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1 Chronicles 26 · a question people ask

Is this the Obed-Edom whose house the LORD blessed?

In the text

The chapter doesn't say. In chapter 13 the ark was carried "into Obed-Edom the Gittite’s house" (13:13), and "the LORD blessed Obed-Edom’s house and all that he had" (13:14). Here Obed-Edom is a doorkeeper with eight sons, "for God blessed him" (26:5), and the chapter closes its list, "These were the divisions of the doorkeepers; of the sons of the Korahites, and of the sons of Merari" (26:19). An Obed-Edom was among the doorkeepers when the ark came up (15:18, 15:24), and after it was set in the tent, Asaph and his brothers were left before the ark (16:37), "and Obed-Edom with their sixty-eight relatives" (16:38); this chapter counts "sixty-two of Obed-Edom" (26:8). Brown-Driver-Briggs lists "the Gittite who harboured the ark" and "one of the chief Levitical singers and doorkeepers" under the name. Chapter 15's honest question sets these verses side by side. None of them says the two are one man, and these notes don't join them.

The verses

“So David didn’t move the ark with him into David’s city, but carried it aside into Obed-Edom the Gittite’s house. God’s ark remained with the family of Obed-Edom in his house three months; and the LORD blessed Obed-Edom’s house and all that he had.”
1 Chronicles 13:13-14 · World English Bible
“Obed-Edom had sons: Shemaiah the firstborn, Jehozabad the second, Joah the third, Sacar the fourth, Nethanel the fifth, Ammiel the sixth, Issachar the seventh, and Peullethai the eighth; for God blessed him. Sons were also born to Shemaiah his son, who ruled over the house of their father; for they were mighty men of valor. The sons of Shemaiah: Othni, Rephael, Obed, and Elzabad, whose relatives were valiant men, Elihu, and Semachiah. All these were of the sons of Obed-Edom with their sons and their brothers, able men in strength for the service: sixty-two of Obed-Edom.”
1 Chronicles 26:4-8 · World English Bible
“These were the divisions of the doorkeepers; of the sons of the Korahites, and of the sons of Merari.”
1 Chronicles 26:19 · World English Bible
“and with them their brothers of the second rank: Zechariah, Ben, Jaaziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Unni, Eliab, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattithiah, Eliphelehu, Mikneiah, Obed-Edom, and Jeiel, the doorkeepers.”
1 Chronicles 15:18 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 1 Chronicles 26

1 Chronicles 26: For every gate

The doorkeepers took their gates by lot, "the small as well as the great" (26:13); Obed-Edom had eight sons "for God blessed him" (26:5); and a son of Gershom, the son of Moses, kept the treasuries, where even what Saul had dedicated was kept beside David's gifts (26:24, 26:28).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions