Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on 1 Chronicles 4:23
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
"These are the potters and the inhabitants of Netaim and Gedera." It is doubtful whether המּה refers to all the descendants of Shelah, or only to those named in Ch1 4:22. Bertheau holds the latter to be the more probable reference; "for as those named in Ch1 4:21 have already been denominated Byssus-workers, it appears fitting that those in Ch1 4:22 should be regarded as the potters, etc." But all those mentioned in Ch1 4:22 are by no means called Byssus-weavers, but only the families of Ashbea. What the descendants of Er and Laadan were is not said. The המּה may consequently very probably refer to all the sons of Shelah enumerated in Ch1 4:21 and Ch1 4:22, with the exception of the families designated Byssus-weavers, who are, of course, understood to be excepted. נטעים signifies "plantings;" but since גּדרה is probably the name of a city Gedera in the lowlands of Judah (cf. Jos 15:36; and for the situation, see on Ch1 12:4), Netaim also will most likely denote a village where there were royal plantations, and about which these descendants of Shelah were employed, as the words "with the king in his business to dwell there" expressly state. המּלך is not an individual king of Judah, for we know not merely "of King Uzziah that he had country lands, Ch2 26:10" (Berth.); but we learn from Ch1 27:25-31 that David also possessed great estates and country lands, which were managed by regularly appointed officers. We may therefore with certainty assume that all the kings of Judah had domains on which not only agriculture and the rearing of cattle, but also trades, were carried on. (Note: From the arrangement of the names in vv. 2-20, in which Bertheau finds just twelve families grouped together, he concludes, S. 44f., that the division of the tribe of Judah into these twelve families did actually exist at some time or other, and had been established by a new reckoning of the families which the heads of the community found themselves compelled to make after deep and wide alterations had taken place in the circumstances of the tribe. He then attempts to determine this time more accurately by the character of the names. For since only a very few names in these verses are known to us from the historical books, from Genesis to 2 Kings, and the few thus known refer to the original divisions of the tribe, which may have maintained themselves till post-exilic times, while, on the contrary, a great number of the other names recur in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah; and since localities which in the earliest period after the exile were important for the new community are frequently met with in our verses, while such as were constantly being mentioned in prae-exilic times are nowhere to be found, - Bertheau supposes that a division of the tribe of Judah is here spoken of, which actually existed at some time in the period between Zerubbabel and Ezra. This hypothesis has, however, no solid foundation. The assumption even that the names in vv. 2-20 belong to just twelve families is very questionable; for this number can only be arrived at by separating the descendants of Caleb, Ch1 4:15, from the descendants of Kenaz, Ch1 4:13 and Ch1 4:14, of whom Caleb himself was one, and reckoning them separately. But the circumstance that in this reckoning only the names in Ch1 4:12-20 are taken into consideration, which no notice is taken of the descendants of Shelah the son of Judah, enumerated in Ch1 4:21-23, is much more important. Bertheau considers this verse to…
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