1 Chronicles 24 Bible study: The eighth lot to Abijah

The chapter opens, "These were the divisions of the sons of Aaron" (24:1) (tap divisions), and names four sons: "The sons of Aaron: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar" (24:1), the same four as 6:3. Then it says of the first two only this: "But Nadab and Abihu died before their father, and had no children; therefore Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests" (24:2) (tap served as priests). The chapter doesn't tell how they died. Leviticus does: "Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them" (Leviticus 10:1), and "Fire came out from before the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD" (Leviticus 10:2). Numbers has the words closest to this verse: "Nadab and Abihu died before the LORD when they offered strange fire before the LORD in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children. Eleazar and Ithamar ministered in the priest’s office in the presence of Aaron their father" (Numbers 3:4). So every priest in this chapter comes from Eleazar or from Ithamar.

1 Chronicles 24:10→leads toLuke 1:5

In David's day the lots gave "the eighth to Abijah" (1 Chronicles 24:10). Luke's Gospel begins its story with "a certain priest named Zacharias, of the priestly division of Abijah" (Luke 1:5), serving "in the order of his division" (Luke 1:8), when an angel tells him, "Your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John" (Luke 1:13). John later said, "he comes who is mightier than I" (Luke 3:16), and when he "saw Jesus coming to him", he said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). Luke doesn't name 1 Chronicles or say how the division of Abijah came down to Zacharias, so joining Luke 1:5 to 24:10 is a reading. Some read Luke's division of Abijah as the division of 24:10, still serving in its turn when Zacharias was told of the son who would point to Jesus (John 1:29). Others take only what Luke says, a priest of a division named Abijah, and draw no line back to the lots of David's day.

גּוֹרָלgoralsay go-RAL

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "lot", including "lot for dividing land" and "lot for assigning to service, duty or punishment". Strong's: "properly, a pebble, i.e. a lot (small stones being used for that purpose)". The chapter has it three times: "they were divided impartially by drawing lots" (24:5), "the first lot came out to Jehoiarib" (24:7), and the Levites "likewise cast lots" (24:31). Earlier in the book it was the lot for the Levites' cities: "They gave by lot out of the tribe of the children of Judah" (6:65). In the next two chapters the singers and the doorkeepers cast lots too (25:8, 26:13).