1 Chronicleschapter 9
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Speaks with:Nehemiah 11×111 Chronicles 26×101 Chronicles 8×81 Chronicles 9×6Nehemiah 7×41 Chronicles 2×4
Summary
Chapter summary
The registers close with the return from exile. 'So all Israel were reckoned by genealogies… and Judah was carried away captive to Babylon for their transgression'. Then the names of the first who came back and dwelt again in their possessions: Israelites, priests, Levites, and Nethinim. The temple staff is described with care: the gatekeepers who kept the four quarters and lodged round about the house, the keepers of the vessels and the fine flour and the spices, and the singers who were 'free from other service; for they were employed in their work day and night.' Then Saul's line is repeated, and the story proper can begin.
Context
History · Ezra — 1 Chronicles overview
- A. 1–9 The first to return and settle in Jerusalem
- B. 10–16 Priests and Levites back in their places
- C. 17–27 Gatekeepers who guarded the four sides of the house
- D. 28–34 Vessels, spices, and singers on duty day and night
- E. 35–44 Saul's family line set down again
The outline
A.The first to return and settle in Jerusalemvv. 1 to 9
Read vv. 1 to 9 →B.Priests and Levites back in their placesvv. 10 to 16
Read vv. 10 to 16 →C.Gatekeepers who guarded the four sides of the housevv. 17 to 27
Read vv. 17 to 27 →D.Vessels, spices, and singers on duty day and nightvv. 28 to 34
Read vv. 28 to 34 →E.Saul's family line set down againvv. 35 to 44
Read vv. 35 to 44 →
The world behind this chapter
1 Chronicles 9The history
This is the only chapter of the genealogies set in the writer's own time. It lists who moved back into Jerusalem: men of Judah, of Benjamin, and of Ephraim and Manasseh — northerners, deliberately included — along with priests, Levites, gatekeepers, and the temple servants.
The gatekeepers' job is described in unusual detail because it was a real job. Four crews held the four sides of the temple; they lodged around the house overnight, opened it every morning, and held the keys. Others were responsible for the vessels — counting them out and counting them back in — and for the chambers and the treasuries. Some had charge of the flour, wine, oil, incense, and spices; one family's whole trade was the flat cakes set out before God.
The system ran on rotation. Levites came in from their villages for seven days at a time and then went home, so that the work fell fairly on families spread across the province. The singers, by contrast, lived in the temple chambers and were free from other duty, 'for they were employed in that work day and night.'
What it meant to them
Every earlier chapter has been building toward this one. The register ran from Adam through the patriarchs and the kings, and it ends in a list of the men who unlocked the gate that morning.
The message to a small, tired congregation was that they were not an appendix to the story. Their names stood in the same book, in the same hand, as the first man's.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Chronicles
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on 1 Chronicles 9. 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.