1 And of the sons of Issachar: Tola and Puah, Jashub and Shimron, four.
2 And the sons of Tola: Uzzi and Rephaiah and Jeriel and Jahmai and Ibsam and Shemuel, heads of their families; they were men of war; in the record of their generations their number in the time of David was twenty-two thousand, six hundred.
3 And the sons of Uzzi; Izrahiah; and the sons of Izrahiah: Michael and Obadiah and Joel and Isshiah, five; all of them chiefs.
4 And with them, recorded in generations by their families, were bands of fighting-men, thirty-six thousand of them, for they had a great number of wives and sons.
5 And there were recorded among all the families of Issachar, great men of war, eighty-seven thousand.
6 The sons of Benjamin: Bela and Becher and Jediael, three.
7 And the sons of Bela: Ezbon and Uzzi and Uzziel and Jerimoth and Iri, five; heads of their families, great men of war; there were twenty-two thousand and thirty-four of them recorded by their families.
8 And the sons of Becher: Zemirah and Joash and Eliezer and Elioenai and Omri and Jerimoth and Abijah and Anathoth and Alemeth. All these were the sons of Becher.
9 And they were recorded by their generations, heads of their families, great men of war, twenty thousand, two hundred.
10 And the sons of Jediael: Bilhan; and the sons of Bilhan: Jeush and Benjamin and Ehud and Chenaanah and Zethan and Tarshish and Ahishahar.
11 All these were the sons of Jediael, by the heads of their families, seventeen thousand, two hundred men of war, able to go out with the army for war.
12 And Shuppim and Huppim. The sons of Dan, Hushim his son, one.
13 The sons of Naphtali: Jahziel and Guni and Jezer and Shallum, the sons of Bilhah.
14 The sons of Manasseh by his servant-wife, the Aramaean woman: she gave birth to Machir, the father of Gilead;
15 (And Gilead took a wife, whose name was Maacah, and his sister's name was Hammoleketh;) and the name of his brother was Zelophehad, who was the father of daughters.
16 And Maacah, the wife of Gilead, gave birth to a son to whom she gave the name Peresh; and his brother was named Sheresh; and his sons were Ulam and Rakem.
17 And the son of Ulam: Bedan. These were the sons of Gilead, the son of Machir the son of Manasseh.
18 And his sister Hammoleketh was the mother of Ishhod and Abiezer and Mahlah.
19 And the sons of Shemida were Ahian and Shechem and Likhi and Aniam.
20 And the sons of Ephraim: Shuthelah and Bered his son, and Tahath his son, and Eleadah his son, and Tahath his son,
21 And Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son, and Ezer and Elead, whom the men of Gath, who had been living in the land from their birth, put to death, because they came down to take away their cattle.
22 And for a long time Ephraim their father went on weeping for them, and his brothers came to give him comfort.
23 After that, he had connection with his wife, and she became with child and gave birth to a son, to whom his father gave the name of Beriah, because trouble had come on his family.
24 And his daughter was Sheerah, the builder of Beth-horon the lower and the higher, and Uzzen-sheerah.
25 And Rephah was his son, and Resheph; his son was Telah, and his son was Tahan;
26 Ladan was his son, Ammihud his son, Elishama his son,
27 Nun his son, Joshua his son.
28 Their heritage and their living-places were Beth-el and its daughter-towns, and Naaran to the east, and Gezer to the west, with its daughter-towns, as well as Shechem and its daughter-towns as far as Azzah and its daughter-towns;
29 And by the limits of the children of Manasseh, Beth-shean and its daughter-towns, Taanach, Megiddo, and Dor, with their daughter-towns. In these the children of Joseph, the son of Israel, were living.
30 The sons of Asher: Imnah and Ishvah and Ishvi and Beriah and Serah, their sister.
31 And the sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel, who was the father of Birzaith.
32 And Heber was the father of Japhlet and Shomer and Hotham and Shua, their sister.
33 And the sons of Japhlet: Pasach and Bimhal and Ashvath. These are the sons of Japhlet.
34 And the sons of Shomer: Ahi and Rohgah, Jehubbah and Aram.
35 And the sons of Hotham, his brother: Zophah and Imna and Shelesh and Amal.
36 The sons of Zophah: Suah and Harnepher and Shual and Beri and Imrah,
37 Bezer and Hod and Shamma and Shilshah and Ithran and Beera.
38 And the sons of Jether: Jephunneh and Pispah and Ara.
39 And the sons of Ulla: Arah and Hanniel and Rizia.
40 All these were the children of Asher, heads of their families, specially strong men of war, chiefs of the rulers. They were recorded in the army for war, twenty-six thousand men in number.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on 1 Chronicles 7
Commentary on 1 Chronicles 7 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 7
1Ch 7:1-5. Sons of Issachar.
