Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Chronicles 6:20 - 6:20

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Chronicles 6:20 - 6:20


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

(6:5-15). The three lists of the descendants of Gershon, Kohath, and Merari are similar to one another in plan, and in all, each name is connected with the preceding by בְּנֹו, “his son,” but they differ greatly in the number of the names.

1Ch 6:20-21

(6:5-6). The לְ before גֵּרְשֹׁום is introductory: “as to Gershom.” Those of his descendants who are here enumerated belong to the family of his oldest son Libni, which is traced down through seven generations to Jeaterai, a name not elsewhere met with. Of the intermediate names, Johath, Zimmah, and Zerah occur also among the descendants of Asaph, who is descended from the line of Shimei, 1Ch 6:39.

1Ch 6:22-28

(6:7-13). The genealogy of the descendants of Kohath consists of three lists of names, each of which commences afresh with בְּנֵי, 1Ch 6:22, 1Ch 6:35, and 1Ch 6:38; yet we learn nothing from it as to the genealogical connection of these three lines. The very beginning, “The sons of Kohath, Amminidab his son, Korah his son, Assir his son,” is somewhat strange. For, according to Exo 6:18, Exo 6:21, and Exo 6:24, Kohath's second son is called Izhar, whose son was Korah, whose sons were Assir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph. Amminidab is nowhere met with as a son of Kohath; but among the descendants of Uzziel, a prince of a father's-house is met with in the time of David who bore this name. The name Amminidab occurs also in the time of Moses, in the genealogies of the tribe of Judah, 1Ch 2:10; Num 1:7; Rth 1:19, as that of the father of the prince Nahshon, and of Elisheba, whom Aaron took to wife, Exo 6:23. But since the names Korah and Assir point to the family of Izhar, the older commentators supposed the Amminidab of our verse to be only another name for Izhar; while Bertheau, on the contrary, conjectures “that as an Amminidab occurs in the lists of the descendants of Kohath as father-in-law of Aaron, Amminidab has been substituted for Izhar by an ancient error, which might very easily slip into an abridgment of more detailed lists.” But we have here no trace of an abridgment of more detailed lists. According to Exo 6:21 and Exo 6:24, Korah was a son of Izhar, and Assir a son of Korah; and consequently in our genealogies only the name Izhar is wanting between Korah and Kohath, while instead of him we have Amminidab. An exchange or confusion of the names of Izhar and Amminidab the father-in-law of Aaron, is as improbable as the supposition that Amminidab is another name for Izhar, since the genealogies of the Pentateuch give only the name Izhar. Yet no third course is open, and we must decide to accept either one or the other of these suppositions. For that our verses contain a genealogy, or fragments of genealogies, of the Kohathite line of Izhar there can be no doubt, when we compare them with the genealogy (1Ch 6:33) of the musician Heman, a descendant of Kohath, which also gives us the means of explaining the other obscurities in our register. In 1Ch 6:22 and 1Ch 6:23 the names of Assir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph, and again Assir, follow that of Korah, with בְּנֹו after each. This בְּנֹו cannot be taken otherwise than as denoting that the names designate so many consecutive generations; and the only peculiarity in the list is, that the conjunction w is found before Abiasaph and the second Assir, while the other names do not have it. But if we compare the genealogy in Ex 6 with this enumeration, we find that there, in 1Ch 6:39, the same three names, Assir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph, which are here enumerated as those of the son, grandson, and great-grandson of Korah, were said to be the names of the sons of the Izharite Korah. Further, from Heman's genealogy in 1Ch 6:37, we learn that the second Assir of our list is a son of Abiasaph, and, according to 1Ch 6:37 and 1Ch 6:23, had a son Tahath. Assir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph must consequently be held to have been brothers, and the following Assir a son of the last-named Abiasaph, whose family is in 1Ch 6:9 further traced through four generations (Tahath, Uriel, Uzziah, and Shaul). Instead of these four, we find in 1Ch 6:37 and 1Ch 6:36 the names Tahath, Zephaniah, Azariah, and Joel. Now although the occurrence of Uzziah and Azariah as names of the same king immediately suggests that in our register also Uzziah and Azariah are two names of the same person, yet the divergence in the other names, on the one hand Zephaniah for Joel, and on the other Uriel for Shaul, is strongly opposed to this conjecture. The discrepancy can scarcely be naturally explained in any other way, than by supposing that after Tahath the two genealogies diverge-ours introducing his son Uriel and his descendants; the other, in 1Ch 6:36, mentioning a second son of Tohath, Zephaniah, of whose race Heman came.

