1 Chronicles 1: The Family Tree

Imagine chuckling your way through a list of tongue-twisting names straight from the Old Testament, while simultaneously connecting the dots of your spiritual lineage. That’s exactly what we’re doing in our latest session, "The Family Tree," as I, Pastor Brandon, guide you through 1 Chronicles 1 with a dash of humor and a heap of insight. No need to fear the "begats" and "ites"; this episode is all about embracing the historical threads that weave the fabric of our faith. From the tales of the kings of Edom to the legacy of Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael, prepare to trace the lines of our spiritual roots with a light-hearted touch and a reverent nod to the narratives that shape our beliefs.

As we wrap up this genealogical adventure, we don’t just end with a list of names; we delve into the essence of being engrafted into God’s family tree. In "Spiritual Family Tree Explored," we celebrate the heritage that leads us to Acts 2, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and our very own adoption into this divine lineage. It's a conversation that stretches beyond Sundays, enriching our spiritual walk and drawing us closer to the heart of worship. Join us as we reflect on the integrity that God cherishes and the hope we share in meeting our spiritual forebears one day, with laughter and fellowship as our traveling companions through the pages of Chronicles.

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The More You Dig. The More You Find.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:25

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon. Today, first Chronicles, chapter one, and today's title is going to be the Family Tree. The Family Tree and you're going to understand why I'm already getting tickled. Praise the Lord. It's going to be a journey.

Speaker 1: 0:42

We're going to get into it in just a moment, but first, as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share, subscribe to the YouTube channel, leave us some comments. Let us know how you're engaging with God's Word, and I've already got a question for you. I want you to put in the comments and that is what is the hardest word in this chapter to say. I want you to tell me what's the hardest word in this chapter to say. Also, if you listen to the podcast, I love you always and forever. My favorites bunch of dog owners no, cat owners listen to our podcast. Make sure that you are leaving us a five-star review. Also, let us know how you're engaging with God's Word and, as always, we all gather together at the Bible Breakdown Discussion on Facebook. Thank you so much for everybody who worked so hard on doing those devotions. I would love for you to comment on those as well. Let us know how you're engaging with God's Word and let us know on there what is the hardest word in this chapter for you to say. Now, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, we're going to get to there soon enough. But first, as always, welcome back to the Old Testament.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Man, I love the Old Testament. There's so much here. Now, one of the things we talk about that's so interesting about the Old Testament is, in the New Testament, a lot of the letters they call them the didactic scriptures and what that is. A lot of times it's God's Word speaking directly to us Do this, don't do that. It just cuts it straight to you, right, and that's great, that's wonderful, we need that. But in the Old Testament it's a very different way of God's Word teaching us the ways of life and it teaches us through principles. There'll be stories. That doesn't always necessarily tell us straight up do this, don't do this, but it's in the story. It's like you know that didn't work out real well for them. So the lesson for me is to not do that, you know, and it's a really great thing, and that's one of the reasons why Jesus spoke through parables is a parable, which is a complex spiritual principle wrapped in a story. There's so many different things you can learn from one story, so I like to look at the Old Testament as a whole bunch of parables that's teaching us all kinds of lessons and that's what we're getting out of first and second chronicles.

Speaker 1: 2:48

And so to kind of bring you up to speed if you haven't been joining us, we just got through reading over the past several months first and second Samuel and first and second Kings. Now we're going to read first and second chronicles, and here's the reason why that's important. You could look at these as broken up into two halves. One half is first and second Samuel, which was originally in and even in the original, if you were to get this in a Hebrew Bible, which is the Tanakh, which is all of the Old Testament in Hebrew, first and second Samuel is one book. So you've got Samuel and then you got first and second Kings, which in Hebrew is one book Kings, samuel and Kings was written about the time of the 70 years of captivity when Babylon and Assyria had just laid waste, and when we finished first and second Kings especially, we saw that where they just completely overrun the nation of Judah and the nation of Israel.

