Today’s Scripture Reading (August 15,
2013): 1 Chronicles 2
If you are a
follower of a sports team, you probably recognize that teams often have some
weird traditions. For the Calgary Flames of the National Hockey League, they
pride themselves in being the Sea of Red – actually that is wrong – it is the C
of Red. Fans often come to the stadium wearing Red Jerseys – and those that cannot
get into the stadium, especially in playoffs, wear their Red Jersey downtown in
an area known as the Red Mile. It is the part of the character of the fans, the
team and the city. But if you go to a game, especially maybe as an American,
you might notice something. When the Star Spangled Banner is sung in this
Canadian City, the fans tend to punctuate the song in two places. The first is
in the opening line of the song. When words “O say can you see” are sung, the
fans scream the word “see” - and when
the singer gets to the words “and the rockets’ red glare,” the fans scream one
more time, this time punctuating the word “red.” But the words do not mean the
same thing to the fans of the Calgary hockey team that they do to most American’s
that sing the song. The words simply underscore something that is important to
the team’s fans – the C of Red.
Words can
carry meanings that were never intended by the original authors. But words can
also be crafted carefully to give a particular meaning. Most of the writers of
the bible carefully chose their words to give meaning – including in this
seemingly innocuous list of names. The problem with this list is that we have a
bit of a conflict – namely from other passages of the Bible we know that David
was the eighth son of Jesse, not the seventh.
So scholars
have looked for an explanation for the discrepancy. One explanation is that one
of the sons of Jesse had already died and left no children and therefore he had
been left off of the list. Another explanation is that of the eight sons of
Jesse, one son had actually been and an older grandson.
But there
might be a better explanation. Ancient histories were not written with same
idea of objectivity that a modern history is written with. In ancient times the
writers knew something that we have unfortunately forgotten – that the idea of
objectivity is really just a myth. So the ancient histories were written with
the purpose of instilling meaning. And in the ancient world there was an intense
meaning in numbers. Many of the numbers in the Bible are symbolic in nature –
even if to modern ears they are not objectively true. This passage might be
simply illustrating that concept. Jesse had eight sons. But the author of the
history wanted his audience to understand the importance and perfection of
Israel’s king David. And seven is the number of perfection and completion – so David
becomes the seventh son of Jesse – and for both the writer and the early
reader, the perfect son and the perfect king.
For the
curious, an ancient writing called the Midrash gives us the identity of the
missing son, His name is Elihu, and the Midrash places Elihu at number seven –
and David back in his familiar position, and to the modern understanding objectively
true position, of being the number eight son of Jesse.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1
Chronicles 3
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