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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Chronicles 13:4 - 13:4
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As the whole assembly approved of David's design (כֵּן לַעֲשֹׂות, it is to do so = so much we do), David collected the whole of Israel to carry it out. “The whole of Israel,” from the southern frontier of Canaan to the northern; but of course all are not said to have been present, but there were numerous representatives from every part, - according to 2Sa 6:1, a chosen number of 30,000 men. The מִצְרַיִם שִׁיחור, which is named as the southern frontier, is not the Nile, although it also is called שִׁחֹר (Isa 23:3 and Jer 2:18), and the name “the black river” also suits it (see Del. on Isaiah, loc. cit.); but is the שִׁיחור before, i.e., eastward from Egypt (מִצְרַיִם עַל־פְּנֵי אֲשֶׁר), i.e., the brook of Egypt, מִצְרַיִם נַחַל, the Rhinocorura, now el Arish, which in all accurate statements of the frontiers is spoken of as the southern, in contrast to the neighbourhood of Hamath, which was the northern boundary: see on Num 34:5. For the designation of the northern frontier, חֲמָת לְבֹוא, see on Num 34:8. Kirjath-jearim, the Canaanitish Baalah, was known among the Israelites by the name Baale Jehudah or Kirjath-baal, as distinguished from other cities named after Baal, and is now the still considerable village Kureyeh el Enab; see on Jos 9:17. In this fact we find the explanation of י אֶל ק בַּעֲלָתָה, 1Ch 13:6 : to Baalah, to Kirjath-jearim of Judah. The ark had been brought thither when the Philistines sent it back to Beth-shemesh, and had been set down in the house of Abinadab, where it remained for about seventy years; see 1 Sam 6 and 1Sa 7:1-2, and the remarks on 2Sa 6:3. שֵׁם נִקְרָא אֲשֶׁר is not to be translated “which is named name,” which gives no proper sense. Translating it so, Bertheau would alter שֵׁם into שָׁם, according to an arbitrary conjecture of Thenius on 2Sa 6:2, “who there (by the ark) is invoked.” But were שָׁם the true reading, it could not refer to the ark, but only to the preceding מִשָּׁם, since in the whole Old Testament the idea that by or at the resting-place of the ark Jahve was invoked (which שָׁם אֲשֶׁר would signify) nowhere occurs, since no one could venture to approach the ark. If שָׁם referred to מִשָּׁם, it would signify that Jahve was invoked at Kirjath-baal, that there a place of worship had been erected by the ark; but of that the history says nothing, and it would, moreover, be contrary to the statement that the ark was not visited in the days of Saul. We must consequently reject the proposal to alter שֵׁם into שָׁם as useless and unsuitable, and seek for another explanation: we must take אֲשֶׁר in the sense of ὡς, which it sometimes has; cf. Ew. §333, a.: “as he is called by name,” where שֵׁם does not refer only to יהוה, but also to the additional clause הַכְּרוּבִים יֹושֵׁב, and the meaning is that Jahve is invoked as He who is enthroned above the cherubim; cf. Psa 80:2; Isa 37:16. - On the following 1Ch 13:7-14, cf. the commentary on 2Sa 6:3-11.