Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

the two genealogies diverge, — ours introducing his son Uriel and his descendants; the other, in ver. 21 f., mentioning a second son of Tohath, Zephaniah, of whose race Heman came. — Ver. 10. a And the sons of Elkanah, Amasai and Ahimoth." As it is clear that with 'P?K *X2\ sl new list begins, and that the preceding enumeration is that of the descendants of Abiasaph, it is at once suggested that this Elkanah was the brother of the Abiasaph mentioned in ver. 8. If, however, we compare the genealogy of Heman, we find there (vers. 21 and 20) a list of the descendants of Joel in an ascending line, thus, — Elkanah, Amasai, Mahath, Elkanah, Zuph; from which it would seem to follow that our Elkanah is the son of Joel mentioned in ver. 21, for Ahimoth may be without difficulty considered to be another form of the name Mahath. This conclusion would be assured if only the beginning of ver. 11 were in harmony with it. In this verse, indeed, iJ3 nJi?c^, as we read in the Kethibh, may be without difficulty taken to mean that Elkanah was the son of Ahimoth, just as in ver. 20 Elkanah is introduced as son of Mahath. But in this way no meaning can be assigned to the njj^K which follows *J3, and Bertheau accordingly is of opinion that this TUfhx has come into the text by an error. The Masoretes also felt the difficulty, and have substituted for the Kethibh Ul the Keri *53, but then nothing can be made of the first TVpbtt in ver. 11. Beyond doubt the traditional text is here corrupt, and from a comparison of vers. 20 and 19 the only conclusion wre can draw with any certainty is that the list from ^i*' onwards contains the names of descendants of Elkanah the son of Mahath, which is so far favourable to the Keri rup?X "02. The name Elkanah, on the contrary, which immediately precedes 122, seems to point to a hiatus in the text, and gives room for the conjecture that in ver. 10 the sons of Elkanah, the brother of Abiasaph and Assir, were named, and that there followed thereupon an enumeration of the sons or descendants of the Elkanah whom we meet with in ver. 21 as son of Joel, after which came the names Elkanah ^, Zophai fo3, etc. nnj and 3KvK we consider to be other forms of nifi and bflvK, ver. 19, and *Sft is only another form of *]«?. The succeeding names, Jeroham and Elkanah (ver. 12), agree with those in ver. 19; but between the clauses "Elkanah his son" (ver. 12), and " and the sons of Samuel" (ver. 13), the connecting link fa? ^BB^ cf. ver. 18, is again wanting, as is also, before or after "Dan (ver. lo), the name of the first-born, viz.

Joel; cf. ver. 18 with 1 Sam. viii. 2. Now, although the two last-mentioned omissions can be supplied, they yet show that the enumeration in vers. 7-13 is not a continuous list of one Kohathite family, but contains only fragments of several Kohathite genealogies. — In vers. 14 and 15, descendants of Merari follow; sons of Mahli in six generations, who are not mentioned elsewhere. Bertheau compares this list of names, Mahli, Libni, Shimei, Uzza, Shimea, Haggiah, and Asaiah, with the list contained in vers. 29-32, Mushi, Mahli, Shamer, Bani, Amzi, Hilkiah, and Amaziah, and attempts to maintain, notwithstanding the great difference in the names, that the two lists were originally identical, in order to find support for the hypothesis K that the three lists in vers. 5—15 have not found a place in the Chronicle from their own intrinsic value, or, in other words, have not been introduced there in order to give a register of the ancestors of Jeaterai, the sons of Samuel and Asaiah, but have been received only because they bring us to Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, vers. 19, 24, 29, in another fashion than the lists of names in vers. 18—32." But this hypothesis is shown to be false, apart altogether from the other objections which might be raised against it, by the single fact of the total discrepancy between the names of the Merarites in vers. 14 and 15 and those found in vers. 29-32. Of all the six names only Mahli is found in both cases, and he is carefully distinguished in both — in the genealogy of Ethan as the son of Mushi and grandson of Merari; in our list as the son of Merari. When we remember that Merari had two sons, Mahli and Mushi, after whom the fathers'-houses into which his descendants divided themselves were named (Num. iii. 20, xxvi. 58), and that the same names very frequently occur in different families, it would never suggest itself to any reader of our register to identify the line of Mushi with the line of Mahli, seeing that, except the name of Mahli the son of Mushi, which is the same as that of his uncle, all the other names are different. Vers. 14 and 15 contain a register of the family of Mahli, while the ancestors of Ethan, vers. 29-32, belonged to the family of Mushi. Our list then absolutely cannot be intended to form a transition to Ethan or Ethan's ancestors. The same may be said of the two other lists vers. 5-7 and vers. 8-13, and this transition hypothesis is consequently a mere airspun fancy. The three lists are certainly not embodied in the Chronicle on account of the persons with whose names they end — Jeaterai, the sons of Samuel, and Asaiah; but the author of the Chronicle has thought them worthy of being received into his work as registers of ancient families of the three sons of Levi which had been transmitted from ancient times.

Vers. 16-34. The genealogies of the Levite musicians — Heman^ Asaph, and Ethan. — These registers are introduced by an account of the service of the Levites about the sanctuary (vers. 16, 17), and conclude with remarks on the service of the remaining; Levites (vers. 33, 34). — Ver. 16. " These are they whom David set for the leading of the song in the house of Jahve, after the resting of the ark," cf. 15, 17. *V ^ " upon the hands," " to the hands; " that is, both for leading, and, according to arrangement. To the hands of the song, i.e. to manage the singing, to carry it on, to conduct it.!V*wn niJB»? « from the resting of the ark," i.e. from the time that the ark of the covenant, which in the prae-Davidic time had been carried about from one place to another, had received a permanent resting-place on Zion, and had become the centre of the worship instituted by David, 2 Sam. vi. 17. u And they served before the dwelling of the tabernacle with song." 12^'p \ja?, " before the dwelling," for the sacrificial worship, with which the singing of psalms was connected, was performed in the court before the dwelling. The genitive "Wio?nk is to be taken as explanatory: u The dwelling (of Jahve), which was the tent of the meeting (of God with His people)." TjiD?nk was the usual designation of the tabernacle built by Moses, which was at first set up in Shiloh, then in the time of Saul at Nob, and after the destruction of that city by Saul (1 Sam. xxii.) in Gibeon (1 Chron. xxi. 29). It denotes here the tent which David had erected upon Mount Zion for the ark of the covenant, because from its containing the ark, and by the institution of a settled worship in it (cf. xvi. 1-4 ff.), it thenceforth took the place of the Mosaic tabernacle, although the Mosaic sanctuary at Gibeon continued to be a place of worship till the completion of the temple (1 Kings iii. 4; 2 Chron. i. 3), — " till Solomon built the house of Jahve in Jerusalem," into which the ark was removed, and to which the whole of the reli<nous services were transferred. In their services they stood DD££'p37 according to their right, i.e. according to the order prescribed for them by David; cf. xvi. 37 ff. — Vers. 18-23. "These (following three men, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan) are they who stood (in service) with their sons." The three were the heads of the three Levitic families, to whom the execution of the liturgic sinmns* was entrusted. The names of their sons, vide chap. xxv. 1-6. The object of the following ^enealoiries is to show their descent from Levi. " Of the sons of the Kohathite family (is) Heman the singer." TWE>n, 6 -v/mA/rwSo? LXX. Heman is named first as being the head of the choir of singers who stood in the centre, while Asaph and his choir stood on his right hand, and on the left Ethan and his choir, so that when they sang in concert the conducting of the whole fell to Heman. His family is traced back in vers. 18-23 through twenty members to u Kohath the son of Levi, the son of Israel " (Jacob).— Vers. 24-28. « His brother Asaph," who is Heman's brother only in the more general sense of being closely connected with him, partly by their common descent from Levi, partly by their common calling, was a descendant of Gershon from his younger son Shimei. His genealogy contains only fifteen names to Gershon, five less than that of his contemporary Heman, probably because here and there intermediate names are omitted. — Vers. 29-32. " And the sons of Merari their brethren (i.e. the brethren of the choirs of Heman and Asaph) on the left {i.e. forming the choir which stood on the left hand) were Ethan and his sons." As in the case of Asaph, so also in that of Ethan, origin (ver. 18) is omitted, but is to be supplied; when the introductory clause " and the sons of Merari " is at once explained. Ethan is a Merarite of the younger line of Mushi (see above). The name of his father is here *K^p, and in chap. xv. 17 it is tfljf^p, which latter is clearly the original form, which has been shortened into Kishi. Instead of the name Ethan (I^K) as here and in chap. xv. 19, we find in other passages a Jeduthun mentioned as third chief-musician, along with Heman and Asaph (cf. xxv. 1; 2 Chron. xxxv. 15; Neh. xi. 17, cf. 1 Chron. vi. 41); from which we see that Jeduthun was another name for Ethan, probably a by-name — rW"P, "praiseman" — which he had received from his calling, although nothing is said in the Old Testament as to the origin of this name. His genealogy contains only twelve names to Merari, being thus still more abridged than that of Asaph. — Vers. 33 and 34. " And their brethren the Levites," i.e. the other Levites besides the singers just mentioned, u were DWU given for every service of the dwelling of the house of God," i.e. given to Aaron and his sons (the priests) for the performance of service in the carrying on of the worship; cf. Num. iii. 9, viii. 16-19, xviii. 6. But Aaron and his sons had three duties to perform:

(1) they burnt the offerings on the altar of burnt-offering and on the altar of incense, cf. Num. xviii. 1-7; (2) they looked after all the service of the holy place; (3) they had to atone for Israel by offering the atoning-sacrifices, and performing the cleansing according to all that Moses commanded. This last clause refers to all the three above-mentioned duties of the priests. Moses is called the servant of God, as in Deut. xxxiv. 5, Josh. i. 1, 13.

