CHAPTER OR FOOTNOTE?

 I often listen to the audio Bible as I drive in this beautiful City. (Yes, Kampala is beautiful, but that is a conversation for another blog piece.) Anyway, as I listen to the Bible being read – often in very dramatic and believable style- I am left astounded by the wisdom that is carried in this amazing book. No wonder it is called the Word of God. (Indeed it is.)  My current sojourns in the Old Testament have led me to the Scriptures that talk about the genealogies of Kings and the sons of the patriarchs.  In there, one is able to read or (listen) to the lineages of our spiritual great grandfathers. One such expression is found in the Book of Exodus 6:14 -15 which talks about the heads of the families of the children of Israel.

It states

¹⁴ These are the heads of their fathers’ houses: The sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, were Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. These are the families of Reuben. ¹⁵ And the sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman.

Interestingly, in verse 20 to 30, the names of Moses and Aaron are not merely mentioned, but the Scripture goes into detail about who they were and their assignment in life.

²⁰ Now Amram took for himself Jochebed, his father’s sister, as wife; and she bore him Aaron and Moses.

It further states in Verse 26 -

²⁶ These are the same Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, “Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt according to their armies.”^[l] 27 These are the ones who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring out the children of Israel from Egypt. These are the same Moses and Aaron.

²⁸ And it came to pass, on the day the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, ²⁹ that the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “I am the Lord. Speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say to you.”

Similarly, in the book of 1 Chronicles 4, the Scriptures list the sons of Judah. It goes something like this-

The sons of Judah were Perez, Hezron, ^[a]Carmi, Hur, and Shobal. ² And ^[b]Reaiah the son of Shobal begot Jahath, and Jahath begot Ahumai and Lahad. These were the families of the Zorathites. ³ These were the sons of the father of Etam: Jezreel, Ishma, and Idbash; and the name of their sister was Hazelelponi; ⁴ and Penuel was the father of Gedor, and Ezer was the father of Hushah.

However, in verse 9, there is a change in the pattern ( which interestingly continues after verse 10). The change is as follows

⁹ Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name ^[c]Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” ¹⁰ And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my ^[d]territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested.

There are more examples of how some people are spoken about more in the Bible than others. Let us look at another example – In the book of 2 Kings 18:5, the Scripture talks about King Hezekiah who “trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him”.

There are about three (3) chapters dedicated to the story of Hezekiah. This doesn’t include more writings about him in the book of 2 Chronicles. Interestingly, there were Kings mentioned like Pekahiah ( 2 Kings 15: 23 – 26), Pekah ( 2 Kings 15: 27-31), Menahem ( 2 Kings 15:17-21), Shallum ( 2 Kings 15:13-15) Zechariah ( 2 Kings 14: 8-11) Jeroboam II ( 2 Kings 19:23-28) who have between two and five scriptures talking about what they did or accomplished in their time. A journey in the Scriptures will reveal more  of these details for the interested Bible Scholar.

The above discovery challenged me deeply: Why is it that for some like Hezekiah, Moses and Jabez, more is written about them, compared to others? Is it because of their life’s purpose? Is it because they were favoured by God? Is it because they were more diligent and passionate about the Lord? 

The Scriptures seem to suggest that most of those – like King David – whose hearts were passionate about the Lord, accomplished much more than others. It is probably the reason as to why we are now able to enjoy the book of Psalms (many of which are attributed to David) as well as to read about the life of David in great detail.( See the Books of 1 & 2 Chronicles and 1 & 2 Samuel)

It has been said that there is a hyphen (dash/gap) between the day we are born and the day we die. What we do is covered in that dash/hyphen. It is the one that will either be a Chapter, a book or a footnote. The decision is in our hands, to decide what will be contained in that gap/dash/hyphen.

My take home is that we can choose to be a Hitler or a Martin Luther, a Stalin or a Mother Theresa, a Mandela or a Verwoerd. The choice is in our hands.