The Messy Root of the Messiah King Text: 1 Chronicles 3:1-9
Introduction: God's Unsanitized History
We live in an age that loves airbrushing. We curate our lives for public display, presenting a carefully edited version of reality. We hide the blemishes, crop out the awkwardness, and apply a flattering filter. Our instinct is to present a history of ourselves that is neat, tidy, and respectable. But when God tells a story, He does not airbrush. When God gives us a genealogy, He gives us the whole story, warts and all. And this is profoundly good news for people like us.
Many modern Christians, when they undertake to read through the Bible, hit the shoals in the opening chapters of 1 Chronicles. After the thrill of Genesis and the drama of Samuel and Kings, they run aground on these long lists of unpronounceable names. They seem to be, as one wag put it, nine miles of bad road. But this is a profound misunderstanding. These genealogies are not dry, dusty archives for the sake of historical record-keeping. They are the skeletal structure of redemptive history. They are the family tree of the Messiah, and in them, God is teaching us something crucial about the nature of His grace. He is showing us that His covenant promises are not fulfilled through perfect people in perfect situations, but rather through broken people in messy families. He draws straight lines with crooked sticks.
This chapter, which lists the sons of David, is a prime example. It is a stark, unvarnished record of David's complicated, and often sinful, family life. It is a list born of polygamy, political maneuvering, and profound personal failure. Yet, it is from this very line, this tangled and turbulent root, that the branch of Jesse, the Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ, will come. This is not an embarrassment to the gospel; it is the heart of the gospel. God's grace is not a delicate thing that requires a sterile environment to work. It is a rugged, conquering power that invades the mess of human history and redeems it from the inside out.
So as we look at this list, we are not just looking at ancient names. We are looking at the raw material of salvation. We are seeing God's unwavering faithfulness in the midst of man's manifest faithlessness. We are seeing the foundation of the kingdom that will have no end, and it is a foundation laid in the midst of sin and sorrow, but cemented by the sovereign grace of God.
The Text
Now these were the sons of David who were born to him in Hebron: the firstborn was Amnon, by Ahinoam the Jezreelitess; the second was Daniel, by Abigail the Carmelitess; the third was Absalom the son of Maacah, the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur; the fourth was Adonijah the son of Haggith; the fifth was Shephatiah, by Abital; the sixth was Ithream, by his wife Eglah. Six were born to him in Hebron, and there he reigned seven years and six months. And in Jerusalem he reigned thirty-three years. These were born to him in Jerusalem: Shimea, Shobab, Nathan, and Solomon, four, by Bath-shua the daughter of Ammiel; and Ibhar, Elishama, Eliphelet, Nogah, Nepheg, and Japhia, Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphelet, nine. All these were the sons of David, besides the sons of the concubines; and Tamar was their sister.
(1 Chronicles 3:1-9 LSB)
The Hebron Sons: A Kingdom in Waiting (vv. 1-4a)
The list begins not in the glorious capital of Jerusalem, but in the provincial town of Hebron. This is significant.
"Now these were the sons of David who were born to him in Hebron: the firstborn was Amnon, by Ahinoam the Jezreelitess; the second was Daniel, by Abigail the Carmelitess; the third was Absalom the son of Maacah, the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur; the fourth was Adonijah the son of Haggith; the fifth was Shephatiah, by Abital; the sixth was Ithream, by his wife Eglah. Six were born to him in Hebron..." (1 Chronicles 3:1-4a)
Hebron was where David's kingdom began, but it was a kingdom in conflict. He reigned there over Judah while the house of Saul still clung to power in the north. This was a time of waiting, of consolidating, of civil war. And the sons born here reflect this provisional and troubled state. Their very existence is a testament to David's political and personal compromises.
Notice the mothers. Six sons by six different women. This is polygamy, plain and simple. While God permitted polygamy in the Old Testament in the same way He permitted divorce, for the hardness of men's hearts, it was never His design or intention. God made one man for one woman in the beginning. David's multiplication of wives was a direct violation of the law for kings laid out in Deuteronomy 17:17. And as the rest of David's story shows, this sin bore bitter fruit. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and a house with multiple wives and competing lines of succession is a house programmed for self-destruction.
Look at the names. Amnon, the firstborn, whose lust for his half-sister Tamar would lead to rape and his own murder. Absalom, the third son, handsome and ambitious, who would murder his brother Amnon and then lead a bloody rebellion against his own father. Adonijah, the fourth, who would try to usurp the throne from Solomon and be executed for it. This is not a happy family portrait. This is a list of future heartaches, rebellions, and tragedies. David's sin in taking many wives created a domestic hornet's nest, and he would be stung by it for the rest of his life. The seeds of the kingdom's future division were sown right here in the king's bedroom in Hebron.
And yet, God's purpose was not thwarted. David was king, anointed by God. These were his legitimate sons. The covenant promise was still in effect, even though the covenant king was deeply flawed. God's plan does not depend on our perfection. If it did, the plan would have been dead on arrival.