Vers. 35-38. The remarks as to the service of the priests are followed by a catalogue of the high priests, which runs from Eleazar to Ahimaaz the son of Zadok (cf. 2 Sam. xv. 27), who probably succeeded his father in the high-priesthood even in the time of Solomon. This genealogy is similar in form to the genealogies given in vers. 5-15, and has therefore most probably been derived from the same source as this, and has been drawn in here to form a transition to the enumeration of the cities of the Levites; for it begins in ver. 39 with the dwelling-places of the sons of Aaron, and the ftfW \n!>... Dniaeno rfcto of ver. 39 corresponds to the pHK *32 npfcO of ver. 35. The order of the names coincides exactly with that of the longer register in chap. v. 30-34.

Vers. 39-66. Register of the cities of the Levites^ which agrees on the whole with the register in Josh, xxi., if we except different forms of some names of cities, and many corruptions of the text, but differing in many ways from it in form; whence we gather that it is not derived from the book of Joshua, but from some other ancient authority. — Ver. 39 contains the superscription, " These are their dwelling-places according to their districts, in their boundaries." So far the superscription belongs to the whole catalogue of cities. The suffixes point back to the *5? Via, ver. 1. ^P, from "PiD, to surround in a circle, signifies in the older language a " nomad village " (cf. Gen. xxv. 16; Num. xxxi. 10); here, on the contrary, it is used in a derivative sense for " district," to denote the circle of dwellings which were granted to the Levites in the cities of the other tribes. The following words, cl For the sons of Aaron of the family of Kohath," etc., are the superscription to vers. 42-45, and together with the confirmatory clause, " for to him the (first) lot had fallen," are a repetition of Josh, xxi. 10, where, however, njVfcO is found after Win, and has perhaps been here dropped out. — Vers. 40 and 41 correspond almost verbally with Josh. xxi. 11 and 12, as vers. 42-45 also do with Josh. xxi. 13-19. As we have already in our remarks on Joshua commented upon the whole catalogue, it will not be necessary to do more here than to group together the errors and defects of our text. — Yer. 42. The plural -**-" %"V is incorrect, for only one of the cities thereafter named, viz. Hebron, was a city of refuge for homicides, and in Josh. xxi. 13 it is correct.ten ver. 44 f. Before Bethshemesh the name Juttah has been lost, and before Geba (ver. 45) the name Gibeon, so that only ele~ cities are mentioned, but the sum is rightly given as thirteen. Instead of the name P%?, ver. 43, there is found in Josh. xxi. 15 and xv. 51 (&\; instead of "V, Josh. xxi. 16, we have in ver. 44 the more correct name |pg; and the name n Ow, ver. 45, is in Josh. xxi. 18 P'^y. — Vers. 46—43. Summary statements of the number of cities which the remaining Kohathites, the Gershonites, and the Merarites received in the domains of the various tribes, corresponding to vers. 5-7 in Josh. xxi. In ver. 46 occurs a hiatus; between ~-r~ and HCWTBD the words '•' Ephraim and of the tribe of Dan and" have been omitted. In ver. 48 the words "of the tribe of Manasseh in Bashan " are quite intelligible without "SQ, which is found in Joshua. — Vers. 49 and 50 are not here in their proper place; for their contents show that th should be in the middle of the thirty-ninth verse, after the general superscription, and before the words M for the sons of Aaron." They are found also in Josh. xxi. 8, 9, as a superscription before the enumeration byname of the cities assigned to the priests; but how the confusion has arisen in our text cannot be certainly ascertained. Bertheau thinks "the wish to make mention of the cities of the high-priestly family at the beginning of the enumeration, has induced the author of the Chronicle to communicate the introductory remarks belonging to the 1: of cities with their statements as to the tribal domains, only after the enumeration of the cities of the sons of Aaron." Bv that supposition the position of vers. 46-48 is certainly explained, but not that of vers. 49 and 50; for even with the supposed desire, vers. 49 and 50 should have been placed before vers. 46-48. But besides this, the clause *U1 i~~s •336 in ver. 39 neither has anything to connect it with the preceding superscription nor a verb; and the subject of *-"*'. ver. 40, is also wanting. That which was missed before ver. 39 & and in ver. 40 is contained in vers. 49 and 50; whence it is manifest that vers. 49 and 50 ought to stand before ver. 39&, and have by some inexplicable accident fallen out of their proper place, and have come into an unsuitable position after ver. 48. The plurals ttnpj and niDfi^ instead of the singulars IOI* and W>, as in Josh. xxi. 96, bring the words into more manifest correspondence with the circumstances, since the subject of ^IP"!, u the sons of Israel," may be easily supplied from ver. 48, and many names of cities are mentioned. The masc. DHTIK instead of the fem. I^ns is probably only an oversight. With ver. 51 begins the enumeration of the cities of the other Levitic families only summarily given in vers. 46-48, which forms a very suitable continuation of ver. 48.

Vers. 51—55. The cities of the remaining Kohathites; cf. Josh, xxi. 20-26. For rinBWSKS we must read rinBBfcfo, for the preposition IP gives no suitable sense: it is never used to introduce a subject. The sense is, " as regards the families of the sons of Kohath, the cities of their dominion in the tribe of Ephraim were (the following). They gave them." The plur. EPpsn ny instead of the sin^., as in ver. 42. As to the four cities of the tribe of Ephraim, vers. 52, 53, see on Josh. xxi. 21, 22, where instead of ^V^\>\ we find the name E^i?. Before ver. 54 a whole verse has been lost, which was as follows: a And of the tribe of Dan, Eltekeh and her pastures, Gibbethon and her pastures;" cf. Josh. xxi. 23. Then follows ver. 54, which contains the names of the two other cities of the tribe of Dan. In ver. 55 we have the names of the cities of half Manasseh, Aner and Bileam, i.e. Ibleam (Josh. xvii. 11), correctly given; but the names Taanach and Gath-rimmon in Josh. xxi. 25 are incorrect, and have been inserted through a transcriber's error, arising from the copyist's eye having wandered to the preceding verse. The singular nriQ^pp, ver. 55, is incorrect; and the plural rrtnSP E? is to be substituted (as in ver. 51). The words 'tt *xb rtriskfch are a subscription, which corresponds to 2\v WW in ver. 52.

Vers. 56-61. The cities of the Gershonites; cf. Josh. xxi. 27-33. "To the sons of Gershon (they gave) out of the family of the half-tribe of Manasseh, Golan and Ashtaroth:" see on Josh. xxi. 27. In ver. 57, tflg is a mistake for Pvv*P, Josh, xxi. 28 (see on Josh. xix. 20); in ver. 58, niDSCi for the more correct nioT, Josh. xxi. 29, a city which was also called rup"|7 Josh. xix. 21, or had been so called orimnallv: and &:y for D%||T5 (Josh.), as the city is called also in Josh. xix. 21. It cannot be determined whether U:v is a transcriber's error, or another name for D^HT^- In ver. 59, xtfo (which should perhaps be pointed?fti) is a contracted form of?Nf P, Josh. xxi. 30, xix. 26; and in ver. 60, ppin is probably an error for fli??n> Josh, xxi. 31, xix. 25, occasioned by its being confounded with PJ3H in the tribe of Naphtali, Josh. xix. 34. In ver. 61 the fact that Kadesh was a city of refuge is not mentioned, as it is in Josh, xxi. 32. Jten is a shortened form of IKVfiitsn, Josh. xxi. 32; for this city is called in Josh. xix. 35 ri^n? from the warm springs in the neighbourhood. Finally, Kirjathaim is contracted in Josh. xxi. 32 into prig.

Vers. 62-66. The cities of the Merarites; cf. Josh. xxi. 34-37. " To the sons of Merari the remaining," sc. Levites. In Josh, xxi. 34 it is more clearly put DW1 D!VP> ^or *ne remaining Merarites are not spoken of. What is intended to be said is, that the Merarites, alone of the Levites, are still to be mentioned. In the tribe of Zebulun, in ver. Q29 only two cities are named, Eimmon and Tabor, instead of the four — Jokneam, Karthah, Dimnah, and Nahalal — in Josh. xxi. 34. The first two names have been dropped out of our text, while fate"! corresponds to the njD'n of Joshua, but is a more correct reading, since fiisn occurs in Josh. xix. 13 among the cities of Zebulun, while fUttl is not mentioned; and "nan niust consequently correspond to the?WU in Joshua. Nahalal occurs in Josh. xix. 15 and in Judg. i. 30, in the form Nahalol, among the cities of Zebulun, and consequently seems to be the more correct name, but has not yet been pointed out with certainty, since its identification with Malul

(J»l*^), south-west from Nazareth, rests upon very slender foundation. Bertheau's conjecture that the name of the city has been dropped out, and that of a more exact description of its position, perhaps "tin n?D3 7D5 bv, Josh. xix. 12, only the last word has remained, is no more probable than that of Movers, that instead of the name of the city, only the neighbourhood in which the city lay, viz. Mount Tabor, is mentioned. — Vers. 63 and 64 are wanting in some editions of the book of Joshua, but are found in many mss. and in the oldest printed copies, and have been omitted only by an oversight; see on Josh. xxi. 30 f., note 2. As to the city Bezer, see on Deut. iv. 43; and concerning Jahzah, Kedemoth, Mephaath, vide on Josh. xiii. 18. — Ver. 65 f. For Eamoth in Gilead, a city of refuge (Josh. xxi. 36), and Mahanaim, see on Josh. xiii. 26; and for Heshbon and Jazer, on Num. xxi. 28, 32.

