Azarel, Shelemiah, and Shemariah round out the next grouping within the sons of Bani, each representing a household and family network that participated in the covenant reformation of the returned exiles. The personal names testify to the social reality that intermarriage had occurred at multiple levels of Israelite society, creating complex webs of familial and economic relationships that the reform would disrupt. The Chronicler's record does not sentimentalize the pain of these disruptions but frames them within the larger story of God reconstituting a holy people. The acts of covenant compliance recorded here were simultaneously acts of community formation.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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