The verse stands among the Bible's long genealogical lists, briefly setting down the sons of Abraham as Isaac and Ishmael. Its place there is fully inspired, no less than the Psalms, kept by God's direction as part of His word and needed as part of the whole. Accurate lines of descent were so kept because they were necessary to the development and certainty of the gospel. Such lists preserve the origin and distribution of peoples, a matter of interest to those who study ethnology. They are kept for instruction, yet their purpose and value for spiritual instruction may not be immediately clear and they are less interesting and instructive than other passages, so they need not be read or studied as frequently, though they may reward scholarly study.
The verse stands among the Bible's long genealogical lists, briefly setting down the sons of Abraham as Isaac and Ishmael. Its place there is fully inspired, no less than the Psalms, kept by God's direction as part of His word and needed as part of the whole. Accurate lines of descent were so kept because they were necessary to the development and certainty of the gospel. Such lists preserve the origin and distribution of peoples, a matter of interest to those who study ethnology. They are kept for instruction, yet their purpose and value for spiritual instruction may not be immediately clear and they are less interesting and instructive than other passages, so they need not be read or studied as frequently, though they may reward scholarly study.