1 Chronicles 1-10 Introduction and Genealogies

okay we're starting first Chronicles tonight first and second Chronicles actually so open your Bible there first Chronicles as someone once said if for no other reason but to find it and because you know this is one of those books I don't know how often you open it up and read it but because it can be kind of challenging while you're turning there or getting yourself situated I'll let you know that our books of first and second Chronicles were in the Hebrew Bible originally one single book and actually interestingly enough in the Hebrew Bible it occupies the last position in their biblical canon that's one of the reasons that I'm teaching this out of order in our Bible it follows first a second Samuel and first a second Kings because it seems to contain a lot of the same information but it really doesn't and it goes way beyond what first and second Kings even does you know I always try to imagine what someone who is reading through the Bible for the very first time would think to themselves as they came up to first a second Chronicles because assuming they read the Bible starting at the beginning which often people do they'll start in Genesis and you know if you ever known somebody maybe you were like that maybe one day you just picked up a Bible and you start reading it well you know you get you go through first and second Samuel you go through first and second Kings and then you get to first and second Chronicles and it seems very much like those books repeat what you just read in Samuel and kings but the fact is Chronicles actually contains some very interesting differences from Samuel and kings whereas first set and second Samuel and first and second Kings contains historical information the spiritual side of things the Hebrew title simply means journals so in if you are a Jew living you know during the time when this Bible had already been codified you would have called it journals or more literally words of the days in fact our English title chronicles comes from the Latin version of the Bible which was translated by men by the name of Jerome anyway one other possible area of confusion that we might get into as we talk about the nation of Israel is something that we don't always keep in mind and that is the fact that there was a split that occurred in the nation of Israel they actually had what was kind of like a civil war and today you know when we think of Israel we just think of Israel but as we're gonna see the nation of Israel actually split into two separate kingdoms one to the north and one to the south and people forget this sometimes and it can be kind of confusing let me put a map up on the screen for you to show you the division you know you'll notice on the blue that is the nation of or the kingdom of Israel and in the kind of orangish color below that's the kingdom of Judah now all of it is essentially Israel okay all of it of those colored areas that's the area that God gave to the nation of Israel in fact there's even more that God gave but that's you know that is basically the whole nation but during the time of the kings the the kingdoms split north and south and you have the southern kingdom which had at its K as its capital Jerusalem and you have the Northern Kingdom which had as its capital Samaria now eventually the whole northern kingdom became known as Samaria all right by the time Jesus came along Judah the southern kingdom was referred by its Greek name as Judea and the northern part of Israel was essentially gone and it was considered to be the region of Samaria which Jews most Jews refused to even walk through because they despised the Samaritans because the Samaritans were essentially Jews who had intermarried with Gentiles and become if you will half-breeds and worse and so they were something that the Jews considered well they considered them people to be avoided let me show you here on the next slide kind of the progression of the kings of Israel leading up to this split first of all you know we just finished Deuteronomy and right after Deuteronomy the nation of Israel comes into the land under the leadership of Joshua Joshua leads the nation of Israel during his lifetime the remainder of it after Joshua died judges rose up to lead Israel and that is what we read about in the book of Judges the judges were not Kings they were men and in one case a woman who ruled or judged Israel the reason the word judge is used is because they would literally judge there they were kind of the court system judging their differences and that sort of thing but essentially the judges led Israel but then eventually the nation of Israel demanded that they have a king so the first king of Israel was crowned and his name was Saul and he ruled over the United Kingdom in other words over all of Israel when you if you were to look at that map again both the blue and the orange area he ruled over all of that okay and then there you'll remember that Saul hunted David during the latter part of his reign and when Saul was killed it initially began where David rule over just the southern kingdom he ruled in hebron and he ruled there for about seven years and then the people of the northern region and there really hadn't been a split yet but it was there it was waiting to happen and so the people of the northern area then came and embraced david as their king and so for the remainder of that time for about another 30-some years David ruled over all of Israel okay the entire kingdom same thing with his son Solomon the third king ruled over all Israel in fact Solomon ruled over more land than any other King before him or after it was a time of peace but then Solomon had a very foolish son by the name of Raya Boehm