Speaker 1: 3:42

And for 70 years they were in captivity. And while they were there, the Holy Spirit inspired these scribes to take down the history of the nation of Israel and Judah, to let them know how do we get here? I thought God was with us. I thought God was for us. What happened? Well, as we could see, over and over again, actions have consequences, and so they find out that, yes, god was for them. But over and over again, God said if you will serve me, if you'll be faithful to me, all these good things are going to happen. But if not, slowly but surely, my judgment will fall, my favor will kind of come off of you, and bad things are happening or will happen. And we saw that's going to happen. And what we learned is, with the overall principle of first and second Samuel and first and second Kings, is we are under God's protection. If we are under God's authority, we have to stay under God's authority if we want to have God's protection. Well, now you have the other side, which is first and second chronicles. What's happening in first and second chronicles is you have the nation of Israel that is now returning from their captivity. They've been gone for 70 years and now they are being allowed with the conquerors that are letting them come back to their nation, because many of them were deported from Jerusalem and they're coming back again.

Speaker 1: 5:03

One of the chief people that is sent back is a guy named Ezra. We're actually going to read a book that he wrote and his name is attached to it and he has been sent back to the nation of Israel and he goes to set up the worship of Yahweh again and get everything where it needs to be. He writes the book of Ezra. Some people think he might have written the book of Nehemiah. Probably not, but maybe he's written a whole bunch of several Psalms and he's just. He's really one of the ones who also collected so much of the books that were put together that later became the Tanakh. He's one of the most unsung heroes in Jewish and world history because he collected so many of these things together and one of the Psalms that we think he actually wrote was Psalm 119. And it's all about how much he loves God's Word. He's celebrating God's Word.

Speaker 1: 5:51

So they also think Ezra might have written first and second chronicles, because one of the things that's happening now that the nation of Israel is coming back to their land after 70 years. This is still about 400 years before the time of Jesus, so not very long, but still a little ways away. And as they are coming back, their question is who are we? We've been gone for 70 years. Many of these people were not born in Jerusalem. They were born other places. They heard the stories of Moses and Abraham and Noah and David and Solomon, but that was before. Who are we as a people? What assurances do we have that God is going to be with us? How do we know this is going to happen? Like I said, this is between 538 to 330 BC, so it's right during this time and it covers the time all the way back of what happened during the time of first and second Samuel and first and second Kings.

Speaker 1: 6:47

But it happens from the perspective of. This is what God can do if we will serve Him. It's obedience results in God's blessing, and so we see this from a priesthood point of view. Since Ezra was a priest, you're going to see a whole lot about the promises of the House of David, telling the history from that. That kingly and priestly lens about worship, and it really helps us to understand from that point of view, and so the overall theme of First Chronicles is when God is with you, hope never dies. When God is with you, hope never dies. And maybe some of us need to remember that just because there's bad things going on, it doesn't mean that God is not working. When God is with you, hope never dies. And so, like I said, since he is going to be speaking from a priestly point of view, and a keenly point of view, it's very, very important that he sets up the different worship and the different things that's going on.

Speaker 1: 7:43

Also, what's important is, ezra really wants to connect these people and remind them that they come from God, that God has a plan, and one of the ways they would do this is by tracing their family lineage, and that is where we get to today. The family tree. Ezra goes all the way back to Adam, and he starts to Adam and he goes all the way to where they were that day. So we're about to read over the next few chapters is a whole lot of names, and what is fastly becoming legend in Bible breakdown history is how bad Pastor Brandon is at names. So we're going to give this a shot, because I'm going to tell you something Ezra wants to make sure that the nation of Israel knows. Your heritage goes all the way back to Adam. So here we go. Let's read this together, if you are so brave, and we're going to make it together Ready.

