Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on 1 Chronicles 7:1
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
Sons and families of Issachar. - Ch1 7:1. Instead of ולבני, we must certainly read בּני, as in Ch1 7:14, Ch1 7:30, or וּבני, as in Ch1 7:20; Ch1 5:11, and elsewhere. The לבני has come into the text only by the recollection of the copyist having dwelt on the so frequently recurring לבני in Ch1 6:42, Ch1 6:46-47, cf. Ch1 6:48, Ch1 6:56, Ch1 6:62, for it is not possible to take ל as the ל of introduction, because the names of the sons follow immediately. The names of the four sons are given as in Num 26:23., while in Gen 46:13 the second is written פּוּה, and the third יוב; vide on Gen. loc. cit. Ch1 7:2 The six sons of Tola are not elsewhere met with in the Old Testament. They were "heads of their fathers'-houses of Tola." לתולע after אבותם לבית (with the suffix) is somewhat peculiar; the meaning can only be, "of their fathers'-houses which are descended from Tola." It is also surprising, or rather not permissible, that לתולדותם should be connected with חיל גּבּורי. לתולדותם belongs to the following: "(registered) according to their births, they numbered in the days of David 22,600." The suffixes ם- do not refer to ראשׁים, but to the בּית־אבות, the fathers'-houses, the males in which amounted to 22,600 souls. As David caused the people to be numbered by Joab (2 Sam 24; Ch1 21:1), this statement probably rests on the results of that census. Ch1 7:3-5 From Uzzi, the first-born of Tola, are descended through Izrahiah five men, all heads of groups of related households ( Ch1 7:4); "and to them (i.e., besides these) according to their generations, according to their fathers'-houses, bands of the war host, 36,000 (men), for they (these chiefs) had many wives and sons." From the fact that Izrahiah is introduced as grandson of Tola, Bertheau would infer that Ch1 7:3, Ch1 7:4 refer to times later than David. But this is an erroneous inference, for Tola's sons did not live in David's time at all, and consequently it is not necessary that his grandson should be assigned to a later time. The only assertion made is, that the descendants of Tola's sons had increased to the number mentioned in Ch1 7:2 in the time of David. By that time the descendants of his grandson Izrahiah might have increased to the number given in Ch1 7:4. That the number, 36,000, of the descendants of the grandson Izrahiah was greater than the number of those descended from the sons of Tola (22,600), is explained in the clause, "for they had many wives and sons." That the two numbers (in Ch1 7:2, Ch1 7:4) refer to the same time, i.e., to the days of David, is manifest from Ch1 7:5, "and their brethren of all the families of Issachar, valiant heroes; 87,000 their register, as regards everything," i.e., the sum of those registered of all the families of Issachar. Whence we gather that in the 87,000 both the 22,600 ( Ch1 7:2) and the 36,000 ( Ch1 7:4) are included, and their brethren consequently must have amounted to 28,400 (22,600 + 36,000 + 28,400 = 87,000). In the time of Moses, Issachar numbered, according to Num 1:29, 54,400; and at a later time, according to Num 26:25, already numbered 64,300 men. 1 Chronicles 7:6
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