Vers. 1-5. Sons and families of Issachar. — Ver. 1. Instead of •^ti, we must certainly read *32, as in vers. 14, 30, or Vd*, as in ver. 20, chap. v. 11, and elsewhere. The ^J? has come into the text only by the recollection of the copyist having dwelt on the so frequently recurring "o^ in vi. 42, 46, 47, cf. vers. 48, 56, 62, for it is not possible to take? as the? of introduction, because the names of the sons follow immediately. The names of the four sons are given as in Num. xxvi. 23 f., while in Gen. xlvi. 13 the second is written njQ? and the third 3^; vide on Gen. loc. cit. — Ver. 2. The six sons of Tola are not elsewhere met with in the Old Testament. They were " heads of their fathers'-houses of Tola." yhbh after &r»:i« mi (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 Dnftpin? should be connected with 7^n "Hiaa. DnnpiDp belongs to the following: u (registered) according to their births, they numbered in the days of David 22,600." The suffixes a— do not refer to tfBfci, but to the ntoKTTftj^ the fathers'-houses, the males in which amounted to 22,600 souls. As David caused the people to be numbered by Joab (2 Sam.xxiv.; 1 Chron. xxi.), this statement probably rests on the results of that census. — Ver. 3. From Uzzi, the first-born of Tola, are descended through Izrahiah five men, all heads of groups of related households (ver. 4); u 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 vers. 3, 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 ver. 2 in the time of David. By that time the descendants of his grandson Izrahiah might have increased to the number given in ver. 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 vers. 2, 4) refer to the same time, i.e. to the days of David, is manifest from ver. 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 (ver. 2) and the 36,000 (ver. 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. i. 29, 54,400; and at a later time, according to Num. xxvi. 25, already numbered 64,300 men.

Vers. 6—11. Sons and families of Benjamin. — In ver. 6 only three sons of Benjamin — Bela, Becher, and Jediael — are mentioned; and in vers. 7-11 their families are registered. Besides these, there are five sons of Benjamin spoken of in chap. viii. 1, 2, — Bela the first, Ashbel the second, Aharah the third, Nohah the fourth, and Kapha the fifth; while in vers. 3-5 five other D^a are enumerated, viz. TiH, fcOji (twice), \0W, I^Btr, and D"vin. If we compare here the statements of the Pentateuch as to the genealogy of Benjamin, we find in Gen. xlvi. 21 the following sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi Qm) and Kosh, Muppim and Huppim and Ard (*ns); and in Num. xxvi. 38—40 seven families, of which five are descended from his sons Bela, Ashbel, Ahiram, Shephupham, and Hupham (BBin); and two from his grandsons, the sons of Bela, Ard and Naaman. From this we learn, not only that of the 0^2 mentioned in Gen. xlvi. 21 at least two were grandsons, but also that the names *nx and D*Bt? (Gen.) are only other forms of D^nK and DB1BK* (Num.). It is, however, somewhat strange that among the families (in Num.) the names "03, fcOl, and trsi are wanting. The explanation which at once suggests itself, that their descendants were not numerous enough to form separate families, and that they on that account were received into the families of the other sons, though it may be accepted in the case of Gera and Kosh, of whom it is nowhere recorded that they had numerous descendants, cannot meet the case of Becher, for in vers. 8 and 9 of our chapter mention is made of nine sons of his, with a posterity of 20,200 men. The supposition that the name of Becher and his family has been dropped from the genealogical register of the families in Num. xxvi., will not appear in the slightest degree probable, when we consider the accuracy of this register in other respects. The only remaining explanation therefore is, that the descendants of Becher were in reality not numerous enough to form a nriQB>p by themselves, but had afterwards so increased that they numbered nine fathers'-houses, with a total of 20,200 valiant warriors. The numbers in our register point unquestionably to post-Mosaic times; for at the second numbering by Moses, all the families of Benjamin together numbered only 45,600 men (Num. xxvi. 41), while the three families mentioned in our verses number together 59,434 (22,034 + 20,200 + 17,200). The tribe of Benjamin, which moreover was entirely destroyed, with the exception of 600 men, in the war which it waged against the other tribes in the earlier part of the period of the judges (Judg. xx. 47), could not have increased to such an extent before the times of David and Solomon. The name of the third son of Benjamin, Jediael, occurs only here, and is considered by the older commentators to be another name of Ashbel (Gen. xlvi. 21 and Num. xxvi. 38), which cannot indeed be accepted as a certainty, but is very probable.— Ver. 7. The five heads of fathers'-houses called sons of Bela are not sons in the proper sense of the word, but more distant descendants, who, at the time when this register was made up, were heads of the Hve groups of related households of the race of Bela. Dyjn *Tfi33 is synonymous with TJ] *1J3?, ver. 9, and is a plural, formed as if from a nomen compositum, which arose after the frequent use of the words as they are bound together in the status constructus had obscured the consciousness of the relation between them. — Ver. 8. Becher's descendants. Of these nine names there are two, riinay and A^-V? which occur elsewhere as names of cities (cf. for nppy in the form riEpy, vi. 45; and for ftinjSg, Josh. xxi. 18, Isa. x. 30, Jer. i. 1). We may, without doubt, accept the supposition that in these cases the cities received their names from the heads of the families according to their generations," viz. according to the generations, that is, the birth-lists, u of the heads of their fathers'- houses, is (amounts to) in valiant heroes 20,200 men." — Ver. 10 f. Among the descendants of Jediael we find Benjamin and Ehud, the first of whom is named after the patriarch; but the second is not the judge Ehud (Judg. iii. 15), who was indeed a Benjamite, but of the family of Gera. Chenaanah does not necessarily indicate a Canaanite family. Tharshish, which is elsewhere a precious stone, is here the name of a person; Ahishahar, that is, Brother of the Dawn, perhaps so named because sub auroram natus. — In ver. 11 the expression is contracted, as often happens in formulae which frequently recur; and the meaning is, " All these are sons of Jediael (for as sons of Bilhan the son of Jediael, they are at the same time sons of the latter), (registered) according to the heads of their fathers'-houses, valiant heroes 17,200, going forth in the host to war." niaKn Wi is contracted from ntafcOTa *hn vide on Ex. vi. 25; and the? before ^^"J, which Bertheau from a misinterpretation wishes to remove, depends upon the E^HTin (ver. 9) to be supplied in thought.

Ver. 12 is unintelligible to us. The first half, " And Shuppim and Huppim, sons of Ir," would seem, if we may judge from the) cop., to enumerate some other descendants of Benjamin. And besides, (1) the names Q^sm D*QD occur in Gen. xlvi. 21 among those of the sons of Benjamin, and in Num. xxvi. 39, among the families of Benjamin, one called '•DQ^ from DMtJJ, and another "'E^n from DDin^ are introduced; we must consequently hold D^BSD to be an error for &S^ or D2^. And (2) the name "V? is most probably identical with ^yv in ver. 7. The peculiar forms of those names, viz. DSrri D££>? seem to have arisen from an improper comparison of them with D^S^p t^Qnp in ver. 15, in which the fact was overlooked that the Huppim and Shuppim of ver. 15 belong to the Manassites. Here, therefore, two other families descended from the Benjamite Ir or Iri would seem to be mentioned, which may. easily be reconciled with the purpose (ver. 6) to mention none of the Benjamites but the descendants of Bela, Becher, and Jediael. The further statement, " Hushim, sons of Aher," is utterly enigmatical. The name D*B>n is found in Gen. xlvi. 23 as that of Dan's only son, who, however, is called in Num. xxvi. 42 Drw, and who founded the family of the Shuhami. But as the names D*BJtfl and D^n are again met with in chap. viii. 8, 11 among the Benjamites, there is no need to imagine any connection between our Own and that family. The word "ins*, alius, is not indeed found elsewhere as a nomen proprium, but may notwithstanding be so here; when we might, notwithstanding the want of the conjunction 1, take the Hushim sons of Aher to be another Benjamite family. In that case, certainly, the tribe of Dan would be omitted from our chapter; but we must not allow that to lead us into arbitrary hypotheses, as not only Dan but also Zebulun is omitted.1

Ver. 13. The sons of Naphtali. — Only the sons of Naphtali are named, the families descended from them being passed over. The names correspond to those in Gen. xlvi. 24 and Num. xxv. 48 f., except that there the first is a^V'T., and the last a?W instead of tritf.

Vers. 14-19. Families of the half -tribe of Manasseh. — The families of Manasseh which dwelt in Gilead and Bashan have already been mentioned in chap. v. 23, 14. Our verses deal with the families of this tribe which received their inheritance in Canaan, on this side Jordan. These were, according to Num. xxvi. 30, 34, and Josh. xvii. 2, six families, of which, however, only two are here spoken of — Ashriel, ver. 14, and Shemidah, ver. 19; or perhaps three, if Abiezer, ver. 18, be the same person as Jeezer (Num. xxvi. 30), who is called Abiezer in Josh. xvii. 2. The statements

