Family skeletons
1 Chronicles 7: Ezer and Elead [were] cattle-rustlers, killed on one of their raids.
The accounting of Ephraim’s family tree unearths the gem that some of the family were cattle-rustlers. Things got so bad that the natives of Gath caught them and killed them. Their dad was deeply grieved by their deaths and, when a baby was born to the family he named him “Unlucky” to reflect how he felt about things. The story is just thrown in with the continued listing of who was the father of whom, but it does spark the imagination a bit and it feels like we’re hearing about the old American west rather than about life centuries before Christ. I wonder how the original readers reacted to this bit of information. Did they hang their heads in shame or did they sheepishly grin at one another? I think there’s room for both reactions. It’s that way for us too. We can’t escape our connection to family. Sometimes we’re quite pleased with it and other times, well, not so much. At one level, I’m reminded that I’m not above the ups and downs, successes and failures of life. At another level, I don’t need to take myself too seriously. At least, so far as I know, I don’t have any ancestors named “Unlucky.” I’m not as sure about the cattle-rustling though.
Take Away: Don’t take life too seriously – sometimes it’s best to smile and move on.