... and his brother Asaph, who stood on his right hand, namely, Asaph the son of Berechiah, son of Shimea, ...
The books of Chronicles are exactly what the name implies: A chronicled account of people and events in the order in which they happened. The time period was the return of the exiles from captivity. The author (Ezra the priest?) was writing to remind the people about God’s faithfulness to His promises to return the people to the land. He lists name after name after name. Reading some of these chapters is like reading an old phone book. It is often just a list of names. Sometimes the author takes a moment to make a commentary on a name here are there. Often he does not, but could. The above passage contains a name that has a brief note. It simply states where Asaph stood in context to his brother. It is stated that he stood on his right hand. That is really not significant to us and we have to really dig to find out which brother the author is referring to regarding where Asaph stood. But if we compare to the book of Psalms we discover that Asaph was a notable man. Twelve of the psalms are composed by Asaph. Here in the Chronicles he barely gets mentioned. Yet he wrote almost a tenth of the psalms. God is like this. He knows everyone’s name and records them for history. To us we notice the warriors and the kings and the prophets. Asaph was a song writer. Others had different contributions to the nation. All mattered to God. One might wonder what would happen if God chronicled the people of the church. Would our names be listed? Would our names have a commentary behind them? God is constantly weaving His people in and out of His story for mankind. All matter. Some get further mentioned. All are designed to bring glory to God’s plan.
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