1 Bertheau's judgment in the matter is different. Starting from the facts that D^'n (Gen. xlvi. 27) is called a son of Dan, and that further, in the enumeration of the tribes in Gen. xlvi. and Num. xxvi., Dan follows after Benjamin; that in Gen. xlvi. Dan stands between Benjamin and Naphtali, and that in our chapter, in ver. 13, the sons of Naphtali follow immediately; and that the closing words of this verse, " sons of Bilhah," can, according to Gen. xlvi. 25, refer only to Dan and Naphtali, and consequently presuppose that Dan or his descendants have been mentioned in our passage, — he thinks there can be no doubt that originally Danites were mentioned in our verse, and that D£T! was introduced as the son of Dan. Moreover, from the word "irtN, " the other," he draws the further inference that it may have been, according to its meaning, the covert designation of a man whose proper name fear, or dislike of some sort, prevented men from using, and was probably a designation of the tribe of Dan, which set up its own worship, and so separated itself from the congregation of Israel; cf. Judg. xvii. f. The name is avoided, he says, in our chapter, in chap. vi. 46 and 54, and is named only in chap. ii. 2 among the twelve tribes of Israel, and in chap. xii. 35. The conjecture, therefore, is forced upon us, that ipik p D$n, " Hushim the son of the other," viz. of the other son of Bilhah, whose name he wished to pass over in concealed the tribe of Dan, that later readers did not mark the new commencement, notwithstanding the want of the conjunction, and had no scruple in adding the well-known names of the Bcnjamites, DD^J and DDn, to the similarly-sounding Q^'n, though probably at first only in the margin. This hypothesis has no solid foundation. The supposed dislike to mention the name of Dan rests upon an erroneous imagination, as is manifest from the thrice repeated mention of that name, not merely in chap. ii. 2 and xii. 35, of vers. 14 and 15 are very obscure. At the head of the register of the Manassites stands Ashriel, who, according to Num. xxvi. 31, belonged to the sons of Gilead the son of Manasseh and the grandson of Joseph (cf. Gen. 1. 23), and founded one of the six families of the cis-Jordanic Manassites. But the words which follow are obscure; the words are 'ttl m?* "icste " whom his Aramaic concubine bore; she bore Machir the father of Gilead." But since Ashriel, according to this, was the great-grandson of Manasseh, while Machir was his son, the relative clause can refer only to Manasseh, to whom his concubine bore Machir. Movers and Berth, would therefore erase?^i^X, as a gloss arising out of a doubling of the following 7» i&JW. By this expedient the difficulty as to the connection of the relative clause is certainly got rid of, but the obscurities of the following verse (15) are not thereby removed. The analogy of the other registers in our chapter requires, rather, that immediately after n#:» ^2- there should stand the name of a descendant, — a fact which speaks but also in chap, xxvii. 22. The omission of the tribe of Dan in chap. vi. 46, 54, is only the result of a corruption of the text in these passages; for in ver. 46 the words, " Ephraim and of the tribe of Dan," and after yer. 54 a whole verse, have been dropped out in the copying. In neither of these verses can there be any idea of omitting the name Dan because of a dislike to mention it, for in ver. 46 the name Ephraim is lacking, and in ver. 54 the names of two cities are also omitted, where even Berth, cannot suppose any "dislike." When Berth, quotes Judg. xviii. 30 in favour of his concealment hypothesis, where under the Keri nt£0D the name nt^D is supposed to be concealed, he has forgotten that the opinion that in this passage njjfo has been altered into nC'JD from a foolish dislike, is one of the rabbinic caprices, which we cannot attribute as a matter of course to the authors of the biblical writings. With this groundless suspicion falls of itself the attempt which he bases upon it " to solve the enigma of our verse." If the words in question do really contain a remark concerning the family of Dan, we must suppose, with Ewal.d (Gescli. i. S. 242), that the text has become corrupt, several words having been dropped out. Yet the nr6l *J3 at the end of ver. 13 is not sufficient to warrant such a supposition. Had the register originally contained not only the sons of Naphtali, but also the sons of Dan, so that nr&l *03 would have to be referred to both, the conj.) could not have been omitted before ^pfipD *J3. The want of this conjunction is, however, in conformity with the whole plan of our register, in which all the tribes follow, one after the other, without a conjunction; cf. vers. 6, 14, 30. 1 is found only before D"HSK ^2, ver. 20, because Ephraim and Manasseh are closely connected, both continuing to form the one tribe of Joseph. We must accordingly hold 'pjj "02, ver. 13, without 1 cop., to have been the original reading, when the conjecture that ~W2 "03 includes also the sons of Dan is at once disposed of.

strongly in favour of the authenticity of /&0"]5pK. It is therefore a much more probable suggestion, that after the name TWifett, some additional clause, such as nt5bO-|3j has been dropped, or regarded as superfluous by a copyist, and so omitted. To such an omitted iTOD p, the relative sentence, which gives more details as to the descent of Ashriel, would be attached in a simple and natural manner, since it was known from Num. xxvi. 30 f. that Ashriel was descended from Manasseh through Gilead. — Ver. 15 is literally, u And Machir took a wife to Huppim and Shuppim, and the name of his sister was Maachah, and the name of the second Zelophehad." According to ver. 16, on the contrary, Maachah is the wife of Machir, and we should consequently expect to find in ver. 15 only the simple statement, " And Machir took a wife whose name was Maachah." From the words &zrl? royo innK DPI Dwi?l no meaning which harmonizes with the context can be obtained. Since p n$tf npb signifies " to take a wife for one" (cf. Judg. xiv. 2), we can only suppose that by the names Huppim and Shuppim Machir's sons are meant, to whom he, as their father, gave wives. But we cannot suppose that the sons of Machir are referred to, for the birth of the sons is first mentioned in ver. 16. But we have found the names DDH and DDK> spoken of as descendants of Benjamin; and Bertheau consequently conjectures that these names have been brought thence into our verse by some gloss, and that the beginning of our verse originally stood thus: r\J?nn inha oen rajjD rwi np'K npi> to»i, " And Machir took a wife whose name is Maachah, and the name of his sister is Hammoleketh" (the last according to ver. 18). By this means we certainly bring some meaning into the words; but we cannot venture to maintain that this conjecture corresponds to the original text, but rather incline to doubt it. For, in the first place, the following words, " And the name of the second (is) Zelophehad," do not suit the proposed reading. Berth, must here alter W'n into vntj (the name of his brother). But even after this alteration, the mention of the brother of Machir is not suitable to the context; and moreover Zelophehad was not a true brother, but only a nephew of Machir, the son of his brother Hepher; cf. Num. xxvi. 33, xxvii. 1. And besides this, according to the concluding formula, u These are the sons of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh" (ver. 17), we should expect to find in vers. 15, 16, not merely sons or descendants of Machir, but rather descendants of Gilead. We therefore hold the statement of ver. 15b, " And the name of the second is Zelophehad, and Zelophehad had (only) daughters," to be correct and beyond criticism, and the first part of ver. 15 to be corrupt and defective; and conjecture that a son of Gilead's was mentioned in it, to whose name the words, " And the name of the second," etc., belonged. This son who was mentioned in the text, which has been handed down to us only in a defective state, was probably the Ashriel mentioned in ver. 14, a son of Gilead, whose descent from Machir was given more in detail in the corrupt and consequently meaningless first half of ver. 15. In vers. 16, 17, other descendants of Machir by his wife Maachah are enumerated, which favours the probable conjecture that the wife whom Machir took, according to ver. 15, was different from Maachah, that Machir had two wives, and that in ver. 15 originally the sons of the first were enumerated, and in vers. 16, 17, the sons of the second. Peresh and Shelesh are mentioned only here. 1s^7 " his sons" (that is, the sons of the last-named, Shelesh), were Ulam and Kakem, names which are also met with only here. The name pT2 is found in our Masoretic text, 1 Sam. xii. 11, as the name of a judge, but probably P^ should be read instead. — Ver. 18. A third branch of the descendants of Gilead were descended from Machir's sister Hammoleketh, a name which the Vulgate has taken in an appellative sense. Of her sons, Ishod, i.e. " man of splendour," is not elsewhere mentioned. The name Abiezer occurs, Josh. xvii. 2, as that of the head of one of the families of Manasseh. In Num. xxvi. 30, however, he is called Jeezer, which is probably the original reading, and consequently our Abiezer is different from that in Josh. xvii. 2. Another circumstance which speaks strongly against the identification of the two men is, that the family descended from Jeezer holds the first place among the families of Manasseh, which is not at all consonant with the position of the son of Machir's sister here mentioned. Of the family of Abiezer came the judge Gideon, Judg. xi. 15. A daughter of Zelophehad is called Mahlah in Num. xxvi. 33, xxvii. 1, but she is not the person here mentioned. — Ver. 19. The sons of Shemida, the founder of the fourth family of the Manassites, Num. xxvi. 32. His four sons are nowhere else referred to, for MP, the founder of a family of the Manassites (Num. xxvi. 31 and Josh. xvii. 2), is to be distinguished from the Shechem of our verse; nor is there any greater reason to identify Likhi with Helek, Num. xxvi. 30 (Berth.), than there is for connecting OJ^K with njfy the daughter of Zelophehad, Num. xxvi. 33, Josh. xvii. 3.

