1 Chronicles 7:2

“And the sons of Tola, etc.] The eldest son of Issachar, whose posterity are only reckoned by name: Uzzi, and Rephaiah, and Jeriel, and Jahmai, and Jibsam, and Shemuel, heads of their father’s house, to wit, of Tola; the principal man of his family: [they] were valiant men of might in their generations, famous for their courage and military exploits, though they sprang from Tola, whose name signifies “a worm”; and which name Bochart f59 conjectures was given him by his parents, because he was so weakly that they had no hopes of raising him; and yet from him sprung such mighty men, and from them such a numerous race, as follows: whose number was, in the days of David, two and twenty thousand…”

“whose number was in the days of David two and twenty thousand and six hundred--Although a census was taken in the reign of David by order of that monarch, it is not certain that the sacred historian had it in mind, since we find here the tribe of Benjamin enumerated [Ch1 7:6-12], which was not taken in David's time; and there are other points of dissimilarity.”

“Whose number was in the days of David ... - The writer would seem by this passage to have had access to the statistics of the tribes collected by David, when he sinfully “numbered the people” (marginal reference). The numbers given in 1 Chronicles 7:4-5 probably came from the same source. return to 'Top of Page'”

“whose number: This was probably the number returned by Joab and his assistants, when they made that census of the people with which God was so much displeased. We find that the effective men of Issachar amounted to 87,000 ( Ch1 7:5); 22,600 of whom descended from Tola his eldest son; but whether the 36,000 ( Ch1 7:4) were descendants of Tola by Uzzi, and the 22,600 his descendants by Tola's other sons; or whether another of Issachar's sons be intended, does not clearly appear; though the former seems the more obvious meaning. Ch1 21:1-5, Ch1 27:1, Ch1 27:23, Ch1 27:24; Sa2 24:1-9 1 Chronicles 7:4”