The Books of the Chronicles: An Exegetical and Doctrinal Commentary (Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scripture) 1556354045, 9781556354045

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THEBOOKS OF THE

CHRONICLES. THEOLOGICALLY

AND

HOMILETICALLY

EXPOUNDED

BY

DR. OTTO ZOCKLER, D.D., PROFESSOR

OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY

OF GREIFSW ALD, PRUSSIA.

TRANSLATED,ENLARGED,ANDEDITED

BY

JAMES G. MURPHY, LL. D., PROFESSOR

IN THE GENERAL

ASSEMBLY'S AND THE QUEEN'S COLLEGE AT BELFAST,

Wipf&Stock PUBLISHERS Eugene,Oregon

Wipf and Stock Publishers 199 W 8th Ave, Suite 3 Eugene, OR 97401 The Books of the Chronicles an Exegetical and Doctrinal Commentary By Zöckler, Otto J. ISBN 13: 978-1-55635-404-5 ISBN 10: 1-55635-404-5 Publication date 4/4/2007 Previously published by Charles Scribner, 1877

PREFACE TOVOL. VII.OFTHEOLDTEST.AMENT.

Tms volume completes the Commentary on the Historical Books_of the Old Testament, written during the period of the reconstruction of the theocracy after the return from exile. It contain.s : 1. THE FIRST ANDSECOND.BooK 01' CHRONICLEs,·byDr. OTTOZOCKLER, Professor in the Prussian University of Greifswald (1874), translated and edited by Professor JAMESG. MURPHY,LL.D., of Belfast, who is already well known to the American public by his Commentaries on Genesis, Exodus, and the Psalms. Professor Murphy has departed from the method of the other volumes by giving a literal translation of the text instead of the authorized version with emendations in brackets.

2. EZRA,by Dr. FR. U. SCHULTZ,Professor in the University of'Breslau (1876), translated and edited by Dr. CHARLESA. BRIGGS,Professor of Hebrew and the Cognate Lang.uages in the Union Theological Seminary, New York, who prepared in part the Commentary on the Psalms for this work. 3. NEHEMIAH,by Dr. HOWARDCROSBY,Chancellor of the University of New York. Dr. Crosby had finished his work in manuscript before the German Commentary of Dr. Schultz appeared (1876), but he has added a translation of the Homiletical sections from Schultz. 4. ESTHER,by Dr. SCHULTZ,translated and edited by Dr. JAMESSTRONG,Profe.c:;sor of Exegetical Theology in Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N. J. Dr. STRONGhas translated the frequent Latin citations, added the Textual and Grammatical notes, enlarged the list of exegetical helps, and furnished an excursus on the Apocryphal additions to Esther, and another on the liturgical use of the book among ~he Jews.

The remaining three of the twenty-four volumes of this Commentary.are in the hands of the printer, and will be published at short intervals.

PHILIP

B1nu: HousE, NEW Yonx,

December,1876.

SCHAFF.

PREF ACE. TBP:matter and the whole form ol the boolts of Chronicles afford a sufficient warrant f91 allowing the homiletic and even the theological part of the exposition to fall more into tr... background here than elsewl;iere in this Bible-work. ·In the following work also, on account of the numerous parallels with the books of Samuel and ;King!!,an_almost exclusive -predominance of the historical elemeQ.tmight easi1:yhe permitted. For with regard to theological and homiletic comment, the corresponding portions of these books have already received a fruitful and v_aluable treatment in the able works of )3ahr and Erdmann, so that reference to· them might in every instance have been sufficient. And where anything peculiar to Chronicles was to be explained, jt almost always referred to portions like the genealogical lists in 1 Chron. il.-ix., the various s11pplementsto the history of war, and the highly chl!tl'11cteristiablyerroneous (resting on an old clerical err-or) n!l1"1,has not only the weight § I. TlUJPatriarchs before Noah, the (!,,ree Sons of so old witnes~es ~s. the Sept. and. Vulg. for jt of Noah, and the (70) N't1r. 25, a son of Jerahmeel and grandson of Hezron. Accordingly, the old genealogical table before the Chronist had only two lines of Hezronites (Jerahineelites and Calebites), and his supplementing action had extended this register, so that he first added a Rrtm son of Hezron, with his posterity ·(vers. 10-17), different from Ram son of Jerahmeel, and then rt second Caleb (vers. 18-24), with inany other descendants than those of the youn~er brothel; Jerahmeel, ver. 42 ff. It cannot be demed that many reasons appear to recommend this bold hypothesis. It explains in a satisfactory way the circumstance that the first-born ,Terahmeel, whose . g•·nealogy _we should expect first, appears arter those of Ins two younger brothers,' and also the $urpi:ising duplication of . the names Ram and Caleb, But the hypothesis comes short of absolute·certainty in many points which require to be adduced for confirmation. . And especially it still i'emains doubtful which of the different old tradi" tions concerning the descendants o.f the old prince of Judah, Caleb the companion of Joshua, ~hether that in vcr. 18 ff., or that in ver. 42 ff., or that .in iv. 11, 15 ff., is to be pronomiced the oldest a.\lll most trustworthy, and whether we are en, titled to reject for one of them all the others at once as totally untrustworthy, and containing no element of historical truth. If it were to be assumed that originally there were two persons of this name, a Caleb soh of Hemm (ii., iv. 11 ff.) and a Caleb son of Jephunneh (iv. 15 ff.), this duplication would warn us to be so much the more cautious in the reception or rejection of this or that· one of the various traditions tha.t are attached to these honourable names : the still greater complexity of the collective genealogies of Caleb would all the more favour the conjecture that each of the series referred to him must be accounted in the one or-the other way as authentic; as containing in itself elements of the genuine . posterity of Caleb.-Ver. 18. Begat with .Azubah !tis wife. 1"1~ i1?ii1, either "begat with" (as else-

,,>;;i,

where l'? ch. viii. s, 9) or "caused to bring forth" (comp. Isa. !xvi. 9). The followingwords, t,;:i,1,1-nN1 i1iYl't, appear to be corrupt. If we trartsi~te ··(;vith Kimchi, Piscat., Osiatid., and others), "with Azubah, a wife, and with Jerioth, "two things are strange: the indefinite designation of Aznbah as a wife, nt!it-t (for which we should expect "his wife," ir-,~~), and the cir• cumstonce that of the second wife no son is named. If we regard (with Hiller, J. D. Mich.) n~! as explicative, with Azubah a wife, that is, Jeri~th, we establish a mode of expression which is without a parallel in our book. It is impossible to renrler '' And Caleb begat Azi1bah and Jerioth ''. (B. Sttiegel). We must either hold n~~• which is, moreover, wanting in two MSS. (see Crit. Note), with Berth. and Kamph., as a marginal note that has crept into the text, designed to p1'event the translation "begat Az11bah," or adopt the reading of the Pesh. and the Vulg., nt-tir-il!it-t, which gives the sense, '' begat with .Azubah · his wife

D.

Jerioth, and these are. her (Jerioth's) sons!' The latter appears the most satisfactory (comp. Keil). The names of her 'three sons occur nowhere else in the Old Testament.- Ver. 19. And .Azubah di.ed, and Caleb took to him Ephrath, namely; to wife. To this second wife of Caleb, whose name in ver. 50 (comp. iv; 4) is Ephrathah, belong5 Hui', who is also mentioned Exod. xxxi. 2 as the grandfather of Bezalel. · By this we are scarcely to understand that Ephrathah was properly a local nam~ equivalent to _Bethlehem (Gen. xxxvi. 16, 19; Micah v. 1), so that Hur would be desig nated a descendant of Caleb, born at Bethlehem, or originating thence (an .assun1ption to which Bertheau seems inclined).-On vel', 20, ~omp. Exod. xxxi. 2, xxxv. 30.~Ver. 21. Aperward.~ Hezroii went in to the daughter of J.fachir. "Aft_erwards," 'ii] ~1•that is, after the birth of those three sons merttioned ver. 9; whose mother is not named. 'l'he whoie notice; extending to ver. 24, of Hezron's descendants, born in his old a(l'e of the daughter of Machir the Gileadite, and of a son. Ashur, born after his death of a thircl wife Abiah (ver. 24), is undoubtedly surprising, a!1d unsuitable to the present place: the series of Hezron's sons and their desce11dants is thereby violently interrupted, and the above-mentioned interpolation theory of W ellhausen has 'in this case a very strong support. If we hold the pn,sent otder to be original, we i:nilst assume, with Keil, that the here mentioned. descendants of Hezron " were somehow more closely connected with the family of Caleb than with that of either Ram or Jerahmeel." On Machir the first-born of Manasseh; to whom Moses gave the land of Gilead, comp. Geil. L 23; Num. xxxii. 40; Deut. iii. 15. As he is here and ver. 23 called "father of Gilead,' so is it said N um. xxvi. 29 that he begat Gilead. Comp. Num. xxvii. 1, from which it follows that, by this paternal relation of Machir to Gilead, more must be meant than the bare notion of a descent of the Israelitish population of Gilead from Machir, and that there inust have been a definite person, Gilead, son of Machir and grandfather of Zelophehad. By the designation father of Gilead; the present Machir is distinguished from later· persons of the same name ; comp. 2 Sam. ix. 4; xvii. 27.- Ver. 22. .And Segub begat Jair. This J air, the grandson of Hezron through Segnb, be longed on the mother's side to the tribe of Manasseh, and occurs therefore elsewhere, as N um. xxxii. 41, Dent. iii. 14, as a Manassite. His family, after the conquest of Og king of Bashan under Moses, received the territory of Argob, and gave to the conquered cities which Moses handed over to him the name Havvoth-Jair (1'~1 n~n); "tent-villages of Jair," or_"life of Jair;;(cou";p. N um. xxxii. 41 ; Deut. iii. 14; Josh. xiii. 30; 1 Kings iv. 13), with which designation the name "Judah on Jordan,'' Josh. xix. 34 (that is, the colony of Jews in Gilead east of the Jordan), is' most probably identical;. comp. v. Raumer, Palrest. 4th edit. p. 233 ; Hengstenh. Gesch. de_s.Reichs Gottes im .A. T. ii. p. 258 ; Hotrm. Blicke in die fr'iiheste Gesch. des gelobten Landes, i. (1870) p. 114.-Ver. 23. And Geshur and Aram, the Gcshurites and Ara.m02ans,which is scarcely a hendiadys for "the Aramreans of Geshur," but rather points to an alliance of the Geshurites with the neighbouring Aramrearm. Fol' Geshur (2 Sam. iii. 3, xiii. 37, xv. 8) wa; a 0