Vers. 20-29. The families of Ephraim. — Ver. 20 f. Among the Ephraimites, the descendants of Shuthelah, the founder of one of the chief families of this tribe, Num. xxvi. 35, are traced down through six generations to a later Shuthelah. The names IjAfcfl "W which follow foa rbrm. « And his son Shuthelah,'' after which \y% is wanting, are not to be considered descendants of the second Shuthelah, but are heads of a family co-ordinate with that of Shuthelah, or of two fathers'-houses intimately connected with each other. These names are to be taken as a continuation of the list of the sons of Ephraim, which commenced with TPSW. The suffix in D^"JH1 refers to both these names: u The men of Gath, that were born in the land, smote Ezer and Elead." These a men born in the land " Ewald and Bertheau take to be the Avvites, the aboriginal inhabitants of that district of country, who had been extirpated by the Philistines emigrating from Caphtor (Deut. ii. 23). But there is no sufficient ground for this supposition; for no proof can be brought forward that the Avvseans (Avvites) had ever spread so far as Gath; and the Philistines had taken possession of the south-west part of Canaan as early as the time of Abraham, and consequently long before Ephraim's birth. " The men of Gath who were born in the land" are rather the Canaanite or Philistine inhabitants of Gath, as distinguished from the Israelites, who had settled in Canaan only under Joshua. " For they (Ezer and Elead) had come down to take away their cattle" (to plunder). The older commentators assign this event to the time that Israel dwelt in Egypt (Ewald, Gesch. i. S. 490), or even to the pre-Egyptian time. But Bertheau has, in opposition to this, justly remarked that the narratives of Genesis know nothing of a stay of the progenitors of the tribe of Ephraim in the land of Palestine before the migration of Israel into Egypt, for Ephraim was born in Egypt (Gen. xlvi. 20). It wrould be more feasible to refer it to the time of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, as it is not impossible that the Israelites may have undertaken predatory expeditions against Canaan from Goshen; but even this supposition is not at all probable. Certainly, if in vers. 23—27 it were said, as Ewald thinks, that Ephraim, after the mourning over the sons thus slain, became by his wife the father of three other sons, from the last named of whom Joshua was descended in the seventh generation, we should be compelled to refer the expedition to the pre-Egyptian period. But the opinion that Rephah and Resheph, ver. 25, were begotten only after that misfortune has no foundation Moreover, the statement that Ephraim, after he was comforted for the loss of his slain sons, went in unto his wife and begat a son, to whom he gave the name Beriah, because he was born in misfortune in his house, does not at ail presuppose that the patriarch Ephraim was still alive when Ezer and Elead were slain. Were that the case, the necessary result would of course be, that this event could only be referred to the time when the Israelites dwelt in Egypt. In opposition to this, Bertheau's remark that the event in that case would be per se enigmatical, as we would rightly have great hesitation in accepting the supposition of a war, or rather a plundering expedition to seize upon cattle carried out by the Ephraimites whilst they dwelt in Egypt, against the inhabitants of the Philistine city of Gath, is certainly not all decisive, for we know far too little about those times to be able to judge of the possibility or probability of such an expedition. The decision to which we must come as to this obscure matter depends, in the first place, on how the words 'W tfT|* *3 are to be understood; whether we are to translate u for they had gone," or u when they had gone down to fetch their cattle," i.e. to plunder. If we take the ^ as partic. ration., for, because, we can only take the sons of Ephraim, Ezer and Elead, for the subject of *T£, and we must understand the words to mean that they had gone down to carry off the cattle of the Gathites. In that case, the event would fall in the time when the Ephraimites dwelt in Canaan, and went down from Mount Ephraim into the low-lying Gath, for a march out of Egypt into Canaan is irreconcilable with the verb *hj. If, on the contrary, we translate W»t *3 " when they had gone down," we might then gather from the words that men of Gath went down to Goshen, there to drive away the cattle of the Ephraimites, in which case the Gathites may have slain the sons of Ephraim when they were feeding their cattle and defending them against the robbers. Many of the old commentators have so understood the words; but we cannot hold tins to be the correct interpretation, for it deprives the words u those born in the land," which stand in apposition to ria *1MK, of all meaning, since there can be absolutely no thought of men of Gath born in Egypt. We therefore take the words to mean, that the sons of Ephraim who are named in our verse attempted to drive away the cattle of the Gathites, and were by them slain in the attempt. But how can the statement that Ephraim after this unfortunate event begat another son, Beriah, be reconciled with such a supposition, since the patriarch Ephraim was dead long before the Israelites came forth out of Egypt? Bertheau understands the begetting figuratively, of the whole of the tribe of Ephraim, and would interpret the begetting of Beriah of the reception either of a Benjamite family into the tribe of Ephraim, or of a small Ephraimite family, which at first was not numbered with the others, into the number of the famous families of this tribe. But this straining of the words by an allegorical interpretation is not worthy of serious refutation, since it is manifestly only a makeshift to get rid of the difficulty. The words, " And Ephraim went in unto his wife, and she conceived and bare a son,'5 are not to be interpreted allegorically, but must be taken in their proper sense; and the solution of the enigma will be found in the name Ephraim. If this be taken to denote the actual son of Joseph, then the event is incomprehensible; but just as a descendant of Shuthelah in the sixth generation was also called Shuthelah, so also might a descendant of the patriarch Ephraim, living at a much later time, have received the name of the progenitor of the tribe; and if we accept this supposition, the event, with all its issues, is easily explained. If Ezer and Elead went down from Mount Ephraim to Gath, they were not actual sons of Ephraim, but merely later descendants; and their father, who mourned for their death, was not Ephraim the son of Joseph, who was born in Egypt, but an Ephraimite who lived after the Israelites had taken possession of the land of Canaan, and who bore Ephraim's name. He may have mourned for the death of his sons, and after he had been comforted for their loss, may have gone in unto his wife, and have begotten a son with her, to whom he gave the name Beriah, il because it was in misfortune in his house," i.e. because this son was born when misfortune was in his house. — Ver. 24. " And his daughter Sherah," the daughter of the above-mentioned Ephraim, a built Beth-horon the nether and the upper," the present Beit-Ur-Foka and Tachta (see on Josh. x. 10), " and Uzzen-sherah," a place not elsewhere referred to, which she probably founded, and which was called after her. The building of the two Beth-horons is merely an enlarging and fortifying of these towns. Sherah was probably an heiress, who had received these places as her inheritance, and caused them to be enlarged by her family. In vers. 25-27 the ancestors of Joshua the son of Nun, who brought Israel into the land ot Canaan, are enumerated. As the word fca is wanting after qeh, we must hold Eephah and Eesheph to be brothers, but we are not informed from which of the four Ephraimite stocks enumerated in Num. xxvi. 35 f. they were descended. lelan his son," Bertheau holds to be a son of Rephah. The name Tahan occurs in Num. xxvi. 35 as that of the founder of one ot the families of Ephraim; but he can hardly be identical with our Tahan, who was probably a son of that Tahan from whom an Ephraimite family descended. If this conjecture be correct, Joshua would be of the family of Tahan.-Ver. 26. Ehshama the son of Ammihud was a contemporary of Moses, JNum. i. iu, and prince of the tribe of Ephraim, Num. vii. 48, x. 22. fti (Non) is so pronounced only in this place; in the Pentateuch and in the book of Joshua it is ju (Nun).

In vers 28 and 29 the possessions and dwelling-places ot tbe tribe of Ephraim (and as we learn from the superscription, ver. 29s) also those of West Jordan Manasseh, are given, but in a very general way; only the chief places on the four sides being mentioned. Bethel, now Beitin, on the frontier of the: tribal domains of Benjamin and Ephraim (Josh. xv.. 2, xvm. lo), and assigned to the tribe of Benjamin (Josh, xviii. 22), is here mentioned as an Ephraimite city on the southern frontier of he Ephraimite territory, as it belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes; whence we gather that this register was prepared after that kingdom had come into existence. As to its position, see on Josh vii. 2. Her daughters are the smaller villages which belonged to Bethel. Naaran, without doubt the same place which is called in Josh. xvi. 17 nrng? (with n loc), is the eastern frontier city lying to the north-east of Jericho; see on Josh xv. 7 "And westward Gezer," according to Josh. xvi. 13, lying between Beth-horon and the sea (see on Josh.. x. 33), is the frontier city on the south-west; and Shechem and Avvah (TO), with their daughters, are places which mark the boundary on the north-west. As to 0#, Shechem, the present Nabulus see on Josh. xvii. 7. Instead of TO, most of the editions o the Bible a«ree with LXX. and Vulg. and Chald. in having TO but not the Philistine Gaza: it is only an error of the transcribers and printers, as all the more accurate mss. and the better printed copies have my; see De Rossi, Varice Lectt. ad 7i. L The locality TO or n>y is certainly met with nowhere else, but, if we may judge by Josh. xvi. 6 and xvii. 17, is to be sought not far from Shechem in a north-western direction, perhaps on the site of the there mentioned Michmethah, the position of which has, however, not yet been ascertained. — Ver. 29. According to Josh. xvii. 11, the Manassites had received the four cities here named, lying within the territory of Issachar and Asher. This is attested also by 'd *M *TT%1) t° the hands, i.e. in possession of the sons of Manasseh. As to its position, see Josh. xvii. 11. These cities formed the boundaries on the extreme north, of the dwellings " of the sons of Joseph," i.e. of the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.

Vers. 30-40. The sons and several families of Asher. — Ver. 30. The names of the four sons of Asher and that of their sister coincide with the statement of Gen. xlvi. 17; but in Num. xxvi. 44-47, on the contrary, the name Ishuai does not occur among the families of Asher. — Ver. 31. The sons of Beriah, Heber and Malchiel, are also to be found in Gen. xlvi. 17 and Num. xxvi. 45 as the heads of two families; but the further statement, " he (i.e. Malchiel) the father of Birzavith," is found only here. How mro, the Kethibh, is to be pronounced, cannot be with certainty determined. Gesen. in Thes. p. 239 makes it J"riP3, and considers the word to be the name of a woman; Bertheau, on the contrary, conjectures that it is a compound of "Q=:"W3 and JVT, "well of the olive-tree," and so the name of a place. In vers. 32-34 the descendants of Heber are enumerated in three generations, which are mentioned nowhere else. In ver. 32 we have four sons and one daughter. The name tt?3* is not to be connected with W2>!!, Josh. xvi. 3, "because a family of Asher is not to be sought for in the neighbourhood there referred to" (Berth.). In ver. 33 we have four sons of Japhlet, and in ver. 34 the sons of his brother Shemer. It is somewhat remarkable that 1$^, ver. 32, is called here TO#. '•nx is not an appellative, but a proper name, as the i before the following name shows; cf. another Ahi in v. 15. For fiarp we should read nam. — Vers. 35-39. Descendants of Helem — in ver. 35 sons, in vers. 36-38 grandsons. As Helem is called VfiK, "his brother" (i.e. the brother of the Shemer mentioned in ver. 34), D?n would seem to be the third son of Heber, who is called in ver. 32 Drnn. If so, one of the two names must have resulted from an error in transcription;

but it is now impossible to determine which is the original and correct form of the name. Eleven names are introduced as those of the sons of Zophah (vers. 36, 37); and in ver. 38 we have, besides, three sons of Jether ("^J), who is called in ver. 38 PTH\ In ver. 39 there follow three names, those of the sons of Ulla; on which Bertheau rightly remarks, the whole character of our enumeration would lead us to conjecture that K?J> had already occurred among the preceding names, although we find neither this name nor any similar one, with which it might be identified, in the preceding list. — Ver. 40 contains a comprehensive concluding statement as to the descendants of Asher: " All these (those just mentioned by name) were heads of fathers'- houses, chosen valiant heroes (By£j, as in ver. 5), chief of the princes," Vulg. duces ducum, i.e. probably leaders of the larger divisions of the army, under whom were other DWfctt. " And their genealogical register is for service of the host in war," i.e. was prepared with reference to the men capable of bearing arms, and had not, like other registers, reference to the number of inhabitants of the various localities; cf. ix. 22. It amounted to 26,000 men. According to Num. i. 41, Asher numbered 41,500, and according to Num. xxvi. 47, 53,000 men. But we must observe that the number given in our verse is only that of the men capable of bearing arms belonging to one of the greater families of Asher, the family of Heber, of which alone a register had been preserved till the time of the chronicler.