1Ch 6:25-30

(6:10-15). “And the sons of Elkanah, Amasai and Ahimoth.” As it is clear that with אֶלְק וּבְנֵי אֶלְ a new list begins, and that the preceding enumeration is that of the descendants of Abiasaph, it is at once suggested that this Elkanah was the brother of the Abiasaph mentioned in 1Ch 6:15. If, however, we compare the genealogy of Heman, we find there (1Ch 6:36 and 1Ch 6:35) a list of the descendants of Joel in an ascending line, thus, - Elkanah, Amasai, Mahath, Elkanah, Zuph; from which it would seem to follow that our Elkanah is the son of Moel mentioned in 1Ch 6:36, for Ahimoth may be without difficulty considered to be another form of the name Mahath. This conclusion would be assured if only the beginning of 1Ch 6:26 were in harmony with it. In this verse, indeed, בְּנֹו אֶלְקָנָה, as we read in the Kethibh, may be without difficulty taken to mean that Elkanah was the son of Ahimoth, just as in 1Ch 6:20 Elkanah is introduced as son of Mahath. But in this way no meaning can be assigned to the אֶלְקָנָה which follows בני, and Bertheau accordingly is of opinion that this אלקנה has come into the text by an error. The Masoretes also felt the difficulty, and have substituted for the Kethibh בנו the Keri בְּנֵי, but then nothing can be made of the first אלקנה in 1Ch 6:26. Beyond doubt the traditional text is here corrupt, and from a comparison of 1Ch 6:35 and 1Ch 6:34 the only conclusion we can draw with any certainty is that the list from צֹופַי onwards contains the names of descendants of Elkanah the son of Mahath, which is so far favourable to the Keri אֶלְקָנָה בְּנֵי. The name Elkanah, on the contrary, which immediately precedes בנו, seems to point to a hiatus in the text, and gives room for the conjecture that in 1Ch 6:10 the sons of Elkanah, the brother of Abiasaph and Assir, were named, and that there followed thereupon an enumeration of the sons or descendants of the Elkanah whom we meet with in 1Ch 6:36 as son of Joel, after which came the names Elkanah בְּנֹו, Zophai בְּנֹו, etc. נַחַת and אֱלִיאָב we consider to be other forms of תֹּוחַ and אֱלִיאֵל, 1Ch 6:34, and צֹופַי is only another form of צוּף. The succeeding names, Jeroham and Elkanah (1Ch 6:27), agree with those in 1Ch 6:34; but between the clauses “Elkanah his son” (1Ch 6:27), and “and the sons of Samuel” (1Ch 6:28), the connecting link בְּנֹו שְׁמוּאֵל, cf. 1Ch 6:33, is again wanting, as is also, before or after הַבְּכֹר (1Ch 6:28), the name of the first-born, viz., Joel; cf. 1Ch 6:33 with 1Sa 8:2. Now, although the two last-mentioned omissions can be supplied, they yet show that the enumeration in 1Ch 6:22 is not a continuous list of one Kohathite family, but contains only fragments of several Kohathite genealogies. - In 1Ch 6:29 and 1Ch 6:30, descendants of Merari follow; sons of Mahli in six generations, who are not mentioned elsewhere. Bertheau compares this list of names, Mahli, Libni, Shimei, Uzza, Shimea, Haggiah, and Asaiah, with the list contained in 1Ch 6:44, Mushi, Mahli, Shamer, Bani, Amzi, Hilkiah, and Amaziah, and attempts to maintain, notwithstanding the great difference in the names, that the two lists were originally identical, in order to find support for the hypothesis “that the three lists in 1Ch 6:20 have not found a place in the Chronicle from their own intrinsic value, or, in other words, have not been introduced there in order to give a register of the ancestors of Jeaterai, the sons of Samuel and Asaiah, but have been received only because they bring us to Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, 1Ch 6:34, 1Ch 6:39, 1Ch 6:44, in another fashion than the lists of names in 1Ch 6:33.” But this hypothesis is shown to be false, apart altogether from the other objections which might be raised against it, by the single fact of the total discrepancy between the names of the Merarites in 1Ch 6:29 and 1Ch 6:30 and those found in 1Ch 6:44-47. Of all the six names only Mahli is found in both cases, and he is carefully distinguished in both - in the genealogy of Ethan as the son of Mushi and grandson of Merari; in our list as the son of Merari. When we remember that Merari had two sons, Mahli and Mushi, after whom the father's-houses into which his descendants divided themselves were named (Num 3:20; Num 26:58), and that the same names very frequently occur in different families, it would never suggest itself to any reader of our register to identify the line of Mushi with the line of Mahli, seeing that, except the name of Mahli the son of Mushi, which is the same as that of his uncle, all the other names are different. 1Ch 6:29 and 1Ch 6:30 contain a register of the family of Mahli, while the ancestors of Ethan, 1Ch 6:44-47, belonged to the family of Mushi. Our list then absolutely cannot be intended to form a transition to Ethan or Ethan's ancestors. The same may be said of the two other lists 1Ch 6:20-22 and 1Ch 6:23-28, and this transition hypothesis is consequently a mere airspun fancy. The three lists are certainly not embodied in the Chronicle on account of the persons with whose names they end-Jeaterai, the sons of Samuel, and Asaiah; but the author of the Chronicle has thought them worthy of being received into his work as registers of ancient families of the three sons of Levi which had been transmitted from ancient times.