f2

I. CHRONICLES.

region in Aram or Syria, lying on the north-west Xa:"-•/1 ,;, 'Eq>p,i..os) appears in the clearest manner fro'QlNum. xxxii. born of Hezron: ver. 9. As there was a negeh 41, 42, according to which, of the two Manassites Caleb (ver. 24) and a negeb of the Kenites, so Jair and Nobah, the former conquered the "Hav- there was a negeb of the Jerahmeelites, 1 Sam. voth J air," the latter the '' Benoth Kena th." xxvii. 10; comp. xxx. 29. This is a proof of the Only in their sum total were these places sixty in strength and power of this line springing from the first-born. number, and only to this sum total does the pre- the oldest Hezronites.-Ram takes this sent i'J!t:JI~~apply. Whether, therefore, the Wellhausen, perhaps withoutJround, Ram to be originally identic VI ith the Ram of group of towns designated by " Kenath" (now ver. 10, the founder of the Ramite family, from Kanwat, on tI1e western slope of Jebel Hauraq) which David sprang; comp. on iv. 21.-And and her daughters numbered exactly thirty-seven B1,nalt, and Oren, and Ozem of Ahijali. The towns (as Keil thinks), remains uncertain ; and last of these names, n1nN,should not apparently ,. -: the number sixty may very ;J?robablybe a round number (comp. also Deut. iii. 12-14; .Josh. xiii. designate a fifth son of J erahmeel, because in that 30). On the time when the Gesburites and Ara- case the , should not be wanting. It appears mreans took the sixty towns, nothing can be ascer- rather to be the naine of the mother of the four tained from our passage. Certain it is that the sons, and a r., before l'l'nN appears to have later Judge of Israel, Jair (Judg. x. 4), possessed again at least thirty of these towns under the fallen out bef~re the t:l ·the foregoing t:l::tN, name of Havvoth-Jair, which must have survived (comp. viii. 9). This conjecture, thrown out ..by to still later times. All these are sons of J air, Jun., Tremell., Clericus, J, H. Mich., J. Lange, not the sixty towns, but the afore-mentioned and approved by all the moderns; appears the Se~ub and Jair and their descendants and corre- more probable, as in the following verse mention latives. It may be conjectured that the ~nea- is made of a second wife of Jerahmeel, and the logical source used by the Chronist was origmally Syr. and the Sept. in our verse have reckoned more full, so that l'l~N >;;i referred not merely to only four sons, the latter rendering l'l'nN by • ••• •• T these two names.-Ver. 24, And after the death ~),"-q>•s,.;,.,..u.-Ver. 26. Atarah; she ~ the of Hezron in Oaleb-ephrathah. This place, which mother of Onam, whose family is traced out does not elsewhere occur, might possibly be the vers. 28-33. The name TT-: appears to signify RA.meas Ephrathah or Bethlehem-ephrathah (see " crown," a name not unsuitable for a female, on ver. 19); the name of Caleb's second wife Prov. xxxi. 10. Yet it might si~nify "wall, Ephrath might be somehow connected with this fort," as the sing. of nii~.11,the city (comp. N um. T -: her place of abode and death. " In 1 Sam. xxx. H a part of the south of Judah is called 'Negeb xxxii. 3, 34f.; Josh. xvi. 5, 7, xviii. 13; and WellCaleb,' because it belonged to the family of Caleb; hausen, p. 25).-Vers. 28-30. Onam's family in analogy,vith which the town or place, in which continues itself in pairs of sons to Abishur and Caleb and his wife Ephrath dwelt, might be called Nadab, his grandsons, and to their sons. On the • Caleb of Ephrathah,' if Ephrath had brought it name "Abihail," comp. Crit. Note.- Ver. 31. as a dowry to him, as in Josh. xv. 18 f. " (Keil). And the sons qf Sheshan (descendants; see on ver. Or from the Negeb Caleb, as the southern part-of 7), Ahlai; This Ahlai must have been a da1;1ihter, Caleb's territory, 1 SaI!l. xxx. 14, "possibly. the not a son, of Sheshart, great-grandson of ~a.dab, northern part might be distinguished by the more ver. 29 ; for (ver. 34) Sheahan had no sons, but definite name 'Caleb of Ephrathab,' that is, of only daughters : Ahlai was therefore his heiress ; Bethlehem" (Berth.). None of these interpreta- but whether the same daughter who (ver. 35) tions of this obscure phrase is perfectly satisfac- married the Egyptian Jarha must remain uncertory ; and there is therefore much plausihility in tain. The remark of Hiller (Onom. S. p. 736), the emendation of W ellhausen, founded on a therefore, on Sheshan : Quicquid habuit liberorum, various reading presented by the Sept. (n"-'•s. nepotum, sustulit ea: unica ji,lia Achlai, is not

.

~f

n,~.v

CH.A.P.11. 42-45.

43

auite con·ect.-Ver. 33. These :were the son11of xv. 55, the same that gave its name to the wilderJeralimeel. This subscription (going back to ver. ness of Ziph known to us from the history of 25) includes 23 descendants .of Jerahmeel. It de-· David, l Sam. xxiii. 14 ff., xxv. 2, and which serves notice, that 23 descendants of J erahmeel, Robinson has recognised .(ii. 417 ff.) in certain with the preceding descendants of Judah (from ruins on a hill south-east of Hebron, nothing uver. 3), make up-the sum of 70 members of the more natural than to perceive in Masha the father house of. Judah, namely, sons of Judah, 5 ; of of Ziph a lord or chieftain, or even the founder, Perez, 2 ; of Zerah, 5 ; Carmi, Achar, and of the town of Ziph (comp. on ver. 24). By Ziph Azariah, 3 ; Ram and his descendants (including might also be meant the place mentioned Josh. the 2 daughters of Jesse, and .Tether father of xv. 24, pretty far from Hebron in the plain Amasa), 21 ; Caleb and his descendants, 10 ; and (Shephelah) situated not far from Marash, the Jerahmeel and his descendants, 24. This new ancient Mareshah (so thinks Keil against Bernumber 70 of the ancestors of the Jews, made theau).-.And the soni, of Mareshah tllefather QI out by Bertheau, loses we:ght and certainty, be-. Hehron. Mareshah is scarcely the name of that cause it includes severa: females, against all to)Vll mentioned Josh. xv. 44 and 2 Chron. xi. 8 genealogical rule reckons the fatlier and mother along with Ziph, which occurs in the times of the of AmRSaas two members, and excluues the 13 Maccabees and the Romans under the name of desce1.1dantsof Sheahan, which sprang from the Marissa, and is preserved in the ruins of Marash Egyptian servant Jarha (vers. 34-41), treating in lhe Shephelab, half an· hour south of Beitthem as a mere offshoot (comp. Keil, p. 46). And jibrin (v. Raum. Pal031$t.3d edit. p. 192 ; Robinwould not the Chronist,. if he had actually 1son,ii. 693 ; Tobler, Dritt,e Wanderung, pp. 129, wished to represent· the posterity·of Judah, after 142). The expression " father of Hebron " the manner of that of his father Israel, Gen. makes the refl!l'ence to this town very ini- · xlvi. 26 f., as 70 souls, have overturned tliis probable ; for at no time is any dependence of 1:eckoning again by his later additions, and the ancient Hebron (Num. xiii. 23) on that very especially the supplements given in iv. 1-23, and remote Mareshah recorded. w·e· must rather, as altogether effaced the impression made thereby r the reading of the Masoretic text now runs, re-. Wellhausen's interpolation theory, even if only gard Mareshah as the proper name of some old approximately true, by no means agi·ees with this tribe chief, and hold the Hebron signalized among assumption of a tendency in the writer to sym- his sons as most probably a person or tribe disholic numbers in his enumerations in vers. 3-33. tinct from the well-known city Hebron (comp. v. -Vers. 34-41. The family of Jarha, the Egyptian 28 and Ex. vi. 18, where ~,~~ is likewise a servant: This Ja1·ha occurs nowhere else; he may have served Sheahan !luring the sojourn of personal name). So, justly 1•erh'aps,Wellhauseu Israel in Egypt ; for the latter branched off from and ,Keil, who is, moreover, disposed to consider Judah in the ninth generation, and belonged thus the text corrupt, and proposes the following to the. time before Moses. Most of the old ex- emendation (see Orit. Note): "and the sons of positors, perhaps rightly, presume that Jarha, only Mesha were Abi-Heb1·on." This conjecture is after he was made a free man and a proselyte by supported by the analogy of such compounds as Sheshan (comp. Ex. xxii. 20, xxiii. 9), manied his Abiuan, Abiezer, Abinadab ; the simple Hebron daughter ; comp. the law concerning in·termar- in ver. 43 might very well he an abbreviated form riage between Israelites and Egyptians, Dent. of Abihebron (comp. En-tappuah, Josh. xvii, 7, xxiii. 8 ; also David's Egyptian servant, 1 Sam. with the shorter Tappuah, Jo.sh. xvi. 8). [It is xxx. 13 ff. Of the 13 here named uescendants of simpler and easier to regard Hebron as a person, Jarha, none occur elsewhere in the history of the named, if you will, after a former Hebron.-J. Old Testament. Their names, indeed, recur G. M.]-Ver. 43. And the BOnll of Hebron: .several times, some of them, for example, in ch. Korah., and ·Tapp'lmh, and Relcem, and Slte1na• iii., among the descendants of David ; but it is These four names also must rather he names of not in the remotest degree probable that any of persons or tribes than of towns. For Korab and these belong to the list of the descendants of Shema occur only as personal names ; Uekem once indeed as the name of a city, Josh. xviii. 27, ,Tarha. · but belonging to Benjamin, and several times as .Appendix to the Genea'logyoftlie House of Judah: a personal name: in Num. xxxi. 8 as the name Three Series of Descendants of Oaleh, with of a Miuianite prince ; and 1 Chron. vii. 18 as Nanies chfe,flyof Geographical Import: vers. the name of a descendant of Manasseh. Only Tappuah ("apple") recurs merely as the name of 42-55. a city (Josh. xii. 17, xv. 34, xvi. 8; comp. xvii. a. The first series : Mesha's posterity : vers. 7), which, however, proves nothing for the case 42-45.-And the son11of Oaleb, brother of Jerah- in point, and by no means establishes a reference meel. This introduction leaves no doubt that the to this or that so-called city.-Ver. 44. .And same Caleb is meant as in ver. 18, and that this .8hema begat Raha1n, father of Jorkeam. For is an appendix to his g,nealogyalreadycommuniwhich occurs nowhere else, the Sept • . cai.id. .Meeha his first-born; he was tlie father exhibits '1,,.AJ,; whence Bertheau concludes that of Ziph. Though almost all tbe following names : as in Josh. xv. 56. But Zipb, Mareshah, Hebron, appear· to be local it was originally names, yet Mesha (l/~'2) sounds decidedly like this name "Jokdcam' the Sept. renders by 11 personal name ; comp. the Moabitish king of •1,,.i,..i,., and here it reads twice in succession this name, who has recently become celebrated by 'lad.!,. It exhibits the same also for cpi, anti his monument of victory (2 Kings iii. 4). As, on the the. other hand, Ziph (~•.t)appears to be the town thereby obscures the original relation genealogical data in our passage ; some of the four adjacent to ·Hebron which· is mentioned Josh. sons of Hebron (ver. 43), first Sllema tmd then