he was the fourth King and it was during the reign of Raya Boehm that the Kingdom split in two andraia Boehm being a descendant of David Onley ruled over the southern kingdom of Judah Raya Boehm did not rule over the northern kingdom the northern kingdom crowned a different king who was not from the Davidic line his name was Jeroboam and the nation or the the two houses the two kingdoms of Israel the northern kingdom which was called Israel the southern kingdom that was called Judah were separate and in fact were often at war there were times when they came together in peace particular during times of intermarriage and that sort of thing but they also had plenty of difficult times during that period as well now because David's successors only ruled the southern kingdom of Judah that's what we're going to be reading about in first and second Chronicles first the second Chronicles does not cover the Northern Kingdom of Israel it only covers the southern kingdom of Judah if it mentions the northern kingdom it only mentions it because there was something going on where the two kingdoms were doing something together maybe at war together or something like that so only during times of interaction is the Northern Kingdom even mentioned so one other quick note here many people believe that Ezra is the author of first and second Chronicles and I think that that is a very good guess and one of the reasons I believe it is because if you go to and you don't need to do it but if you were to look at the very last two verses of second Chronicles the book that comes after second Chronicles is Ezra and the last two verses of Chronicles are the same as the first few ver mean identical to the first few verses of Ezra and so it is strongly believed and I think that's pretty solid evidence that Ezra was in fact the the author here by the way the books of chronicles were written after the Babylonian captivity see they're out of order that's why they were that's why they are positioned in the Hebrew Bible at the very end they're positioned right there after Malachi because it speaks of the return of the the nation of Israel back to their homeland after their Babylonian captivity they they cover a period of four hundred and twenty seven years and a total of nineteen Kings who ruled over Judah seven of those kings were godly like David ten of them were ungodly and two started off godly and turned from the Lord later on their names of course are Solomon and joash so let's get started here now as we do it's important to note here that the first nine chapters of first Chronicles contain genealogical tables so we would call them family trees and we're gonna move through these very quickly because you know unless you're just interested in Hebrew pronunciations of were or names rather you know there it's not gonna give a whole lot of information for you and I but here's let me just explain why those were important in the Book of Chronicles particularly following remember this was written after the Babylonian captivity the captivity of Israel in the Babylonian / Persian Empire you know was a 70 years long 70 years long during that time there was a great deal of confusion as it relates to their genealogical records and we know from Ezra and Nehemiah that some of the Jews actually lost their birth records they could they knew who they were but they couldn't prove it we find that out in Ezra and Nehemiah that when they were calling for the priests to come and serve there were men who stood up and came forward to serve as in the Levitical line but that could prove their lineage because the captivity had caused them to actually lose their their their records so the the repetition of these records as they're given in first chronicles here in these first nine chapters or so is vital you know for proving their family lineage and ultimately proving the lineage of David that carries on to Messiah so 1st chronicles chapter 1 it begins all the way back at the beginning notice here starts off with Adam and then Seth and then Enoch and then verse 2 is is Kenan Mahalalel Jared Enoch Methuselah Lamech and then you come to Noah Shem ham and Japheth his three sons after the flood who populated the earth and then the sons of Japheth meaning just one of the sons of Noah his sons are Gomer Magog Madai Javan tubal Meshech and Tiras we have the sons of Gomer listed in verse 6 in verse 7 we have the sons of jayven in verse 8 we have the sons of ham and you'll notice some familiar names here cush Egypt put and Canaan so obviously the Canaanites all descendants of the sons of ham the son of Noah and then you have the sons of cush who are listed there for you you probably recognize some of those names and then in verse 10 were told that cush fathered Nimrod he was the first on earth to be a mighty man and so he was a warrior of sorts and considered so and the first on the earth to be so and then we have in verse 11 a man by the name of Egypt who fathered the following in verse 12 it says path through sim calfs a castle to him from whom the Philistines came and calf tourim so these are still the sons of Egypt so you'll notice that the Philistines come from this man named Egypt and we're told that Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn Sidon is still an area that you can go to today the region of Tyre and Sidon says his firstborn in half and the jebusites the Amma writes the girgashites the Hittites the are kites the the senate's the Arve Knights the summers Emma rights and the Hama fights all come from canaan and it says then we get to verse 17 that speaks of the sons of Shem and this is by the way believed where we get our word Semitic we you've heard the term anti-semitic meaning anti-jewish it is believed it