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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Chronicles 8:13 - 8:13
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Heads of fathers'-houses of the tribe of Benjamin, who dwelt partly in Aijalon (1Ch 8:13) and partly in Jerusalem. - Their connection with the heads of fathers'-houses already mentioned is not clear. The names וַשֶׁמַע בְּרִיעָה might be taken fore a fuller enumeration of the sons of Elpaal (1Ch 8:12), were it not that the names enumerated from 1Ch 8:14 or 15 onwards, are at the end of 1Ch 8:16 said to be those of sons of Beriah; whence we must conclude that with וּבְרִיעָה, 1Ch 8:13, a new list of heads of Benjamite fathers'-houses begins. This view is supported by the fact that the names from 1Ch 8:14 or 1Ch 8:15 to 1Ch 8:27 are divided into five groups of families: the sons of Beriah (1Ch 8:16), of Elpaal (1Ch 8:18), of Shimhi (1Ch 8:21), of Shashak (1Ch 8:25), and of Jeroham (1Ch 8:27). But as two of these, Beriah and Shashak, occur in 1Ch 8:13, 1Ch 8:14, and שִׁמְעִי is probably another form of שֶׁמַע, Bertheau conjectures that the last two names, Shashak and Jeroham, are represented by אַחְיֹו and יְרֵמֹות dna אַ (1Ch 8:14). יְרֹחַם and יְרֵמֹות may be explained by the supposition of a transcriber's error, or by one person having two names; but the word אַחְיֹו is rendered by the lxx by ὁ ἀδελφὸς αὐτοῦ (= אָהִיו); and the view that אחיו is a nom. prop. is opposed, as in 1Ch 8:31, by the fact that the ו cop. is not found before the following שָׁשָׁק, for here, throughout, the names are all connected with each other by the w cop. Bertheau therefore conjectures that the text originally ran thus, וְשָׁשָׁק אָהִיו וְאֱלְפַּעַל, and that the name Elpaal was dropped out; and that in consequence of that, אחיו had been punctuated as a nom. prop. These conjectures seem satisfactory, especially as it may be adduced in their favour that אָהִיו has been added to the name Elpaal to connect the names in 1Ch 8:15 with the enumeration (1Ch 8:13) interrupted by the parenthetical remarks. No certainty, however, can be attained in a matter so obscure. If a new series of groups of families begins with 1Ch 8:13, we should expect an introductory formula, as in 1Ch 8:6. Beriah and Shema are called heads of the fathers'-houses of the inhabitants of Aijalon, i.e., heads of the groups of related households inhabiting Aijalon, the present Jalo to the west of Gibeon (see on Jos 19:42). It is quite consistent with this that their sons or descendants dwelt in Jerusalem. Next a heroic deed of theirs is related, viz., that they (in some war or other) turned to flight the inhabitants of Gath (without doubt Philistines). This remark reminds us of the statement in 1Ch 7:21, that sons of Ephraim were slain by those born in Gath, because they had gone down to drive away the herds of the inhabitants. But Bertheau draws an erroneous conclusion from this fact, when he says that because in both passages the name Beriah occurs, both refer to the same event, and thereafter attempts by various hypotheses to make the Benjamites mentioned in our verse into Ephraimites. For the name Beriah is not at all so rare as to allow of our inferring from that alone that the various persons so called are identical, for Jacob's son Asher also named one of his sons Beriah; cf. 1Ch 7:30 with Gen 46:17. The notion that the Benjamites Beriah and Shema defeated those inhabitants of Gath who had slain the sons of Ephraim (1Ch 7:21) is quite unsupported, as the Philistines lived at war and in feud with the Israelites for hundreds of years.