tl¥P;>

tl.!!'1~>

•~r

I. CHRONICLES. the penultimate Rekem, have their genealogy traced. With Shammai the soli of this Rekern comp. the so named persons ahove ver. 28 . and below iv. 17, and also the• celebrated leader of the Pharisees of this name, the. antagonist of Hillel in the time of .Tesus (.Tosoph.Antiq. xiv. of Beth9. 4).-Ver. 45. .And Maonwasjather Zur. Both Maon and Bethz11r are cities in the hill country ·ot' .Tudea; comp.. for the former, which is now called Main, and is pointed out as a castle in ruins, ,vith cisterns, etc., on a hill in Carmel south of Hebron, Josh. xv. 55; 1 Sam. xxiii. 24 f., xxv. 2 ; Robinson, ii. 421 ; for the latter, the site of which is to be sought north of Hebron on the road to Jerusalem, Josh. xv. 58; 2 Chron. xi. 7 ; v. Raumer, Pal. p. 163. There is no decisive reason for excluding a reference to these places. l\faon the son of Shammai may be regarded as the founder of the city so called (comp. Judg. x. 12, where Maon is the name of a non-lsraelitish tribe, along with Amalek and the Zidonians) ; Bethzur may then have been founded as a colony from ·Maon, a genetic relation, which is here expressed in a ·manner not qµite usual by " father of Bethzur" (for above in vers. 24, 42, and below in vers. 50, 51, it is not descent of a colony from its mother city, but government of cities by their princes or-lords, that is designated in this manner). b. The second series: posterity of Ephah and .Maachah, the two concubines of Caleb: vers. ]!}phah, .Caleb's concubine. The 46-49. -And name ilEl'l/, occurring elsewhere (ver. 47 and i.

1 Chron. iv. 19), yet nothing certain can be conjectured concerning its present bearer; that she was a Canaanitess is a mere conjectt1te ofiWellhausen. The two sons of Maachah occur nowhere else. The masc. ,,, (for which some MSS. have il"I''; sec Crit. No;;) may arise from the writer T!IT

thinking of the father, whom he does iiot name, -Ver. 49. And she bare (besides the two already mentioned) Shaaph, the fatlter of 1'tfadmannali. This city of Judah, mentioned Josh: xv. 31, may be preserved in the present Miniay or Miniah Stil1th of Gaza. Its "father" Shaaph, clearly different from him who is so named ver. 47, may be regarded as its prince or founder (comp. on ver. 42): even so Sheva (on w)lich · name comp. 2 Sam. xx. 25, Keri) in reference to Machbenah, and the unnamed father in reference to Gibeah. Machbenah, belonging no doubt to Judah, 1s no further known, .Toshua also, xv. 57, names a Gibeah in the mountains of Judah, whether the same with the village Jeba mentioned by Robinson ahd Tobler, on a hill in \Vady Mussur, remains a question; comp. E.eil on Josh. xv.-And Cal,eb'sdaughter was Achsa. This closing notice puts it beyond doubt that the Caleb hitherto (from ver. 46) spoken of is the same as Caleb the. son of Jephunneh and father of Achsa (whom he promised and gave to the conqneror of Debir as a reward, Josh. xv. 16 ff.; Judg. i. 12). This is ·Caleb son of Jephunneh, the contemporary of Moses and Joshua; and therefore it seems difficult to identify him at once with the brother of J erahT .. 83) as a man's name, Seems here, "'here it desig- ineel and son of Hezron mentioned in vers. 18 and 42 (comp. on ver. 1.8). For this Hezronite, a greata to oates a secondary wife of Caleb, to point non-I sraelitish origin of its possessor, whether grandson of·Judah through Perez, appears to have she be regarded as a person or a race. Of the been older than Moses and Joshua; but our paslatter opinion is Wellhausen, p. 12, who takes sage, as also ch. iv. l!i, refers clearly to that con. this non-Isra.elitish gens mingling with the Caleb- temporary of Joshua who is mentioned in the ites to belong to Midian; and on the contrary, the books of Joshua and Judges. That this younger ~econd concubine of Caleb, designated as Maachah, Caleb is a descendant of the Hezronite is highly ver. 48, to be a gens belonging to Canaan. Of the probable, because in the descendants of one and three sons of Ephah, Haran and Gazez are not. the same stock it is easy for the collateral geneaotherwise known. The middle name Moza occurs logies to intermingle, as they have done here Josh. xviii. 26 as the name of a city of Benjamin; and in iv. 15 ff. (comp. besides, the remarks on bnt this can scarcely be connected with the son of ch. iv. 11, 13, 15). If we assume accordingly two Caleb and Ephah. That Cazel: (Sept. r,~oi,,) is Calebs, an older, the Hezronite, of whom we read first named as a third son, and then as a grand- vers. 9 (under the name Celubai), 18, 42-45, and then again vers. 50-55, and a younger, whose son of Caleb, may be explained in two ways,either so that the statement:·" and Haran begat genealogy is given in our verses (46-49) and in Gazez" (which is omitted in•the Sept.), be taken ch. iv. 15 ff., we do not go so far as some older as a more exact addition to the foregoing mention expositors (even Starke), who assume with a of Gazez, or that there were really two descen- double Caleb a double Achsa, a daughter of the dants of Caleb of the same name, a son and a Hezronite Caleb (supposed to be here mentioned\, grandson (uncle and nephew; comp. ch. iii. 10). and a daughter of theJephunnite Caleb (Josh. xv.; The former is the more probable assumption. Judg. i. ). As little do we approve of Movers' -Ver. 47. And the sons of Jehdai. It is not conjecture (Chron. I>, 83), that the words, "and clear how this Jehdai (':!~~) is genealogically Caleb's daughter was Achsa," are a spurious interpolation of a later hand. But Keil's conjecture, .. connected with the foregoing. Hiller in the also, that the expression "daughter" denotes here Onorn. S. conjectures without ground that he "grand- daughter, descendant," that it is tho was one and the same person with Moza, ver. 46 ; Achsah of Josh. xv. 16 that is here spoken of, but Jehdai might as well be a second concubine of as a later descendant of the old Hezronite Caleb, Caleb. 01' the six sons of .Tehdai also, of whose and not a daughter of the Jephunnite, we cannot names only some (Jotham; comp. Shaaph, ver. accept, as it obviously does violence to the term Finally, we reject also Bertheau's "daughter." 49) occur elsewhere, we know nothing more.Ver. 48. And Caleb's concubine Maachah bare· attempt to admit only one Caleb, and to refer the Sheber and 1'irhanah. Though this name il:Jl/0 diversity in the accounts of him here and before to the inexact manner of the genealogical terms occurs often (comp. iii. 2, vii. 16, viii. 29, xi: that express also geographical relations; as well 1 2 2 Kings xxv. 3; as Ewald's opinion, that Caleb in vers. 42-49 is also the nom. gentilic. )'.)~V,~;:t,

4:\";