comes from the name Shem all right and then the sons are listed there and you'll notice at the end of verse 18 well verse 18 says arpachshad fathered shelah and shelah fathered Eber and Eber is where we believe B is the origin of the word Hebrew or the title Hebrew all right and it says to Eber were born two sons the name of one was Peleg for in his days the earth was divided and Peleg means division can you imagine giving that name to your child let's call him division but the reason you know they named their children back in those days because of either something about the way they looked something about the way they were born maybe in what position they were born you'll remember Jacob came out grabbing his brothers heel so they named him heel catcher or which was euphemistically like one who deceives Peleg was named division because we're told here that in his days the earth was divided in the division that it's referring to here is the dividing of the people by language which took place during the Tower of Babel and when the nations of the world or the peoples of the world were separated you know they had been told to go into to go out into the earth and populate it but they didn't they stayed together and so God came and confused their languages so that he forced them to be a part to go out by putting them into language groups we're told at the end of that verse his brother's name was Joktan and then it goes on to speak of who he fathered and on and on and on verse 24 you can see Shem appears there and and if you go down to verse 28 well it comes then finally to the sons of Abraham and those sons listed are Isaac and Ishmael and then it begins to say these are the genealogies of the firstborn the firstborn of Ishmael and it goes on to speak of his firstborn and then his sons after that verse 31 says these are the sons of Ishmael then we come back to Abraham in verse 32 verses the sons of keturah abraham's concubine and she bore and it lists them there and so the you know of the sons through cateura the sons of Midian are next listed in verse 33 and then we're told in verse 34 that Abraham fathered Isaac this is where we come to the promised child the sons of Isaac Esau and Israel now notice he's referred to as Israel there although he was named Jacob by birth and the Lord renamed him Israel then it goes into the sons of Esau lists them in verse 35 taking one of the sons of Esau the son of sons of eliphaz are listed in verse 36 another list of this one of the sons of Esau Ruel this time his sons are listed in verse 37 and then it's interesting we come to verse 38 that says the sons of seir now if you notice there's no son named seer born to Esau and yet it just kind of begins talking about seer and you don't know who his parents are and you're kind of wondering why is he listed here in the genealogy of Esau and the reason for that is that seer was not a son of Abraham in that specific sense he was a right H Ori te and the i'ts just happened to be living in the land that Esau eventually came and inhabited after he left his parents and because the i'ts lived there when Esau and his descendants came there they began to intermarry with Esau and so over time these two groups became blended and became known as the so remember Esau and Edom both mean red and when he was born he was red he was red and hairy so they called him red and hairy and that wasn't that was both Esau and Edom and so the come from this and of course what's the name of the mountain in the area of edom Mount Seir but again seer was a right who blended in with the descendants of Esau just kind of an interesting side point and then I mean it was so significant that the sons of seir are listed there in those verses you can see that verse 39 goes on the sons of lo 10 verse 40 the sons of show Baal verse 41 the sons of Ana verse 42 the sons of Ezzor verse 43 says these are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any King reigned over the people of Israel Bela the son of Beor the name of his city being dinhabah Bela died and jobab the son of Zahra of Basra and reigned in his place and what happens in the following verses are the successors of these kings in Edom verse 45 says jobab died another guy came into place then verse 46 this guy died another one came into place and on and on and on and it finishes out the chapter in verse 40 54 rather by saying these are the Chiefs of Edom chapter 2 these are the sons of Israel now we're gonna talk about the tribes of Israel Reuben Simeon Levi Judah Issachar Zebulun Dan Joseph Benjamin Naphtali GAD and Asher so it lists them in their order but then look at this in verse 3 it begins saying the sons of Judah why is it doing that why didn't it start off with the sons of Reuben he's the you know as the firstborn well because the focus of 1st and 2nd chronicles is the Davidic line okay that's what you need to understand and remember as we go through here so this is the first tribe that is listed at length and and it will be the focus covering the family of David and so forth and you know it it just this chapter continues just giving name after name after name after name and we're gonna skip it because it's just names various family lines descended within the tribe of juda and unless you're picking up baby names we're just gonna move on chapter three we're gonna begin here with a list of David's sons born to him in Hebron remember when David became King he ruled first in Hebron and he was busy having babies these are the sons of David who were born to him in Hebron the firstborn Amnon by a hinoa Magette the second named Daniel by Abigail the carmelite the third Absalom whose mother was maka the daughter of Tom I the king of Gesher which often happened when