Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Chronicles · About this commentary
The Line of David
1 Chronicles 3:1-24
1 Now these were the sons of David, who were born to him in Hebron: the firstborn, Amnon, of Ahinoam the Jezreelitess; the second, Daniel, of Abigail the Carmelitess; · WEB
The line of David is carried straight through the fall of the throne and on past the return, still being counted.
The chapter is a single line, drawn in three stages.
First the sons born at Hebron and at Jerusalem 1 Chronicles 3:1–9. The names are quiet and the histories behind them are not: Amnon, Absalom, Adonijah, and a sister called Tamar. This book will tell none of what happened among them. It registers them anyway, which is a different thing from concealment.
One name there differs from the parallel account. Solomon's mother appears here as the daughter of Ammiel 1 Chronicles 3:5 and elsewhere as the daughter of Eliam 2 Samuel 11:3, and her own name is given in two forms as well. Both are ordinary variants, and nothing in either passage turns on the difference.
Second the kings, Solomon to Josiah, an unbroken chain of fourteen 1 Chronicles 3:10–14. The formula never varies, and no king of the northern kingdom appears at any point. The writer is tracing one throne and is not interested in the other.
Third, and this is where the chapter earns its place, the line does not stop when the throne does. Josiah's sons are named, and Jehoiakim's, and then the sons of Jeconiah, the captive 1 Chronicles 3:17. A king in a foreign prison still has sons, and the register keeps counting them.
It keeps counting a long way. Through Pedaiah to Zerubbabel, who led the first return; then through Hananiah, Shecaniah and Neariah; and finally to seven brothers whose names close the chapter 1 Chronicles 3:22–24. Several generations after the return, and the list is still being kept.
That is an argument, made without a sentence of comment. A throne was promised to this house forever 1 Chronicles 17:14, and the house is documented as continuing after the throne was taken away. Whoever kept this record did not treat the exile as the end of the line. The seven names at the foot of the page are the evidence.
settled What this mark means