CHAP. II, ~0-55. neighhouring town, to b!l ne~ the b11rder ~ Jµdah, towards Dan. Reaiah seems from ch. iv. 2 not to have continued as a local name, but to have been the ancestor of the citizens of Zora ; so that his former seat is also to be simght in th~ north-west of Ju4a.h.~Ver. 53. And t/1,(lfamili&s of Kiriath-jearim were the JUirite, etc. These families of Kiriath-jeari)ll are annexed to the already named sons· of Shobal as other sons, descend~ts of the saine ancestor. · 'l'he four families are adduce4 in the fundamental text as singulars: the lthrite, tj:te Puthitti, etc. '!'he three last named. occur nowhere else; on the contrary, to the family of_the Jthrites, ch. xi. 40 (2 Sam. xxiii. 38), belongetl Ira and Gareb, two of David's heroes.-Ji'rom theaecame tlie Zorathite and the EshtaoUt~. Zorah, the home of Samson (Jµdg, xiii, 2, :x;vi.31), now Sura, between Jerusalem and Jabneh; ;Eshtl!ol,a town on the border of Judah !l,lld Dan; near Zorah (comp. J11dg. xvi. 31, xviii. 11), probably the present Um Eshteijeh. -Ver. 54. The 1J9118of Salma: Bethlehem (the indeed, tl1e na,~es Sa,lma and Hareph foll~w family of B~thleh~m; comp, ver. 51) q,nd t/1,(lNetoShobal, father of Kiriath-jearim, without close phathite. '.!,'hetown Netophah m11st, as followa nonne.ction. by , ; ant!. 1\l"i-!~ appears in 11ome from the refere11ceof its inhabitants to Salma, be measure as a·superscription .. ·whether Shobal be sought close by Beth1ehem; comp. ch. ix. 16; •h h b h f H d f 2Sam. xxiii. 28f.; 2Kingsxxv. 23; Ezraii. 22; t I1e s,~me wit. t .. e rot er o_ ."qr an son ~eh, vii. 26, whence appears thll comp11,rative Judah mentioned ch. iv. 1, must remain doubt- eelebrityofthistown,whosesitehasnotyetbeen ful. The town of Kiriath,jearim, of which he is discovered.-Ataroth of the house of Joab. This l;tere called tl1e father, that is, founder or chief, is is certainly the name of a town, which is to be that old GiLeonite town which is otherwise called · d · " b h all Kiriath-baal or Baala.h (c.omp. Josh. ix. 17, xv. mteri:rete ' not "crowns, ut rat er "w s, forts, ' of the house of Joab; comp. on ver. 26. 9, 60), and lay in the north,west corner of Judah, The site is as uncertain as that of the following on the border of Benjamin, probably the present Hazi-hammanahath (half ~anahath); comp. ch, Kureyet el Enab (wine town), on the road from viii. 6. On t)i.~ contrary, 'lliiti1 at the close Jerusa:lejri t,;>Jaffa (Robinson, ii. 588 ff. ; Keil on • ,. Josh. ix. 17).-Ver. 51. Salma, father of Beth-. points certainly to the known border city Zorah lPh.em. The coincidence .of-name with the Beth- mentioned in the foregoiI).gverse; for 'l/1'1· is lehemite ancestor of David of the hogse of Ram · :T mentioned ver. 17 is perhaps only .accidental; only formally different from ~nl,17':;l,~eing derived whi;h= 'may have been comp. on ver. 54. ~Hareph, father of Beth, from the masc. of ill/7:ir, gader, of the same place, which in Josh. xii. 13 , :T . . is Geder, 11.lldin Josh. xv. 36 Gederah; comp. used-along with the feminine as the name of tne ch. xii. 4, xxvii. 28. Keil thinks rather of town, although this cannot be proved. 'l'he Gedor (i\i~), Josh, xv. 58, i ChFon, iv. 4, xii. Zorites of our verse must have formed a second · element of the inhabitants of Zorah, alorig with· 7,.but with less ground. The I).ame Hareph do.es the Zorathites of the prev~ous verse descended not occur elsewhere, though c:i•in,Neh. vii. 24, from Shob;ll.-Ver. 55. And the familiea of the_ x. 20 (coIU:i,.'£)\7Ml'1;1 Chron. 5), may be only scribes dwelling at Jabez. This Jewish town of a variation or' th;=~~niena!I).e.-Ver. 52. Haroeh Jabez (r~f~),whose n!l,merecurs eh. iv. 9 f. as and the half of Menuhoth, These wor4s, un- that ofa. deseendl!,lltof Judah, is q-q.iteunknown intelli~bl~ t,;, the old translatol'I! : . 'ltM il~iil in site, but mast apparently. be sought, like all nim_~i1_·, ior which the &pt. gives th;;~ pr~pe; the places mentioned from ver. 53, in the north of Judah, on the borders of Benjamin or Dan. Of names: 'Ap!'• ,..._) Al.-l,.,.)'A~,,_,.,;,, and the Vulg; the families of scribes in Jabez, however, three the unmean(ng wor4s: .qui videbat dimidium re- are mentioned : the Tirathites, Shimathites, and tzttietionum, are o\)viously corrupt.. Let us read Suchathites, These three names the Vulg. has after ch, iv. 2, where a· Reaiah so~ of Shobal appHed appellatively to_ the functjons of these occurs, for nttii1 (for to rega,r(j.the former three classes of learned me:q, translating: canimtea a.sa mere by-f~~ of'; 1,~,. as many old expositors et regonantes et in tqbernaculiB commorantes. It • is possible that the Jewish do.ctors consulted by do, is in11,tlmissible),a~d for nlm~n1yn accord- Jerorn,e in the translation of our book (perhal_Js· ing to ver. 54: nm~n 'ltnl ~;' ,-1'\M);i"I 'ltn,. the rabbi fro!I).Tiberias, with whom he collateti the tel[t from beginning to end; comp. Introd. The text thus ame;ded '(a.o~~~:;iingto' Berth~;~;s § 6, Rem,) had presented ap. etymological basis, conjecture) gives Reaiah and ;Elazi-ha:rinnanahath, for this inti,rpretation, in seeking to refer ...:..1. to ill/11'\,"jqbilee SOllg, trumpet sound;" that is, half of the l\fanaha.thite, as sons of Shobal, Ci'1'1ll11'\ two Jewish families, of which the latter may be ·T ; • T ·,: 1 part of the inhabitants of the town Map.a.hath, 2. ClJ'.,V'?~ to ilV'?~•"report, echo" (or perhaps ch .. viii, 6. . 'l'he situation of this place is !l.eter- to illlr.lW,Aram. Nl'll/r.l~, traditio. _legis; comp, minei !>yver. ji4, where Zorah is.rilenti~ned as a , , ; •, - ,

the Caleb of the book ·of Joshua; the Caleb in vers. 9, 1:8-20, and 50-55, on the· contrary, is a quite different person, whose real name was (.!.,lubai. · (On the somewhat different, and at all· events more probable hypothesis of Wellhausen, 11~e,ibove on ver. 18,) c. 'l'he third series: posterity of Jfor, son pf Caleb: veJ"! p0-55. -As Hur is doubtless the grandfath~•. of Bezalool mentioned ver, 19, we have here again a line going back to Caleb the Hezronite,-TheBe were the 80ns of Oaleb. ').'his introductory senten9e, the generality of whipµ does. not snit the following statement, giving a genealogy. of ,mly one son of Caleb, !Lppears to indicate that the whole section is taken Iro)ll an originally different connection ..-'l'he Bon of Hur, first-born of .Ephratfiq,//,(comp. ver. l9); Shobal. As, after Shobal in th!l followi~gverse, Salm!!-an4 Hareph are also named as sons of Hur, it appears. more correci to reaw::i~, many

HSS.

and most old prints read

• l/t:lW'>~ l: ,: :this ftrst place Is perhaps an error of tte •::r: TT

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o,,w::iN. Comp. Exeg. Exp!. tra~s:ri~er for

·

l/~ld•SN l, which appears not only In the two • 0

'.':1'.'

parallel passages xiv. 6 and 2 Sam. v. lo (after in:l'l), but also In cod. Tat. of the Sept., as It gives 'EA,,...

r::i~ ,::i::i,r

a For before some HSS., as wellT~-~he 01'1 transl.tors, read '):l~, an unnecessary amendment {comi, •,• \' T •-.: ••:. Exeg. Remark on ii. 7). • The same variation as Inver. 19 (see Note 2). . . • For '):l, " sons of," the Sept. reads from thi• to .the end of thE verse b:\I,"his son," so that from Hanaman ro Shechanlah It yields a ,e,.ie• of seven ,nccesslve generations. s, also R. Benjamin In R •. Azariah de Rossi In Me)ll>·

v,

tJi>;;;~• might, in another connection, serve to lay ~~~~1asison the nnmeJ" the well-known Ab· salom ; comp. Isa. xxxu. l ). Here, however, in a mere list of names, it scarcely has this im• port, but seems rather to have come into the text tbrough an oversight, in consequence of the fore-

senting ~fter Ibhar an Elishna, Jr-lW\>N, Elishaina in our passage appears clearly an ~rro; ~f transcrip~ tion, especially as this name occurs again in ver. 8. is found The following name ElipheM (~SE)\>N) also in xiv. 51 althouirh in the ll~~~;hat abbre~ viated form on the contrary, it is wanting in ·,1)\::lN,,Other attempts to ex• ·· ··· ·· going ::iN> ·• · •· • in 2 Sam. v. 15·,~here only one Eliphelet, the last of plain this (which i~ wanting in some copies; the series, is mentioned. It is uncertain whether ' • hl · this want be original, and the double position is see Not~) are qmte wort ess, and deserve to be the result of some error of the Chronist or his notad. only as curioBq; for e)l:ample,Kimchi's pro, voucher (as Berth. thinks). That David should pos!Llto take \, for ~,. thereby designating 1:ijm have repeated the same name in the sons of ):ili!

