That we're going to get into our study of God's word tonight on Thursday nights.

We're going through the Old Testament book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse.

And tonight we're going to have two chapters. Thankfully chapter 13 is a relatively short chapter.

So chapters 12 and 13 in First Chronicles. And why don't we pray and we'll ask God's blessing on our time

together in His Word.

Loving Heavenly Father, would you at this time just settle our hearts and focus our attention

upon you and your Word and that which you have for us in your word tonight.

Lord, we don't want the distractions of the day, the busyness of our weeks to get in the way of our time together in your word tonight.

And so, Lord, we're just looking to you to minister to us, we pray. In Jesus'

name, amen. All right, let's jump in, chapter 12, verse 1. Now, these were the man who came

to David at Zichlag, while he was still a fugitive from Saul, the son of Kish, and they were among the mighty

men, helpers in war, armed with bows using both the right hand and the left in hurling stones

and shooting arrows with the bow. They were of Benjamin, Saul's brethren.

The chief was Ahyazir, then Joash, the sons of Shima'ah, the Ghibeathite.

Jeziel and Pellet, the sons of Asmaveth, Bertha, and Jehu, the Anothothothite. Ishmaeer, verse 4, the Gibyanite, a mighty man among the 30,

and over the 30, Jeremiah, Jehaziel, Johanan, and Jazebad, the Geterothite.

Verse 5, Elyssai, Jermath, Belia, Belia, Shemarayah, and Shafatayah, the Harofite, how we doing so far, okay?

Verse, keep in mind now, this is to the post exelic Jews, and as such they are in effect

being introduced to their ancestors whom they've never heard of.

So they were born in captivity, knew nothing of their history, their ancestry as a post-exilic

Israelites. So these names, though to us are odd and even hard to pronounce, of course, if our name was in here, we would pay very close

attention to the passage. But so again, they're really being introduced in this record

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