One Year Bible Readings and Commentary for Saturday, July 9th
Descendants of Issachar
Thirty-six thousand troops ready for war: “For Israhiah and his four sons, even with ‘many wives,’ to have ‘36,000’ warriors seems unlikely, as does the total (1 Chronicles 7:2-5) of 145,600 for just one tribe of the Twelve. This appears to be the first of nine passages in Chronicles where elep (‘thousand’) might be better interpreted as allup (‘chief’).” (Payne)
Descendants of Benjamin
The son of Aher: Many believe that is better rendered the sons of Aher and is a veiled reference to the tribe of Dan, who is not otherwise mentioned in this genealogy. (Guzik)
Descendants of Naphtali
The next verse (1 Chronicles 7:13) mentions the sons of Bilhah, who was mother to both Dan and Naphtali, also mentioned in that verse. (Guzik)
Descendants of Manasseh
But Zelophehad begot only daughters: Zelophehad is the one mentioned in Numbers 26:33, 27:1-11 and 36:1-12 when the question came to Moses about female inheritance rights.
Descendants of Ephraim
The sons of Ephraim: “The Ephraimites were famous for their wealth, power, and prowess; but withal they are noted for insolent, proud, and quarrelsome.” (Trapp)
Descendants of Asher
Their sister Serah…. their sister Shua: “The rabbins say that the daughters of Asher were very beautiful, and were all matched with kings or priests.” (Clarke)
Descendants of Benjamin
Now Benjamin: The tribe was already mentioned in 1 Chronicles 7:6-12, but is given more attention here. One reason for this is because most of these settlements were in the area of Jerusalem, which was the main area that the returning exiles came to in the days when Chronicles was written. (Guzik)
“Chronicles elaborates this material, not simply because of the significance of King Saul and his family, as it continued a dozen generations after him, but primarily because of the importance of Benjamin as a tribe, which ranked second only to Judah in postexilic society.” (Payne)
The Family of Saul
Ner begot Kish, Kish begot Saul: “This Ner is also called Abiel (1 Samuel 9:1). The Hebrews tell us that his proper name was Abiel; and that he was called Ner – that is, a lamp or torch – because he outshone in holiness.” (Guzik)
The son of Jonathan was Merib-Baal: “The same as Mephi-bosheth; for, as the Israelites detested Baal, which signifies lord, they changed it into bosheth, which signifies shame or reproach.” (Clarke)
Paul Sails for Rome
When the time came "we" sailed for Italy. "We" includes the writer Luke. Though Paul was placed in custody on the ship, the captain was favorablydisposed to Paul and let him go ashore to visit with friends who could provide for his needs. Paul's reputation must have preceded him.
The trip was going along well enough until they hit major headwinds that slowed them down quite a bit. The problem with taking extra time was that it was pushing the journey into the Fall season when inclement weather was much more likely.
When they started the day a light wind was blowing so they thought they could make it, but a furious storm kicked up similar to what we would call a typhoon. The captain could not sail into the wind so the boat was brought along with the wind. To stop the boat from crashing into the sandbar, they tied ropes around the hull and lowered anchors.
But the next several days brought gale force winds, so they had to start throwing overboard cargo and the ship's gear. The many dark days left most of the men without hope.
They lightened the ship… threw the ship’s tackle overboard: These were the final two things done to help save the ship – first throwing over the cargo and then the ship’s equipment. Even with this, the ship continued to drive in the wind for many days. (Guzik)
Now when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest beat on us, all hope that we would be saved was finally given up. When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days: On the open sea they could only navigate with either the sun or the stars. Many days in this storm drove the crew to desperation. The great tempest drove them blind westward across the Mediterranean.
All hope that we would be saved was finally given up: Acts 27:37 tells us there were 276 people on board, both passengers and crew. It seems that they had all finally given up, and had no hope of survival. (Guzik)
This was just another one of the twists and turns on Paul's journey to preach the Good News to Caesar in Rome. By now Paul knew who was in charge and even this horrendous weather would not stop him from getting to Rome. After all the God that Paul served was in charge of the weather and in charge of him!
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