they were creating a bond between two nations they would enter Mary the fourth Adonai Jie whose mother was hag f v Sheva taya by Abbott all the sixth III 'm by his wife egg la six were born to him in hebron where he reigned for seven years and six months and he reigned 33 years in jerusalem so again David's first seven years were only over the southern kingdom even though there really hadn't been a split they just the northern kingdom just kind of hung back because remember Saul was of the tribe of Benjamin in the north and so the people of the North didn't know how they felt about somebody from the south being a king and they thought that one of Saul's sons should reign in his place when of course that was not God's will but there was about seven years of really stupid things that happened because of their desire verse five says these were born to him in Jerusalem then it names his children there down through verse 8 verse 9 says all these were David's sons besides the sons of the concubines and Tamar was their sister then in verse 10 the son of Solomon was rheya Boehm he's the one who split the kingdom Abijah his son ASA his son Jehoshaphat his son the reason I'm reading all these names because these are the Kings okay these loans were gonna be focusing on then joram his son a Isaiah his son joash his son Amaziah his son Azariah his son Jotham his son a has his son Hezekiah his son Manasseh his son Ammon his son Josiah his son the sons of Josiah Jehan an the first born the second Jehoiakim the third Zedekiah the fourth Shalem the descendants of Jehoiakim jeconiah his son Zedekiah his son and the sons of jakku niya who is referred to as the captive and the remaining list our sons born in the Davidic line while in captivity for the 70 year period so they didn't train they didn't rule so we're not gonna read their names it's just a list of names who were still in the Davidic line they were of royal birth but remember Israel was captive during that time all right chapter 4 chapter 4 contains information on other clans descended from Judah but when we skip down to verse 9 we come to an interesting inclusion here in this genealogy look what it says in verse 9 it speaks of Jabez and it says that he was more honorable than his brothers and his mother called his name jay-bez saying because I bore him in pain now I don't know if her pain was any more severe than any other woman who's ever given birth to a child but she basically referred to him as ouch or pain or something like that and I mean can you imagine once again you know she was in pain and so she said I'm gonna name him pain that's what she called him that's what jay-bez means well so it goes on in verse 10 to say that jay-bez called upon the God of Israel saying oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border and that your hand might be with me and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain and God granted what he asked now this is an interesting prayer I don't know if you've ever heard of the book the prayer of Jabez it was big here I don't know ten years ago fifty I forget time gets away from you but not everybody was all lathered up for a while about the book of JB's everybody was giving it to everybody else as a gift and and and and they and they it was kind of almost being passed off as a a prayer you know that you could pray and not have to go through pain I suppose didn't work by the way but here's what's interesting about this the reason jay-bez prayed that prayer to God was because he believed that his name was going to be an omen for the rest of his life I mean can you imagine your mom names you pain I mean what if she named you dumb you'd probably grow up thinking that was your destiny right we know that when kids are called negative things they often grow up believing those things so jay-bez believed you know that probably what awaited him in life was a life of pain so he cried out to God and said God spare me from this God answered him and what God I think was communicating in a very cool sort of a way is that when you come to him whenever earthly sort of things surround you in terms of make the making up of who you are those are all up for grabs in Christ and we you know we need to remember that as believers in Jesus I've mentioned this to you guys many times before but I know that when you look in a mirror you probably see your family I see my family I bet you see yours you know it and you even say things like them I mean I've heard people even say oh I'm becoming my mother or something or you know that's just the way my dad used to say it or the way I coughed or the way I laugh or the way I walk or how my hair is or isn't falling out or whatever we have those kinds and but but some but those things are fairly innocuous the things that really bother people are when they when they know enough about their parents or grandparents to see the negative traits coming out like you know my grandpa though somebody else a was a worrier and I see that same tendency in my mother I see that same tendency in me and I'm just a worrier or sometimes it might be something like alcoholism this seems to be passed down from generation to generation or abuse or anger we're an angry people you know or something like that it's those negative things that really bother folks and I want to encourage you that in Christ you have a different birthright you do not have to be the prisoner of what somebody named you or called you or even the the DNA biological path that you've seen consistent in other family members does not have to be your destiny because you have a different birthright you've been born again into the kingdom of God and that kingdom is stronger than the kingdom of man and and that doesn't