Toledot

Nine chapters. That’s how much space the Chronicler gives to genealogies. Nine chapters. If you’ve made it to 1 Chronicles in your Bible reading plan, you may feel tempted to skip over it. Why does the Chronicler spill so much ink on genealogies?

You might recall the answer from Pastor I’John’s sermon in 2 Chronicles a few months ago: Roots. The Chronicler is writing to God’s people recently returned from exile, in the land of promise with no temple and no king. Naturally, they are a people wondering if God’s gracious promises to them are still in effect: “What about the kingdom of God? Are we still God’s people? Is God still going to dwell in our midst? Is God still going to reign over us through his promised son of David king forever?” So the Chronicler aims to remind them of their roots as God’s chosen people who have been given a precious promise—the gracious sure promise of the promised messiah, the offspring of the woman would come through them and reign as their king forever.

There are only a few places in the OT that the phrase “These are the generations” and variations of it occur in Scripture. The clause serves as a formula for introducing genealogies. In the original Hebrew, it is even easier to identify because it is actually a verbless clause. So it would read woodenly as, “These the generations…” The Hebrew word we render generations is toledot. Because of the rarity of these verbless toledot clauses, we do well to take note when they do show up.

The highest concentration of these formulaic verbless toledot clauses occurs in Genesis. For example,

 

“These are the generations of the heavens and the earth…” (Genesis 2:4).

“This is the book of the generations of Adam…” (Genesis 5:1).

“These are the generations of Noah…” (Genesis 6:9).

 

And, starting in Genesis 10, the pattern of this formula introducing lengthy genealogies emerges,

 

“These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth…” (Genesis 10:1, And it keeps going, son after son, for the whole chapter).

 

Then in Genesis 11, we see where these genealogies were headed. They were driving toward and culminating in Abraham and God’s call of and covenant with him,

 

“These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad…(All the way down to Terah, Abraham’s father)…When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram…The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 11:10, 26–27, 32–12:1).

 

Abraham, the recipient of God’s covenant promises is the focal point of Genesis’ verbless toledot clauses. Now back to Chronicles.

The author of Chronicles begins with an extended genealogy, yes, but it isn’t until he arrives at Abraham’s line that he employs the all powerful verbless toledot clause pattern,

 

“The sons of Abraham: Isaac and Ishmael. These are their genealogies…” (1 Chronicles 1:28–29).

 

Why does the Chronicler wait until here to use such a well-known and handy tool for introducing genealogies? Because he wants to remind his wondering, doubting, post-exilic audience of their God-given roots and their God-given promise.

It isn’t until Abraham steps onto the scene that YHWH localizes the promised offspring of the woman (Genesis 3:15; 9:9) in a particular son—Isaac (Genesis 12:7; 13:15–16; 15:3–6, 18; 17:7–14, 15–21). And the last place we see the verbless toledot clause occur in Genesis applying directly to the line of the people of God (which is its very last occurrence in Genesis) is in Genesis 37:9, “These are the generations of Jacob…”. This connects us back to the promised son, Isaac in Genesis 25:19, “These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son…”. Isaac prayed for a child from the Lord and was given two of whom the Lord said, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.” Jacob himself, like Isaac, was a child carrying on the promise of God that he would establish a people through a promised offspring.

So with this little grammatical tool, the Chronicler abruptly, without apology, inserts his post-exilic audience—and us—back into the story of redemption at this particular point as if to say, “Remember, God made a promise to Abraham? Isaac is the child of that promise. And God made a promise to Isaac. And Jacob is the child of that promise. God has promised to make you a people. Look how he faithfully did that. And God has promised to bring through you, the promised offspring of the woman that Isaac prefigured. God will do it.”

And so, it’s no surprise that the Chronicler, after reminding us of the roots and the promise, immediately does some chronological gymnastics and fronts the genealogy of David (1 Chronicles 2:1–15) next before ever introducing the tribes of Israel and their respective genealogies. By doing this, like with Abraham and Isaac, the Chronicler puts the promised offspring into sharp focus again.

If Abraham and Isaac pointed to the promised offspring who was localized in them, then David, in whom the promised offspring is further localized points to the promised offspring even more. Because in David, the promise offspring reemerges with kingly contours. In other words, the promise of a seed in Abraham and Isaac blossoms into the promised messiah in David (1 Chr 17:10–14). Thus, from the very beginning with all his genealogies, the Chronicler casts the eyes of his audience back to the past, to the roots, to remind them that they are God’s people, who have been given a promise. They’ve been given the promise of an offspring, like Abraham, like Isaac. A promised offspring, who was pictured by and would ultimately come through King David. So by having his readers look back at the roots and the promise, the Chronicler ultimately encourages his readers to look forward in hope to the coming of the promised messiah.

Chronicles is actually the very last book in the Hebrew ordering of the OT. It’s no wonder then why Matthew, the first book of the NT, chose to start his book this way,

 

The book of the genealogy (i.e. generations) of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1).