Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth

Reading the First Book of the Chronicles chapters 1-6

In this newsletter, I am reading the approx. 850 authors and works of Harold Bloom's Western canon, from cover to cover, from the Epic of Gilgamesh of ca. 1200 B.C. to Tony Kushner's 1991 play Angels in America. For today I’ve continued the third item on Bloom’s list: the Holy Bible.

Due in part to work-related obligations I didn’t get through nearly as much of the First Book of the Chronicles as I hoped this week, but in my defense the first six chapters are almost pure genealogy. As a mentioned in a previous edition of this newsletter, when I was reading the Egyptian Book of the Dead, I find it difficult to follow a narrative made up of a bunch of proper names that, other than their place in the very passage I’m reading, mean nothing to me. And unlike the genealogies found in the early chapters of Genesis that connect the generation of Cain and Seth to Noah, and the generation of Shem, Ham, and Japheth to Abram, which supply the lifespan of each descendant and comment on who invented metallurgy or whatever, the genealogies of the First Book of the Chronicles are terse almost to the point of being elliptical. Here’s how the book opens:

Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Last week I alluded to the fact that the Book of the Chronicles, split into two books, much like the Book of Samuel and the Book of the Kings were, by editors who thought it was too long, is a revisionist account of the Israelite monarchy, and it’s obvious from these opening verses that the reader is supposed to already be familiar with Genesis, for without help from the First Book of Moses they would have no idea who Adam or Sheth were or what relation they bore to each other. Even if one worked out that this sentence is supposed to be a genealogy, it would appear that Ham is the son of Shem and Japheth the son of Ham, when really, as anyone who has read Genesis will recall, these three men are all sons of Noah.

The First Book of the Chronicles traces its genealogies from the first man down to the exile of the Israelites and the Judahites, accounting for the origins of Israel’s heathen neighbors along the way, but the laconic style can make it hard to tell what is going on when the genealogy jumps to a different line of descent, as when it finishes listing the descendants of one of Noah’s sons and starts recounting the generations of another of his sons. Perhaps because much of the genealogy is cribbed from Genesis, the Book of Joshua, the Book of Ruth, the Book of Samuel, and the Book of Kings, the narrative is far from linear, sometimes retreading ground already covered, as when it seems to return multiple times to Hezron son of Pharez son of Judah:

The sons also of Hezron, that were born unto him; Jerahmeel, and Ram, and Chelubai. And Ram begat Aminnadab; and Amminadab begat Nahshon, prince of the children of Judah; And Nahshon begat Salma, and Salma begat Boaz, And Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse,

And Jesse begat his firstborn Eliab, and Abinadab the second, and Shimma the third, Nethaneel the fourth, Raddai the fifth, Ozem the sixth, David the seventh: Whose sisters were Zeruiah, and Abigail. And the sons of Zeruiah; Abishai, and Joab, and Asahel, three. And Abigail bare Amasa: and the father of Amasa was Jether the Ishmeelite.

And Caleb the son of Hezron begat children of Azubah his wife, and of Jerioth: her sons are these; Jesher, and Shobab, and Ardon. And when Azubah was dead, Caleb took unto him Ephrath, which bare him Hur. And Hur begat Uri, and Uri begat Bezaleel.

And afterward Hezron went in to the daughter of Machir the father of Gilead, whom he married when he was threescore years old; and she bare him Segub. And Segub begat Jair, who had three and twenty cities in the land of Gilead. And he took Geshur, and Aram, with the towns of Jair, from them, with Kenath, and the towns thereof, even threescore cities. All these belonged to the sons of Machir the father of Gilead. And after that Hezron was dead in Caleb-ephratah, then Abiah Hezron’s wife bare him Ashur the father of Tekoa.

But the genealogies aren’t just rehashing other books of the Bible: there is unique material as well, and the lists of generations are given a new significance. The redactor of the Book of Chronicles seems very concerned with places and which descendants of which patriarchs winded up where, as seen in the quote above which assigns certain cities for the children of Hezron. Isaac’s son Jacob is always referred to as “Israel,” perhaps stressing that patriarch’s fatherhood of the kingdom that bears that name, and place names are attached to individual persons in a way not seen elsewhere in the Bible: Beth-lehem, David’s birthplace, is the name of an individual person in the First Book of Chronicles, specifically, the son of Salma son of Caleb son of Hur son of Hezron.

While the “mainstream” history of Israel, traced in the Pentateuch and in the Joshua-Judges-Samuel-Kings cycle, allows the different tribes to fall into the background and ends up concentrating on the royal families of Israel and Judah as their kingdoms fall and they go into exile, the First Book of Chronicles does appear to see each son of Israel through to the end, as in the case of the Transjordanian tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh:

The sons of Reuben, and the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh, of valiant men, men able to bear buckler and sword, and to shoot with bow, and skilful in war, were four and forty thousand seven hundred and threescore, that went out to the war. And they made war with the Hagarites, with Jetur, and Nephish, and Nodab. And they were helped against them, and the Hagarites were delivered into their hand, and all that were with them: for they cried to God in the battle, and he was intreated of them; because they put their trust in him. And they took away their cattle; of their camels fifty thousand, and of sheep two hundred and fifty thousand, and of asses two thousand, and of men an hundred thousand. For there fell down many slain, because the war was of God. And they dwelt in their steads until the captivity.

And the children of the half tribe of Manasseh dwelt in the land: they increased from Bashan unto Baal-hermon and Senir, and unto mount Hermon.

And these were the heads of the house of their fathers, even Epher, and Ishi, and Eliel, and Azriel, and Jeremiah, and Hodaviah, and Jahdiel, mighty men of valour, famous men, and heads of the house of their fathers.

And they transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them. And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day.

I haven’t read enough of the First Book of the Chronicles to tell whether this attention to the fates of individual tribes indicates any kind of populist in the redactor, but it at least shows a belief in the integrity of Israel’s genealogical lines of descent even at a time when King Solomon’s tax districts had cut across tribal lines and made the tribes less important as administrative subdivisions.

Another clear piece of revisionist history is the mention of a heretofore unacknowledged form of worshipping God in the house of the LORD under King David:

And these are they whom David set over the service of song in the house of the LORD, after that the ark had rest. And they ministered before the dwelling place of the tabernacle of the congregation with singing, until Solomon had built the house the LORD in Jerusalem: and then they waited on their office according to their order.

But I will have to finish reading through the descendants of Israel (the descendants of Judah, Simeon, Reuben, Gad, Manasseh, and Levi are traced in what I’ve already read) next week as I continue to read the First Book of the Chronicles.