1 Chronicles 24 Study Notes

24:1 Among all the divisions established at this time, the most important one was for the priests, who were divided into twenty-four segments. These twenty-four groupings were based on Aaron’s two surviving sons, Eleazar and Ithamar.

24:2 The Chronicler does not mention that Nadab and Abihu died prematurely because they defiled the tabernacle (Lv 10:1-2). It was more important to him that since they died without children, they had no descendants to include in the priestly divisions.

24:3 Two men were serving as high priest during the time of David: Zadok who officiated at the tabernacle, and Ahimelech who was in charge of the ark in Jerusalem. Ahimelech was the son of Abiathar and grandson of the Ahimelech who was slaughtered at the tabernacle by King Saul’s troops. Both men had a legitimate claim to the priesthood, representing the lines of Eleazar and Ithamar, respectively, so both of their descendants were included in this list.

24:4-5 Since Eleazar’s descendants outnumbered Ithamar’s by a ratio of two to one, it made sense that of the twenty-four divisions, Eleazar should get sixteen shifts, and Ithamar only eight.

24:6 An official secretary kept a record, and there were overseers from both family lines as well as dignitaries who did not have a vested interest in how this matter was handled.

24:7-19 Since there were about twenty-four divisions within a pool numbering in the tens of thousands, the list of twenty-four divisions was not necessarily permanent, if even David envisioned it that way (Ezr 2:36-39; Neh 12:1-7). Still, some priestly divisions such as that of Abijah survived almost a thousand years (Lk 1:5).

24:20-31 The other Levites were also divided into twenty-four groups, though it is not easy to identify exactly twenty-four names in this list. The ancestral names of these twenty-four groups cover several generations, so their origin is uneven. It is clear that these groupings were based to a large degree on the head count of the descendants of the more prominent ancestors. The ability to supply a sufficient number of workers within their groups was a more important consideration than maintaining exact genealogical parallels.