mean you're not going to be tempted to go the way that you're maybe your family emphasis or that gravitational pull wants to take you because that is a strong pole but you can say no you can resist and you can say no I am going to be like my Heavenly Father I you know what's happening in you and I as we walk more with Jesus is we're becoming more like him at least that's the goal if we're being fed regularly if we're walking in fellowship walking in the word if we're if we're keeping our eyes on Jesus we're going to become more like him you will you will be more like the one you're focused on and there is a dynamic going on inside of you and I that is more than just us trying to be like somebody in in the sense of you know imitating the dynamic is the spirit the Holy Spirit is operational in our lives and what that means is I can conquer the temptation to fear or to give in to anger or the temptation to become like my parents or grandparents or great-grandparents yes those temptations will exist yes that gravitational pull will probably be felt at many times during my life but in Jesus in Jesus I can say no no I'm not going there I'm gonna be like Christ right that's a very very important thing to remember then we skip down to verse 24 where the numbering takes up with the tribe of Simeon the sons of Simeon and then it names them now remember something about Simeon the tribe of Simeon was literally within the tribe of Judah so you've got to remember that map we showed at the beginning you got the tribe of Judah well within the tribe of Judah almost like a hub you have the tribe of Simeon well there came a point in time where they felt like they needed to stretch they had too many people they had too many flocks and they needed more land verse if you'll if you'll go down to verse 38 it kind of ends with the chapter ends with a short narrative about this taking of additional land it says these mentioned by name were Prince's in their clans and their father's house increased greatly again this is the tribe of Simeon they journeyed to the entrance of Ghidorah to the east side of the valley to seek pasture for their flocks where they found rich good pasture in the land was very broad quiet and peaceful for the former inhabitants there belonged to ham remember ham one of the sons of Noah okay in other words the Canaanites these registered by name came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah and destroyed their tents and the MU Knights which was a tribal group descendant from Ishmael who were found there and marked them for destruction to this day and settled in their place because there was pasture there for their flocks and some of them five hundred men of the Simeon eyes went to Mount Seir I remember that seer which is in the land of Edom having as their leaders it names them there and they verse 43 defeated the remnant of the Amalekites who had escaped and have lived there to this day so it's kind of an interesting note just during the time of Hezekiah which was late into the realm of the kings the Simeon Knights just kind of broke out and said we need more property and they started going out doing what the nation of Israel should have done from the very beginning chapter five chapter five covers genealogies from reuben gad and half tribe of manasseh it says the sons of Reuben the first point of israel for he was the firstborn but but because he defiled his father's couch meaning he took one of his father's concubines his birthright was given to the sons of joseph the son of israel so that he could not be enrolled as the oldest son though Judah became strong among his brothers and a chief came from him yet the birthright actually belonged to Joseph so it's interesting isn't it Joseph got the birthright that belonged to Reuben and yet Judah exceeded them all by becoming the most prosperous the largest and of course from Judah comes David and from David comes Messiah alright so Judah is considered the royal tribe of Israel but we're dealing here with Reuben the sons of Reuben verse 3 the firstborn of Israel and then it lists his sons with a note by the way in verse 6 that these descendants were noticed here carried away into exile by the king of Assyria when he attacked the Northern Kingdom of Israel can I put the map please back up on the screen for just a moment here's what you need to know I've been talking to you a lot about how Judah was carried off to exile by the king of Babylon well before that happened the Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria the king of Assyria now what happened between tho time of the two conquering x' is that babylon rose to power they conquered Assyria and then they came back and got Judah alright so Israel if you will was whisked away first and the way Assyria dealt with their nations that were conquered is they would take the people from that land and they would distribute them little by little to other countries which they'd conquered they would spread them out and they would bring other people from countries that they had conquered and they would bring them into the land you know the new land that they had conquered well in Sumeria what happened was because Sumeria was Israel right the Bible says this is an interesting little side note but the Bible says that people started dying while the animals were like you know killing people and so the king of Assyria was like okay we obviously don't know what the gods require here in Israel so we're gonna send some of the Jews back to Israel the northern kingdom to teach us what the requirements are of this God but they only brought some of the Jews back they left other Gentiles from other areas there that's how the intermarriage took place in the region of northern