Chapter 7
Descendants of Issachar, Benjamin, Naphtali, Ephraim, and Asher covered in this chapter. Naphtali has very little space devoted to him, only a few sons named. I guess I had not realized that Joshua, son of Nun, was descended from Joseph through Ephraim.
2022 - Note these verses:
4 And along with them, by their generations, according to their fathers' houses, were units of the army for war, 36,000, for they had many wives and sons. 5 Their kinsmen belonging to all the clans of Issachar were in all 87,000 mighty warriors, enrolled by genealogy. [1Ch 7:4-5 ESV].
Now can you imagine, in our day, what a whole city- even a whole county full of people that are related to each other, would have at stake in a battle with another country, if ALL the men in ALL the families in that county volunteered to go and fight? How common would their values need to be, how much in agreement as to the need for battle and the justice of the cause for battle would they have to be? What kind of a leader would it take for all these diverse families to send ALL their men to serve under that leader? Is there any place on earth that can still send their best to fight and perhaps to die for a cause they all believe is right? How much more powerful is such an army than anything any nation can put on the field today? This kind of unity is the measure by which the true strength of a nation should be measured. Look around at the US. Hold this yardstick up and measure what this country was 100 years ago, 200 years ago, and compare that to how we measure up today. 100 years ago, if two Americans met on the street, what was the chance that they agreed on God and country and right and wrong compared to the chances that two strangers meeting on that same street today would agree on these fundamentals. This is why we are seeing the signs of degeneration that we are seeing today. Make not mistake. The loss of unity is an unmistakable sign of degeneration.
FINALLY, a FB post for 7/14/22 Thursday.
2023 - I noted today, for the first time, that Saul, that is King Saul, is not even mentioned in the genealogy of the tribe of Benjamin. He was such a disgrace that his name is just left out completely.