But they acted unfaithfully toward the God of their fathers and prostituted themselves to the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them. So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria — that is, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria — and he took the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh into exile, bringing them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river Gozan, where they are to this day (a paraphrase of 1 Chronicles 5:25–26).

Do you wonder why the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh are singled out here as the first to be taken into exile when the Assyrian king came against the Northern Kingdom of Israel?

What do we know about these tribes? Remember, these were the tribes that chose not to take their inheritance with the rest of Israel in the land of Canaan. They chose the land on the east side of the Jordan, the territories conquered after the defeat of Og king of Bashan and Sihon king of the Amorites (cf. Numbers 32). Although they were ultimately permitted to settle there, choosing contrary to what God intended for Israel proved especially calamitous for them. In every attack, whether by Assyria or Babylon, they were likely the first to be struck because of their geographical location. And they were the first to be taken into exile.

Another disadvantage was that they were the farthest from God's appointed center of worship in Jerusalem. Although they built a replica altar to remind them of their common worship (cf. Joshua 22:10–34), surely the greater distance from the Temple proved a spiritual stumbling block. Even the evil king Jeroboam recognized the power of distance and deliberately set up alternative sites of worship to the Temple in Jerusalem.

Friends, perhaps there is a lesson for us here. Asaph wrote, "The nearness of God is my good" (Psalm 73:28). I recall that when Moses went before the Lord with Joshua as his attendant, Joshua lingered at the tent after Moses left (Exodus 33:11). Mary was commended over Martha because she chose the better part, sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus and listening (Luke 10:38–42). David wrote that the one thing he asked of the Lord was to dwell in His house all the days of his life, to behold His beauty and to meditate in His temple (a paraphrase of Psalm 27:4). And James writes, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" (James 4:8).

Friends, let us also choose to be near our God. Let us spend copious time in His Word. Let us be the first to stand before the Lord in praise and the first to fall on our faces in prayer. And when others have stopped praising and praying, may we be found still praising and still praying. When we decide where to live or what kind of home to buy, let us make our decision based on this principle of nearness to God. What will draw us closer to Him? What will put us in the best position to worship and serve Him? There is nothing better than nearness to our God.

In our martial arts organization, one of our top leaders commented that the best thing for him in the organization was to spend as much time with its head as possible. Likewise, if a leader in a company wants to thrive, it makes sense to stay near the CEO. By staying near, one can better understand and appreciate the spirit and mission of the organization.

Friends, if we want to thrive as Christians, shouldn't we also stay as near as we can to the Lord Jesus Christ? Then we can take on His Spirit and better understand, appreciate, and carry out His mission for our lives. If nearness to Him is our good, surely it is when we stray from Him that we fall into the greatest peril.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The pairing "Pul... even Tiglath-pileser" in 1 Chronicles 5:26 reflects a historical detail: Pul appears to have been the name by which Tiglath-pileser III was known as ruler of Babylon, so the two names most likely refer to the same king. 2 Kings 15:29 records the campaign in which he took Gilead and Galilee and deported their people — the eastern tribes among the first.

Readers differ on how to evaluate the Transjordan tribes' choice. The comment's reading — that settling outside the land proper carried spiritual cost — draws on the fact that the boundaries of Canaan in Numbers 34 run along the Jordan, and on the near-war over their altar in Joshua 22. Others note that Moses granted the request, that Joshua sent them home with a blessing for keeping their word, and that the altar episode ends in reconciliation rather than rebuke. The text leaves room for both, and the comment's application does not depend on settling it.

The application itself has a quiet support in the Joshua 22 story: the eastern tribes built their altar precisely because they feared that the river would one day be used to say they had no part in the Lord (Joshua 22:24–25). They felt the pull of distance and tried to guard against it — which is the comment's point about choosing nearness deliberately.

Friends, this is just a reminder of how not to interpret the Old Testament promises. Remember that most of the blessings in the Old Testament are connected with obedience to the Law of Moses; therefore, Christians should not immediately jump to claim any of these promises for themselves. This is the error of prosperity-oriented preaching.

