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1 Chronicles 7 Bible study: Ephraim their father mourned
In a chapter of names and numbers, 1 Chronicles stops for a father's grief: "Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brothers came to comfort him" (7:22), with Genesis's Hebrew for Jacob's grief: mourned, many days, to comfort him (Genesis 37:34-35). Then he named a son Beriah, "because there was trouble with his house" (7:23), and his line runs on to Joshua (7:27).
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“Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brothers came to comfort him.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“1 Chronicles 7 says Ephraim's brothers came to comfort him after his sons were killed.”
Is that in 1 Chronicles 7, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
Tribes counted for war
Most of 1 Chronicles 7 counts. Of Issachar's houses, "mighty men of valor in their generations. Their number in the days of David was twenty-two thousand six hundred" (7:2), "bands of the army for war, thirty-six thousand; for they had many wives and sons" (7:4), and "Their brothers among all the families of Issachar, mighty men of valor, listed in all by genealogy, were eighty-seven thousand" (7:5) (tap mighty). Benjamin's houses are counted the same way (7:7, 7:9), men "who were able to go out in the army for war" (7:11), and so is Asher: "The number of them listed by genealogy for service in war was twenty-six thousand men" (7:40) (tap genealogy). The only time the chapter gives for its numbers is "in the days of David" (7:2), the one verse in the chapter that names him. Naphtali, Manasseh and Ephraim are given no numbers. In Ephraim's place the chapter tells what happened to a family (7:21-23).
Where it leads to Jesus
Comforters, and Jesus' own words
1 Chronicles 7:22leads toJohn 11:23
When his sons had been killed, "Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brothers came to comfort him" (7:22). In Bethany, after Jesus had said, "Lazarus is dead" (John 11:14), "Many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother" (John 11:19). Martha went to meet Jesus (John 11:20), and Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again" (John 11:23). John doesn't cite 1 Chronicles 7, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared scene, a family in grief and others coming to comfort them, and not on a shared word. Some hear, beside a father whose brothers came to comfort him, the comfort Jesus himself gave a grieving sister. Others read 7:22 as one family's record and John 11:23 within the story of Lazarus, without looking from one to the other.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about 1 Chronicles 7
That was a taste
The rest of 1 Chronicles 7 is waiting in Favor
- A father's grief in the middle of the names
- A daughter who built, and the line to Joshua
- Mourned many days, as Jacob had
- Ammihud and Elishama
- Beth Horon, the lower and the upper
- 19 questions as you read
- 10 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it
בְּרִיעָהBeri'ahsay be-ree-AH
Strong's: "apparently from the feminine of 7451 with a prepositional prefix; in trouble". Ephraim "named him Beriah, because there was trouble with his house" (7:23): in Hebrew the reason is ki vera'ah hayetah beveito, and bera'ah, "in trouble", has the letters bet, resh, ayin and he, all four in the name, which adds a yod (tap trouble). Brown-Driver-Briggs lists the name for more than one man, among them "a son of Asher" and a "son of Ephraim". This chapter has both: Ephraim's son (7:23), and Asher's Beriah (7:30-31), named already in Genesis 46:17. It gives a reason for the name only for Ephraim's son.
For your group
1 Chronicles 7 Bible study questions
- 1When Ephraim mourned, "his brothers came to comfort him" (7:22). Who has come to you in a time of grief or loss, and what did they do that helped? Who near you might need someone to come this week?
- 2Ephraim named his new son Beriah, "because there was trouble with his house" (7:23). The name kept the hard time in the family's memory. When you look back on a hard season, do you tend to leave it out of your story or name it? Why?
- 3In a chapter of sons and numbers, Sheerah is remembered for what she built (7:24). What are you building with your life right now, and who do you hope will live in it after you?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads 1 Chronicles 7 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home