>

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CHAP. III. 1046: difterent wives is of itself not incredible.-Ver. 7. inaccuracy that can be imputed to the Chronist And }iogah, and Nepheg, and Japhia. The name in the 1,resent. statements is; that he names i'lf:,, omitted by an oversight in 2 Sam. v. 15, is Shallum- in the last . place, and so appears to favour the opinion that he was the youngest of • • · T certainly original, though nothing be known con- the four brothers, whereas Zedekiah was much cerning this Nogah, perhaps- because he died younger than he; indeed, as a comparison ·of early and childless. "The view of Mov:ers, p. 2 Kings xxiii. 31 with xxiv. 18 shows, at least ~29, that this name was not originally in the text, 13· or 14 years younger (for Shall um was 23 years and came in by a false writing of the following old when he ascended .the thl'one, while Zedekiah, )b:,, has arisen from an undue· preference for th e who ascended the throne 11 years later, was then text of the books of Samuel "(Berth.) .-Ver. 8. only 21 years, of age). How this inaccuracy in And Elishama; (comp. on ver. 6), and Eliada, the order is to be explained, Keil shows very well,. and Eliphelet, nine. · For yi•S~ appears xiv. 7 p. 55 f. : "In our genealogy Zedekiah is placed, after Jehoiakim and before Shallum, because, on · n: ._. yi•Sy:ai,scarcely correct ; for the other parallel the one hand, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah- held. the throne a longer ti1ne, each for eleven years; on tbA TT: ·.- : . 2 Sam. v. 16 and the Sept. and Syr. versions in other hand; Zedekiah and Shallmrr were the sona xiv. 7 have yi1S~ (Sept. cod. Vat." 'E.1.1«¢i-cod. of Hamutal (2 Kings xxiii. 31, xxiv. 18), Jehoiakim the son of Zebidah (2 Kings xxiii. 36). · · n: ·, . Alex., indeed, B.,AJ.,a:~i).-Ver. 9. All the sons of With respect to age, they-should have succeeded Dav-id, except the sons of the concubines. These .thus: Johanan, Jehoiakim, Sha1lum, and Zedesons of David by concubines or slaves are also kiah;.and in rega1'dto their reign, Shallum should ·unnamed el sewhere ; but their existence appears have stood before J ehoiakim. But in .both cases those born of the same mother Hamutal would from 2 Sam. v. 13,. xii..11, xv. 16, xvi. 22.-And Tamar their sister, not the only one, but the have been separated. To ·avoid this, Shallum sister known from the history (2 Sam. xiii. 1 ff.). appears to have been reckoned beside his brother 2. 1'he Kings of the House of David from Zedekiah in the fourth place." RegaTdedthus, the Solomon to the Exile: vers. 10-16.-As far as passage loses its obscurity, which Niigelsbach ha'I Josiah, they are enumerated, without naming any still imputed to it (on Jer. xxii. 11), without non-reigning dcscend:ants, as a simple line of going quite so far as Hitzig, who here lays a sovereigns, embracing in it fifteen meml:iers (with· whole series of enors to the· charge of the Chro• Comp. against the .imputations of the the omission of the usurper Athaliah as an idolater nist. and a foreigner) by the addition of a iJ.;1,"his latter, Movers,. p. Hi7 f.: "The two names son," to each. At variance with this cour;e, four (Johanan and Jehoahaz) are to be distinguished sons of Josiah are then named, not perhaps in exactly as J ehoiakim and J ehoiachin; had the him, the great reformer, "to introduce a pause in Ohronist named J ehoahaz along with Shall um, or; the long line of David's descendants" (Berth.), as Hitzig thinks right, called him the first-born, but "because with Josiah the regular succession the error would certainly have been undeniable. ceased" (Keil). -The· first. born Johanam,, the Further misled by the passage of Jeremiah, he has second Jehoiakirn, the third Zedekiah, the fourth taken Shall um for another son• of Josiah, the Shallitm. To Jositth succeeded, 2 Kings xxiii. 30, fourth, and different from Jehoahaz. Shallum 2 Chron. xxxvi. 1, his son Jehoahaz as king. Jehoahaz is certainly named the fourth in ver. 15; This J ehoahaz is called in J er. xxii. 11 properly inconectly indeed, for he was the th_ird; hut the Shallum ; he was thus, as the present list shows, Chronist could not mistake the passage of Jerethe youngest, or at all events one of the youngest, miah, for it clearly says:- 'who (Shallum) reigned among them ; not to be ide::tified with the instead of Josiah his father.' How should arr first-born J ohanan, as many older writers (Seb. error in the Jewish line of kings occur in aJewish Schmidt, Starke, etc.), and of the moderns, for historian! "-Ver. 16. And the sons of Jelwiaexample, Hitzig (Begriffder Kritik, etc., p. 182 ff., kim: Jechoniah his son, Zedekiah his son. Inand Gesch. d. Volks Jsr. p. 246), do. For, 1. stead of i1')::i' ~i1' )bl (whom God establishes), The statement of Jeremiah, that Shallum became the son oi'J~hoiakim i; 2 Ohron. xxxvi. 9, as in king in his father's stead, is quite positive and 2 Kings xxiv. 8 ff., bears the equivalent name ; comp. l·'?:i\Ezek. i. 2), where__ 2. From comparing 2 Kings xxiii. Jehoiachiri ()'~1Tj;,1 unhesitating. 81, 36, with 2 Chron. xxxvi. 2, 5, it appears that Jehoahaz was two years younger than Jehoiakim, as he is called, J er. xxiv.1, xxvii. 20, xxviii. 4, and and therefore not the first-born. 3. The preferring Esth. ii. 6, ;,1:,::,1,quite as here and J er. xxii. 24, of a younger son before an older to the throne iA 28, xxxvii. 1:c~~jahu (~i1')::J,an a)lbreviation of not surprising, if we consider the analogous case of Solomon, who, though one of the youngest of ,;,1~::,1,;,1:,::,1). The Zedekiah here named ca~ t.he sons of David (the yoµngest of the four sons onl/be ;~ga~ded.as a son of J echoniah, and so a: f d d f J h · k' ds of Bathsheba), succeeded to the throne. 4. The e om im an great- gran son o double name Jehoahaz Sballnm is not more sur- gran 'On prising than Jehoahaz J-ohanan would be; the Josiah; for the IJ~added to his name uniformly mutually exchanging names are in both cases, if designates in the· previous genealogical line the not quite alike in meaning, yet expressive of son of the aforesaid: and the circumstance, that similar ideas (!7'i~1i1\ "whom Jehovah holds," this son of Jechoniah is named here apart from his other sons, may find its explanation in this, and w~~~' ;, ,vho is ·requited (of God)," and so that this Zedekiah; perhaps the first-born, did: f d bl not go into captivity with his father and brethren, h ; ))M i11) ; comp. t e numerous cases O ou e but died beforehand as a royal prince in Jerusalem. ;~mi~g, of which some examples are quoted on He is therefore not -to be confounded with the ver. 1, also Simonis Onom. p. 20. 'l'he only Zedekiah who was mentioned in the foregofog'

=

T • T

°

T

T

•

•

D

I. CHRONICLES.

IO

verseas a.third son of Josiah, and, 2 Kings xxiv. overlookedin the present case, as it proves our in17 ft,, 2 Ohron. xxxvi. 11, became successor of terpretation to be supported by no less respectable

Jel',honiah on the throne; he is a grand-nephew and ancient authorities than the opposite one.of king Zedekiah, who before his accession was Ver.18. And Makkiram, andPedamh, etc. These called Mattaniah, and whose subsequent name, as six other sons of the captive Jechoniah, Kimchi, well in Chronicles (2 Chron. xxxvi 10) as in Kings Tramell., Piscat., Hiller, Burmann, and recently (2 Kings xxiv. 17 ff.), is uniformly written ,n•i'1YHitzig on Hag. i. 1, 12, regard not as brothers, but as sons of Shealtiel, because Zerubbal:el else(not, as here, M?l?1~). This last variety of where appears (Hag. i. l; Ezra iii. 2, v. 2; .M,1,!t. is merely graphical, though in the present case, i. 12) as son, '>r at all events direct successor, where the double name (Ma.ttaniah Zedekiah) perhaps grandson, of Shealtiel, whereas here he serves as a mark of the king, it may have a further would appear to be his nephew, if his father import. Against the assumption of some ancients Pedaia.h (ver. 19) had actually ·to pass for a (even of Starke), that the Zedekiah of our verse is brother of Shealtiel. Against this hypothesis is the same as king Zedekiah, who is quoted (ver. l 5) -1. The copula before c,,z,,o,which makes it as a son of Jehoiachin, because he was his suc;amed in our verse cessor on the throne, comp. the just remarks of impossible to regard the Oalov. in the Biblia ill'1.18trat,a.With respect to otherwise than as brothers of Shealtiel. 2. The 2 Ohron. xxxvi. 10, where Zedekiah the successor paternal relation of Pedaiah to Zerubbabel, as of J.ehoiachin appears to be erroneously termed attested ver. 19, may -be easily reconciled with his brother, which in reality is only inexactness, the elsewhere attested filial relation of Zerubbabol or a wider sense of the word Ml-t(= relative in' to Shealtiel, by tlie assumption of intermarriage or adoption ; in other words, the Ohronist's general), see on the passage. T ma.king Zerubbabel to be son of Pedaia.h and 3. The Descendants of Jechoniak to tlie Swen nephew of Shealtiel mA.y well be taken for a Som of Elioenai: vers. 17-24.-.A.nd th aom qf more exact statement than thA.t of the other J eckoniak the captive. . It is certainly possible reporters (Hag., Ezra, and Matt.). Besides, the with the five sons of Jechoniah named along with Shealtiel to translate the words il:lt-t M').:l' Sept., Vulg., Kimchi, Ju~.~ e~'.;:md'even Keil: and Pedaiah are otherwise unknown. Only of ·" And the sons of J echoniah were Assir." But Pedaiah are further descendants known in the the appellative meaning of i1l)~, "the capti".e," following 'Verses.-Ver. 19. And the som qf Pedaiak: Zerubbabel and Skirtiei. The latter is adopted by Luther, Starke, Berth., Kamph., is not elsewhere named: concerning the former, of decidedly preferable. For, L As one of the sons whose identity with the celebrated prince and of Jechomah, the early deceased Zedekiah, has leader of the first band of returning captives, 536 been already named, we expect here a remark of B.C:, there can be no well-founded doubt (although J echonia.h indicating that he as captive or in Hottinger, S. J. Baumgarten, Starke, and the captivity begat the sons now to be named. 2. An ancients incline to assume two or even three Assir, as connecting link between Jechoniah and different Zerubbabels), comp. on the previous Shealtiel, nowhere occurs, neither in Matt. i. 12 verse.-And the son of Zerubbahel: Me8kullam nor in the Seder Olam Butta (comp. Herzfeld, and Hananiak. On the somewhat surprising Oesch. d. V. l.,rael, i. 379). 3. The absence of sing. I~'•on account of the plural number of i)::,. after im1-t,while it stands after '1-t'.l'l'N~, sons, and the variant '?,:;11, see Crit. Note, Berm~kes it im~ssible to see in Assir a link..b;t,;e~n Jechoniah.and Shealtiel. 4. Neither can Assir be theau, moreover, justly remarks: "In the natll.es regarded as a brother of Shealtiel, because the of the sons of Zerubbabel appear to be reflected copula could not then be wanting between the the hopes of the Israelites at the time of the two names, and because the singular \J:;i after return from Babylon, in Meshullam (friend of God), comp. Isa. xlii. 19, Hananiah (grace of is inexplicable, if two sons of Jechoniah God), Berechiah, Hasadiah, Jushab-Chesed (mercy ~~r~: ~;med. 5. The co~bination proposed by will return). "-And Skelomith their Biater. She Keil (p. 57), that Assir, the only son of Jechonia.h is perhaps named after the first two sons, because besides the early deceased Zedekiah, IP.ft·only a she sprang from the same mother. Her name daughter, by whom he beca.methe father-in-law divides the collective family of Zerubbabelinto two of Neri, a descendant of David .of the line of groups, the former of two, the latter of five sons. Nathan, and by this son-in-law, again (Luke iii. Possibly the second group contains exclusively or 27), the father, or strictly the grandfather,. of chiefly younger sons of Zerubbabel born after the Shealtiel, of Malchiram, Pedaiah, and the other return from the exile.-Ver. 21. And the son of sons named ver. 18; fails through its _excessive Hananiak: Pelatiah and Jeskaiak. The two of Zerubbabel are otherwise unknown, · artificiality, and through this, that it takes b~ at grandsons but inust have belonged to the contemporaries of the close of our verse, notwithstandin~ the con- Ezra, about 450 B.c.-7'ke som of Rephaiak, t/i,e stant use of the Ohronist in the foregomg genea- som of Aman, the 80'/III of Obadiah, the 80'IIII logy, in the sense of his grandson. 6. The single of Skechaniak. In what relation these four objection that can be made to the appellative families stand to Pelatiah and Jeshaiah, the sons · meaning of '.'\1l)~,that it wants the article, loses of Hananiah, is not clear, as the express statetheir heads, Rephaiah, etc., were sons of much of its force from the abrupt and merely mentthat Hananiah, and brothers of those two, is wanting; allusive mannet of our genealogist. 7. The Maso- and the various rea.dinga of the old translators retie accentuation points out i1l)lSas an appella- (Sept., Vulg., Syr. ), that give, instead of the plur. tive addition to M1).:l\ a circumstance not to be ~).:l,always the sing. with the suff. i)::1, thereby