Speaker 1: 8:39

First Chronicles, chapter one. First one says this the descendants of Adam were Seth, enosh, kenan, mahalil, jared, enoch, methuselah, lamech and Noah. The sons of Noah were Shem, ham and Japheth. The descendants of Japheth were Gomer, magog, medai, javan, tubal, meshek and Tirus. The descendants of Gomer were Ashkenaz, rifath and Tugarma. That's the first one. I messed up. Right, there we go.

Speaker 1: 9:14

Verse seven the descendants of Javan were Elisha, tarshish, kittim and Rodanim. The descendants of Ham were Kush, mizraim, put and Kanan. The descendants of Kush were Shiba, hvala, saptah, rama and Saptaka. The descendants of Rama were Shiba and Didan. Kush was also the ancestor of Nimrod, who was the first heroic warrior on earth. Mizraim was the ancestor of the Ludaids, the Anamites, the Halabites and Naftushaids, patsura-shaids, kachalites, kafuratites, and whom were the Philistines? Kanan's oldest son was Sidan, the ancestor of the Sedonians, and Kanan was also the ancestor of the Hittites, jebusites, amorites, gurgashites, hivites, archaites, sennites, arvdites, zemiteites and Hematites.

Speaker 1: 10:20

Pause for a moment while I catch my breath and remember the aites means people of. So when it says that, like the Hittites were, aites means people of, so people of Hittite. So every time we see the aites is the Hittites. Two other things is number one remember these people come from the ancient Near East. Therefore these names sound very different and odd to us, but in ancient Hebrew they'd be very normal names, very normal, and it actually goes with that dialect very well. So they seem very odd to us. They'd have been very normal to them. And then, last but not least, when we're reading these, you may go hey, that sounds familiar. That sounds familiar. Well, a lot of these patriarchs were people that later cities were named after, people groups were named after. So that's why they sound very, very interesting and, honestly, also a lot of stories that we have take names from the Old Testament and use them in different places. So that's where they sound familiar. Okay, here we go, verse 17,.

Speaker 1: 11:16

The descendants of Shem were Elam, ashur, arfaxan, lod and Aram. The descendants of Aram were Uz, hu, gehra and Mash. Arfaxad was the son of Shila. Shila was the father of Iber. Iber had two sons. The first was named Palaik, which means division, for during his lifetime the people of the world were divided into different language groups. His brother's name was Joktan. Joktan was the ancestor of Almadad, shalif, hasmaravath, jarith, hodoram, uzail, dikal and Obal, ebomal, shiba, orphar, haval and Jobab this one, he says Jobab, his name is now Jobab. All these were descendants of Joktan. So this was the family line descended from Shem, arfaxad, shalil, iber, palaik, rahu, sharug, nahor, tera and Abram, who was later named Abraham. Thank goodness, finally a name we can say let's keep going over on this streak. Verse 28,.

Speaker 1: 12:23

The sons of Abraham were Isaac and Ishmael. These were their genealogical records. Praise the Lord, more names. The sons of Ishmael were Nephoth, the oldest, kedar, abdiil, mipsha, Mishma, duhah and Masa, hidad, tima, jethur, nefish and Kedema. These were the names of the sons of Ishmael. The sons of Ketura, abraham's concubine, oh Lord, were Shimran, jekoshan, midan, midian, ishbak and Shuhah. The sons of Jokshan were Shiba and Didan. The sons of Midian were Ifath, effur, henach, ebda and Nelda. These were the descendants of Abraham through his concubine, ketura.

Speaker 1: 13:12

Abraham was also the father of Isaac. The sons of Isaac were Esau and Israel. The sons of Esau were Eliphaz, raul, jehush, jalam and Korah. The descendants of Eliphaz were Timon, ophar, zephoth, ghatam, kina's and Emilec, who was born in Timna. The descendants of Raul was Nathan, zihah, shema and Mishah.

