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Many of the visitors to our website like family trees, so we present another one below.
In Bible Tales news, we are offering readers another chance to subscribe to the eBook serial "The King's Armour-bearer". Subscriptions are now open and details are given below the story.
Quite a few people have been waiting for the final release of the audiobook of "Joseph, Rachel's son" and now we have the good news that the wait is almost over. The final version will (God willing) be made available during the next few days to all those who subscribed to the audiobook serial, while for everyone else, it will be available for purchase from Thursday, 20 May.
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Jehoshaphat's Family Tree
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King Jehoshaphat was a descendant of King David, from the tribe of Judah, and began to reign over Judah about 100 years after the death of King David. He was a righteous and faithful king who would be high on the list of the best kings of Judah – although he had a problem with being too tolerant of evil people.
A family tree centred on King Jehoshaphat is included below. The family tree extends up to King David in simplified form, however the generations around Jehoshaphat include much more detail.
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There are a few points that stand out in the Biblical details behind Jehoshaphat’s family tree, but don’t always show in the family tree itself. Let’s look at three of them:
Non-Jewish women
The family tree of David (whose descendants became the royal family of the kingdom of Judah) contains quite a few women who were not Jewish.
- David was the great grandson of Ruth the Moabitess (Ruth 4:13-22).
- Rehoboam was the son of Naamah the Ammonitess (1 Kings 14:21, 31).
- Abijah/Abijam was the son of Maacah, the daughter of Absalom (2 Chronicles 11:20-22), who was the son of Maacah the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur (2 Samuel 3:3).
- Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab king of Israel (2 Kings 8:18; 2 Chronicles 21:6; 22:2-3). Her mother may have been Ahab’s wife Jezebel the Sidonian (and her behaviour was very similar), but we do not know.
Numbers of wives/concubines
Many of the kings had large numbers of wives and/or concubines:
- David had at least 8 wives and at least 10 concubines (1 Samuel 18:27; 2 Samuel 3:2-5; 11:26-27; 15:16).
- Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:2-3).
- Rehoboam had 18 wives and 60 concubines (2 Chronicles 11:21).
- Abijah/Abijam had 14 wives (2 Chronicles 13:21).
- Jehoram/Joram had more than one wife (exact number unknown) (2 Chronicles 21:17).
- Joash/Jehoash had at least two wives (2 Chronicles 24:3-4).
We do not know how many wives Jehoshaphat himself had, but we know that he had seven sons. Six were murdered by the oldest son Jehoram/Joram after he became king. Interestingly, two of the sons had the same name: Azariah. It is possible that in one or both cases, the name should be connected with the name before or after it in the list, which would reduce the number of sons by one or two.
Shared names
Kings over Judah and Israel shared a few names:
- Jehoram/Joram: Both Jehoshaphat king of Judah and Ahab king of Israel had a son with this name. They each ruled their own kingdom and their reigns even overlapped.
- Ahaziah: Jehoram king of Judah and Ahab king of Israel each had a son with this name, but neither of them reigned for very long. Ahaziah king of Judah reigned for one year, while Ahaziah king of Israel reigned for two years.
- Joash/Jehoash: Ahaziah king of Judah and Jehoahaz king of Israel each had a son with this name who became king after them.
- There were two other names which were later used as names of kings in both kingdoms: Jehoahaz and Shallum. The king of Judah called Jehoahaz was also known as Shallum, a name he shared with an earlier king of Israel.
Sources
The information in the article above and shown in the family tree of Jehoshaphat can be found in the Bible books of Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles and Jeremiah.
eBook serial – The King's Armour-bearer
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During NaNoWriMo in 2019, I wrote the first 50,000 words of a story called "The King's Armour-bearer", set in the time of Jehoshaphat, the fourth king of Judah.
The story has grown since then, and now it is available to subscribers as a weekly eBook serial.
Each week, another chapter or two of the book will be distributed to subscribers by email. If you haven't tried this way of getting early access to Bible Tales novels, why not subscribe to The King's Armour-bearer now?
Not only do you get early access to the text and a copy of the final eBook, you will also get the opportunity to purchase up to 5 copies of the published paperback at a very low price.
Subscriptions are now open, so why not sign up here?
The price for this subscription is $5.50 (AUD).
Subscriptions close again, God willing, at 8:00am on Monday, 31 May 2021 (AEST).
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May the Lord bless you and keep you all safe this week.
Mark Morgan
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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