How many efforts to read the Bible all the way through have foundered on the “begat” passages – extensive lists of tongue-twisting names of people we know so little about. Why would God’s Word need to include all this genealogy?
Well, the first name on the list should give us a clue: Adam. It was because Adam sinned that the whole world is in the mess that it’s in today. And the world eventually became so filled with violence (Genesis 6:11), that God swept everyone away in a great flood, saving only Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth, along with their wives (I Chronicles 1:4). But even the flood couldn’t wash away sin – Ham disrespected and tried to embarrass his father (Genesis 9:22), continuing the willful pattern Adam had established. And even the line of Shem, the one his father blessed above his brothers (Genesis 9:25-27), couldn’t stop the spread of sin in the world and its divisive effects.
But the genealogy in I Chronicles goes on to remind us that God eventually intervened, making a covenant with Abram. God even changed his name to Abraham, which means “father of a multitude” (I Chronicles 1:27; Genesis 17:5). And much of the rest of the genealogy in I Chronicles illustrates how God kept that promise – a promise to give Abraham as many descendants as the stars he could see in the sky (Genesis 15:5), a promise to make Abraham the father of nations and the ancestor of kings (Genesis 17:6).
Of course, God made another promise to Abraham – that in him, all the families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3). And that promise was kept through the Son of Abraham, the Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is through trusting in Christ, and thus sharing the faith of Abraham, that we not only become heirs of the promises God made to Abraham (Galatians 3:7-9). We also become part of the great family of faith, many of whose names are recorded in this genealogy.
In other words, as believers read these lists of names, we need to remember that these are our people. This is our story. And it’s a story of how a faithful, promise-keeping God came to save us.
I Chronicles 1:1-4 (NASB)
Adam, Seth, Enosh,
2 Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared,
3 Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech,
4 Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth.