;;n'i.~

;he:

,,.:i,

·,t,tir-,,~~

T: T &

··:

.

:

CHAP. III. 22-24.

51

originating a continuous line· of descent, with six sons of Shemaiah are named in all, is strangA, seven members from Hananiah to Shechaniah, because only five of them are named; and it is have little claim to credibility. For, 1. The line quite unfeasible, with J. H. Mich., Starke, and of Davi,l's descent would, if ver. 21 actually others (as in Gen. xlvi. 15), to assume that the reckoned seven successive generations, seem to be father is included. .We can scarcely escape the continued for into the 3d century B.C. (for in assumpti m, that one of the six names has fa!len out of the text by an old error of transcription; vers. 22-24 four generations more are added),much further than a rational estimate of the age but we can hardly regard the sixth name Sesa of our author, who must have lived at the latest (Sessa), presented by the Vulg. in the Edit. Sixt. about 330 B.c., will admit (comp. Einl. p. 3). of 1590, as anything else than a poor emendation· 2. The assumption of an addition to the series, arising from the number i11!it:',since no other text arising from a younger writer than the Chronist, presents this name.-Ver: 23. And the son of is extremely doubtful. 3. The Hattush of ver. Neariah: Elioenai. With the latter name, which 22 appears to be the same with the descendant of David bearing the same name ·mentioned Ezra is here written without i1 (')'lli'~~), but elsewhere viii. 2, a younger contemporary of Ezra, which is in full '?P,li1:?~ (my eyes ~~t~ Jehovah), comp. q_uite possible, and even probable, if this Hattush with respect to the sentence aitd, . 4, . viii. Ezra be the fourth in descent from Zerubbabel, but, on the contrary, impossible if he be the ninth. 4. which contains its etymology, Ps. xxv. 15.-Ver. The brief mode of enumerating with the mere 24. And the sons of Elioenai: Hodaiah, etc. b~, appending the son only to the father without With the name ~;,•,iii1 (or perhaps ~i1'~'iii1, with " praise Jehovah, p~;ise God ") compar; the mention of other descendants, does not a,,,"I'ee the verses around from ver. 18, in which a more shorter form i1'11ii1,v. 24, ix. 7, Ezra ii. 40, and copious enumeration, almost in every number Note. giving a plurality of children, is presented. If it m;i;,, N eh. vii'. ·43 ; see also Crit. appear, on the whole, most probable that the sons TThe seven sons of Elioenai here named, if we are of Rephaiah, etc., are designations of contem- to suppose a direct genealogical connection of the porary families of the house of David, not succces- families enumerated from ver. 21b with the before• sive generations, it still remains doubtful how named descendants of Zerubbabel (if, consequently, these families are connected with the last-named the assumption of Movers, Herzfeld, and Keil, descendant of Zerubbabel. On this there are, in that vers. 2lb-24 form an unconnected interpo the main, two opinions among recent expositors: lation, is to be rejected), would be the seventh a. Ew., Berth., Kamph., etc., take Rephaiah, generation inclusive from Zerubbabel, and, if the Arnau, Obadiah, and Shechaniah, as well as the length of a generation be fixed at 30 years, WfJuld two before named, Pelatiah and Jeshaiah, to be have to be placed near the middle of the 4th sons of Hananiah, and assume that, on account of century B. c., as, for example, Bertheau (p. 35) the great celebrity and wide extension of their reckons the years 386-356 B.c., Ewald (Gesch. d. families, these last four sons are named, "not as V. lsr. 2d edit. i. 229) the time after 350, as the individuals, but as families" (for which cases like period of the existence of the seven sons of Elioech. i. 41, ii. 42, iv. 15, xxiv. 26, etc., afford nai, who are supposed to be contemporary with the examples). author of Chronicles. The assumption that we 0 b. Movers, Herzfeld, Havernick, Keil see in these are here dealing with direct descendants of Zerubfour families, generations "whose descent the babel is liable to serious doubt. .For, besides the Chronist could not or would not more precisely of i1'!:li ')::! and the following define, and therefore merely enumerates one after loose connection another" (Herzf. ), and are inclined to regard the families in ver. 21, Tit: appears to favour the the genealogy of whole series from i1'!)i ')::! to the end of the fragment hypothesis, that "in Jesus, Matt. i., not a single name of the descenperhaps fragment, gene~logi~~l chapter as "a dants of Zerubbabel agrees with the names in this inserted afterwards into the text of Chronicles" register," and that at least seven members must (Keil), and accept where possible the assumption be supposed to be overleaped at once by Matthew defined by the ancients, as Heidegger, Vitringa, or his genealogical voucher (so Clericus, and Carpzov, etc., of a corruption of the present recently Keil). In reply to this, it may be assumed Masoretic text, perhaps a gap before i1'!:l"1')::! certainly, that those descendants of Zerubbabel whose pedigree is traced by the Chronist to Lis (so likewise Keil). We may reserve th; Tchoi~~ own time need not necessarily have been the assumpthe between these two views; for while direct ancestors of Joseph (or Mary), but that the tion of a corruption of the text seems to be line of Abiud, Eliakim, etc., leading to Jesus in probable even rendered be to and enough, natural Matthew, might have sprung from another of the by the change of -~~ into \)::,. in the Sept., yet, seven sons of Zerubbabel. Besides, Matthew must made very great omissions in the interval on the other hand, we scruple to ascribe to the have years between Zerubbabel and Joseph, as Chronist an uncertain or defective know ledge of 500 only twelve members for this period reckons he David of house the of families concerning the the edit. of the Bibelw. on Matt. p. 8 f.): comp. ( he that presumed be to is it as babel, b Zeru after of six or seven successive members would be especially well informed on matters so an omission be nothing inconceivable in his mode of pro• near his own time. - Ver. 22. And the sons of would ceeding. And'if the genealogy of Hananiah, com• Shechaniah: Shemaiah. The phir. -~~• as in i. municated at length by the Chronist, in particular 41; ii. 42, etc. On Hattush son of Sheniaiah, then the family of Elioenai with his seven sons, wero named in the first place, see on previous verse, deemed worthy 6f special notice on account of and Introd. § 3, Rem. The closing notice, that their celebrity, high reputation, and eminent

I, CHRONICLES,

62

services on behalf of the theocracy, this would not prove that the New Testament pedigree of Jesus must nece&sarily have mentioned these famous descendants of Zerubbabel as belonging to the ancestors of our Lord. For lowliness and obscurity, not splendour and fame, should be the characteristic of the pedigree of Jesus after the exile. If the line of the ancestors of Jesus, reach. ing from David to the exile, according to Mat. thew's arrangement; contains crowned lieads, arid thus forms a lofty range of royal names, it correaponds to the plan of the apostolic genea-

logists, that -the third .line from the exile to· Joseph and Mary. should include in it chiefly undistinguished names, and thus form a descending line which ends in the carpenter Jos~ph (see Lange, p. 6). Nothing decisive can thus be inferred from a comparison of the New Testament genealogies of the Messiah with our passage for the relation of the names therein contained to the posterity of Ze:rubbabel, or for the question whetber those named in vers. 21b-24 are to be regarded as descendants oras remoter connections of this prince.

8. Suppkmentsto the Genealogyof the House of Judah (leadingto the GenealogicalSurvey of .theTwelve Tribesof Israel): ch. iv. t-23.

