Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Chronicles 7:1 - 7:1

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Chronicles 7:1 - 7:1


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Sons and families of Issachar. - 1Ch 7:1. Instead of וְלִבְנֵי, we must certainly read בְּנֵי, as in 1Ch 7:14, 1Ch 7:30, or וּבְנֵי, as in 1Ch 7:20; 1Ch 5:11, and elsewhere. The לבני has come into the text only by the recollection of the copyist having dwelt on the so frequently recurring לבני in 1Ch 6:42, 1Ch 6:46-47, cf. 1Ch 6:48, 1Ch 6:56, 1Ch 6:62, for it is not possible to take לְ as the לְ of introduction, because the names of the sons follow immediately. The names of the four sons are given as in Num 26:23., while in Gen 46:13 the second is written פֻּוָּה, and the third יֹוב; vide on Gen. loc. cit.

1Ch 7:2

The six sons of Tola are not elsewhere met with in the Old Testament. They were “heads of their fathers'-houses of Tola.” לְתֹולָע after אֲבֹותָם לְבֵית (with the suffix) is somewhat peculiar; the meaning can only be, “of their fathers'-houses which are descended from Tola.” It is also surprising, or rather not permissible, that לְתֹולְדֹותָם should be connected with חַיִל גִּבֹּורֵי. לְתֹולְדֹותָם belongs to the following: “(registered) according to their births, they numbered in the days of David 22,600.” The suffixes ָם- do not refer to רָאשִׁים, but to the בֵּית־אָבֹות, the fathers'-houses, the males in which amounted to 22,600 souls. As David caused the people to be numbered by Joab (2 Sam 24; 1Ch 21:1), this statement probably rests on the results of that census.

1Ch 7:3-5

From Uzzi, the first-born of Tola, are descended through Izrahiah five men, all heads of groups of related households (1Ch 7:4); “and to them (i.e., besides these) according to their generations, according to their fathers'-houses, bands of the war host, 36,000 (men), for they (these chiefs) had many wives and sons.” From the fact that Izrahiah is introduced as grandson of Tola, Bertheau would infer that 1Ch 7:3, 1Ch 7:4 refer to times later than David. But this is an erroneous inference, for Tola's sons did not live in David's time at all, and consequently it is not necessary that his grandson should be assigned to a later time. The only assertion made is, that the descendants of Tola's sons had increased to the number mentioned in 1Ch 7:2 in the time of David. By that time the descendants of his grandson Izrahiah might have increased to the number given in 1Ch 7:4. That the number, 36,000, of the descendants of the grandson Izrahiah was greater than the number of those descended from the sons of Tola (22,600), is explained in the clause, “for they had many wives and sons.” That the two numbers (in 1Ch 7:2, 1Ch 7:4) refer to the same time, i.e., to the days of David, is manifest from 1Ch 7:5, “and their brethren of all the families of Issachar, valiant heroes; 87,000 their register, as regards everything,” i.e., the sum of those registered of all the families of Issachar. Whence we gather that in the 87,000 both the 22,600 (1Ch 7:2) and the 36,000 (1Ch 7:4) are included, and their brethren consequently must have amounted to 28,400 (22,600 + 36,000 + 28,400 = 87,000). In the time of Moses, Issachar numbered, according to Num 1:29, 54,400; and at a later time, according to Num 26:25, already numbered 64,300 men.