Is your mind spinning yet? Don't give up! It's only chapter 2. If you're struggling, sometimes it helps to look at each chapter as a whole, rather than try to focus on each and every descendant's name, but do read them. It's vital. This chapter gives us a rundown of the descendants of Israel, who you might remember better as Jacob. Remember, God gave Jacob the name Israel, but we really haven't seen it used formally until now. The first chapter brought us to Jacob, and this chapter carries on until it reaches David. It goes a little further, too, by documenting Caleb's lineage down to Hur. Now, if you've read with us up until this point, you should recognize a few of these names. Those are the ones I underlined, and those are the ones you can focus on a little bit more if the entire chapter is somewhat overwhelming. I underlined the names that brought us directly to David: Jacob started it out, and then we have Judah (one of the 12 tribes of Israel), who you might remember did a lot of dumb stuff, including sleeping with his daughter-in-law, who he thought was a prostitute, but to this union Perez (a twin) was born. Perez grew up and had a son named Hezron, who had babies and grandbabies, who eventually spawned King David. Hezron also had a son named Caleb, and according to the footnotes in my Bible, he is not the Caleb who succeeded Joshua wayyyyy back in the day. My footnotes don't say why this Caleb's lineage is so important that it needed to be documented, but I'm guessing it's because he is responsible for the founding of many nations and people groups, and some of his ancestors sound very much like the kings and people of Israel who we studied in 1 and 2 Kings. We talked multiple times while reading those books and others about how and why we're all so different and sometimes weird to each other. Well, here ya go! Diversity in a nutshell. I know it's rough getting through all these names and families, but knowing a little about the past of some of these people and where the divisions occurred helps to clear the fog. Aren't you glad this isn't the first chapter of the Bible???

Writing prompt: something new

Write about something new you realized after reading this chapter.

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