How does 1 Chronicles 2:41 demonstrate God's faithfulness in genealogies? Verse under the microscope “Shallum was the father of Jekamiah, and Jekamiah was the father of Elishama.” 1 Chronicles 2:41 Why a single sentence matters • 1 Chronicles opens with long family lists because God had promised, “He remembers His covenant forever, the word He commanded for a thousand generations” (Psalm 105:8). • Every “was the father of” is a concrete proof that the Lord carried each generation forward exactly as He said He would (Genesis 17:7; Deuteronomy 7:9). • By the time the Chronicler wrote, Judah had returned from exile. This quiet verse reassured survivors that the line of promise was still intact—God had not lost track of a single name. A threatened branch kept alive • Just a few lines earlier, Sheshan “had no sons, only daughters” (1 Chronicles 2:34). In a patriarchal society, that looked like the end of the family tree. • Sheshan married his daughter to Jarha the Egyptian, an outsider (v. 35). Instead of the lineage dying, God grafted in someone unexpected and moved the story forward. • Verse 41 shows the eighth and ninth generations after that crisis—evidence that the Lord rescued a dying branch and let it flourish. His covenant promises survive human impossibilities. The preaching power of the names • Jekamiah means “The LORD raises up.” • Elishama means “My God has heard.” • In one short verse the Chronicler highlights both realities: God raises up a line no one expected and listens to the cries of His people who fear the end of the story. Tied to the bigger covenant tapestry • The tribe in view is Judah, the royal tribe (Genesis 49:10). • God had sworn to David, “I will raise up your descendant after you” (2 Samuel 7:12). • The seemingly ordinary births in 1 Chronicles 2 safeguard that promise, paving the way for the legal genealogy in Matthew 1 and the physical line traced in Luke 3 that culminate in the Messiah (Galatians 4:4). Faithfulness you can bank on today • If God tracks generations through obscurity, lands foreign servants in family trees, and preserves names even Israel forgot, He can be trusted with every detail of life now (2 Timothy 2:13). • The verse invites confidence: the Lord who carried Judah through centuries of upheaval will finish the good work He has begun in every believer (Philippians 1:6). |
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