1 CHRONICLES 1 (FROM CAC'S NOTES)
1 CHRONICLES 1 (FROM CAC’S NOTES)
What strikes me first in the book is that all men are in God’s view. The whole human family is in view in chapter 1 but without any mention of idolatry or wickedness on their part. They are all, typically, in the view of God for blessing. If men are put down in God’s chronicles they are put down from the standpoint of what is in the mind of God. They are not viewed here as guilty creatures but as men taken account of in relation to all that God would bring in by Christ. So if Shem is taken up as having the knowledge of God in a special way it is that Japheth may be enlarged and come into the tents of Shem (Genesis 9: 27). We get Abraham here for he is the one in whom all nations are to be blessed. In Isaac, too, all nations were to bless themselves.
God intimates, too, that there would be power of government on the earth, though not in the hands of His people. Nimrod is the great prototype of earthly power as it is in the hands of man. It is in rebel hands, but always under the eye of Jehovah. “He was a mighty hunter before Jehovah”, Genesis 10: 9.
God divided the earth among the nations (Deuteronomy 32: 8). Now the nations are the special sphere of His work.
We find also that kings reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned a king over the children of Israel (verse 43). There is a great development of the idea of government in the world before the divine conception is brought in. We expect the world to have priority in this [p. 230] matter. The great image which Nebuchadnezzar saw was an imposing object of which he was the head of gold but it was all to be broken up by the stone cut out without hands (Daniel 2: 45). No human power had anything to do with that stone.
We see the principle of sovereign selection in the names recorded in 1 Chronicles. All the tribes are not there, nor all the individuals in the tribes that are mentioned. Everything drops out that does not in some way serve God’s purpose. We find three tribes singled out for special honour, just as the Lord selected three out of the twelve for special privilege and service.