Reading… and Thinking

Now these are the men whom David appointed over the service of song in the house of the LORD, after the ark came to rest. They were ministering with music before the dwelling place of the tabernacle of meeting, until Solomon had built the house of the LORD in Jerusalem, and they served in their office according to their order.

And these are the ones who ministered with their sons: Of the sons of the Kohathites were Heman the singer, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel, the son of Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the son of Toah, the son of Zuph, the son of Elkanah, the son of Mahath, the son of Amasai, the son of Elkanah, the son of Joel, the son of Azariah, the son of Zephaniah, the son of Tahath, the son of Assir, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, the son of Israel.

— 1 Chronicles 6:31-38 (NKJV)

I’m guessing that you didn’t read the passage above. At least not the second paragraph. You saw that it was a genealogy, and you skipped right down here. In fact, lots of people skip the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles every time they come up in the readings.

It’s true that there’s not much action in these genealogies and other lists of names. The Bible is like a library. Some books contain interesting stories, some are informational, some are motivational. And there are also reference books. The genealogies fall into the reference category. However we shouldn’t conclude that they therefore have no value. Especially as you become more and more familiar with the people of the Bible, there are surprising connections that emerge in the genealogies!

This passage gives us some information on a couple of key people, and it also provides a spiritual lesson.

We first note that this man Heman was not an obscure person. We learn here that he was the leader of the Kohathite clan of the Levites, but his name comes up elsewhere as well. In chapter 25, he is called “Heman the king’s seer”. When we think about David’s “seers”, we recall Samuel, and Gad, and Nathan. Look at the genealogy: Heman was Samuel’s grandson! We know that Joel, Heman’s father, was worthless (1 Samuel 8:1-5). But apparently Heman shared the faith of his grandfather.

And that brings us to something else. From this passage, we learn that Samuel was a Levite. In 1 Samuel, Elkanah (Samuel’s father) is referred to as “an Ephraimite”. But the family line for five generations is given in 1 Samuel, so we can be confident it’s the same man. Reconciling these passages isn’t as hard as you might think. We know that throughout the period of the judges, the Levites did not perform their appointed service. They were supposed to be given cities among all the tribes, but ended up having to do whatever they could to earn a living—the people did not collect the tithe that was supposed to support the Levites. So they became assimilated. By the time Samuel was born at the end of that four century period, both Elkanah and his neighbors probably thought of him as an Ephraimite. But he and Hannah knew their Levite roots, and Hannah in particular recognized that as a Levite, Samuel should be serving in the tabernacle. Hence when she “lent him to the Lord”, she was doing exactly the right thing.

Coming back to Heman. We don’t encounter him in the narrative records of David’s life, but from 1 Chronicles 25 we understand that Heman had the Spirit and gave inspired guidance to David. In confirmation of his inspiration, we find that Psalm 88 was written by him. The title of that Psalm also indicates that it is a “psalm of the sons of Korah”.

Looking at the genealogy, we indeed find that Samuel and Heman were descended from Korah. This is the man who led the rebellion against Moses in the wilderness! The other leaders, Dathan and Abiram, were destroyed along with their families. But in Numbers 16 we find that Korah’s family was not destroyed. Why? Because the Lord knew that from this line some faithful people would emerge later. The Lord’s judgments are not haphazard, or motivated by blind rage. He is able to discern when a line is going to produce no further good, ever—and He acts to cut that line off. We see it with whole nations in the Judges, and with certain blood lines within Israel in the Kings. Other people, just as wicked, do not have their entire line cut off. Knowing the end from the beginning, God knows where good will emerge later. This is the spiritual lesson from this genealogy: God’s judgments are just. We sometimes recoil at them, even though they show us just how hateful sin is. But even in judgment, God is eager to spare us, if there is any hope at all for good to come. He waits and waits, and when the judgment finally falls, we know that it’s because there is no further hope.

Quite a few of the Psalms are ascribed to “the sons of Korah”. The link with Heman in the title of Psalm 88, Heman’s position of leadership among the singers, and the clear statement that he was inspired, all add up to suggest that he may have been responsible for many or all of the “sons of Korah” psalms. Certainly he was a key individual in David’s success, in finally establishing the centralized worship of the Lord that should have been happening all along.

The obscure details contained in this genealogy are an “undersigned coincidence”—that is, these details mesh with equally obscure details in other passages. This is a mark of truth. A writer of fiction wouldn’t be able to get all of this to match. We see that the Bible accounts aren’t fables—fictional stories with a lesson. They are the records of real people. The real lives of those people included many events and many people who are not mentioned, or who have only small passing mention. Just what you would expect from a true story.

I’ve given you a taste of what can be drawn out of a genealogy. The next person mentioned in 1 Chronicles 6 is Asaph. See what you can find about him!