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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Chronicles 2:46 - 2:46
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Descendants of Caleb by two concubines. - The name עֵיפָה occurs in 1Ch 2:47 and 1Ch 1:33 as a man's name. Caleb's concubine of this name bore three sons: Haran, of whom nothing further is known; Moza, which, though in Jos 18:26 it is the name of a Benjamite town, is not necessarily on that account the name of a town here; and Gazez, unknown, perhaps a grandson of Caleb, especially if the clause “Haran begat Gazez” be merely an explanatory addition. But Haran may also have given to his son the name of his younger brother, so that a son and grandson of Caleb may have borne the same name.
1Ch 2:47
The genealogical connection of the names in this verse is entirely wanting; for Jahdai, of whom six sons are enumerated, appears quite abruptly. Hiller, in Onomast., supposes, but without sufficient ground, that יֶהְדַּי is another name of Moza. Of his sons' names, Jotham occurs frequently of different persons; Ephah, as has been already remarked, is in 1Ch 1:33 the name of a chief of a Midianite tribe; and lastly, Shaaph is used in 1Ch 2:49 of another person.
1Ch 2:48-49
Another concubine of Caleb was called Maachah, a not uncommon woman's name; cf. 1Ch 3:2; 1Ch 7:16; 1Ch 8:29; 1Ch 11:43, etc. She bore Sheber and Tirhanah, names quite unknown. The masc. יָלַד instead of the fem. יָלְדָה, 1Ch 2:46, is to be explained by the supposition that the father who begat was present to the mind of the writer. 1Ch 2:49. Then she bore also Shaaph (different from the Shaaph in 1Ch 2:47), the father of Madmannah, a city in the south of Judah, perhaps identical with Miniay or Minieh, southwards from Gaza (see on Jos 15:31). Sheva (David's Sopher scribe is so called in the Keri of 2Sa 20:25), the father of Machbenah, a village of Judah not further mentioned, and of Gibea, perhaps the Gibeah mentioned in Jos 15:57, in the mountains of Judah, or the village Jeba mentioned by Robinson, Palest. ii. p. 327, and Tobler, Dritte Wanderung, S. 157f., on a hill in the Wady Musurr (vide on Jos 15:57). This list closes with the abrupt remark, “and Caleb's daughter was Achsah.” This notice can only refer to the Achsah so well known in the history of the conquest of the tribal domain of Judah, whom Caleb had promised, and gave as a reward to the conqueror of Debir (Jos 15:16.; Jdg 1:12); otherwise in its abrupt form it would have no meaning. Women occur in the genealogies only when they have played an important part in history. Since, however, the father of this Achsah was Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who was about forty years old when the Israelites left Egypt, while our Caleb, on the contrary, is called in 1Ch 2:42 the brother of Jerahmeel, and is at the same time designated son of Hezron, the son of Pharez (1Ch 2:9), these two Calebs cannot be one person: the son of Hezron must have been a much older Caleb than the son of Jephunneh. The older commentators have consequently with one voice distinguished the Achsah mentioned in our verse from the Achsah in Jos 15:16; while Movers, on the contrary (Chron. S. 83), would eliminate from the text, as a later interpolation, the notice of the daughter of Caleb. Bertheau, however, attempts to prove the identity of Caleb the son of Hezron with Caleb the son of Jephunneh. The assertion of Movers is so manifestly a critical tour de force, that it requires no refutation; but neither can we subscribe to Bertheau's view. He is, indeed, right in rejecting Ewald's expedient of holding that 1Ch 2:18-20 and 1Ch 2:45-50 are to be referred to Chelubai, and 1Ch 2:42-49 to a Caleb to be carefully distinguished from him; for it contradicts the plain sense of the words, according to which both Chelubai, 1Ch 2:9, and Caleb, 1Ch 2:18 and 1Ch 2:42, is the son of Hezron and the brother of Jerahmeel. But what he brings forward against distinguishing Caleb the father of Achsah, 1Ch 2:49, from Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel, 1Ch 2:42, is entirely wanting in force. The reasons adduced reduce themselves to these: that Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the conqueror and possessor of Hebron, might well be called in the genealogical language, which sometimes expresses geographical relations, the son of Hezron, along with Ram and Jerahmeel, as the names Ram and Jerahmeel certainly denote families in Judah, who, originally at least, dwelt in other domains than that of Caleb; and again, that the individual families as well as the towns and villages in these various domains may be conceived of as sons and descendants of those who represent the great families of the tribe, and the divisions of the tribal territory. But we must deny the geographical signification of the genealogies when pressed so far as this: for valid proofs are entirely wanting that towns are represented as sons and brothers of other towns; and the section 1Ch 2:42-49 does not treat merely, or principally, of the geographical relations of the families of Judah, but in the first place, and in the main, deals with the genealogical ramifications of the descendants and families of the sons of Judah. It by no means follows, because some of these descendants are brought forward as fathers of cities, that in 1Ch 2:42-49 towns and their mutual connection are spoken of; and the names Caleb, Ram, and Jerahmeel do not here denote families, but are the names of the fathers and chiefs of the families which descended from them, and dwelt in the towns just named. We accordingly distinguish Caleb, whose daughter was called Achsah, and whose father was Jephunneh (Jos 15:16.), from Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel and the son of Hezron. but we explain the mention of Achsah as daughter of Caleb, at the end of the genealogical lists of the persons and families descended by concubines from Caleb, by the supposition that the Caleb who lived in the time of Moses, the son of Jephunneh, was a descendant of an older Caleb, the brother of Jerahmeel. But it is probable that the Caleb in 1Ch 2:49 is the same who is called in 1Ch 2:42 the brother of Jerahmeel, and whose descendants are specified 1Ch 2:42-49; and we take the word בַּת, “daughter,” in its wider sense, as signifying a later female descendant, because the father of the Achsah so well known from Jos 15:16. is also called son of Jephunneh in the genealogy, 1Ch 4:15.