Week 17 1 Chronicles
Twelve days ago I sat looking at 1 Chronicles 1. I’d just finished reading about 180 pages of the Samuels & Kings histories and – whatever was going on in my psychic-self – thinking about starting another history that day loomed as a big Bible-Reader’s Impediment. So I started reading Isaiah instead.
Fortunately I was in a different frame of mind today as I started Chronicles…which was my good fortune since there’s about 240 mostly unrecognizable foreign names in chapter one – and I know there’s more to come.
I start reading the names but I’m also trying to dope out what the author’s doing with them. I see that he mentions Noah’s three sons – Shem Ham & Japheth. Then he looks at each one – but in reverse order.
Japheth and his seven sons.
Then Ham and his four sons.
Finally Shem…because the author is tracking Shem’s family: Shem Arpachshad Shelah Eber Peleg Reu Serug Nahor Terah Abram – Abraham!
So the Chronicler is making some choices. Other families are important (otherwise I don’t guess they’d be mentioned). But Abraham is the key and I can figure that it’s a safe bet that I’ll be seeing familiar names like Isaac & Jacob and Jacob’s twelve boys soon enough.
Note: the Shem-Abraham list is in 1 Chronicles 1:24-27. Added Note: I ran my end-of-April numbers. I’ve read 44.4 % of the text in 33.3% of the year. Reading Isaiah in twelve days really helped my speed but it blurred my focus a bit. So I paid a price.