Alright, well, lesson two is entitled Genealogies of Salvation History, We're looking at chapters one through nine, which may arguably be the most riveting of the chapters of the entire two books of chronicles because it's chock full almost entirely of just genealogies. You know, so and so is the father of so and so and he goes all the way down. I mean, a lot of people, they skip the genealogies of Matthew pretty darn quickly when they're reading the Gospel, and that's just like, you know, what, half a chapter. And now we got nine chapters of genealogies, and that's a lot, and most people, for sure, maybe even you, if you read Chronicles before, you've skipped it because you kind of get the general idea.
I mean, maybe you're a hot shot and you read it all, and you've studied it, and you memorize the names, which is awesome. You should totally brag on that for sure if you've memorized all this stuff. But there's a lot of good stuff in here, and that's why we're going to spend one lesson just looking at these genealogies, and who knows, it may go quickly, but it probably won't. We'll have a lot to say here based on our great commentaries that I have for you and the suggested reading.
So, yeah, first and second chronicles has all these genealogies here, and really what you have to understand is that this is the genealogy of all the salvation history leading up to the time when this was written by the chronicler. And the key here is that this is the genealogy of all the salvation history because this, the family of humanity is one single family. It's a family history, and it's going to include Israel and all the other nations that are tied in with Israel to one degree or another, especially the descendants of Noah. Noah's three son, Shim, Him, and Jay Fethi are the fathers of all the different nations, right?
So Israel, of course, is genealogy is here, and that's to be expected, right, obviously, but you also have other genealogies going on. And it begins with Adam, the father of the human family, and it goes all the way to the chronicler's own post-exilic generation, right? So he's writing, or, you know, the chronicler that's a lot of debate here, but assuming it's one author of the chronicler, he is writing after the exile at some point. As we discuss all that, actually, in the dating section in the first lesson.
So in any case, that's a lot of history right there. That's why we have nine chapters of it. And some people have pointed out that this kind of scope of genealogy is to include Israel, God's elect to chosen people, but all the other nations as well, not all, not like every single nation that's ever existed. There are selected generations of genealogies of nations that we're going to see here, but this hasn't been accomplished in any other work of ancient Near Eastern literature.
This is a pretty big deal here that the chronicler is really trying to make a point about salvation history, about God's family, about what God wants to do for all the nations through this genealogy. And that's what we're going to be talking about a lot here. There's the biblical theology of the chronicler, as Dr. Han, and other commentaries really point out that certainly Dr.
Han, he does the best job in understanding. And understanding the meaning behind all these genealogies. So I have some great select quotes to share with you as we go through this. Actually, that's a perfect segue.
There's a great quote that he begins with in his chapter on this section here in Chronicles, where he says very kind of humorously, the listing here is deceptively simple and initially may not make for compelling reading. And that's true, like I was joking just a little while ago. It's not necessarily compelling. People don't spend a lot of time just reading genealogies unless it's your own genealogy, which I guess is pretty popular nowadays.
A lot of people want to figure out where they come from, their ancestors, are they Irish, are they German, or whatever, maybe. But most of the time, people don't spend a lot of time on genealogies, and he's right. It doesn't necessarily make for compelling reading. But he goes on, closer scrutiny, however, reveals that this genealogical prologue contains a wealth of insights into the chroniclers' motives and concerns.
To interrupt the quote here, I would simply say they're the key themes that we discussed in the last lesson. What are the chroniclers' motives, concerns, key themes, biblical theology? What is he trying to teach? What is he trying to say?
Well, you're going to see seeds of that theology, his concerns, his point in both books, as an like, like, in kernel form, in like seed form, terminal form here in these genealogies, which is pretty impressive. With the quote goes on and says, in these initial lists, we see the chroniclers' covenantal understanding of history. As he traces Israel's heritage through individuals who spoke with God and entered into covenant with him. Adam, Noah, Abraham, and finally David.
That's the end of the quote, and that's the point. What is his motive, his concern, his primary issue here? What does he want to prove? His covenantal understanding of history.