Bruce Wilkinson wrote a popular booklet entitled The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking through to the Blessed Life back in 2000. Since then, as often happens with popular works, there has been The Prayer of Jabez for Men...for Women...for Teens...for Children...etc. Yet, a fundamental premise of the book, which is based on a couple of verses extracted out of our present text (i.e. 1 Chronicles 4:9–10), is flawed. It presumes a direct relevance to Christians; however, there can be no such connection when we are no longer under the Law of Moses, as I have extensively shown before. For those new to this discussion, I recommend you do a search here on previous comments dealing with the Law of Moses. It has also led to a bronze-snake type idolatry of words, where people recite the prayer of Jabez as almost an incantation for blessing. I would not be surprised if, rather than a blessing, such people encounter a curse, since by putting themselves back under the law, they put themselves under the curse of the law (Galatians 3:10).

And if you are to take Jabez' prayer as a formula for always answered prayer, why not also take 1 Chronicles 5:20, which says that when the armies of Reuben trusted God and cried out to Him, God gave them victory. Why not allegorize this to relate to every "battle" we face in life, whether spiritual battles, psychological battles, battles with our bosses, battles with our wives, and battles with addictions? Preachers love to do this. Even though the context is very specific to a physical and military battle of a tribe of Israel, since we don't have many such situations today, we feel as though we have to make it a metaphor for something else. I wonder how far is too far. And since God gave them victory because they trusted in Him, God will certainly give us the victory as well. Once again, I warn against such presumption since we are not reading a new covenant promise but one within the context of the Mosaic covenant.

Another commenter on this site, Unmi, shared a very perceptive insight. While prayer is affirmed and even that God answers prayer, and Jabez' specific prayer was answered, as were those of the armies of Reuben, this does not mean that God will answer our prayers in the same manner. Furthermore, rather than trying to find some secret mantra to tap into God's power, we should rather learn a principle that is both affirmed here and in the New Testament; namely, that God answers prayer when we align our wills with His revealed will. Isn't this what Jesus meant when He told His disciples,

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you (John 15:7).

What then is truly honorable for Christians to do? Whatever else this may imply for us, it certainly includes our meditating diligently and carefully upon the whole counsel of Scripture and with particular attention to those things that pertain to the New Covenant commands and promises as recorded in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The small account of Jabez interrupts a genealogy to describe an honorable man whose prayer God answered. Its brevity is part of its appeal, but also a reason for restraint. The text reports a particular petition and response; it does not command every reader to repeat those words as a mechanism for obtaining the same outcome. A narrative of answered prayer can encourage trust without becoming a universal guarantee about possessions, territory, or protection from pain.

The original rightly challenges the extraction of promises from their setting. The territorial concerns of Chronicles belong to Israel’s history, and the tribal military victory in chapter 5 cannot simply be transferred to every contemporary conflict. Yet the absence of an identical covenantal situation does not mean there is no relevance to Christian readers. The New Testament itself teaches from Israel’s history. The necessary distinction is between a direct promise addressed to us and an example through which we learn about dependence, faithfulness, and God’s care.

The analogy with the bronze serpent highlights a related danger: something associated with a genuine act of God can later become an object of misplaced trust. A remembered prayer can be treated as though its sequence of words controls the answer. The corrective is not to fear biblical language but to recover prayer as personal dependence upon God. Galatians 3:10 addresses reliance on works of the law; merely praying with words found in the Old Testament does not automatically place someone under that curse.

John 15:7 locates petition within abiding in Christ and receiving his words. This shapes desire rather than offering a more sophisticated technique for controlling results. A reader can therefore learn from Jabez to bring need honestly before God while allowing the rest of Scripture to define faithful expectation. Ask boldly, examine motives, and accept that God’s wise response may differ from the response recorded in another person’s story. The aim is communion and obedient trust, not the discovery of a spiritual password that makes uncertainty disappear.

In this section of readings, we find the famous Prayer of Jabez. He was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother had named him Jabez — meaning "pain" — since she'd given birth to him in pain. Jabez cries out to Israel's God, asking Him to bless him, enlarge his territory, keep His hand with him, and protect him from harm and pain — and God grants his request (a paraphrase of 1 Chronicles 4:9–10).

