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Context No. 856 of 4322 · 1 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

1 Chronicles 7:6-12: in context

6The sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, and Jediael, three. 7The sons of Bela: Ezbon, Uzzi, Uzziel, Jerimoth, and Iri, five; heads of fathers’ houses, mighty men of valor; and they were listed by genealogy twenty-two thousand thirty-four. 8The sons of Becher: Zemirah, Joash, Eliezer, Elioenai, Omri, Jeremoth, Abijah, Anathoth, and Alemeth. All these were the sons of Becher. 9They were listed by genealogy, after their generations, heads of their fathers’ houses, mighty men of valor, twenty thousand two hundred. 10The son of Jediael: Bilhan. The sons of Bilhan: Jeush, Benjamin, Ehud, Chenaanah, Zethan, Tarshish, and Ahishahar. 11All these were sons of Jediael, according to the heads of their fathers’ households, mighty men of valor, seventeen thousand two hundred, who were able to go out in the army for war. 12So were Shuppim, Huppim, the sons of Ir, Hushim, and the sons of Aher.

Tucked into Chronicles' long genealogies is a roll of the tribe of Benjamin: the sons of Bela, of Becher, of Jediael, listed by household and counted by the thousands, and each cluster of names carries the same tag, heads of fathers' houses, brave warriors, able to go out to war. On the surface it is just another census of another tribe. But it is worth knowing what Benjamin had been through to be counted here at all.

Benjamin was the smallest of the tribes, so small that when Saul was told he would be king he protested that he came from the least of them. And in the book of Judges, Benjamin had very nearly ceased to exist; after a civil war, the whole tribe was reduced to six hundred surviving men hiding on a rock. By every reasonable expectation it should have vanished from the roster of Israel. And yet here, generations later, the Chronicler counts its households in the tens of thousands and calls them brave warriors. The tribe that was almost wiped out did not stay wiped out. What was reduced to a hidden remnant of a few hundred was rebuilt into strength. It is a quiet argument, hidden in a list of names, against ever writing off what has been diminished nearly to nothing, because God has a way of growing strength again out of a remnant.

Benjamin, once cut down to a few hundred survivors, is counted here in the thousands. What part of my life or family or hope have I written off as diminished past recovery, when God rebuilds strength out of a remnant?

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