line back to one of the twelve inheritors of Israel himself (one of the 12 tribes). Everything was divided that way.
So, then, skip ahead a few thousand years and the subsequent conquest by the Babylonians and then God bringing the survivors back to the land of milk and honey and the question comes up - Who gets what? Now knowing who you are, by knowing what tribe you belong to, lets you know what land you inherit.
It kind of makes me wonder. Beyond the land inheritance and all that stuff, how much of who we are is inherited from that that have gone before. Each generation makes its own way through the world. We are directly connected to the generation before ours and, in many way, the generation after ours, but what about other generations? Where do we fit in the grand scheme of things? Are we just one of those names listed on some list somewhere that no one can pronounce and about which nothing is known? Are we at least a historical footnote - Yes, that Will Robison that slew the giant lion with his bare feet? Or do we rate an entire book written about our exploits and downfall before God? Don't we try and look back on our own ancestors and pick out the ones that make us sound more glorious than we actually are? Hi, I'm related to Paul Bunyan. Or does that make us look sad by comparison?
Just some thoughts noodling around in my head. What else are you going to think about when reading a list of all the sons of Issachar?
2 comments:
Geneologies are important because of birthrights. See e.g. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Esau. Christ's geneologies are interesting because of the women who show up, i.e. Rahab the Jericho harlot and Ruth the Moabite. They show God's love for all and his salvation for all mankind.
Cheers.
And with what you shared, Randall, proof that God used a variety of broken people to get from Abraham to Jesus.
What I like about the 1 Chronicles genealogy is that we really have no clue as to the story behind the majority of those people. We know about the kings of Judah and Israel that we will read later in 1 and 2 Chronicles, but sons of Issachar? The sons of Manasseh? We can only wonder.
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