So what should we learn here? First, prayer is clearly an important part of an "honorable" person's life — like Jabez, we should come before the LORD in prayer. Second, God does listen to an honorable person's prayers. Third, in Jabez's specific case, God grants the request — but does that mean anyone else praying a similar prayer will automatically receive the same result? Is the pray-er's own spiritual state the actual key to this prayer's success? If God doesn't grant a similar request, does that imply some spiritual problem in the person praying? Fourth, if someone doesn't ask for blessing at all, does that mean God simply won't bless them? Is God waiting with a basket of blessings, given only to those who specifically ask? Are we missing out on blessing simply because we're not asking?

Bruce Wilkinson, author of the popular book built around this prayer, says he's personally prayed this exact prayer daily for over thirty years, encouraging his readers to do the same — describing it as teaching a daring prayer God reliably answers, and going further still, suggesting that experiencing this kind of blessing is essentially the entire purpose of our redemption.

But what does the Bible itself say redemption's purpose actually is? Jesus, praying before His arrest, tells the Father the hour has come to glorify the Son so the Son can glorify the Father, since He's been given authority to grant eternal life to all the Father has given Him — eternal life meaning knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He sent. He's already brought the Father glory on earth by completing the work given Him, and now asks to be glorified again in the Father's presence, with the glory He shared before the world began (a paraphrase of John 17:1–5). Christ's entire life's purpose was giving the Father glory. We're redeemed for that same purpose — to give God glory!

With that purpose in mind, we can now answer the earlier questions about prayer and blessing. What should we actually be praying for? That God be glorified in our lives — whether through a life of blessing, or a life of suffering, so let it be either way! I recently read the book of Jeremiah, a man set apart before birth to be a prophet to the nations, commonly called the "weeping prophet," who led a genuinely miserable life. Was his life miserable because he never prayed for blessing? No. Did he glorify God through the life he actually lived? Yes!

Let's pray as Jesus taught — even before asking for daily provision, what does He say first? "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done" (a paraphrase of Matthew 6:9–10).

Let the name of our God be glorified in our lives and in our prayers!

AI-Expanded Reflection

This comment's own careful questioning of the "Prayer of Jabez" phenomenon deserves engaging directly, since it touches a real, contested moment in recent American evangelical culture — the book's runaway popularity in the early 2000s drew serious pushback from many pastors and theologians precisely over the concern this comment raises: whether a single Old Testament prayer, granted once to one specific man, was ever meant to function as a repeatable formula guaranteeing blessing to whoever prays it. This comment's own resolution — redirecting the purpose of prayer and redemption toward God's glory rather than personal expansion — reflects a widely shared theological critique of that specific popularization, not a fringe reaction, and its underlying instinct (that Scripture's purpose in recording an answered prayer isn't automatically an instruction to replicate it) is a genuinely useful hermeneutical caution well beyond this one example.

Many historical events involving Israel's twelve tribes get reiterated here in today's reading. Reuben lost his birthright after defiling his father's marriage bed, and Joseph ended up receiving it instead. Judah was blessed with kingship over God's people, against the natural birth order. I see all of this happening not through random human choice, but so God's purpose in election would stand — not by works, but by Him who calls (a paraphrase of Romans 9:11–12). We all fear an uncertain future, even knowing who holds it. I pray we'd each put our trust in Him, who is faithful not because we deserve it, but simply because He is faithful despite our own frailty. Whether we choose rightly or not, whether rich or poor, skilled or not, whatever our past — His will be done, and He demands our loyalty to Him alone. Let's remain faithful to our Lord, even to death!

AI-Expanded Reflection

As with other similar comments elsewhere in this collection, the language of "election" this comment applies to Judah's unexpected elevation touches a genuinely debated theological question among faithful Christians regarding exactly how divine sovereignty and human choice relate — but whatever position a reader takes on that broader debate, the specific pattern in Genesis this comment identifies is worth appreciating on its own textual merits: younger sons repeatedly displacing older ones (Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Judah's line over Reuben's) forms a consistent enough thread that it reads as a deliberate literary and theological signal, not scattered coincidence, regardless of how one resolves the harder question underneath it.