The Jerusalem Sons: A Kingdom Established (vv. 4b-8)
The narrative then shifts, both geographically and covenantally, from Hebron to Jerusalem.
"And in Jerusalem he reigned thirty-three years. These were born to him in Jerusalem: Shimea, Shobab, Nathan, and Solomon, four, by Bath-shua the daughter of Ammiel; and Ibhar, Elishama, Eliphelet, Nogah, Nepheg, and Japhia, Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphelet, nine." (1 Chronicles 3:4b-8)
Jerusalem was the city of God, the place where He would put His name. It represents the kingdom established, unified, and victorious. And it is here that the crucial line of succession is established. But once again, God does not hide the scandal. The very first sons listed in Jerusalem are the sons of "Bath-shua the daughter of Ammiel." This is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. The Chronicler uses a different form of her name, but the identification is certain. He reminds us of the single greatest blot on David's record: adultery and murder.
Think of the audacity of grace. The son who will carry the covenant promise, Solomon, is born from the wife David stole after murdering her husband. If you were writing this story to make your hero look good, you would never write it this way. You would hide this. But God puts it front and center. Why? To show that the kingdom is established not on the basis of David's righteousness, but on the basis of God's forgiveness after David's profound repentance. The throne of David is established by grace, and grace alone.
And look at the other sons of Bathsheba. One of them is Nathan. This is not Nathan the prophet, but David's son. And why is he significant? Because when we get to the New Testament, we find that Matthew traces the legal line of Jesus through Solomon, the royal line. But Luke traces the bloodline of Jesus, through Mary, back to David's son Nathan (Luke 3:31). Both the royal, legal claim and the physical, blood claim to David's throne converge in Jesus Christ, and both lines run directly through the illicit union with Bathsheba. God did not just forgive David's sin; He took the very fruit of that sin and made it central to His plan of redemption. He takes our greatest shames and turns them into triumphs of His grace.
The list continues with nine other sons by unnamed wives, further demonstrating the chaos of David's household. The repetition of names like Elishama and Eliphelet may indicate sons who died in infancy and had their names given to later children, a common practice. This reminds us of the sorrow and fragility of life, even in the king's palace. It was a messy, sprawling, complicated family.
The Rest of the Story: Concubines and a Daughter (v. 9)
The summary verse adds two more complicating factors.
"All these were the sons of David, besides the sons of the concubines; and Tamar was their sister." (1 Chronicles 3:9)
First, we are reminded of the "sons of the concubines." These were not wives; they were a step down in legal and social status, but their sons were still part of the royal household. This further illustrates the unfaithfulness to the creation ordinance of one man, one woman. It added more complexity, more potential for rivalry, and more deviation from God's perfect will. The kingdom was great, but the king's house was a mess.
Second, a daughter is mentioned by name: Tamar. In a patriarchal genealogy focused on the line of succession, it is striking that a daughter is singled out. Why her? Because her story is absolutely central to the tragedy of David's house. She was the beautiful virgin daughter of David who was brutally raped by her half-brother Amnon. This horrific act, and David's failure to administer justice for it, was the catalyst for Absalom's bitterness, his murder of Amnon, and his eventual rebellion. The Chronicler includes her name here as a stark, poignant reminder of the real-world consequences of the sexual chaos and parental failure that characterized David's family. Her name stands as a monument to the pain that sin inflicts. It is a memorial to the victims of the sins of powerful men.
Conclusion: The Greater Son of David
So what are we to do with this list? Do we shake our heads at David's failures? Yes, we should. Do we marvel at the tangled mess of his family? Of course. But if that is all we do, we have missed the entire point. The point of this genealogy is not to celebrate David's polygamy or excuse his sin. The point is to magnify the tenacious, stubborn, unconquerable grace of God.
This list is a portrait of a broken family. It is filled with sin, strife, lust, murder, and rebellion. By any human standard, this family should have disqualified itself from the purposes of God. And yet, this is the family God chose. This is the line He protected. This is the soil from which the Savior of the world would grow.
This genealogy shouts to us that God's covenant does not depend on the moral performance of the men who are in it. It depends entirely on the God who made the covenant. David's throne was promised to be an eternal throne, and God kept that promise despite David. He kept it despite Amnon, despite Absalom, despite Adonijah, and despite Solomon's later apostasy.
And He ultimately kept it by sending a second David, a greater Son of David. Jesus Christ was born into this messy human lineage. He took on our flesh, our history, our complicated family tree. But unlike David, He was without sin. Unlike Amnon, He honored women. Unlike Absalom, He submitted to His Father's will, even to death on a cross. Unlike Solomon, His wisdom never failed and His kingdom will never be divided.
This list, then, is our story. We all come from broken, messy families. We all have sin and shame in our past. But the gospel tells us that the Son of David came to graft messy people into His family. He came to take the sons of rebellion and make them sons of God. He looks at the chaos of our lives, the sin of our past, and He does not airbrush it. He enters into it, and by His blood, He redeems it. He is the true King, and His family, the Church, is built not from the righteous, but from the forgiven.