1 Chronicles 2 Study Notes

2:1 The Chronicler initially lists the sons of Jacob (Israel). Judah became the most prominent, although the oldest chronologically was Reuben, who forfeited the privilege of the firstborn (5:1-2).

2:2 As the first son of Jacob’s favorite wife, Joseph could have carried the honors as the tribe of the firstborn, but his descendants are divided into the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.

2:3 We see God’s grace in action as he selects the line that would lead to the kings and ultimately to the Messiah. All three of Judah’s first sons had a Canaanite mother.

2:4 After Judah’s first two sons were killed, he had two more sons by his daughter-in-law Tamar, another Canaanite woman, who had disguised herself as a prostitute (Gn 38). These twins were Perez and Zerah.

2:5 Perez continues the main line through Hezron. Hamul’s line is the secondary alternative.

2:6 Zerah’s sons constitute another alternative. This does not mean that they were unimportant—they may be the wise men of 1Kg 4:31 and the musicians in the titles of Pss 88 and 89—only that they were not ancestors of the line of kings.

2:7 Carmi must be a person of a later generation. He is mentioned only because he is the father of Achar, another bearer of scandal (aka Achan, Jos 7). Thus, the alternative branch goes: Zerah to Zabdi to Carmi to Achar.

2:8 Nothing further is known of this Azariah.

2:9 Returning to the main line: Perez had Hezron (see note at v. 5). Now the line splits three ways based on Hezron’s three sons: Jerahmeel, Ram, and Chelubai. Of these, Ram’s line is the main one, and this time it gets mentioned first. Chelubai is another version of the name Caleb. There are many different men named Caleb in the list that follows.

2:10-12 Ram’s line of descent connects through Boaz to Jesse, the father of David.

2:13-17 In this passage we are given the names of David’s six older brothers and his two much older sisters Zeruiah and Abigail. These two were probably from an earlier marriage of David’s father Jesse since according to 2Sm 17:25, their father was Nahash. So presumably Jesse married Nahash’s widow. Zeruiah had three sons—Abishai, Joab, and Asahel—who were roughly David’s age, and who would later become leaders in David’s army. Abigail married an Ishmaelite named Jether and gave birth to Amasa, who would become the leader of Absalom’s army against David. These four were David’s half-nephews. Also see the note at 27:18.

2:18-24 We go back to Hezron, son of Perez, who left a sizeable number of descendants—one of them even after his own death. His son Caleb (called Chelubai in v. 9) also had a number of sons.

2:25-33 The third line of descent coming from Hezron, joining those of Ram and Caleb, is that of Jerahmeel. His son Ram was the nephew of Hezron’s brother, Ram.

2:34-35 Sheshan had been mentioned in v. 31, the sixth generation descendant of Jerahmeel. He did not have a male heir, but a daughter named Ahlai. Jarha, his Egyptian servant, provided him with a grandson named Attai to carry on the family name.

2:36-41 The list of Jerahmeel’s descendants continues from Attai onward.

2:42-55 We have already had a list of the descendants of Caleb (Chelubai), the son of Perez. This time the descendants mentioned are not individual people but the populations of towns that could trace themselves back to him in direct and indirect ways.