Sunday Sermonette: There is a bomb in Gilead . . .

Chapter 5 gives the genealogy, and some purported history, of the Israelites who remained in Gilead, that is east of the Jordan river, after the conquest of Canaan. You may recall (well, you probably don ' t) that Joshua ordered their fighting men to join the rest of the people in the conquest, then allowed them to return to Gilead, as recounted in Ch. 22 of Joshua. They built an altar, which caused the Israelites in Canaan to come and threaten to murder them all, but they explained the altar was just symbolic and they didn ' t intend to use it for sacrifice, so it was okay. .The Chronicler ignores this incident, on the other hand the wars withthe Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish and Nodab were not, as far as I can recall, mentioned in the Deuteronomist history nor was their seizure of 100,000 captives and 250,000 sheep. (Seems improbable.) Their deportation by Tiglath-Pileser is mentioned in 2 Kings.  The comment about Reuben refers to the story in Genesis, where Reuben boinked Jacob ' s concubine Bilah, so the  reference to the " marriage bed " isn ' t exactly accurate. KJV just has " defiled his father ' s bed. " 5 The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel (he was the firstborn, but when he defiled his father ’s marriage bed, his rights as firstborn were given to the sons of Joseph son of Israel; so he could not be listed in the genealogical record in accordance with his birthright,2 and though Judah was the strongest of his brothers and a ruler ca...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs