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

I was excited to finish up the genealogies today, and I'm guessing you were too. If you think

reading them is hard, imagine trying to teach them. In fact, I only have a couple of things to say about chapter 7 and 8.

In chapter 7, we see the genealogy of the tribe of Benjamin, and then in chapter 8 we get

a second genealogy of Benjamin that is almost entirely different.

What's going on here?

First, the chapter 8 genealogy focuses specifically on the line of Saul.

Maybe you're wondering why they couldn't have just included that in the original Chapter 7 version

instead of having to address it separately.

We won't dive into this fully, but at a point in the story that we haven't reached yet,

it seems that the tribe of Benjamin may have had a little mini-split,

kind of like East and West

Manasseh did. And since the author wrote this 500 years after the time we're currently in,

he may have been retroactively noting who went which way in that split. It's not vital information

for us to retain, but I wanted to point it out in case the double genealogy confused anyone.

Remember how I told you that these genealogies served to track who's a part of what tribe

for when they return from exile? In chapter nine, we get a glimpse into that. It tells us who

comes back and in what order and where they go to live. It focuses specifically on Jerusalem,

which is the religious capital at this point.

This chapter also shows us just how many people are involved in running things at the temple after it's built.

It's not just making sacrifices. It's mixing incense and counting utensils and leading worship and guarding gates and baking bread.

So much goes into keeping things running smoothly.

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