Africa and Africans in the Books of Chronicles

Currents in Theology and Mission, August, 2004 by Ralph W. Klein

Pete Pero has been a pioneer among Lutherans of African descent in naming and claiming his spiritual and cultural heritage and in reminding us that the church transcends all cultures even as the gospel manifests itself in the particularities of every culture. Ancient Israel lived in the land bridge between Africa and Mesopotamia and was involved in a complex network of learning from its neighboring cultures and distinguishing itself from them. Its relationships with these other cultures affected its own self-understanding and the legacy it has left us in the Bible.

For the last twenty years or so I have been immersed in studying and writing an extensive commentary on the Books of Chronicles, composed in the fourth century B.C.E. by a writer who focused on the past and future of worship at the temple at Jerusalem but who also knew that his tiny community in the Persian province called Yehud was only a prototype of an all-inclusive Israel. His empirical Israel was part of the Persian Empire, with no prospect for liberation from that ancient superpower. The Chronicler's Israel was chosen by Yahweh, but its life took place in the context of, and in interaction with, the whole world. This article cuts a cross section through the sixty-five chapters of Chronicles and asks particularly about the Chronicler's knowledge of Africa and Africans and how Africans related to and interacted with Israel in the Books of Chronicles. (1)

The opening genealogies

Instead of narrating the history of humankind, from creation to the time of King Saul, the Chronicler begins his work with nine chapters of genealogies that (a) situate Israel within the family of nations (ch. 1), (b) describe via genealogy the wholeness of the twelve tribes of Israel (chs. 2-8), and (c) give a snapshot of the Israelite community at Jerusalem in the Chronicler's day (ch. 9).

In chapter 1, the Chronicler incorporates almost all of the genealogical material from Genesis, beginning with Adam, and ending, in 1 Chr 2:1-2, with the twelve children of Israel. While genealogies on the surface seem to talk about who was the physical parent of whom, they in fact are ways of expressing political, social, and economic relationships, often among clans, tribes, and nations more than individuals. These genealogies are fluid in that genealogies change as human conditions change; that is, as nations advance or decline, they move up or down the genealogical tree.

The human family after the flood is divided into the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham's first-generation descendants are Cush, Egypt, (2) Put, and Canaan. Cush (3) is Nubia, modern-day Sudan, and Put (4) may be Somalia or Libya. Canaan in this genealogy included modern Lebanon, southern Syria, and most of Palestine west of the Jordan--that is, in large part, Israel's homeland. The language of Canaan was Semitic, and so we might expect Canaan to be descended from Shem, but the land of Canaan was one of three Egyptian provinces in Syro-Palestine, and that is expressed genealogically by making Canaan a son of Ham and a brother of Egypt. So the land of Israel has strong ties with Africa in Chronicles.

Chapter 1 runs through all the nations genealogically (5) before coming to Israel, strongly implying without actually mentioning the election of Israel. But it also implies that Israel is to understand itself within the circle of all the nations. This first chapter of 1 Chronicles emphasizes the diversity and the unity of the world. Israel understood its role within the family of nations and as a witness to all humanity. (6) Among the seventy nations of the world, thirty are associated with Ham (Africa)--more than Japheth (fourteen) or even Shem (twenty-six).

The genealogy of Judah in 1 Chr 2:3-4:23 is enormous and reflects the importance of the tribe of Judah in the postexilic community. Judah, of course, is the ancestral tribe of David and the kings (1 Chr 3:1-24). There are also connections with Africa in the tribe of Judah. Sheshan in the tenth generation after Judah is the ancestor of a person called Elishama, fourteen generations later (1 Chr 2:31, 34-41). The length of this genealogy makes Elishama a very important person; only the genealogies of David, the high priests, and the descendants of Saul are longer in Chronicles. Sheshan had only daughters, and to keep his line from dying out he married his unnamed daughter to Jarha, his Egyptian slave. (7) Note that there is not a word of criticism of such a mixed marriage, in sharp distinction to Deut 7:3-4, 1 Kgs 11:1-13, Ezra 9-10, and Neh 10:30 and 13:23-27. In fact, this openness to marriages with others is one of the most significant differences between the Chronicler and the author of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Other mixed marriages reported without censure from the tribe of Judah include Judah himself with Bath-shua, a Canaanite (1 Chr 2:3); Jether the Ishmaelite with Abigail the sister of David (1 Chr 2:17); David with Maacah the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur (1 Chr 3:2); a Judahite Mered with Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh (1 Chr 4:18); (8) and some of the descendants of Judah's son Shelah with Moabites (1 Chr 4:22). The Chronicler omitted the indictment of Solomon's foreign wives from 1 Kings 11, and he included, without judgment, Solomon's moving his own wife, who was the daughter of Pharaoh, from the city of David to his palace (2 Chr 8:11//1 Kgs 9:24). (9) Jarha, an Egyptian, in any case is an ancestor of a very important person named Elishama, remembered with reverence in the ancestral records of the tribe of Judah.