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1 Chronicles 7

The chapter records Israel’s tribal families through ancestry, military strength, and settlements, preserving grief and building work alongside names.

The genealogical record moves through the families of Issachar, Benjamin, Naphtali, Manasseh, Ephraim, and Asher. It names household heads and counts men available for war, with one count placed in David’s reign. Within these lists, Ephraim mourns sons killed by men of Gath, and his brothers come to comfort him. The record also names Sheerah as a town builder, traces a line to Joshua, and identifies settlements belonging to Joseph’s descendants.

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2The sons of Tola: Uzzi, Rephaiah, Jeriel, Jahmai, Ibsam, and Shemuel, heads of their fathers’ houses, of Tola; mighty men of valor in their generations. Their number in the days of David was twenty-two thousand six hundred.
6The sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, and Jediael, three.
7The sons of Bela: Ezbon, Uzzi, Uzziel, Jerimoth, and Iri, five; heads of fathers’ houses, mighty men of valor; and they were listed by genealogy twenty-two thousand thirty-four.
12So were Shuppim, Huppim, the sons of Ir, Hushim, and the sons of Aher.
13The sons of Naphtali: Jahziel, Guni, Jezer, Shallum, and the sons of Bilhah.
14The sons of Manasseh: Asriel, whom his concubine the Aramitess bore. She bore Machir the father of Gilead.
15Machir took a wife of Huppim and Shuppim, whose sister’s name was Maacah. The name of the second was Zelophehad; and Zelophehad had daughters.
18His sister Hammolecheth bore Ishhod, Abiezer, and Mahlah.
24His daughter was Sheerah, who built Beth Horon the lower and the upper, and Uzzen Sheerah.
27Nun his son, and Joshua his son.
28Their possessions and settlements were Bethel and its towns, and eastward Naaran, and westward Gezer with its towns; Shechem also and its towns, to Azzah and its towns;
29and by the borders of the children of Manasseh, Beth Shean and its towns, Taanach and its towns, Megiddo and its towns, and Dor and its towns. The children of Joseph the son of Israel lived in these.
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Key verses
1 Chronicles 7:13Naphtali’s brief entry preserves the tribe’s place in the record and connects its ancestry with Bilhah.
1 Chronicles 7:6These three names open Benjamin’s section, whose family branches are then counted as men available for war.
1 Chronicles 7:14Manasseh’s line introduces Machir and Gilead, names that anchor the chapter’s record of this tribal family.
Where this chapter reaches

Genesis and Numbers share ancestral names and tribal family lines with this record, including Naphtali’s sons and the descendants of Manasseh. Joshua shares the figure of Joshua son of Nun and several towns named here among the settlements of Joseph’s descendants.

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After reading the whole chapter

What changes in your reading of the genealogy when Ephraim’s mourning interrupts the names?

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Which person or detail would you want to remember from this record, and why?

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Questions people ask about 1 Chronicles 7

Who was Sheerah in 1 Chronicles 7?

Verse 24 names Sheerah as a daughter within Ephraim’s family and credits her with building Lower Beth Horon, Upper Beth Horon, and Uzzen Sheerah. The chapter gives no further account of her work or its date. Her brief entry stands among the family names and settlements.

Why are Dan and Zebulun missing from 1 Chronicles 7?

The chapter has no named sections for Dan or Zebulun, and it gives no reason for their absence. Some relationships in these compressed lists are difficult to trace. The text does not say that either tribe was excluded as punishment, so that explanation goes beyond what is written.

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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).