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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Chronicles 7:30 - 7:30
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The sons and several families of Asher. - 1Ch 7:30. The names of the four sons of Asher and that of their sister coincide with the statement of Gen 46:17; but in Num 26:44-47, on the contrary, the name Ishuai does not occur among the families of Asher.
1Ch 7:31-34
The sons of Beriah, Heber and Malchiel, are also to be found in Gen 46:17 and Num 26:45 as the heads of two families; but the further statement, “he (i.e., Malchiel) the father of Birzavith,” is found only here. How ברזות, the Kethibh, is to be pronounced, cannot be with certainty determined. Gesen. in Thes. p. 239 makes it בִּרְזֹות, and considers the word to be the name of a woman; Bertheau, on the contrary conjectures that it is a compound of בר = בְּאֵר and זַיִת, “well of the olive-tree,” and so the name of a place. In 1Ch 7:32-34 the descendants of Heber are enumerated in three generations, which are mentioned nowhere else. In 1Ch 7:32 we have four sons and one daughter. The name יַפְלֵט is not to be connected with יַפְלֵטִי, Jos 16:3, “because a family of Asher is not to be sought for in the neighbourhood there referred to” (Berth.). In 1Ch 7:33 we have four sons of Japhlet, and in 1Ch 7:34 the sons of his brother Shemer. It is somewhat remarkable that שֹׁומֵר, 1Ch 7:32, is called here שֶׁמֶר. אֲחִי is not an appellative, but a proper name, as the ו before the following name shows; cf. another Ahi in 1Ch 5:15. For יְחֻבָּה we should read וְחֻבָּה.
1Ch 7:35-39
Descendants of Helem-in 1Ch 7:35 sons, in 1Ch 7:36-38 grandsons.
As Helem is called אָהִיו, “his brother” (i.e., the brother of the Shemer mentioned in 1Ch 7:34), הֵלֶם would seem to be the third son of Heber, who is called in 1Ch 7:32 חֹותָם. If so, one of the two names must have resulted from an error in transcription; but it is now impossible to determine which is the original and correct form of the name. Eleven names are introduced as those of the sons of Zophah (1Ch 7:36, 1Ch 7:37); and in 1Ch 7:38 we have, besides, three sons of Jether (יֶתֶר), who is called in 1Ch 7:38 יִתְרָן. In 1Ch 7:39 there follow three names, those of the sons of Ulla; on which Bertheau rightly remarks, the whole character of our enumeration would lead us to conjecture that עֻלָּא had already occurred among the preceding names, although we find neither this name nor any similar one, with which it might be identified, in the preceding list.
1Ch 7:40
1Ch 7:40 contains a comprehensive concluding statement as to the descendants of Asher: “All these (those just mentioned by name) were heads of fathers'-houses, chosen valiant heroes (חֲיָלִים, as in 1Ch 7:5), chief of the princes,” Vulg. duces ducum, i.e., probably leaders of the larger divisions of the army, under whom were other נְשִׂיאִים. “And their genealogical register is for service of the host in war,” i.e., was prepared with reference to the men capable of bearing arms, and had not, like other registers, reference to the number of inhabitants of the various localities; cf. 1Ch 9:22. It amounted to 26,000 men. According to Num 1:41, Asher numbered 41,500, and according to Num 26:47, 53,000 men. But we must observe that the number given in our verse is only that of the men capable of bearing arms belonging to one of the greater families of Asher, the family of Heber, of which alone a register had been preserved till the time of the chronicler.