Ch. 8 lists the purported male descendants of Benjamin, with particular attention to Saul and his progeny. As I noted last time, however, his sons are almost entirely different from the sons he had in the previous chapter, with the sole exception of Bela. So they can't both be right. If your eyes glaze over while you're reading about the descendants of Gibeon, don't worry, they're repeated exactly in the next chapter. Again, this guy needed an editor.
That aside, you're probably wondering why anybody would care about these lists of decontextualized, apparently meaningless names. There's currently a fad among Americans to research their ancestors, but they want more than names. They want stories -- professions, migrations, hopefully a title of nobility -- and maybe they'll even find some long lost cousins. Not that I think that actually matters either but you can see how it might interest people. Here, however, although there is an occasional aside about where somebody lived or the person being a mighty warrior or some such, mostly there is no information.
All I can say is that as we saw in the Torah, the society is organized into tribes and subsets of tribes called clans, based on patrilineal descent. Preservation of these male lines of descent is an obsession, such that there are special rules to insure it can continue when a man dies without male issue. If he has one or more wives, his brothers need to impregnate them, and an ensuing male baby is officially the son of the dead man. Onan's sin contrary to a common misimpression, was to refuse to perform this duty. If a man dies with only daughters and no potentially fertile wife, his daughters, in a rare exception to the rule, inherit the property. But at least one of them has to find a cousin to marry and then the male line is officially reestablished. This is essential to the ordering of society, and these lists appear intended to explain and legitimate the order at the time they were written. For modern readers, however, including Jews, this is pretty much meaningless.
8 Benjamin was the father of Bela his firstborn,
Ashbel the second son, Aharah the third,
2 Nohah the fourth and Rapha the fifth.
3 The sons of Bela were:
Addar, Gera, Abihud,[a] 4 Abishua, Naaman, Ahoah, 5 Gera, Shephuphan and Huram.
6 These were the descendants of Ehud, who were heads of families of those living in Geba and were deported to Manahath:
7 Naaman, Ahijah, and Gera, who deported them and who was the father of Uzza and Ahihud.
8 Sons were born to Shaharaim in Moab after he had divorced his wives Hushim and Baara. 9 By his wife Hodesh he had Jobab, Zibia, Mesha, Malkam, 10 Jeuz, Sakia and Mirmah. These were his sons, heads of families. 11 By Hushim he had Abitub and Elpaal.
12 The sons of Elpaal:
Eber, Misham, Shemed (who built Ono and Lod with its surrounding villages), 13 and Beriah and Shema, who were heads of families of those living in Aijalon and who drove out the inhabitants of Gath.
14 Ahio, Shashak, Jeremoth, 15 Zebadiah, Arad, Eder, 16 Michael, Ishpah and Joha were the sons of Beriah.
17 Zebadiah, Meshullam, Hizki, Heber, 18 Ishmerai, Izliah and Jobab were the sons of Elpaal.
19 Jakim, Zikri, Zabdi, 20 Elienai, Zillethai, Eliel, 21 Adaiah, Beraiah and Shimrath were the sons of Shimei.
22 Ishpan, Eber, Eliel, 23 Abdon, Zikri, Hanan, 24 Hananiah, Elam, Anthothijah, 25 Iphdeiah and Penuel were the sons of Shashak.
26 Shamsherai, Shehariah, Athaliah, 27 Jaareshiah, Elijah and Zikri were the sons of Jeroham.
28 All these were heads of families, chiefs as listed in their genealogy, and they lived in Jerusalem.
29 Jeiel[b] the father[c] of Gibeon lived in Gibeon.
His wife’s name was Maakah, 30 and his firstborn son was Abdon, followed by Zur, Kish, Baal, Ner,[d] Nadab, 31 Gedor, Ahio, Zeker 32 and Mikloth, who was the father of Shimeah. They too lived near their relatives in Jerusalem.
33 Ner was the father of Kish, Kish the father of Saul, and Saul the father of Jonathan, Malki-Shua, Abinadab and Esh-Baal.[e]
34 The son of Jonathan:
Merib-Baal,[f] who was the father of Micah.
35 The sons of Micah:
Pithon, Melek, Tarea and Ahaz.
36 Ahaz was the father of Jehoaddah, Jehoaddah was the father of Alemeth, Azmaveth and Zimri, and Zimri was the father of Moza. 37 Moza was the father of Binea; Raphah was his son, Eleasah his son and Azel his son.
38 Azel had six sons, and these were their names:
Azrikam, Bokeru, Ishmael, Sheariah, Obadiah and Hanan. All these were the sons of Azel.
39 The sons of his brother Eshek:
Ulam his firstborn, Jeush the second son and Eliphelet the third. 40 The sons of Ulam were brave warriors who could handle the bow. They had many sons and grandsons—150 in all.
All these were the descendants of Benjamin.
Footnotes
- 1 Chronicles 8:3 Or Gera the father of Ehud
- 1 Chronicles 8:29 Some Septuagint manuscripts (see also 9:35); Hebrew does not have Jeiel.
- 1 Chronicles 8:29 Father may mean civic leader or military leader.
- 1 Chronicles 8:30 Some Septuagint manuscripts (see also 9:36); Hebrew does not have Ner.
- 1 Chronicles 8:33 Also known as Ish-Bosheth
- 1 Chronicles 8:34 Also known as Mephibosheth
1 comment:
I guess the family is the most basic unit of society and is considered highly important. That said, I wish we lived in extended families like Native Americans did. So many advantages in terms of democracy, child care, community ...
Post a Comment