The book of First Chronicles was written to encourage the Israelites to have hope, even though life is not the same back from exile, their God is still faithful to His covenant. The covenant with Abraham said his descendants would outnumber the stars in the sky, and so reading these first nine chapters with the majority of them being his descendants helps the reader to have hope that God will keep His word. This list of names focus on David because God's promise is also through him, and how his kingdom will be forever, and Matthew chapter one shows us that is possible with Jesus the son of David, Son of God. Another focus in these chapters is the Levites who lead in the worship of the Lord. This list ends with the Genealogy of Saul who was the first king of Israel, and this leads into the next section of the book, the United Kingdom. Psalm 42 was written for the director of music, A maskil of the Sons of Korah, a family in the line of the Levites, and it was written for the same reason of First Chronicles, to encourage the Jews to place their hope in God!
