Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we drop back in on the genealogy we started reading two days ago.

It picked up with David, whose kingship is the focal point of the book itself.

But before we get to David's storyline, we have to wrap up these genealogies first.

It's likely that the first part of today's reading that caught your attention was in

4-9, where the text goes from listing names to sharing a brief narrative about a man named J-Bez.

We learn that he's an honorable man and that he seeks God, even though

his name means sorrow or pain, which is all the more interesting given that he asked God to

keep him from pain. Remember how names in the Old Testament are intended to point toward character?

It seems like Jabez is sincerely asking God to protect him from himself, to make him a new man,

to do something different than his name would indicate. And he knows that part of avoiding pain

and sorrow is avoiding sin and harm, so he asked God to keep him from those things too.

One of the other things he asked God for is an enlarged border, which is probably a literal prayer for more land, because as we've seen, that's what a lot of the other things he asked God for is an enlarged border, which is probably a literal prayer

for more land, because as we've seen, that's what a lot of the focus has been on lately.

And the text tells us that God answers his prayer with a yes.

I'll touch more on this in my Godshot.

Later in chapter four, we see that the tribe of Simeon is shrinking.

Jacob hinted at this when he prophesied over Simeon way back in Genesis 49, saying,

"'Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel.

I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.'"

And Moses also hinted at this in Deuteronomy 33 right before he died, when he was blessing the tribes and failed to offer a blessing to Simeon.

It kind of blows my mind when I noticed that God has been dropping a trail of breadcrumbs for a few thousand years.

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