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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Chronicles 7:6 - 7:6
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Sons and families of Benjamin. - In 1Ch 7:6 only three sons of Benjamin-Bela, Becher, and Jediael - are mentioned; and in 1Ch 7:7-11 their families are registered. Besides these, there are five sons of Benjamin spoken of in 1Ch 8:1-2, - Bela the first, Ashbel the second, Aharah the third, Nohah the fourth, and Rapha the fifth; while in 1Ch 7:3-5 five other בָּנִים are enumerated, viz., אַדָּר, גֵּרָא (twice), נַעֲמָן, שְׁפוּפָן, and חוּרָם. If we compare here the statements of the Pentateuch as to the genealogy of Benjamin, we find in Gen 46:21 the following sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi (אֵחִי) and Rosh, Muppim and Huppim and Ard (אַרְדְּ); and in Num 26:38-40 seven families, of which five are descended from his sons Bela, Ashbel, Ahiram, Shephupham, and Hupham (חוּפָם); and two from his grandsons, the sons of Bela, Ard and Naaman. From this we learn, not only that of the בָּנִים mentioned in Gen 46:21 at least two were grandsons, but also that the names אֵחִי and מֻפִּים (Gen.) are only other forms of אֲחִירָם and שְׁפוּפָם (Num.). It is, however, somewhat strange that among the families (in Num.) the names בֶּכֶר, גֵּרָא, and רֹאשׁ are wanting. The explanation which at once suggests itself, that their descendants were not numerous enough to form separate families, and that they on that account were received into the families of the other sons, though it may be accepted in the case of Gera and Rosh, of whom it is nowhere recorded that they had numerous descendants, cannot meet the case of Becher, for in 1Ch 7:8, 1Ch 7:9 of our chapter mention is made of nine sons of his, with a posterity of 20,200 men. The supposition that the name of Becher and his family has been dropped from the genealogical register of the families in Num 26, will not appear in the slightest degree probable, when we consider the accuracy of this register in other respects. The only remaining explanation therefore is, that the descendants of Becher were in reality not numerous enough to form a מִשְׁפָּחָה by themselves, but had afterwards so increased that they numbered nine fathers'-houses, with a total of 20,200 valiant warriors. The numbers in our register point unquestionably to post-Mosaic times; for at the second numbering by Moses, all the families of Benjamin together numbered only 45,600 men (Num 26:41), while the three families mentioned in our verses number together 59,434 (22,034 + 20,200 + 17,200). The tribe of Benjamin, which moreover was entirely destroyed, with the exception of 600 men, in the war which it waged against the other tribes in the earlier part of the period of the judges (Jdg 20:47), could not have increased to such an extent before the times of David and Solomon. The name of the third son of Benjamin, Jediael, occurs only here, and is considered by the older commentators to be another name of Ashbel (Gen 46:21 and Num 26:38), which cannot indeed be accepted as a certainty, but is very probable.
1Ch 7:7
The five heads of fathers'-houses called sons of Bela are not sons in the proper sense of the word, but more distant descendants, who, at the time when this register was made up, were heads of the five groups of related households of the race of Bela. חֲיָלִים גִּבֹּורֵי is synonymous with חַיִל גִּבֹּורֵי, 1Ch 7:9, and is a plural, formed as if from a nomen compositum, which arose after the frequent use of the words as they are bound together in the status constructus had obscured the consciousness of the relation between them.
1Ch 7:8-9
Becher's descendants. Of these nine names there are two, עֲנָתֹות and עָלֶמֶת, which occur elsewhere as names of cities (cf. for עָלֶמֶת in the form עַלֶּמֶת, 1Ch 6:45; and for עֲנָתֹות, Jos 21:18; Isa 10:30; Jer 1:1). We may, without doubt, accept the supposition that in these cases the cities received their names from the heads of the families which inhabited them. In 1Ch 7:9, אֲבֹותָם בֵּית רָאשֵׁי stands in apposition to, and is explanatory of, לְתֹולְדֹותָם: “And their register, according to their generations,” viz., according to the generations, that is, the birth-lists, “of the heads of their fathers'-houses, is (amounts to) in valiant heroes 20,200 men.”
1Ch 7:10-11
Among the descendants of Jediael we find Benjamin and Ehud, the first of whom is named after the patriarch; but the second is not the judge Ehud (Jdg 3:15), who was indeed a Benjamite, but of the family of Gera. Chenaanah does not necessarily indicate a Canaanite family. Tharshish, which is elsewhere a precious stone, is here the name of a person; Ahishahar, that is, Brother of the Dawn, perhaps so named because sub auroram natur. - In 1Ch 7:11 the expression is contracted, as often happens in formulae which frequently recur; and the meaning is, “All these are sons of Jediael (for as sons of Bilhan the son of Jediael, they are at the same time sons of the latter), (registered) according to the heads of their fathers'-houses, valiant heroes 17,200, going forth in the host to war.” הָאָבֹות רָאשֵׁי is contracted from בֵּית־אָבֹות רָאשֵׁי, vide on Exo 6:25; and the לְ before רָאשֵׁי, which Bertheau from a misinterpretation wishes to remove, depends upon the הִתְיַחְשָׂם (1Ch 7:9) to be supplied in thought.