The families of Benjamin enumerated in this chapter were probably separated from those in chap. vii. 6-11, merely on the ground that all the registers which are grouped together in chap, vii. were taken from another genealogical document than that from which the registers in our chapter, which form a supplement to the short fragments in chap. vii. 6-11, have been derived.

Vers. 1-5. The sons of Benjamin and Bela. — The manner in which the five sons begotten by Benjamin are enumerated is remarkable, aBela his first-born, Ashbel the second," etc., since, according to Gen. xlvi. 21, after the first-born Bela, Becher follows as the second son, and Ashbel is the third; while Aharah, Nohah, and Kapha are not met with there, quite other names occupying their place. In rnPJN we can easily recognise the D*ynK of Num. xxvi. 38, whence the enumeration in ver. 1 f. harmonizes with the order in Num. xxvi. 38. It is therefore clear, that in our genealogy only those sons are mentioned who founded thefamilies of Benjamin. The names nnfo and KB"} are nowhere else met with among the sons of Benjamin; but we may conclude, partly from the agreement of the first three names with the heads of the families of Benjamin enumerated in Num. xxvi. 38, and partly from the agreement as to the number, which is five in both passages, that nnu and KB"} are intended to correspond to the DBlBtP and BB^n of Num. xxvi. 39. The only question which then remains is, whether the variation in the names arises from these two sons of Benjamin having had different names, or from the families which issued from Shephupham and Hupham having afterwards perhaps received new names from famous chiefs, instead of the original designations, so that Nohah and Kapha would be later descendants of Shephupham and Hupham. Even this second supposition seems possible, since Tyin in such genealogical registers may denote mediate procreation. If, e.g.y Nohah were a grandson or great-grandson of Shephupham the son of Benjamin, he might well be introduced in the genealogical lists of the families as begotten by Benjamin. — Vers. 3-5. The sons of Bela. Of the six names borne by these sons, N"}3 is twice met with; \VV}_ is found in Gen. xlvi. 21 as the son, and in Num. xxvi. 40 as grandson of Benjamin; |MK> is another form of DB1B£>, Num. xxvi. 39; and D"Vin may be a transcriber's error for DBin; Num. xxvi. 39, just as TW probably stands for TIK, Gen. xlvi. 21. The occurrence of the name Gera would be incomprehensible only if D*33 denoted sons in the narrower sense of the word: but if 0^3 are sons in the wider sense, i.e. descendants who founded fathers' -houses (groups of related households), two cousins might have the same name. In that case, Addar, Shephuphan, and Huram also may be different persons from Ard, Shephupham, and Hupham. Abihud and Abishua are met with as descendants of Benjamin only here, and HiriK ma}' be connected with njn**, ver. 7.

Vers. G, 7. Sons of Ehud. — The descent of Ehud from the sons, grandsons, and descendants of Benjamin, enumerated in vers. 1-5, is not given. The names of Ehud's sons follow only at the end of the 7th verse, " And he begat Uzza and Ahihud," while the intermediate clauses contain historical remarks. These sons were u heads of fathers' -houses of the inhabitants of Geba," i.e. Geba of Benjamin (1 Sam. xiii. 16), the Levite city, vi. 45, which still remains as the half -ruinous village Jeba, about three leagues to the north of Jerusalem; see on Josh, xviii. 24. "And they led them captive to Manahath, viz, Naaman and Ahiah and Gera, this man led them captive." The subject to BIW are the men mentioned in the following verse, while the wn which follows shows that, of the three above mentioned, the last, Gera, was the author of their captivity. The place Manahath is not known, but is conjectured to be connected with Hazi-Hammanahti and Hazi-Hammenuhoth, ii. 54 and 52; but we cannot ascertain with certainty whether the name denotes a city or a district, and the situation of it has not yet been discovered. Of the hostile collision of these Benjamite families also, no more detailed accounts have come down to us.

Vers. 8-12. The descendants of Shaharaim. — The descent of Sbaharaim from the sons and grandsons named in vers. 1-3 is obscure, and the conjecture which connects him with Ahishahar of chap. vii. 10 is unsupported. He was the father of a considerable number of heads of f athers'-houses, whom his two or three wives bore to him. According to ver. 8, he begat " in the country of Moab after he had sent them, Hushim and Baara his wives, away; (ver. 9) there begat he with Hodesh his wife, Jobab," etc. When and how Shaharaim, a Benjamite, came into the country of Moab, is not known; all that can be gathered from our verse is that he must have lived there for a considerable time, inp^ is injin. Pi., the " i" being retained, and the Daghesh forte omitted with Sheva (cf. as to this formation, Ew. § 238, d). &AN, accus. of the pronoun, which, as it precedes its noun, is in gen. masc., although the names of women follow (cf. for this use of the pronoun, Ew. § 309, c). D^n and n"TO are women, as we learn from the following VB>3. By this parenthesis, the beginning of the main sentence has been lost sight of, and the TWn is taken up again in W}. As to "tyin with |E>, cf. the remark on ii. 8. EH.n is the third wife, which he took instead of those he had sent away. The seven names in vers. 9, 10 are grouped together as sons or descendants of the last-named wife, by the concluding remark, " These his sons are heads of fathers'-houses." Then, further, in vers. 11, 12, the sons and grandsons of the first (divorced) wives, one of whom built the cities Ono and Lydda, are enumerated; but we have no means of determining whether the n:3 Wri refers to Shemer, the last mentioned, or to Elpaal the father of the three sons, Eber, and Misham, and Shemer. It would, however, naturally suggest itself, that the words referred to the first. *6 (Lod) is without doubt the city Lydda, where Peter healed the paralytic (Acts ix. 32 ff.). It belonged in the Syrian age to Samaria, but it was added to Judea by the King Demetrius Soter, and given to Jonathan for a possession (1 Mace, xi. 34, cf. with x. 30, 38). In the Jewish war it was destroyed by the Roman general Cestius (Joseph, de Bell. Jud. ii. 19. 1), but was rebuilt at a later time, and became the site of a toparchy of Judea. In still later times it was called Diospolis, but is now a considerable Mohammedan village, lying between Jafa and Jerusalem to the north of Ramleh, which bears the old name Ludd, by the Arabs pronounced also Lidd. See v. Raumer, Pal. S. 10; Robins. Pal. sub voce; and Tobler, Dritte Wanderung,. S. 69 f. Ono is mentioned elsewhere only in Ezra ii. 33, Neh. vii. 37 and xi. 35, along with Lod, and must have been a place in the neighbourhood of Lydda.

Vers. 13-28. Heads of father £ -houses of the tribe of Benjamin, who dwelt partly in Aijalon (ver. 13) and partly in Jerusalem. — Their connection with the heads of fathers'-houses already mentioned is not clear. The names VftW] nynn might be taken for a fuller enumeration of the sons of Elpaal (ver. 12), were it not that the names enumerated from ver. 14 or 15 onwards, are at the end of ver. 16 said to be those of sons of Beriah; whence we must conclude that with W1?S ver. 13, a new list of heads of Benjamite fathers'-houses begins. This view is supported by the fact that the names from ver. 14 or 15 to ver. 27 are divided into five groups of families: the sons of Beriah (ver. 16), of Elpaal (ver. 18), of Shimhi (ver. 21), of Shashak (ver. 25), and of Jeroham (ver. 27). But as two of these, Beriah and Shashak, occur in vers. 13, 14, and tytop is probably another form of VP^, Bertheau conjectures that the last two names, Shashak and Jeroham, are represented by ^nx and rrtBH£ (ver. 14). Brrv and ntonj may be explained by the supposition of a transcriber's error, or by one person having two names; but the wTord i^nx is rendered by the LXX. by o a8e\(/>o? avrov (== vnx); and the view that vriK is a nom. prop., is opposed, as in ver. 31, by the fact that the 1 cop. is not found before the following PW, for here, throughout, the names are all connected with each other by the 1 cop. Bertheau therefore conjectures that the text originally ran thus, PW) "Prix?ys?si? and that the name Elpaal was dropped out; and that in consequence of that, vnx had been punctuated as a nom. prop. These conjectures seem satisfactory, especially as it may be adduced in their favour that VnK has been added to the name Elpaal to connect the names in ver. 14 with the enumeration (ver. 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 ver. 13, we should expect an introductory formula, as in ver. 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 Josh. xix. 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 chap. vii. 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. vii. 30 with Gen. xlvi. 17. The notion that the Benjamites Beriah and Shema defeated those inhabitants of Gath who had slain the sons of Ephraim (vii. 21) is quite unsupported, as the Philistines lived at war and in feud with the Israelites for hundreds of years. — Vers. 15, 16. Several of the names of these six sons of Beriah who are mentioned in our verse occur elsewhere, but nowhere else are they met with as sons of Beriah. — Vers. 17, 18. Bertheau would identify three of the sons of Elpaal — Meshullam, Heber, and Ishmerai — with Misham, Eber, and Shemer, ver. 12, but without any sufficient reason; for it is questionable if even the Elpaal whose sons are named in our verses be the same person as the Elpaal mentioned in ver. 12. Of these descendants of Elpaal, also, nothing further is known, and the same may be said of the nine sons of Shimhi, vers. 19-21; of the eleven sons of Shashak, vers. 22-25; and of the six sons of Jeroham, vers. 26, 27, although some of these names are met with elsewhere singly. The concluding remark, ver. 28, " These are heads of fathers' -houses," refers, without doubt, to all the names from ver. 15 or 14 to ver. 27. "According to their generations— heads" is in apposition to the preceding, as in ix. 24, but the meaning of the apposition is doubtful. The word IW&O can hardly be repeated merely for emphasis, as the old commentators understood it, in harmony with the Vulgate principes inquam^ for why should this word be so emphasized? Bertheau thinks that "according to their births — heads" is to be taken to mean that those who are enumerated by name are not the heads living at the time of the preparation of this register, but the individual families, with the name of their progenitor after whom they were named in the genealogical lists. But how this meaning can be found in the words in question, I at least cannot understand. Can the individual families be called AUK *KW, u heads of fathers'- houses"? The families are the fathers'-houses themselves, i.e. they are made up of the groups of related households comprehended under the name fathers'-houses. These groups of related households have, it is true, each of them their head, but cannot possibly be themselves called heads. The meaning seems rather to be that the persons named in the family registers, or registers of births, are introduced as heads (of fathers'-houses); and the reason why this is remarked would seem to be, to prevent those who are enumerated as the sons of this or that man from being regarded simply as members of fathers'-houses. The further remark, a these dwelt in Jerusalem," is manifestly not to be taken to mean that the heads alone dwelt there, while the households that were subordinated to them lived elsewhere; for it signifies that they dwelt in Jerusalem with the households which composed their respective fathers'-houses. That the households dwelt there also is not stated, merely because the register contains only the names of the heads.