that Northern Kingdom of Israel which eventually dissolved and just became known as Samaria so kind of an interesting history that went along with that verses 7 through 10 go on to give information about where this particular tribe this tribe of Reuben lived and with whom they went to war skip down to verse 11 we deal with the tribe of GAD says the sons of GAD lived over against them in the land of Bashan as far as Celica names are listed then in verses 12 through 17 and then we have this interesting note in verse 18 the rubra nights the gadites in the half tribe of manasseh had valiant men who carried shield and sword and drew the bow expert in war forty-four thousand seven hundred and sixty of them able to go to war they waged war against the hag rights jet or nefesh and no dabbe and when they prevailed over them the head rites and all who were with them were given into their hands for they cried out to God in the battle and he granted their urgent plea because they trusted in him love that phrase we're told that they carried off livestock even tell us how many camels and sheep and donkeys and and so on and so forth tells us in verse 22 that many fell because the war was of God and they lived in their place until the exile the members of the half tribe of manasseh lived in the land they were very numerous from Bashan to Beto Herman Sania and Mount Hermon and it says in verse 24 these were the heads of their fathers houses it lists them there says they were mighty warriors famous men but it says in verse 25 they broke faith with God the God of their fathers and they hoard after the gods of the peoples of the land whom God had destroyed before them so the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of pool king of Assyria the spirit of tag laughed poles' or king of Assyria and he took them into exile namely the rubra nights the gadites and the half tribe of manasseh and they brought them to hey la hey Bor Hara this is what they did they took them places and to the river goes an to this day now I want you to notice who had lived there this was the roomba nights the gadites and the half tribe of manasseh notice it says they walked away from God and they began to worship other gods and stuff like that and the land just became pagan now but it's and Jesus came along this area which the gadites lived in became known by several different names one of which was the gadarenes when Jesus crossed over to the region of the gadarenes it was in such desperate condition that what first met him upon getting out of the boat was a man who had a legion of demons who lived in a cemetery and that's what Jesus was met with when he went to the region of God so it was in bad shape and even after Jesus released this man from every single demonic possession going on in his life we're told that the people of the region came saw the man sitting fully clothed and in his right mind and they pleaded with him to leave their region please go away now the good news is the man of the tombs was also an evangelist remember he wanted to leave with Jesus he begged to go along with Jesus Jesus said no but you need to stay home tell people what happened to him and he did and then when Jesus came back to the gadarenes later on he was met with crowds of people who wanted to listen and wanted to see what he could do but the thing this this area of Israel had fallen so badly into paganism that they were just in such incredible sorry shape let's try to get through one more chapter 1st chronicles 6 focuses on the sons of Levi it says here the sons of Levi Gershon Kohath and Merari they're listed down through verse 30 these are their sons da-da-da-da-dah then go all the way down to verse 31 we read this these are the names our excuse me these are the men whom David put in charge of the service of song in the house of the Lord after the ark rested there in other words they were worship leaders they ministered with song before the tabernacle of the tent of meeting until Solomon built the house of the Lord in Jerusalem and they performed their service according to their order and their names are listed then through verse 47 now pick it up in verse 48 we read this and their brothers the Levites were appointed for all the service of the tabernacle of the house of God but Aaron and his sons were the ones who made offerings on the altar of burnt-offering and on the altar of incense for all the work of the most holy place and to make atonement for Israel according to all that Moses the servant of God had commanded in verse 50 it says these are the sons of Aaron and then the rest of the chapter lists their name down to the end you know what let me just tell you what these next chapters cover we can do this very fast 1st chronicles chapter 7 covers the descendants of Issachar Benjamin NAFTA Lee and the other half of the tribe of Manasseh along with Ephraim and Asher and there's just name's chapter 8 that's fast wasn't it chapter 8 focuses on the descendants of the tribe of Benjamin giving some detail about the first king of Israel who was of course Saul one of David's most formidable enemies David didn't want him to be an enemy but he was and then we have chapter 9 which brings various listings of historical roots in Israel the the author of chronicles is going to now incorporate information into these lists those who returned from the Babylonian exile and he starts it this way so all Israel was recorded in genealogies and these are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah was taken into exile in Babylon because of their breach of faith and then in verse 2 he happily skips seventy years of exile and he says now the first to dwell again in their possessions in their cities were Israel the priests the