Israel My FIrstborn

The genealogies of Chronicles begin with “Adam,” and the ancestors of the Chronicler’s people Israel appear only after a half-chapter of names. Yet the Chronicler, like other Old Testament writers, considers Israel the “firstborn” nation (Exod. 4:23). As Scott Hahn puts it (The Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire), “The genealogies reflect a familial vision of the human race. The Chronicler’s genealogies, like those of Genesis, reveal Israel’s solidarity with the entire human family. They also reflect Israel’s deep sense of its own ‘election’ . . . of its being a people set apart, specially chosen by God to be his ‘firstborn’ . . . among the peoples of the world” (20).

Hahn points out that “If Israel is his firstborn, as God told Moses . . . this is not a statement of historical or anthropological fact but of divine election” (27). That is, the firstborn status is not by nature but by election. Israel is firstborn not by creation but by virtue of second creation, by virtue of God’s intervention into a pre-existing humanity. Like other ancient peoples, Israel considered itself the first of nations. Unlike other ancient peoples, this was not because Israel emerged first in history but because her God makes the last first.

Further, Israel’s preeminent status isn’t for her own sake. By starting the genealogy with Adam, Hahn argues, the Chronicler “is reminding Israel that its national destiny cannot be separated from the destiny of the world” (22). Even in its “ideal” state in the Chronicler’s genealogy, it is not a pure-bred, separate people. It existed for the nations, and even the royal “line of Judah includes such non-Israelite groups as Canaanites, Ishmaelites, Arameans, Egyptians, Moabites, Calebites, Midianites, Jerahmeelites, Maacathites, Qenizzites, and Qenites, among others” (34). Israel’s ultimate aim is to bless the nations, and the Chronicler “hints that Israel’s mission to bless the nations has already begun: sojourners and strangers have already begun identifying themselves with Israel’s God—through intermarriage and through their worship of Israel’s God” (34-35).