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Context No. 1029 of 4322 · 1 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

1 Chronicles 2:25-40: in context

25The sons of Jerahmeel the firstborn of Hezron were Ram the firstborn, Bunah, Oren, Ozem, and Ahijah. 26Jerahmeel had another wife, whose name was Atarah. She was the mother of Onam. 27The sons of Ram the firstborn of Jerahmeel were Maaz, Jamin, and Eker. 28The sons of Onam were Shammai and Jada. The sons of Shammai: Nadab and Abishur. 29The name of the wife of Abishur was Abihail; and she bore him Ahban and Molid. 30The sons of Nadab: Seled and Appaim; but Seled died without children. 31The son of Appaim: Ishi. The son of Ishi: Sheshan. The son of Sheshan: Ahlai. 32The sons of Jada the brother of Shammai: Jether and Jonathan; and Jether died without children. 33The sons of Jonathan: Peleth and Zaza. These were the sons of Jerahmeel. 34Now Sheshan had no sons, but only daughters. Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. 35Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant as wife; and she bore him Attai. 36Attai became the father of Nathan, and Nathan became the father of Zabad, 37and Zabad became the father of Ephlal, and Ephlal became the father of Obed, 38and Obed became the father of Jehu, and Jehu became the father of Azariah, 39and Azariah became the father of Helez, and Helez became the father of Eleasah, 40and Eleasah became the father of Sismai, and Sismai became the father of Shallum,

This is part of the genealogy of Jerahmeel, in the line of Judah, mostly names begetting names. But one detail interrupts the pattern. A man named Sheshan had no sons, only daughters, so he gave one of his daughters in marriage to his Egyptian servant, a man named Jarha, and through that marriage the line continued, Attai, Nathan, Zabad, and on down the generations of Judah.

The interruption is worth pausing on. Sheshan faced the end of his family line, no sons to carry the name, in a culture where that was a kind of death. His solution was to marry his daughter to Jarha, his servant, and an Egyptian at that, an outsider and a slave, so that Jarha's children would carry Sheshan's line forward. And the Chronicler records it without embarrassment: the line of Judah, the tribe of David and eventually of Christ, runs in one branch through the son of an Egyptian servant grafted in by marriage. It is one of many quiet signals in scripture that God's people were never a pure bloodline sealed off from outsiders. The foreigner, the servant, the one brought in from outside, keeps appearing in the family tree, Rahab, Ruth, and here Jarha, so that by the time you reach the genealogy of Jesus, the surprise is already prepared. God builds his people by grafting in the outsider, and a childless man's line survives through an Egyptian servant who became a son.

Do I think of belonging to God as a matter of the right pedigree, when his family tree keeps running through grafted-in outsiders like Jarha, brought in by grace?

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