Speaker 1: 13:41

Pause for a moment. You know what's hilarious as someone starts listening to this podcast and they go to right now, they probably think I'm having a stroke right now. So if you're joining us, I didn't just have a stroke, I'm trying to say near-eastern names from back about 4,000 years ago. So thank you for joining us. We're at verse 38. Here we go.

Speaker 1: 14:00

The descendants of Sayir were Lotan, shobal, zibion, nenha, dishon, ezur and Dishon. The descendants of Lotan are Horai and Heman. Lotan's sister was named Timna. The descendants of Shobal were Alavan, mehath, ibal, shepho and Onam. The descendants of Zibion are Yah and Inah. The sons of Nihah were Dishon and the descendants of Nishon were Hammadan, ishban, ithran and Kiran. The descendants of Ezur were Bilhan, zivan, eknon and the descendants of Dishon were Uus and Iran.

Speaker 1: 14:44

Now, these are the kings that ruled the land of Edom before any king ruled over the Israelites. Bilah, son of Biur, then ruled in the city of Dinvah, and Bilah died, and Jobob, the son of Zira and Bezaron, became king in his place. When Jobob died, hushman, from the land of the Timonites, became the king in his place. When Husham died, haydah, the son of Bidad, became the king in his place and ruled from the city of Avith. He was the one who destroyed the Midianite army in the land of Moab. He and Hidah died, and Shamala from the land of Meshkay became the king in his place. When Shamala died, shu'al from the city of Raboth on the river became the king in his place. When Shu'al died, belhainan, the son of Ekbor, became king in his place. When Baal Hinan died, hidad became the king in his place and ruled from the city of Pa'u. His wife was Metbeel, who was a daughter of Matriot, the granddaughter of Mizehwab, then Hidad. Hidad died.

Speaker 1: 16:00

The clan leaders of Edom were Timna Avlah, jetheth Obidam I don't even try that one again Elaw Pinan, kinaz, timna Hebzar, hebgau and Eram and the clan. These are the clan leaders of Edom. We did it. Chapter one is down. We did it absolutely. Thank you for surviving that with me.

Speaker 1: 16:23

We only have several more chapters to go, but as we get ready to end our time together, remember we call this the family tree. Now, what in the world all these names have to do with us? Here it is, and that is this. This is your spiritual family. The reason why this is important is because this establishes the lineage of God's people, and the Bible says that the God's people continued until the time of Jesus. And then it continued, but on Acts, chapter 2, the Holy Spirit descended and the church was born. The apostle Peter got up and he declared that the gospel was available to all, and then, in chapter 8, he declared the gospel was also available to the Gentiles.

Speaker 1: 17:08

In the book of Galatians, the apostle Paul says that we, the Gentiles, have been grafted into the family of God, and so these people are our spiritual heritage, and so these people are your Great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great great uncles and aunts. This is our spiritual family, and even though we don't know any of these people, they're our family. You are part of something that is so much bigger than the people you see on Sunday. You're part of a spiritual heritage that goes back generations, and so when we read this, remember this is Uncle Joe, bob and Aunt Miss Kara, and they are part of the spiritual family and you are part of something that is so much bigger than you. When we get to heaven, we get to see all these people. Once again. I don't know about you, but that's kind of interesting to me.

Speaker 1: 18:00

Let's pray God. Thank you so much, because one of the great things about First Chronicles is the big idea that when God is with us, there's always hope that you know and examine our hearts and God as we get ready to make it through the next few chapters of Chronicles. We do that because we know, god, that you are building a foundation of what's going to continue to grow over this wonderful book, and I pray as we read it we will realize that you are with us and that there's always hope. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen, amen. Well, the verse we've picked for First Chronicles is First Chronicles, 29 verse 17. That says this I know, my God, that you examine our hearts and rejoice when you find integrity there. God examines our hearts and he rejoices over us. I love you. Thank you for sticking with me for chapter one. I can't wait to see you for chapter two, with more reading in Second Chronicles, chapter two. See you then.