God does engage throughout history. He's the author of history. He guides every aspect of history. Remember, a spirit doesn't fall from the ground without the Lord's permission will, without the Lord knowing it.
Well, God guides everything according to the covenant. Beginning with Adam, and then going through other key figures, Noah, Abraham, and finally David is going to get the lion's share of the discussion here, obviously, in these books. So that's what he's going to be focusing on here. This is the biblical theology.
As we discussed in the last lesson, looking at the key themes, we're going to see that play a very important role in these genealogies, how the genealogies are crafted, what does he focus on, which tribes he focuses on, why does he do that? It's all rooted in the covenant. It's all rooted in what God wants to do, not just for Israel, but like I was saying with all nations, because again, salvation history is family history. What God wants to do for everybody through his people, Israel.
All right, so on that point then, what will he focus on? Just kind of introduce all of this before we dive into chapter one. Well, he's going to primarily focus on the tribe of Judah, naturally, because that is David's royal lineage. So Judah gets a lot of attention as does David here, right?
So then after Judah, he's going to focus on Levi. In fact, as I'll share with you, as we go through this, Levi gets the most attention. He gets the most airtime printed space here, because Levi is the priestly tribe, especially Aaron's high priestly tribe. So Judah and Levi get the most attention here.
And that's important because if you're coming back from the exile and the chronicler is a post-exilic author, and he's writing these two books for a very specific reason, as we discussed in the key themes of the last lesson, and we'll unpack that in the next eight lessons here, you want to really prove to the people who are returning from exile, as well as the people who are still in exile, that the royal and the priestly lineage is not broken. It's intact. That's a very important aspect of this whole theology. Salvation history continues.
And your hopes in the royal messiah, the anointed one, the son of David, those hopes should still be strong. And the hopes of the priestly aspect of God's people, of offering sacrifice to him and observing the feasts and the celebrations throughout the year, that's also intact as well. So those two lines, the line of Judah and the line of Levi get the most attention here, because they're rooting the covenant, as we'll see. But they're going to form the foundational hope for all Israelites from all 12 tribes.
In fact, that's an expression that appears so many different times. I haven't even counted. I should probably do that. How many times does the quote all Israel or the expression all Israel appear?
It's a ton. I mean, it's dozens and dozens of times, because all Israel understood as one people are going to be restored to God through the hope in the royal lineage that's still intact, and the priestly lineage that's also still intact. So that's key. Next, of course, Benjamin is going to be talked about, because Benjamin is closely associated with Judah.
I have a couple personal theories about why that's the case. A lot of people know that when the Kingdom of David split after Solomon's death, ten tribes went up north to form the northern kingdom called Israel or Ephraim, or the southern kingdom of Judah. Well, Benjamin stayed with Judah, and a lot of people say, well, why did that happen? Well, it's because Benjamin was small, and they were right next door to Judah, and so big brother Judah is like, you're sticking with me, kid, or else.
And there may be some truth to that, but I have some personal theories that I want to share with you as we get down the line there. And I'll tell you why Benjamin was sticking close to Judah this entire time. But Benjamin, because it was united to the Kingdom of Judah, they were exiled with Judah by the Babylonians, and they returned, or at least remnant of faithful remnant, would return to Jerusalem with the rest of the Jews, as well as some Israelites too. So you're going to talk about Benjamin.
They then were going to see also that the various other tribes in the northern kingdom are recorded too. Why? Because their fellow heirs of God's promises of redemption. The prophets always spoke of God bringing back, redathering all Israel in a new exodus to the restored Davidic Kingdom, right?
So yes, there's a lot of hope for Benjamin and Judah coming back from captivity. But what about the rest of the other tribes? Their members of all of Israel, their Israelites too, their descended from Abraham. Well, they too have hope as so far as they're united with David.
Because remember, the two primary lines are the Royal line of Judah, Priestly line of Levi, and all the rest of the Israelites, all the rest of the tribes are going to be restored, united to David, and united to the Priestly worship and sacrificial system of God's people. Separated from that, like if you're offering sacrifices to Baal, or to the golden calves, or whatever, that's not going to stand you in any good stead at all. Right? Okay, so we focus on Judah and Levi.