CH. IV. I. The sons of Judah: Perez, Hezron, and Carmi, and Hur, and Shobal. And Reaiah son of Shobal begat Jahath; and Jahath begat Ahumai and 2 . Lahad : these are the families of the Zorathite. 3 · And these were1 of the father of Etam : J ezreel, and Ishma, and Id bash ; 4 and the name of-their sister was Hazelelponi And Penuel the father of Gedor, and Ezer the father of Hushah : these are the sons of Hur the first-born of · . _ . Ephrathah, the father of Bethlehem. . And Ashur the father of Tekoah had two wives, Helah and Naarab. And 5, 6 Naarah bare him Ahuzzam, and Hepher, and Temeni, and the Ahashtari: 7 these were the sons of Naarah. And the sons of Helah: Zereth, Izhar, 2 and · · . Ethnan. And Koz begat Anub and Zobebah, and the families of Aharhel 'the son 8 9 of Harum. And Jabez was honoured. apove his' brethren·; and his mother ·10 called his ·name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, If thou wilt bless me indeed, and enlarge my border, and thy hand be with ·me, and thou deal without evil, that it grieve me not ! And God brought that which he had asked. And Celub the brother of Shuhah begat Mehir ; he was the father of Esh11 12 ton. And Eshton begat Beth-rapha, and Paseah, and Tehinnah the father of the city Nahash: these are the men of Rechah. And the sons of Kenaz : Othniel and Seraiah ; and the sons of Othniel : 13 14 Hathath. And Meonothai begat Ophrah : and Seraiah begat J oab father of the valley of the carpenters ; for they were carpenters. And the sons of Caleb son of Jephunneh: Iru, Elah, and Naain; and the 15 · sons of Elah and Kenaz. And the sons of Jehalelel: Ziph and Ziphah, Tiria and Asarel. 16 And the son3 of Ezrah: Jether, and Mered, and Epher, and Jalon; and she 17 conceived [andbare]•Miriam, and Schammai, and Ishbah father of Eshtemoa. 18 And his wife, the Jewess, bare Jered the father of Gedor, and Heber the father of Socho, and Jelruthiel the father of Zanoah: and these are the sons of Bithiah . ·daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered took.5 And the sons of the wife of Hodiah, the sister of Naham : the father of 19 Keilah the Garmite, and Eshtemoa6 the Maachathite. And the sons of Shimon : Amnon and Rinnah, Benhll,nanand Tulon ;1 and 20 the sons of Ishi : Zoheth and Benzoheth.8 The sons of Shelah son of'Judah: _Er the father of lechah, and Ladah the 21 father of Mareshah; and the families of the house of byssus .work, of the house 22 of Ashbea. And Jokim, and the men of Cozeba, and Joash, and Saraph, who 23 ruled over Moab, and Jashubi-lehem9 : and these are ·ancient things. These are · the potters and the dwellers in Netaim and Gederah; with the king, in his service, they dwelt there. a For D~1V.;;i~

which gives no t.olerablesenee,readwith some tl?~l• . . other !l'.118,tirtP.1?.tl"l~~l·

&heSept.,Vulg~and ~o

or Wltl! l"l?~1• P.'?~ '?.T

11188. tl~ 1

CHAP. IV. 1.

.,n~ ia designed to gain a ·name better bown ~ : some JlSS. have •~~~, w!>ichia perhaps to be preferred, asin :vers.i_B,16, 19, 2P,

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slvi. 10).

In the Ke'lhib. The Keri

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Sept., following perhaps another reading, give ....i

(cod. Vat. 'f,J.&pl,~)o•,othey e;&hibltMIIU~.

• This cl.oalng sentenc; ~~•,, ver. 17; see Exeg. Expo;:

1

(c:omp.Gen. llill. 8, .

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58

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8 Before nr.iin~, hnmedia,tely before) Is not.a nom.frop.r.,but denotes "son r;i-1~ which (not.,. for eumple, I~ · of Zoheth," the name of this son seems to have fallen out. • Jerome (perhaps ou··the ground of a somewhat different text, but more probably only following the arbitrary interpretation of an old Jewish Midrasb) renders the words from C1pi1l: et g,,i stare J~e ·solem,v,rique mend!1•1iei ,~ . in i;..J..,,._ ..fe!.ri,ntin .Moab,et g~i reversiBt111t et incendena,IJl'ipri11Ughhe waa not to be registered aa .flr~t-botn, text. The seven names occur also elsewhere, literally "though not to register before c,n,n:, but only here in reference to the descendants of · ' . : ..- , '· ' Reuben.-Ver: 6. Beerah his son, whom Tilgath. to '.lenote that which s~oul~,take J?la~e; see Ew. pilneser carried away. The Chronist always § 237, c~ for the first birth,. that 1s, 1~ the rank writes iON),e n),r-i, whereas in 2 Kings ·the of the. first-born. The subJect here 1s perhaps . ~-,·-:: . . -, . 0

6

64

I. CHRONICLES.

only form of writing is i0tot)!3 n,Jr-, (comp. the -And they/ell by their hand, or, even into their • ·.-: · - : · hands, of which the consequence was, that the similar difference between ".N ebuche.drezze.r·"of victors dwelt .in.the tents of the vanquished (that Jeremia;h and Ezekiel and "Nebuchadnezzar" of is, occupied their country, Gen. ix. 27), "on all the other books; see on De.n. i. 1). Whe th er G. the east side of Gilead," that is, on the whole east Oppert's interpretation ,of the ·name= -n,JJ:I border of the land of.Gilead and beyond it (with in0"'.~~!3, "prayer to the son of the Zodi;~,;, comp. '?.~ "close before," Gen•.

•a,-,~-,y,p,

the' A~yria.n Hercules, be correct, or the cer- xvi. 12).. Who a.re these .conquerors f · Are they ta.inly preferable one of 'Sc.hrader (Tuklat-habal- the Reubenites in general, or only those of the a&ar, "trust in the son of .the house of grace," family of Bela? Against the latter alternative; or, "he who trusts in the house of grace,." that which is defended by Keil, appea.rs to be the is, in the god Adar; comp. Schrader, Die Keilin- . circumstance that in vers. 8, 9 Bela is spoken of schriften utul das Alte T., 1872, pp. :::84f., 287),. in the singular. But this singular begins even in the form used in the. books of Kings appears ver. 9b to pass into the plural {tli1'Ji'O),and the the mo!1l origina.1.-He was a prince among the ·· ·.-· · · Reubenites, that is, Beera.h. He was prince of a mighty outspreading of the Belaites mentioned family of Reubenites, not of the whole tribe; for there seems intended to prepare for the notice of the L (''"''"iL) indicates a. looser sort of con- their war 'with their Ha.garene neighbours. More;, .,_..,...,;, over, the statement in.var. 8, that Bela was greatnection than 'the relation of princ~ to the whole grandson of Joel, while Beerah was his descendant tribe, to be expressed hy the stat. constt·. The in the seventh generation, corresponds with the adjective form, "t:'.i.e Reubenite," denotes here, fa.ct that this conquest of the Hagarites preceded as in ver. 26 and xxvi. 82, generally those be- .the deportation of the Reubenites under Beera.h longing to the tribe of Reuben; comp. ver.18, ''JTD, by Tilgath-pilneser, ver. 6, some centuries. After the removal of a considerable portion of the and similar forms in Chronicles. Reubenites, so wide an outspreading of another and iv. 2, 'l'.lf;~iJ• -Vers. 7-9. The brothers of Beerah, that is, Reubenite family as is here related would scarcely the families among the descendants of Joel most have taken place. We must therefore refer what· nearly related to his fa.mily.-And his brethren is recorded from ver. 7 ·of the family. of the L brothers of Beerah, and especially of that of Bela, by their families (befor11,•nhetuc;,supply r&i'r:t, to a much earlier time than that which is related every one by .his family;' co~p: 'Num. ii. 84, in ver. 6, because the narrative issttes in the pre• xi. 10), in the register after their generation8 (or sent.notice of a war in the time of Saul; and there order of birth): the chief Jeiel, etc. ~~iii, the is no good ground why we should isolate this war head, the first, the chief of the family. Comp. notice, nnd regard it as an unconnected appendix to the genealogy of Reuben (against Berth. and ver. 12 and ix. 17, where, however, this epithet others, and also against Hoffmann, Das gelobte stands after the name of the person in question, L _ _, • d q • de ·••·uten R eic,.,,, · •· while in xii. 8, xxiii. 8, .as here, it stands before. am,,, in en .c,eiten 8 etc. 18 7 ~~• -Ver. 8. And Be/,a, the son of Azaz, the son of frwe of Gad: vers. 11-17.-And tlit Shema,, the Bon of Joel; scarcely any other than sons of Gad dwelt over against them in th.e lwnd qt the Joel ofver. 4. From him sprang Bela in the Bash.an, that is, over against the Reubenites third generation, a clear proof that he belonged dwelling beside the Dead Sea. in the mountain only in the wider sense to the brethren of Beemh, range of Abarim or Moab, and also beyond the who descendeil from him in the seventh genera.- Jordan in middle Gilead, •which formed the tion, and that he was at all events considerably southern pa.rt of the former kingdom of Og king . older than the latter; see on ver. 10.-He dwelt of Bashan (Num. xxi. 88; Deut. iii. 11). The in Arocr,even unto Nebo and Baal-mean. Aroer, extension of this tract inhabited by the Ga.dites now a ruin, Arrayr on the river Arnon (comp. to the east is shown to be considerable by the Josh. xii. 2, xiii. 9, 16); Nebo, a place on Mount addition "unto Salchah" (as in Josh. xiii. 11). Nebo, in the range of Abarim, over against Jericho For Sa.lcha.h, now Sulkhad, lies on the southern (Nuro. xxxii. 88, xxxiii. 47); Baal-meon, perhaps slope of Jebel Ha.uran, six or seven hours ea.st of the ruins Myun, two miles south _of Heshbon Hozra.,and therefore about thirty hours in a.direct (comp. Num. xxxii. 38, where it is also found lineeastfromJordan.-Ver.12.Joelthechief,ancl a.long with Nebo).-Ver. 9. And ea&tward he Shapham the second, and Janai ar,,d Shaphat in dwelt, unto the entrance into the wilderness from Ba&han, that is, dwelling, the ~:I~ of the prethe river .Euphrates, that is, to the line where the : ,, great wilderness begins, that extends from the vious verse completing the sense here. It is un• Euphrates to the east border of Peraa, or Gilead certain how these four Gadite heads of families as it is ca.lledin this verse; for Gilead (Gen. xxxi. a.re genealogically connected with the immediate 21, xxxvii. 25; Josh. xiii. 11, xvii. 1; Judg. v. descendants of Gad named in Gen. xlvi. 16. The 17, etc.) is the general term usual in the Old omission of those seven sons of Gad enumerated Testament for the territory of Israel east of the in Genesis (Zi.Phion, Ha.ggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Erl, Jordan; comp. on ver. 16.-Ver. IO. And in the Arodi, Areli) 1s surprising, and raises the. SUS• days of Saul (the first king of Israel) they made picion of a gap ·in the text. On the variant toar with the Hagarite,s (or Hagarenes; comp. reading of the Sept. for tl~t&i'I, seeCrit. Note. As Ps. lxxxiii. 7), the same North Arabian tribe that tl~tuoccurs else.where as 'a.'p'roper name, for ex• appears, vers. 19, 20, as the adversary of the ea.stjordJ.DicIsraelites, perhaps the 'Ann•i., of Strabo, a.~ple, iii. 22, its retention here is the less doubtxiii. p. 767, occurring, a.ccordin~to Schrader, in ful.-Ver. 18. And their brethren l,y their fatherthe form Hagaranu (or Ha-a.r-gi-'i) several times housee, that is, by the families at whose head in the Assyro-Babylonia.n c~eate inscriptiolll!. they ~tood, and which were named after them.

