14 The sons of Manasseh by his servant-wife, the Aramaean woman: she gave birth to Machir, the father of Gilead;
The sons of Manasseh: of Machir, the family of the Machirites: and Machir was the father of Gilead: of Gilead, the family of the Gileadites. These are the sons of Gilead: of Iezer, the family of the Iezerites: of Helek, the family of the Helekites: And of Asriel, the family of the Asrielites: and of Shechem, the family of the Shechemites: And of Shemida, the family of the Shemidaites: and of Hepher, the family of the Hepherites. And Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, had no sons, but only daughters, and the names of the daughters of Zelophehad were Mahlah, and Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. These are the families of Manasseh; and those who were numbered of them were fifty-two thousand, seven hundred.
But if they do not go over with you armed, they will have to take their heritage with you in the land of Canaan. Then the children of Gad and the children of Reuben said, As the Lord has said to your servants, so will we do. We will go over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, and you will give us our heritage on this side of Jordan. So Moses gave to them, even to the children of Gad and the children of Reuben and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, the son of Joseph, the kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorites and Og, king of Bashan, all the land with its towns and the country round them. And the children of Gad were the builders of Dibon and Ataroth and Aroer; And Atroth-shophan and Jazer and Jogbehah; And Beth-nimrah and Beth-haran: walled towns and shut-in places for sheep. And the children of Reuben were the builders of Heshbon and Elealeh and Kiriathaim; And Nebo and Baal-meon, (their names being changed,) and Sibmah: and they gave other names to the towns they made. And the children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, went to Gilead and took it, driving out the Amorites who were living there. And Moses gave Gilead to Machir, the son of Manasseh; and he made it his living-place. And Jair, the son of Manasseh, went and took the towns of Gilead, naming them Havvoth-Jair. And Nobah went and took Kenath and its small towns, naming it Nobah, after himself.
The rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, all the land of Argob, together with Bashan, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh. (This land is named the land of the Rephaim. Jair, the son of Manasseh, took all the land of Argob, as far as the country of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, naming it, Bashan, Havvoth-Jair after himself, as it is to this day.) And Gilead I gave to Machir.
And this was the part marked out for the tribe of Manasseh, because he was the oldest son of Joseph. As for Machir, the oldest son of Manasseh, the father of Gilead, because he was a man of war he had Gilead and Bashan. And as for the rest of the children of Manasseh, their heritage was given to them by families; for the children of Abiezer, and for the children of Helek, and for the children of Asriel, and for the children of Shechem, and for the children of Hepher, and for the children of Shemida: these were the male children of Manasseh, the son of Joseph, by their families. But Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, had no sons, but only daughters; and these are the names of his daughters: Mahlah, and Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.
And after that, Hezron had connection with the daughter of Machir, the father of Gilead, whom he took as his wife when he was sixty years old; and she had Segub by him. And Segub was the father of Jair, who had twenty-three towns in the land of Gilead. And Geshur and Aram took the tent-towns of Jair from them, with Kenath and the small places round it, even sixty towns. All these were the sons of Machir, the father of Gilead.
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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).