2023_03_06 Insight Post- Kim Feld

Tools to help you search your ancestry are trendy today. If you go to the ancestry.com website, you will read that they now have more than 30 billion records from over 20 million people in their DNA network. Many have a great desire to know where and from whom they came. To be sure, a lot can be learned by examining your family tree.

Scripture records lineage in several places, including what we read this week in 1 Chronicles. For the Israelites, knowing their family tree included knowing which tribe they came from. Each of the twelve tribes bore the name of one of Jacob’s sons or his grandsons born to Joseph. Let’s look at a few of the Bible’s most famous characters and see which tribe they were part of.

• The tribe of Judah was to be the tribe of kings. Some of the most notable from the tribe of Judah are Jesus, His mother Mary, and earthly father Joseph, David, Solomon, and Caleb.
• The tribe of Levi became the priesthood. This tribe included Moses, Aaron, John the Baptist, and Barnabas.
• We don’t know a lot about the tribe of Dan, but the mighty Samson was a descendant.
• Ephraim was actually Jacob’s grandson (Joseph was his father, but Jacob blessed him as his own son). His descendants include Joshua and Samuel.
• The small but important tribe of Benjamin provided Israel’s first king, Saul. Mordecai and Paul were also from this tribe.

It has been said that those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. There’s value in knowing where you come from and the people and circumstances that have made you who you are today. The genealogies in the Bible serve essential purposes of tying people to specific times in history and showing royal lineage. They also give us a picture of God’s unending work in pursuit of the heart of His people.