Vers. 29-40. Tke genealogy of Saul. — Vers. 29-38 recur in chap. ix. 35-44 (see on that passage). — Vers. 29-32. The ancestors of Saul. They dwelt mainly in Gibeon, but a branch of them were settled in Jerusalem, ver. 32 f. In Gibeon, now El Jib, two hours north-west from Jerusalem (see on Josh ix. 3), dwelt the father of Gibeon, with his wife and his sons. The plural tt&jj is used because there dwelt there, besides the father of Gibeon, also his wife and his sons. The father, i.e. the lord and possessor of Gibeon, was called, according to ix. 35, Jehiel (%T!j Keth. ^KIJP), and his wife Maachah, a not uncommon female name (see on ii. 48). The descent of Jehiel from Benjamin is not given. In ver. 30 eight names are given as those of his sons, while in ix. 36 f. ten are mentioned, the latter statement being correct; for a comparison of the two passages shows that in our verse two names have been dropped out, — Ner between Baal and Nadab, and Mikloth at the end, which must have originally stood in our register also, — for in vers. 32, 33 their descendants are mentioned. "OT is called in ix. 37 rrn3T. These names are evidently those of actual sons of Jehiel who were progenitors of fathers'-houses (groups of related households), but in the case of only two is the race descended from these further noticed. In ver. 32 we have that of the youngest Mikloth, who begat Shimeah, called in ix. 38 Shimeam. These also (viz. Shimeah and his family) dwelt in Jerusalem BJ5K 123, u before their brethren," i.e. over against them, and Er^nx D?, "with their brethren." The brethren are the other Benjamites in the first clause, those dwelling outside of Jerusalem and inhabiting the neighbouring country as far as Gibeon (ver. 30); in the second, those dwelling in Jerusalem (ver. 28). From this it is clear that of the descendants of Abi-Gibeon only that branch which was descended from Mikloth went to Jeusalem. — Ver. 33. The family of Ner. Ner begat Kish, and Kish Saul. According to 1 Sam. ix. 1 and xiv. 51, Kish was a son of Abiel. This statement, on account of which Bertheau proposes to make alterations in the text, may be reconciled with that in our verses, by the simple supposition that in our verse intermediate names mentioned in 1 Sam. ix. 1, and probably others besides, are passed over, and Ner the son of Abi-Gibeon is named only because he was the progenitor of the line by which Saul was descended from him. Saul (7iK£>) is King Saul. Only three of his four sons, 1 Sam. xiv. 49, are mentioned, — those, namely, who fell with him in the battle against the Philistines, 1 Sam. xxxi. 2. The second is called, in 1 Sam. xiv. 49, Ishui, but in xxxi. 2 Abinadab, as in our register, whence we gather that Ishui is another name for Abinadab. The fourth, Eshbaal, is the same who is called in 2 Sam. ii. 8, and elsewhere, Ishbosheth, who was set up as king in opposition to David by Abner (see on 2 Sam. ii. 8). — Ver. 34. Jonathan's sons and grandsons. His son is called here and in ix. 40 Meribbaal, while in 2 Sam. iv. 4, ix. 6, xvi. 1 h°., xix. 25, he is called Mephibosheth, because the name " striver with Baal" has been changed into W2SSD, exterminans idolum. This Meribbaal, who was lame in his feet (cf. 2 Sam. iv. 4), had a son Micha (p^ty in 2 Sam. ix. 12 written N?"*?), of whom came a numerous race. He had four sons (ver. 35), and the family of the last-named of these (Ahaz) is traced down, in vers. 36-40, through ten generations to the great-grandson of Eshek. First it is traced from Ahaz to Alemeth (ver. 36); then through Zimri, brother of this latter, to Binea, by Twl; then further by fas (his son) to Azel, of whom in ver. 38 six sons are enumerated; and finally, in ver. 39, the sons of his brother Eshek are named, and the sons and grandsons of the first-born of this latter are then enumerated. The last two verses are wanting after ix. 44. The names in the two registers correspond, except at one point, where we cannot get rid of the discrepancy that for rnjJiiT (ver. 36) there stands in ix. 42 rnjP both times, probably through an error of transcription, by which out of the shortened form iTJJP there arose mjr, 1 and "i being interchanged. Besides this, instead of the JH.Nfi of ver. 35, we have in ix. 41, according to the harder pronunciation of the gutturals, JTinn; and for nB"i? ver. 37, we have in ix. 41 the longer original form »^?1. Now since Ahaz, whose posterity is traced down to the tenth generation, was descended from Jonathan in the third generation, and his grandfather Mephibosheth was a boy of five years of age at the death of Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. iv. 4), the grandsons of Ulam, mentioned in ver. 40, will be the thirteenth generation of Jonathan's descendants. Now Jonathan fell along with Saul in the year 1055 B.C. (see the chronological table of the period of the judges, p. 217), and consequently this thirteenth generation of Jonathan's descendants lived probably about 700 B.C., i.e. about 100 years before the Babylonian exile; for, according to the analogy of the royal race of David, we cannot reckon more than twenty-five years on an average for each generation.1 — Ver. 40.

1 Bertheau holds a contrary opinion to that given in the text, and thinks that by the numerous sons and grandsons of Ulam the son of Eshek we are brought down to post-exilic times, seeing that if Saul lived abont 1080 B.C., and thirty years are reckoned to each one of the thirteen generations (Eshek being a descendant of Saul in the thirteenth generation), Azel and Eshek must have lived about 690 B.C. But this estimate is too high, for we cannot reckon sixty years to Saul and Jonathan from 1080 onwards, since Jonathan fell along with Saul in 1055, and his son Meribbaal was then hardly five years old, and must consequently have been born in 10C0. For the following

The sons of Ulam are called valiant heroes and archers, and must have shown the same capability for war by which the tribe of Benjamin had been distinguished at an earlier time; cf. Jud<*. xx. 16, and for T)W? W\ cf. 1 Chron. v. 16. The subscription 'O n?X"73 refers back to the superscription in ver. 1, and binds all the names in our chapter together.

Vers. 1-3 form the transition from the genealogies to the enumeration of the former inhabitants of Jerusalem in vers. 4-34. — Ver. 1. "And all the Israelites were registered; and, behold, they were written in the book of the kings of Israel, and Judah was led away to Babylon for her transgressions." The LXX. and Vulg. have erroneously connected TTW) with the preceding words, and render, " in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah," and then have translated the following words 'til wjn arbitrarily. Not less incorrect is Bertheau's opinion, that Israel here denotes only the tribes of the northern kingdom, because Israel is contrasted with Judah, and kings of Israel are spoken of, for both reasons are quite worthless. " The book of the kings of Israel" is cited in 2 Chron. xx. 34 (cf. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 18), and is declared by Bertheau himself to be identical with the historical work cited as the " book of the kings of Israel and Judah" (2 Chron. xxvii. 7, xxxv. 27, xxxvi. 8), or as the "book of the kings of Judah and Israel" (2 Chron. xvi. 11, xxv. 26, and elsewhere). How then can it be inferred from the shortened title, " book of the kings of Israel," that kings of the northern kingdom are spoken of? Then, as to the contrast between Israel and Judah, it might, when looked at by itself, be adduced in favour of taking the name in its narrower sense; but when we generations, moreover, not more than twenty-five years on an average should be reckoned. That being the case, the children's children of Ulam's sons, who were the twelfth generation of Micha's descendants, may have lived from 760 B.C. onwards, and during this period, from 760 to 700, may have increased to the troop of blooming grandchildren of Ulam mentioned in ver. 40. But even supposing that thirty years should be reckoned for each generation, the last-named generation of 150 grandsons and great-grandsons of Ulam would have lived in the period from 660 to 600, i.e. before the exile, or at least before the first great deportation of the people with Jehoiakim in the year 599 B.C.* consider the grouping together in ver. 10 of " Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the Nethinim," we see clearly that Israel in ver. 2 incontrovertibly denotes the whole Israel of the twelve tribes. In ver. 1, Israel is used in the same sense as in ver. 2; and the contrast between Israel and Judah, therefore, is analogous to the contrast " Judah and Jerusalem," i.e. Israel is a designation of the whole covenant people, Judah that of one section of it. The position of our verse also at the end of the genealogies of all the tribes of Israel, and not merely of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom, requires that the name Israel should be understood to denote the whole covenant people. That ver. 1 forms the transition from the genealogies to the enumeration of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and so is properly the conclusion of the genealogies in chap, ii.-viii., is so manifest that Bertheau cannot adduce a single tenable ground for his assertion to the contrary, that " the verse forms clearly quite a new beginning." For the assertion, "We recognise in it a short introduction to the historical statements regarding the tribe of Judah or the Israelites after the exile," cannot be adduced in support of his view, since it not only contradicts his former assertion that Israel here denotes the northern kingdom, but is also irreconcilable with the words of the verse.1 The statement, " Judah was led captive to Babylon for her transgressions," corresponds to the statement chap. v. 25 f., 41. But when, after this statement, our writer continues, " And the former inhabitants which (lived) in their possessions in their cities were Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the Nethinim; and in Jerusalem there dwelt of the sons of Judah," etc., the " former inhabitants" can only be those who dwelt in their possessions before Judah was led captive into Babylon. This could hardly be misunderstood by any commentator, if the right interpretation of our passage were not obscured by the similarity of the register of the inhabitants of Jerusalem which follows to that contained in Neh xi., — a similarity which has led some to believe that both registers treat of

