Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on 1 Chronicles 4:16
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
Descendants of various men, whose genealogical connection with the sons and grandsons of Judah, mentioned in Ch1 4:1, is not given in the text as it has come to us. Ch1 4:16 Sons of Jehaleleel, a man not elsewhere mentioned. Ziph, Ziphah, etc., are met with only here. There is no strong reason for connecting the name זיף with the towns of that name, Jos 15:24, Jos 15:55. Ch1 4:17-19 Ezra, whose four sons are enumerated, is likewise unknown. The singular בּן is peculiar, but has analogies in Ch1 3:19, Ch1 3:21, and Ch1 3:23. Of the names of his sons, Jether and Epher again occur, the former in Ch1 2:53, and the latter in Ch1 1:33 and Ch1 5:24, but in other families. Jalon, on the contrary, is found only here. The children of two wives of Mered are enumerated in Ch1 4:17 and Ch1 4:18, but in a fashion which is quite unintelligible, and shows clear traces of a corruption in the text. For (1) the name of a woman as subject of ותּהר, "and she conceived (bare)," is wanting; and (2) in Ch1 4:18 the names of two women occur, Jehudijah and Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh. But the sons of Jehudijah are first given, and there follows thereupon the formula, "and these are the sons of Bithiah," without any mention of the names of these sons. This manifest confusion Bertheau has sought to remove by a happy transposition of the words. He suggests that the words, "and these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered had taken," should be placed immediately after וילון. "By this means we obtain (1) the missing subject of ותּהר; (2) the definite statement that Mered had two wives, with whom he begat sons; and (3) an arrangement by which the sons are enumerated after the names of their respective mothers." After this transposition the Ch1 4:17 would read thus: "And the sons of Ezra are Jether, Mered, ... and Jalon; and these are the sons of Bithia the daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered took; and she conceived (and bare) Miriam, and Shammai, and Ishbah, the father of Eshtemoa ( Ch1 4:18), and his wife Jehudijah bore Jered the father of Gedor, etc." This conjecture commends itself by its simplicity, and by the clearness which it brings into the words. From them we then learn that two families, who dwelt in a number of the cities of Judah, were descended from Mered the son of Ezra by his two wives. We certainly know no more details concerning them, as neither Mered not his children are met with elsewhere. From the circumstance, however, that the one wife was a daughter of Pharaoh, we may conclude that Mered lived before the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. The name Miriam, which Moses' sister bore, is here a man's name. The names introduced by אבי are the names of towns. Ishbah is father (lord) of the town Eshtemoa, in the mountains of Judah, now Semua, a village to the south of Hebron, with considerable ruins dating from ancient times (cf. on Jos 15:50). היהוּדיּה means properly "the Jewess," as distinguished from the Egyptian woman, Pharaoh's daughter. Gedor is a town in the high lands of Judah (cf. on Ch1 4:4). Socho, in the low land of Judah, now Shuweikeh, in Wady Sumt (cf. on Jos 15:35). Zanoah is the name of a town in the high lands of Judah, Jos 15:56 (which has not yet been discovered), and of a town in the low land, now Zanua, not far from Zoreah, in an easterly direction (cf. on Jos 15:34). Perhaps the latter is here meant. In Ch1 4:19, "the sons of the wife of Hodiah, the sister of Naham, are the father of Keilah the Garmite,…
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