Levites and the temple servants and some of the people of Judah Benjamin Ephraim and Manasseh lived in Jerusalem then he goes on to list their names one of the things we noticed as we read through this chapter is that the names of the individuals largely consists of people associated with the temple you know priest gate keepers things like that and the reason is you guys remember something here historically this is important to King Cyrus when he made the the the proclamation that they were to the Jews were to go back to Israel after seventy years were up please understand what he was doing he wasn't just releasing the Jews to go back there and live he wasn't just saying all right you guys have lived here long enough in fact we're even kind of sick of yeah so why don't you guys go home and just go ahead and build the temple and build the walls of your city you guys go live there and and we're all gonna be good that wasn't that what was what was going on King Cyrus wanted them to go back and rebuild the temple so they could worship God and so that he would be blessed that was the point okay he wanted the blessing of Yahweh he was actually a believer in Yahweh to some degree how much he believed in other gods you know we're not sure most of these guys were pretty pagan but he believed that Yahweh was legit and he told the Jews go back and build your temple because we want the blessing of your God so what was he gonna send back priests and Levites and Tenten and gatekeepers and musicians and and and you know I'm saying those are the people who primarily went back because that was the point of what Cyrus wanted them to do chapter 10 very quickly gives the history of the conclusion of King Saul's reign in Israel it says now the Philistines fought against Israel and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines and fell slain on Mount Gilboa and that first verse gives just a real short synopsis of the life and death of Saul you know how he became so unhinged during his reign to the point where the kingdom slipped further and further out of his control you know the Philistines when David was serving Saul the Philistines were were buttoned up pretty well they were a problem continually but under David with David as kind of the general of his army and and so forth the one going out and doing things the Philistines were cut way back well during the time of Saul's later life when he was hunting David to kill him they weren't focusing on the Philistines and the Philistines were growing in power so at the end of Saul's reign guess who killed him the Philistines yeah so you know all the times Saul was hunting down David the Philistines were getting stronger and stronger as a military force to the point where they eventually killed him so you could say his own jealousy and madness ended up killing him because the Philistines who were under control under David would they lost that control so it says in verse 2 the Philistines overtook Saul and his sons and the Philistines struck down Jonathan and Abinadab and Malky schewe the sons have saw the battle pressed hard against Saul and the archers found him and he was wounded by the archers and then Saul said to his armor-bearer you probably know these things draw your sword and thrust me through with it lest these uncircumcised to come and mistreat me he was afraid of being tortured but his armor-bearer would not for he feared greatly therefore Saul took his own sword and fell upon it and when his armor-bearer saw that saul was dead he also fell upon his sword and died the Saul died and he and his three sons and all his house died together and when all the men of Israel who were in the valley saw that the army had fled and that saul and his sons were dead they abandoned their cities and fled and the Philistines came and lived in them the next day when the Philistines came to strip the slain they found Saul and his sons fallen on Mount Gilboa and they stripped him and took his head in his armor and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to their idols and to the people and they put his armor in the temple of their gods and fastened his head in the temple of Dagon but when all jabish Gilead heard all that the Philistines had done to Saul all the valiant men rose and took away the body of Saul than the bodies of his sons and brought them to jabish you know it doesn't even mention that they had to battle to get him you know I'm sure they didn't just walk into the temple of Dagon and say we're here for Sol's body or for his remains and we've come to get it so get out of our way you got to know there was a battle anyway and it says they buried their bones under the oak in J bash I'm in the middle of verse twelve and fasted seven days were actually told in first Samuel that they burned their remains and then buried their remains under that oak tree so Saul died for his breach of faith the author here is making that very clear he broke faith with the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord and also got so down that he consulted a medium seeking guidance the medium is a witch a necromancer somebody who communicates with dead the dead spirits or the spirits of dead people I should say in order to get guidance and it says he did not seek guidance from the Lord therefore the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse you

Channel: Calvary Chapel Ontario

Views: 37,098

Rating: 4.8783541 out of 5

Keywords: Bible, Bible teaching, Thru-the-Bible, verse by verse, Calvary Chapel, Bible study, Christianity, New Testament, Old Testament, The nation of Israel, Judah, Kings of Judah, History of Israel

Id: mu2joKBlqK0

Length: 50min 4sec (3004 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 18 2017