J;,}

g.,.,..,

65

CHAP. Y. 15-22;

T1'1l,comp. on iv. 38. Manasseh with Arab T1·ibes: vers. 18-22.-On For the plur. Oi1'T11::l~ ·the reason why this account is inserted here ·after Luther has crr01;~~~s1y'taken the phrase for a the families of Gad, see Prelimiua1-y Remark. -0 f their singular, and therefore- translated, " and of sons ofvalour(:,:r, '~~ )t.;>.; brethren of the house of their .fathers," etc. The valiant men, literally, stands naturally in ·as wide a comp. S:i:t term "brethren" ver. 24). These and the foilow• ')b~, sense as in ve:r. 7. A statement of the country of these where they dwelt does not follow the names of these ing descriptions of the military prowess8, 21, at seven brothers of the four G,vlite heads of families tribes are .confirmed by 1 Chron. xii. eh. already named. But their pedigree is first given, least with regard to Gad and half-Manass ve_rs. ~4, 15, through eight generations, termin-. With nr.inSr.i ''l~b,, comp. the partic. Pual atmg m a not otherwise known Buz, who has s'o~g ·iii. 's;~d ch. xxv .. 7~ The number perhaps as little to do with his namesake the son. ''lt.:br.i, of Nahor, Gen. xxii. 21, as with the progenitor of 4°4,'7.60,which certainly rests on an exact numcra• , 15. Ahi, the son of tion, neurly agrees with that given in Josh. iv. 13, Elihu, Job xxxii. 2.-Vcr. Abdiel, the son qf Guni, chief of their fathei'- but not with the added numbers yielding a far houses. This Ahi we may suppose to have lived greater sum in Num. i. 21, 25, xxvi. 7, 18. The Rt the beginning of the eighth century B.C., under difference is explained by this, that the statements ;eroboam · II. of Israel/ or lmlf a century later, in Numbers refer to the time when the whole under Jotham of Judah, as ver. 17 shows.-Ver. tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half- Manasseh were 16. And they dwelt in Gilead, in Bashan, and in armed for war under l\1oses, and in a wandering her daughters, and in all the suburbs of Sharon state, and each of these tribes, at least of the fir~t unto their outgoings. The first of these designa- two, numbered more than 40,000 men fit for war, tions of place is the widest and most general : it whereas the present .Bta.tement, like that in Josh. embraces both "Bashun and her daughters" and iv. 13, refers to the time after they were sdtled "the suburbs of Sharon;" see on ver. 9. .The beyond the Jordan, when the number of troops .refers to both countries, the available for external service was naturally much suffix in n•r,i~::i::i ! • T •.• smaller; comp. on xxi. 5.-Ver. 19. And they and the nano~ver Bashan made war with the Hagarites. The same tribe of Gilead extensive more tunning merely the northern part of Gilead ; and northern Arabs with which Reuben alone, ver. the "suburbs" or pastures (D'l!hli&, as in Num. 10, had been at war.. 'l'he present common fight ,Tordan with this tribe xxxv. 2 ff.; Josh. xxL 1-1ff ..; Ez;k.· xlviii. 15) of of all the tribes beyond the than that of Reuben ; later dated be to perhaps is as· Gilead, in sought be to douht no are Sharon and Naphish, ancl nothing is known of a dwelling or a grazing of comp. ver. 22.-And Jetur, (of which ,~~1has any Gadites ou the well-known plain of Sharon, Nodab. The first two tribes west of Jordan, bet1Ycen Cresarea and· Joppa given name to the district of I turrea) ocm;rred (Song ii. 1; Isa; xxxiii. 9, xxxv. 2, lxv. 10); and in i. 31 and in Gen. xxv. 15 as descendants of the "outgoings" of the suburbs of Sharon ai:e not Ishmael. N odah, also a Beduin tribe, occurs necessarily outgoings or boundaries on the sea, as nowhere else. 'l'he name appears to signify ; it Keil, referdng to Josh. xvii. 9, will have "noble, princely," and might .possibly be the Kamph. comp. on the contrary, Num. xxxiv. 4, 5. source of the N abatreans (Arab. nabt) ; for to is right, who at the same time mentions a plausi- identify this at once with r,\•::iJ,Gen. xxv. 13, Shiriou that expositors, ble conjecture of the early h;~ its difficulties.; should be read for Sharon. But we see no reason Isa. lx. 7, as is usually clone, i. 698 ; Quatrewhy there should not be a Sharon east of the comp. Chwolsohn, Die Sabier, , Par. 1835; :Muhlau, De Jordan. Comp. Smith's Bibl. Diet., Art. "Sharon." mere, Les .1Yabateens orig. et indole, ·p. 28 f.- Ver. 17. AU of them were registered in the days prov. Aguri et Lemuelis helped against them. of Jotham, etc. "All of them" refers to the col- Ver. 20. Ancl they were 2 Chron. xxvi. 15; lective families of the Gadites from ver. 11, not 'l1!l)l1, namely, of God; comp. all that were with them, merely to those mentioned ver. 13 ff. . Of the p~_,,·;xviii. 7. -And two ,kings of the eighth century under whose namely, the Iturreans, etc., the confederates of reign the registration took phce, that of the the Hagarites.-And he was entreated of th.em. rightful kingdom of Judah is, contrary to the ;\r-W~!is not an unusual form of the perf. no with order of time, named first. We meet but, what alone other notices of these two registrations of the ~Viphdl (for 1l"ll)J1,Isa. xix. 22), tribe of Gad, of which that undertaken by.Jero- suits for conti~~~d narrative,. as here, infin. abs. boam II. of Israel (825-784), at all events, coin- Niph., with a perfect meaning; comp. uk11:J~, cides with the restoration of the old boundaries of Ver. 'll. the northern kingdom mentioned 2 Kings xiv. Esth. viii. 8 ; :j\!:lQ,~,Esth. ix. 1.20 ff. A tempora1·y subjection of the tribe of Camels, fifty thousand. Luther, Starke, .and Gad by Jotham of Judah (759-743), or per- even Kamph., in Bunsen's Bibelwerk, incorrectly haps by his prerlecessor, the powerl'ul U zziah (not observing the plur. u'IY)?'= !),thousand." ''five (811-759), as a prelude to the second registration by the explained a~e that numbers, here mentioned, is easily conceivable, because The enonnous long weakening of the great riches in herds of the north Arabians, re· after Jeroboam's death regarding the northern kingdom by internal strife and anarchy mind us of the like statements Num. xxxi. ensued, from which· it recovered uhder Pekah's rich booty in the war with Midian, slain. 'l'he fell rei"n of twenty yearn (75.9-739). Comp. Keil, 11, 32 ff.-Ver. 22. For many the foe s1M>tained p. 77, where, however; Pekah's reign, probably greatness of the defeat which of the booty hy an error of the press, is stated .to be of only ten accounts for the extremely great value taken from them. On the further explanatory · years' duration. God," comp. 3. War of the Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half- sentence, ",for the war was of

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Gen. x. 11, perhaps= nS:b, . 2 Chron. xxv. 20; 1 Sam. xvii. 47.-A nd they: unto this day. n~,n, ·,. d by • • ._.d K- '. · , dwelt in their stead, in the seats of the conq uere,i I at all events escr1ve region a "~"X"'"• = : d b · I f d h · "b tri es; unhmd;;cd, ~ ey ma e ~s~ 0 ~ ieir ~ 0 es· Strabo and Ptolemy: "On the east side of the and pa.s~ures, until t~e captiyity, until th e Tigris, near Adiabene, north of Nineveh, on the borders of Armenia." Not far from this Halah deportation desrc~d by Tilga th -pilneser, ver. 6 · (the name of which occure· on the Assyrian monu~a,/asseh: vet 823,. 24 F 4· T!Bie1i7alf- I'rtf; rom as w,n unw aa · erm~n an . en:r an men ts in the form Kal-hu; comp. Schrader, Die Mo1_tntHermon. As B,ishan IS the.d1stnct m- Keilenschriften und d. A. T. p. 20' f.} is to be · d. · · N h. h ht • hab1tecl by Gad bordcrrng on the south, ver. 12, it denotes here the south border, while Baal-· song· ilJ~, per aps a 19tnct m ort Assyria, hermon (Judg. iii. 3, or "Battl-Gad under Her- ttfter which both the mountain Xa.f!,.,pa, (Ptolem. mon," Josh. xii. 7, xiii. 5), Senir (later, by the vi. 1), near the Medi,i,n border, and a river flowArabs, Suuir; according to Ezek. xxvii. 8, the name ing into the Tigris (Kliabur Cliasanice, now of a part of the Hermon rnnge; according to Dent. Kha bur), arc named. 'vVe are not here to think iii. 9, a.n Amorite name for the whole of Hermon), of the Mesopotamian rfrer Chaboras, rising at and Mount Hermon (or Autilibanus, now Jebel Nisibis, and falling into the Eupluates near 011: Circesium, as its Hebrew name is i:i:!l, Ezek. i. 1. esh Sheik) designate the north border. . ' : . . . account of this wide extent from south to north, ' and also in breadth, it is said of those belonging The nver G:ozan, also, 1s sc~rcely t? be sou~ht _m to this half-tribe, "these were many;" comp .. Mesop~tamia (where there 1s certamly a ~1stnct Num. xxvi. 34, where the number of militttry age . ruu~"''.',,.,~, the present Kauslrnn, bordermg on in this whole tribe is said to be 52,700. -Ver. 24. that nver ~he bar, and where also Schrade_r,_l;'· near N1s1b1s And these were the heads of their father-houses, 1161, has _pornt_edout a pl~ce