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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Chronicles 4:24 - 4:24
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The families of Simeon. - Of the six sons of Simeon, Gen 46:10 and Exo 6:15, only the five are here named who, according to Num 26:12-14, founded the families of this tribe. The third son, Ohad, is omitted even in Num 26:12 in the list of the families of Simeon, at the numbering of the people in the fortieth year of the journey through the wilderness, clearly only because the posterity of Ohad had either died out, or had so dwindled away that it could form no independent family. The names of the five sons agree with the names in Num 26:12-14, except in the case of Jarib, who in Num 26:12, which coincides here with Gen 46:10 and Exo 6:15, is called Jachin; יָרִיב, consequently, must be looked upon as a transcriber's error for יָכִין. Nemuel and Zerah (זֶרַח, the rising of the sun) are called in Genesis and Exodus Jemuel (a different form of the same name) and Zohar (צֹחַר, i.e., candor), another name of similar meaning, which, at first used only as a by-name, afterwards supplanted the original name.
1Ch 4:25-26
“Shallum (was) his son;” without doubt the son of the last named Shaul, who in Genesis and Exodus is called the son of a Canaanitish woman, and is thereby distinguished from the other sons. His family is traced down, in 1Ch 4:25, 1Ch 4:26, through six generations to one Shimei. But this list is divided into two groups by the words “and the sons of Mishma,” inserted at the beginning of 1Ch 4:26, but the reasons for the division are unknown. The plural, sons of Mishma, refers to Hammuel and his descendants Zacchur and Shimei. Perhaps these two together form, with the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons mentioned in 1Ch 4:25, a single larger family.
1Ch 4:27
Shimei had sixteen sons and six daughters, by whom he became the father of a numerous race. “His brothers,” i.e., the other Simeonites, on the contrary, had not many sons. Hence it happens that they made not their whole race, i.e., the whole race of the Simeonites, numerous unto the sons of Judah, i.e., that the Simeonites were not so numerous as the descendants of Judah. This account is corroborated by the statement made at the numberings of the people under Moses; see on Num 1-4 (1:2, S. 192).