1. Jashub—or Job (Ge 46:13).
2. whose number was in the days of David two and twenty thousand and six hundred—Although a census was taken in the reign of David by order of that monarch, it is not certain that the sacred historian had it in mind, since we find here the tribe of Benjamin enumerated [1Ch 7:6-12], which was not taken in David's time; and there are other points of dissimilarity.
3. five: all of them chief men—Four only are mentioned; so that as they are stated to be five, in this number the father, Izrahiah, must be considered as included; otherwise one of the names must have dropped out of the text. They were each at the head of a numerous and influential division of their tribe.
5. fourscore and seven thousand—exclusive of the 58,600 men which the Tola branch had produced (1Ch 7:24), so that in the days of David the tribe would have contained a population of 45,600. This large increase was owing to the practice of polygamy, as well as the fruitfulness of the women. A plurality of wives, though tolerated among the Hebrews, was confined chiefly to the great and wealthy; but it seems to have been generally esteemed a privilege by the tribe of Issachar, "for they had many wives and sons" [1Ch 7:4].
1Ch 7:6-12. Of Benjamin.
6. The sons of Benjamin—Ten are named in Ge 46:21, but only five later (1Ch 8:1; Nu 26:38). Perhaps five of them were distinguished as chiefs of illustrious families, but two having fallen in the bloody wars waged against Benjamin (Jud 20:46), there remained only three branches of this tribe, and these only are enumerated.
Jediael—Or Asbel (Genesis 46. 21).
7. the sons of Bela—Each of them was chief or leader of the family to which he belonged. In an earlier period seven great families of Benjamin are mentioned (Nu 26:38), five of them being headed by these five sons of Benjamin, and two descended from Bela. Here five families of Bela are specified, whence we are led to conclude that time or the ravages of war had greatly changed the condition of Benjamin, or that the five families of Bela were subordinate to the other great divisions that sprang directly from the five sons of the patriarch.
12. Shuppim also, and Huppim—They are called Muppim and Huppim (Ge 46:21) and Hupham and Shupham (Nu 26:39). They were the children of Ir, or Iri (1Ch 7:7).
and Hushim, the sons—"son."
of Aher—"Aher" signifies "another," and some eminent critics, taking "Aher" as a common noun, render the passage thus, "and Hushim, another son." Shuppim, Muppim, and Hushim are plural words, and therefore denote not individuals, but the heads of their respective families; and as they were not comprised in the above enumeration (1Ch 7:7, 9) they are inserted here in the form of an appendix. Some render the passage, "Hushim, the son of another," that is, tribe or family. The name occurs among the sons of Dan (Ge 46:23), and it is a presumption in favor of this being the true rendering, that after having recorded the genealogy of Naphtali (1Ch 7:13) the sacred historian adds, "the sons of Bilhah, the handmaid, who was the mother of Dan and Naphtali." We naturally expect, therefore, that these two will be noticed together, but Dan is not mentioned at all, if not in this passage.
1Ch 7:13. Of Naphtali.
13. Shallum—or Shillem (Ge 46:24).
sons of Bilhah—As Dan and Naphtali were her sons, Hushim, as well as these enumerated in 1Ch 7:13, were her grandsons.
1Ch 7:14-40. Of Manasseh.
14, 15. The sons of Manasseh—or descendants; for Ashriel was a grandson, and Zelophehad was a generation farther removed in descent (Nu 26:33). The text, as it stands, is so confused and complicated that it is exceedingly difficult to trace the genealogical thread, and a great variety of conjectures have been made with a view to clear away the obscurity. The passage [1Ch 7:14, 15] should probably be rendered thus: "The sons of Manasseh were Ashriel, whom his Syrian concubine bare to him, and Machir, the father of Gilead (whom his wife bare to him). Machir took for a wife Maachah, sister to Huppim and Shuppim."
21. whom the men of Gath … slew, &c.—This interesting little episode gives us a glimpse of the state of Hebrew society in Egypt; for the occurrence narrated seems to have taken place before the Israelites left that country. The patriarch Ephraim was then alive, though he must have arrived at a very advanced age; and the Hebrew people, at all events those of them who were his descendants, still retained their pastoral character. It was in perfect consistency with the ideas and habits of Oriental shepherds that they should have made a raid on the neighboring tribe of the Philistines for the purpose of plundering their flocks. For nothing is more common among them than hostile incursions on the inhabitants of towns, or on other nomad tribes with whom they have no league of amity. But a different view of the incident is brought out, if, instead of "because," we render the Hebrew particle "when" they came down to take their cattle, for the tenor of the context leads rather to the conclusion that "the men of Gath" were the aggressors, who, making a sudden foray on the Ephraimite flocks, killed the shepherds including several of the sons of Ephraim. The calamity spread a deep gloom around the tent of their aged father, and was the occasion of his receiving visits of condolence from his distant relatives, according to the custom of the East, which is remarkably exemplified in the history of Job (Job 2:11; compare Joh 11:19).