1 Chronicleschapter 8
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Speaks with:1 Chronicles 9×7Numbers 26×31 Chronicles 7×2Judges 3×2Nehemiah 11×2Genesis 46×3
Summary
Chapter summary
Benjamin is taken up again in full, tracing the clans of Geba and Aijalon and the heads of fathers' houses who dwelt in Jerusalem. The list is built toward one household: the family that dwelt at Gibeon, Ner and Kish and 'Kish begat Saul, and Saul begat Jonathan.' Jonathan's son Merib-baal is named, and Micah after him, and generations of Benjamite archers beyond. The Chronicler is quietly setting the stage. Israel's first king and his line are documented honestly and completely, so that the next narrative chapter can show why the kingdom passed out of that house and into David's.
Context
History · Ezra — 1 Chronicles overview
- A. 1–28 Benjamin's chiefs and the fathers who dwelt in Jerusalem
- B. 29–40 The house of Saul traced through Jonathan
The outline
A.Benjamin's chiefs and the fathers who dwelt in Jerusalemvv. 1 to 28
Read vv. 1 to 28 →B.The house of Saul traced through Jonathanvv. 29 to 40
Read vv. 29 to 40 →
The world behind this chapter
1 Chronicles 8The history
Benjamin was the smallest useful piece of ground in Israel and the most valuable: it held the ridge road north of Jerusalem and the passes down to the coastal plain. Whoever held Benjamin controlled the approach to the capital, which is why the tribe shows up in every war between north and south.
The Gibeon section names Jeiel as the founder of that town and lists his household. Gibeon was a real place with a spectacular water system — a rock-cut shaft and stepped tunnel down to the water table, so the town could drink under siege — and it kept its own standing in Israel long after Joshua's day.
Saul's line is given at length, and the names raise a question worth naming plainly. Two of them, Esh-baal and Merib-baal, contain the word 'baal,' which simply meant lord or master and was used freely of Israel's God in earlier centuries. By the time Samuel's books were copied the word had been ruined by the Canaanite god who bore it, and the names appear there in altered form. Chronicles preserves the older spelling.
What it meant to them
Benjamin came home with Judah. When the lists in Ezra and Nehemiah name the province, it is Judah, Benjamin, and Levi — so this chapter is a register of the neighbors, the men in the next street.
And the family that lost the throne is still written in, at length, with honor. The register is not a trophy case for winners. A man's descendants are recorded because they existed, not because he succeeded.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on 1 Chronicles 8. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.