Benjamin is cool because we're connected with Judah, I'll explain more about that later. But as we go through this, I'll point out briefly other northern kingdom tribes as well. Alright, so those are all mentioned, but the final point here is these other nations. So Israel is, this is the theology of the entire Bible, or I should say the Old Testament leading up to the New Testament.
Israel is God's elected people. Right? They are God's chosen people. Israel is God's first born son as Exodus 422 makes it very, very clear.
You may remember the story where Moses was just commissioned and called by God to deliver Israel from captivity and bondage in Egypt. And God says to Moses, tell Pharaoh, Israel is my firstborn son. Let my son go, that he may worship me. Right?
So Israel is God's firstborn son, meaning all the other nations are God's sons and daughters as well. So God does love all the nations, but Israel's vocation is going to be very, very important. Israel is God's elect people to be a royal priestly service to the rest of the nations. So God does reveal himself to Israel through various covenants that we're very well familiar with.
And by the way, I should say, I mean, these nine chapters, these genealogies of salvation history is a really good recap of salvation history itself. It's a really good thing to kind of refresh our brains with. Alright, so God reveals himself through various covenants. And these other nations, as we read these genealogies, other nations, not every single last one, obviously, but key other nations that descend from Noah, they're also recorded because they're connected with Israel, such as like Edom, which are the descendants of Esau, Ishmael.
Obviously, remember Ishmael is Abraham's firstborn son through Hagar. And the point in recording nations, such as these and their others, is again, God wants to bless everybody. Worldwide blessing is a key promise, a key hope for all humanity at large. Worldwide blessing is going to come through Abraham's descendant, seed, an individual person which will be Jesus Christ.
So that's a key element here. As you go through these genealogies of Judah, Levi, Benjamin, all the various tribes of the northern kingdom, but you have these other genealogies of the other nations because God has not forgotten them as well. And on that point here, Han is a good quote. He says, the chroniclers genealogical consciousness, I like that line.
I mean, that's kind of cool. Genealogical consciousness. He's very, very aware of the genealogies. It's part of his covenant's whole worldview, in which Israel experiences itself as the one people out of all the peoples of the earth to have been chosen by God to be his own possession, a holy people, what you would call the elect.
So Israel is God's own possession. Segulach is the Hebrew. Han doesn't say that, but Segulach is the word there in Hebrew, a holy priestly people, a royal priestly people that God has chosen. Then Han goes on.
His genealogy reflects what others have detected. Covenant provides the narrative framework for the story of Israel told in the Bible. Beginning with Adam and the covenant of creation, his genealogy follows the path of God's covenant through Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David. And the purposes of God's covenant, the blessing of the world, are gradually unfolded in the biblical narrative and are centered in the history of his firstborn.
That's the end of that quote is really clear and really beautiful and very helpful for us. That's why I shared it with you actually. When he says the purposes of God's covenant, which is the blessing of the world, are gradually unfolded in the biblical narrative and are centered in the history of his firstborn. His firstborn not being Adam, although kind of yes, Adam, but Adam is in Israel, and then of course David, because all those characters are understood as God's firstborn.
That's the key here. Israel is going to be a conduit of blessing for all nations, and the chronicler understands this, knows it. He's trying to teach us by unfolding the story of the David Kingdom and the aftermath of the kingdom leading up to the return from exile that God wants to redeem his people and still bless the whole world. And that's where the hope lies.
So I think that suffice as an introduction as we go through this. And I do encourage you, even if you want to boast that Thanksgiving dinner, or if you're around a campfire with people to say that you've really studied in depth, first chronicles went through nine of genealogy. That's some bragging rights right there. But at least do it once.
I'm going to read through these genealogies one time. I mean, you got my lesson here for you to follow along with. You got good commentaries. I recommend it for you, but definitely I highly encourage you to pick up Dr.
