Why Judah?

I Chronicles 2-3

When we think about family trees, we think of the family listed in order from oldest to youngest. However, in our text today, that is not what happened. We begin chapter 3 with a list of the sons of Jacob. The list begins with the sons of Leah, Jacob's first wife. That is a logical place to begin because she had the first four children. Then the list continues out of order. I would like to tell you why, but I honestly have not found an answer to that.

Once we move past Jacob, we take each son an trace his family for a period of time. Chapter four is actually about the genealogy of the Tribe of Judah. This is strange because Judah was the fourth son of Jacob. We skip right over the first three. Why? There is a twofold answer to that.

First, Judah is the tribe from which the kings (other than Saul) came. By tracing the family of Judah, we see the lineage of the royal family from Adam through the beginning of the Babylonian captivity. After all, that is what the book of Chronicles is about, kings. If you are going to talk about kings, then start with your main point.

The second reason, perhaps unbeknownst to the writer, is that this traces the family of the Messiah. Prophesy tells us that the Messiah (Jesus) would come from the family of Judah. He would also be heir to the throne of David. Since Jesus is the central theme of the whole Bible, this is another reason to get right to the point of tracing his family line. Just like before, there are some little gems we want to pick out from this text.

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And Jesse begat his firstborn Eliab, and Abinadab the second, and Shimma the third, 14 Nethaneel the fourth, Raddai the fifth, 15 Ozem the sixth, David the seventh: 16 Whose sisters were Zeruiah, and Abigail. And the sons of Zeruiah; Abishai, and Joab, and Asahel, three. I Chronicles 2:13-16

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As we read through II Samuel, this three names were important. These are the nephews of David from his sister Zeruiah. First on the list is Abishai. In I Samuel, we find that he followed David as David was fleeing from Saul. Abishai was one of David's soldiers. At one point (chapter 26) as Saul is chasing them, Saul and his army set up camp and went to sleep. In the middle of the night, David, Abishai, and one other man covertly crept into the camp and stole Saul's spear and water jug. Abishai told David that he should kill Saul. David would not because Saul was God's anointed king.

In II Samuel 2, Saul is dead and Abner (Saul's top General) tries to make Saul's son Ish-bosheth king. A civil war breaks out between the army of Saul and the army of David. David's army wins, and Abner runs away. The youngest brother, Asahel, was very fast and chased after Abner. Abner told him to stop or he would have to kill him. Asahel continued his pursuit and Abner thrust his speak backwards striking Asahel in the chest and he died. As a result, Joab and Abishai arranged the assassination of Abner after David had made peace with him. This would be one of the reasons David would tell Solomon to execute Joab when Solomon became king.

Any time we see Joab and Abishai together in scripture, they are killing someone. They assassinated Joab. Abishai wanted to kill Shimei for cursing David, but David did not allow it. Joab and Abishai went out to war with Absalom, David's son who tried to usurp the throne. They had explicit orders to not kill Absalom, but Joab did. Because of this, Joab was removed from being head of David's army, so Joab killed Amasa, who David had placed as head of the Army in Joab's place. By the way, Amasa was also David's nephew (the cousin of Joab and Abishai) by his other sister, Abigail.

In chapter two, considerable attention is given to a man named Caleb also. Who is he you may wonder. The story of Caleb is found in Numbers chapters 13-14. Caleb was one of the 12 spies, along with Joshua, that went into the promised land with Moses. We know the names of Joshua and Caleb because they were the two sons who gave the good report that Israel could take the land. Because of this, Caleb lived through the 40 years of wandering in the desert and through the campaign under Joshua to take the promised land. He was rewarded for his faith in God with an entire mountain as his inheritance.

Chapter 3 is very short. However, it provides us with one really important name, in the midst of a lot of important names. Chapter 3 gives us the line of the Davidic dynasty. We are given the sons of David, and some of them are not listed in Samuel or Kings. One of those sons is Nathan. Nathan is important because he is the son through which Jesus will inherit the throne of David through Mary his mother. The line of Solomon was cut off at Jeconiah (called Coniah) in Jeremiah, because he was so wicked. Through Joseph, Jesus had legal right to the throne (Matthew 1), but it was through Mary (Luke 3) that Jesus could be king, after Coniah was cut off. This is the reason for the two different genealogies for Jesus in Matthew and Luke.

Even when it looks like God has backed himself into a corner where he could not fulfill his own promises, he does. That is why Isaiah wrote:

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For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

Isaiah 55:8

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