Week 19 1 Chronicles 1-9
Sometimes I figure it’s a useful trick to give myself a Bible Reader’s Exercise (BRE). A BRE is a self-directed drill for when I’m losing focus interest concentration…like that. Gives me a point of mental convergence.
The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles makes up a pretty ominous & depressive subsection that’s hard to get jacked-up about. So this is an ideal passage for a BRE.
My BRE this year was to count up how many narrative comments I could find buried in the long list of names. What I found were things like this…
Nimrod: grew to be a mighty warrior
Achan: violated the ban
Jehoiachin was nicknamed: the captive
Geharashim’s family: were craftsmen
Mered married: Bithia the daughter of Pharaoh
Jabez: was more honorable than his brothers
Reuben’s: rights as firstborn were given to the sons of Joseph
Johanan: served as priest in the temple Solomon built
Manasseh had an Aramean concubine
Shaharaim: divorced his wives Hushim and Baara
Levite musicians: stayed in the…temple and were exempt from other duties.
In a little over 400-verses there’s at least 41 of these biographical snippets that take up about 60-verses. Meaning the section isn’t 100% names…more like 85%.
I don’t know how many names are in all nine chapters. But it’s a lot (there’s almost 250 just in chapter one). So my BRE turned out to be a good reading-management tool for me this time around.
Note: quotes from 1 Chronicles 1:10 2:7 2:14 2:17 3:17 4:9 5:1 6:10 7:14 8:8 9:33 (NIV)