1 Chronicles 8 Bible study: All these were of the sons of Benjamin

Chapter 7 has already given "The sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, and Jediael, three" (7:6). Now the book starts Benjamin over, and the names are different: "Benjamin became the father of Bela his firstborn, Ashbel the second, Aharah the third" (8:1), "Nohah the fourth, and Rapha the fifth" (8:2). Genesis has another list: "The sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard" (Genesis 46:21). Numbers gives the families "of Bela", "of Ashbel", "of Ahiram", "of Shephupham" and "of Hupham" (Numbers 26:38-39). Bela comes first in every list. The book doesn't say why it gives Benjamin twice, or why the lists differ, and it doesn't make them match. This time it takes forty verses, and it ends where it began: "All these were of the sons of Benjamin" (8:40) (tap Benjamin).

1 Chronicles 8:40→leads toPhilippians 3:8

The chapter ends, "All these were of the sons of Benjamin" (8:40). In the New Testament, Paul names the things in which he "might have confidence even in the flesh" (Philippians 3:4), and among them, "of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews" (Philippians 3:5). Then he writes, "I consider those things that were gain to me as a loss for Christ" (Philippians 3:7), and "I count all things to be a loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord" (Philippians 3:8). Paul doesn't cite 1 Chronicles 8, so setting the two side by side is a reading. The link rests on one fact both passages state, descent from Benjamin, and not on a shared word. Some see in Paul's words what a place in a line like this one came to for him: counted as loss beside knowing Christ Jesus. Others read Paul's loss within his own letter, as confidence in the flesh set beside "the righteousness which is from God by faith" (Philippians 3:9), and read 1 Chronicles 8 as the tribe's record, without looking from one to the other.

בִּנְיָמִיןBinyaminsay bin-ya-MEEN

Strong's and Brown-Driver-Briggs both give "son of (the) right hand". Genesis tells how he got the name: his mother "named him Benoni, but his father named him Benjamin" (Genesis 35:18). The chapter opens, "Benjamin became the father of Bela his firstborn" (8:1), and closes, "All these were of the sons of Benjamin" (8:40). The Hebrew of 1 Chronicles has the name fifteen times. Benjamin's sons were first given in 7:6, and in 12:2 the name comes again with the archers who came to David: "They were of Saul’s relatives of the tribe of Benjamin" (12:2).