Hansbook, the liturgical empire. There's going to be very helpful. So with that introduction, having been laid, let's dive into chapter one, where we're going to start with the genealogy beginning with Adam, which is of course the first word, the first name in the list. Now, I should say really quickly, and all the commentaries point this out to that, the chroniclers genealogies here, especially in the first chapter, is very much reminiscent and paralleling the genealogies preserved in Genesis.
I did not put that in the notes because you can find that in a lot of commentaries of where he, his source material is what you would call it. Like he's relying on Genesis. He relies on a lot of scripture as a matter of fact, not just books of Samuel Kings, but Genesis for sure in this case. So he's going to follow those genealogies and then lay this out.
So it begins with Adam, and I'm not going to warn you, not warn you, but relieve you of any anxiety you might have. I'm not going to read every single line. That would just take forever. And it would bore you and you would tune out.
So I'm just going to kind of follow the gist of what's going on here. So it begins with Adam, obviously, and it goes through his lineage with Seth and Eonosh all the way down to Noah. And then it says in verse four here, because the first few verses are very, very short, a couple of names each. Noah's three sons, Shem Hammich and J.
So I should also point out that the chronicler here, the author, when he mentions all these people for his audience who's reading his work, they all know the stories. They all know the stories of Enoch, for example, right there in verse three. Enoch, there's a couple of verses about him. He was righteous.
He walked with God and God took him. They know the story about Noah and the flood. He doesn't get into all the narrative here because he's perfectly confident that his readers know the stories behind the names. And that's actually really important for understanding the theology that he wants to unpack, not just genealogies, but the rest of the book.
So Adam's line leads to Noah. That's going to be really key here than those three sons. All right, now here's another quick quote for you here. It's very important.
It says, beginning within the canon, the canon of scripture, right, from Genesis all the way down the line, beginning with the canon and intensifying in the extra biblical tradition, Adam is understood in terms of elsewhere are applied only to Israel first and second to Israel's monarch, the king. So that's important. The way that Israel understood the king and the way that Israel understood herself as God's people is very much tied into the understanding of who Adam was. And Han goes on to say, well, how do they understand Adam and Israel and the king as the firstborn son of God, as a priest and as a king.
Not coincidentally these become key categories in the chronicler's account of Israel's history and mission. That's important. So these characteristics to be the son of God, to be a priest, to be a king is crucial because those categories are going to be found in the rest of Israel's history and mission for the salvation of all the other nations. Now, I would very humbly like in a conversational way, I would add on two more categories as the identity of who Adam was that then carry on to the categories of Israel and carry on to the categories of David, the king, and ultimately going to be perfected in Jesus Christ.
And I would add two categories being prophet and bridegroom. I talk about this a lot in the study on Genesis here and other studies as well. So it's priest, prophet and king, very famously write that thrite, thrice or three full identity in the Old Testament, priest, prophet and king, but also the son of God and the bridegroom. So Adam was priest, prophet and king in his creation.
He was the son of God, as Luke explicitly calls him the son of God. And of course, Adam is the bridegroom of Eve. Those five categories, not just the three here that Scott, that Scott mentioned here, son of God, priest and king, but also prophet and bridegroom. All five of those are going to be applied to Israel and all five of those will be applied to David.
Isn't Jesus perfect them all? Jesus is the quintessential, the perfect son of God by his essence, right? He's the son of God by nature, not by adoption. He is the bridegroom, the heavenly, divine bridegroom of his people.
He is priest, prophet and king, you know, capital, priest, capital, priest, capital, prophet, capital, king, you know, in all those ways. So that's really, really important to keep in mind as well. So as I go through this, we're going to be focusing on this sort of like this royal priestly son of God figure. But I would just humbly add on to it those other two categories as well.
And that's going to be important for Israel's history and in her mission. Because when God calls Adam and Israel and in David and it's all fulfilled in Jesus Christ, those categories are going to be important for the salvation of the world for bringing worldwide blessing to all the Gentiles, all the various other nations. First Israel in the rest of the nations. Hey, this is Doc Neck.
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