1 Chronicles 1
The chapters we are about to study may at first glance seem devoid of interest. Nonetheless, we shall see that they are full of instruction; furthermore, from their onset they show us the character of the book of which they form the preface.
Indeed Chronicles, dealing with God's counsels and His ways of grace toward man, naturally begins with Adam. It then traces the line of man, chosen according to the counsels of grace, in contrast to the line of man according to the flesh. Man has become sinful; he fell at once after his beginning. Though God has purposes of grace toward him, it is yet an established fact that as a sinner in the first place he begets sons in his image, who have no connection with the divine counsels, sons who are the seed of a fallen and corrupted nature. If God in His mercy does not intervene, man can only beget evil. In these chapters we therefore find the line of the flesh first, and that of the Spirit second, for God does not beget until sinful man has first proven what his nature could produce. This is why the apostle in 1 Cor. 15:46 says: "But that which is spiritual was not first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual." Now, that which is spiritual takes part, not of the nature of the first Adam, but of the nature of the Second.
God has ordained it so. The entire question of man's responsibility must be resolved, before the Man according to the counsels of grace would appear; and in fact grace could not be unfolded if it were not first shown into what depths man, left to himself, had fallen. This great truth is foundational to all Scripture, for all Scripture gives man's irremediable ruin as the basis for the gospel of grace.
Therefore it is appropriate that a book like this, which tells us of God's counsels toward man and—as we shall see—especially toward the kingship, show that these counsels proceed uniquely from God's free grace manifested when man, according to the line of the flesh, has proven that he is capable of nothing but evil.
Once it is a question of the genealogy of Christ in the Gospels, we see the line according to the flesh contained in these chapters disappearing completely in order to give place to the line through which, according to election of grace, God's counsels respecting His King are fulfilled. But from the moment it is a question of grace, far from taking perfect men to constitute Christ's lineage, God chooses sinful men—often from among the worst of them—or sinful women, thereby demonstrating the freedom of His choice.
In Chronicles, it is a matter of man, and of the way in which in the course of his history God will realize His counsels in order to triumph in the person of Christ. We see too, as already mentioned, that the genealogy begins with Adam. 1 Chron. 1 to 4 agree with what is revealed in Genesis. Moreover, there are no gaps in this first chapter. As soon as we approach Israel's history in 1 Chron. 2, gaps appear, for when Chronicles was written the genealogies of many members of this people remained undetermined since they could not be proven.
Let us say immediately that 1 Chron. 9 brings us a little beyond the time of Nehemiah, and interrupts the royal genealogies eight generations before Messiah's coming. The Gospel of Matthew fills this gap revealing to us how, right through the ruin God Himself took care to preserve the genealogy of David's Son, His own Son, until His coming as son of Joseph and Mary. Thus Matt. 1 forms the natural continuation of the ninth chapter of Chronicles.
In 1 Chron. 1, our present subject, we find two series of names highlighted. The first (1 Chron. 1:1-4) begins with Adam and ends with Noah's sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. The second (1 Chron. 1:24-27) begins again at Shem and ends with Abraham. These two series form an uninterrupted chain, the point of departure being grace toward fallen man, and culminating in the promises made to Abraham and taken hold of by faith.
Having established this, we find Shem mentioned first in 1 Chron. 1:4, although he is not the first-born, a fact which, moreover, is frequently repeated in the genealogies of Genesis before Abraham. But the genealogies of Japheth and of Ham are enumerated before his (1 Chron. 1:5-16), as we see also in Genesis (Gen. 10). In God's eyes, Shem, chosen by grace, has the preeminence, but in the natural order that which is spiritual is not first, as we have already pointed out. It is the same with regard to Abraham's offspring: "The sons of Abraham: Isaac and Ishmael" (1 Chron. 1:28); Isaac is named first, seen as first in God's thoughts, but Ishmael, the elder, is enumerated first (1 Chron. 1:29) as the seed according to the flesh. So with Isaac, the posterity of his son Esau is enumerated first (1 Chron. 1:35), as we have already seen with Ham and Ishmael.
One or two little secondary considerations will conclude our remarks on this chapter. Among the sons of Ham, Nimrod is simply mentioned as the who "began to be mighty on the earth." In Gen. 10:9-12 we find the extent of his dominion in great detail. Gen. 10 deals with the distribution of the nations on the earth, and the developments found there would be useless for the aim of the book we are now considering. For the same reason the boundaries of the Canaanites in Gen. 10:18-20 and those of the sons of Joktan (Gen. 10:30-32) are passed over in complete silence here (cf. 1 Chron. 1:16, 23).
In 1 Chron. 1:32 The sons of Keturah, Abraham's concubine, are enumerated as we find them in Gen. 25:1-4. They follow Ishmael's posterity (1 Chron. 1:28-31) in our chapter so as to show that they also are part of the lineage according to the flesh. The genealogy of Ishmael himself is given according to Gen. 25:12-15. As for Esau (1 Chron. 1:35-42), his sons are mentioned in abbreviated form, without the names of their mothers and the numerous details given us in Gen. 36:1-19.
The kings of Edom are enumerated next (1 Chron. 1:43-54; cf. Gen. 36:31-42). Violence characterizes this entire race, for not a single one of these kings has his son as successor.
We believe we must mention these details as characterizing the aim of the Spirit of God in this book. They are in no way, as rationalists claim, a very inexact or willfully altered compilation of other documents, but a selection out of earlier documents of that which is appropriate for the purpose God has before Him.
Moreover, if this first chapter contains, as we have seen, the voluntary omission of certain details, it agrees completely with the genealogical lists of Genesis. We repeat that we do not find gaps here. These gaps begin to appear only when we get to the genealogies of the twelve tribes.
Once the lineage according to nature has been enumerated, the question is considered as closed forever.
God does not come back to it. He cannot in any way use the "natural man," from henceforth left to himself, without connection or relationship to God, so that he may give place to a lineage according to the election of grace and according to the eternal counsels of God.