1 Bertheau's further remark, "Ver. 1 cannot have been written by our historian, because he did not consider it sufficient to refer his readers to the work he quotes from, but thought himself bound to communicate genealogical registers of the tribes of the northern kingdom (chap, v.-vii.), which he must have extracted from older registers prepared in the time of the kings (cf. v. 27), perhaps even out of the work here named," is quite incomprehensible by me. Notwithstanding repeated consideration of it clause by clause, I have not succeeded in comprehending the logic of this argument.

the post-exilic inhabitants of Jerusalem. Bertheau, e.g., conies to the following decision as to the relation of our register, vers. 2-34, to that in Neh. xi. 3-24: u As the result of the comparison, we have found that both registers correspond exactly in their plan, and agree as to all the main points in their contents." The first point in this result has some foundation; for if we turn our attention only to the enumeration of chiefs dwelling in Jerusalem, then the registers in vers. 4-17 of our chapter and in Neh. xi. 3-19 are identical in plan. But if we consider the whole of the registers, as fqund in 1 Chron. ix. 2-34 and Neh. xi. 3—24, we see that they do differ in plan; for in ours, the enumeration of the inhabitants of Jerusalem is introduced by the remark, ver. 2, " The former inhabitants in their possessions in their cities, wTere Israel, the priests," etc., according to which the following words, ver. 3, u And in Jerusalem there dwelt of the sons of Judah," etc., can only be understood of the preexilic inhabitants. When Bertheau refers, in opposition to this, to Neh. v. 15, where the time between Zerubbabel and Ezra is called the time of the former governors (D'ob'&on ninsn), with whom Nehemiah contrasts himself, the later governor, to prove that according to that the former inhabitants in our passage may very well denote the inhabitants of the land in the first century of the restored community, he forgets that the governors were changed within short periods, so that Nehemiah might readily call his predecessors in the office "former governors;" while the inhabitants of the cities of Judah, on the contrary, had not changed during the period from Zerubbabel to Ezra, so as to allow of earlier and later inhabitants being distinguished. From the fact that the inhabitants u of their cities" are not contrasted as the earlier, with the inhabitants of Jerusalem as the later, but that both are placed together in such a way as to exclude such a contrast, it is manifest that the conclusion drawn by Movers and Bertheau from Neh. xi. 1, that the " former inhabitants in their possessions in their cities" are those who dwelt in Jerusalem before it was peopled by the inhabitants of the surrounding district, is not tenable. In Neh. xi., on the contrary, the register is introduced by the remark, ver. 3, u These are the heads of the province who dwelt in Jerusalem; and they dwelt in the cities of Judah, each in his possession in their cities, Israel, the priests," etc. This introduction, therefore, announces a register of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and of the other cities of Judah, at that time, i.e. at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. To this corresponds the manner in which the register has been made out, as in vers. 3-24 the inhabitants of Jerusalem are enumerated, and in vers. 25—36 the inhabitants of the other cities. The register in our chapter, on the contrary, deals only with the inhabitants of Jerusalem (vers. 3-1 9a), while in vers. 196-34 there follow remarks as to the duties devolving upon the Levites. No mention is made in the register of the inhabitants of other cities, or of Israelites, priests, and Levites, who dwelt in their cities outside of Jerusalem (ver. 2), because all that was necessary had been already communicated in the preceding genealogies (chap, ii— viii.). — Ver. 3, too, is not, as Bertheau and others think, u the superscription of the register of those dwelling in Jerusalem;" for were it that, mention must have been made in it of the priests and Levites, the enumeration of whom fills up the greater part of the following register, vers. 10—33. Ver. 3 corresponds rather to ver. 35, and serves to introduce the contents of the whole chapter, and with it commences the enumeration itself. In Neh. xi., consequently, we have a register of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, while our chapter contains only a register of the former inhabitants of Jerusalem. Only in so far as it treats of the inhabitants of Jerusalem does Nehemiah' s register resemble ours in plan; that is, to this extent, that the sons of Judah, the sons of Benjamin, priests and Levites, are enumerated seriatim as dwelling in Jerusalem, that is, the heads of the fathers'-houses of these inhabitants, as is stated by Nehemiah in the superscription xi. 3, and in our chapter, at the end of the respective paragraphs, vers. 9, 13, and in the subscription, vers. 33 and 34.

But if we examine the contents of the two catalogues more minutely, their agreement is shown by the identity of several of the names of these heads. On this point Bertheau thus speaks: " Of the three heads of Judah, Uthai, Asaiah, and Jeuel, vers. 4-6, we recognise the first two in Athaiah and Maaseiah, Neh, xi. 4, 5; only the third name, Jeuel, is omitted. Of the five heads of Benjamin, vers. 5-7, it is true, we meet with only two, Sallu and Hodaviah, in Neh. xi. 7-9; but it is manifest that there was no intention to communicate in that place a complete enumeration of the hereditary chiefs of Benjamin. The names of the six heads of the divisions of the priests, Jedaiah and Jehoiarib, Jachin, Azariah (Seriah occupies his place in the book of Nehemiah), Adaiah and Maasiai (represented in Nehemiah by Amashai), are enumerated in both places in the same order. Among the Levites there occur the names of Shemaiah and Mattaniah as representatives of the great Levitic divisions of Merari and Gershon- Asaph, and we easily recognise our ^lly in the ^IV of the book of Nehemiah. Only the two first of the four chiefs of the doorkeepers, Shallum, Akkub, Talmon, and Ahiman, are named in the abridged enumeration of the book of Nehemiah, while the two others are only referred to in the added DiTTtttt." Now, even according to this statement of the matter, the difference is seen to be almost as great as the agreement; but in reality, as a more exact comparison of the catalogues shows, the true state of the case is very different. According to ver. 3, there dwelt in Jerusalem also sons of Ephraim and Manasseh; but the catalogue from ver. 4 onwards contains only sons of Judah and Benjamin, and not a single Ephraimite or Manassite. The reason of that is probably this, that only single families and individuals from among the latter dwelt there, while the register only makes mention of the heads of the larger family groups in the population of Jerusalem. — Vers. 4-6. In the same place there dwelt, of the sons of Judah, three chiefs of the three most important families of Judah, that of Pharez, that of Shelah, and that of Zerah; cf. ii. 3, 4. Of the family of Pharez was Uthai, whose descent is traced back in ver. 4 to Bani, of the children of Pharez. The Kethibh '•^"jD^l"^ is clearly to be read according to the Keri U3"|D *J3'|3. The name Bani occurs, vi. 31, among the Merarites; while in the genealogies of Judah, chap, ii.— iv., neither Bani nor Uthai, nor any one of his ancestors who are here named, is mentioned. In Neh. xi. 4, on the contrary, there is named of the sons of Pharez, Athaiah (nj$Cj perhaps only another form of ^Tiy), with quite other ancestors; while not a single one of the five names of the persons through whom his race is traced back to Mahalaleel, of the sons of Pharez, coincides with the ancestors of Uthai. — Ver. 5. Of the family of Shelah, Asaiah the first-born, and his (other) sons. W3, after ">ton? can only be understood of the other sons or descendants. But the epithet given to Asaiah, WtfH, is surprising, for it is a formation from n?sC£> or fP&j and appears to denote a native of Shiloh, a wellknown city of Ephraim. This derivation, however, is not suitable, since here the sons (descendants) of Judah are enumerated; and no connection between the inhabitants of Judah and the

Ephraimite city Shiloh can either be proved or is at all likely. The older commentators, therefore, have suggested the reading ^Bfy as in Num. xxvi. 20, where the family of Shelah, the third son of Judah, is so called. This suggestion is doubtless correct, and the erroneous punctuation ^Ttfn has probably arisen only from the scriptio plena of the word HW instead of fw. This supposition is confirmed by the fact that the form *&$>] is found in Neh. xi. 5, although it also is pointed sP$*i. In Neh. loc. cit.y instead of Asaiah, Maaseiah is introduced as V)?#n~|3 in the seventh generation, while no ancestors whatever of our Asaiah are mentioned. The name n$% moreover, is not unfrequent, and occurs in iv. 36 among the Simeonites; in vi. 15, xv. 6, 11, among the Levites; in 2 Kings xxii. 12, 14 and 2 Chron. xxxiv. 20, as TO of the King Josiah. HTOD is the name of many persons, e.g. in xv. 18, 20, and likewise in 2 Chron. xxiii. 1, Jer. xxi. 1, xxix. 21, xxxv. 4; and elsewhere it is used of men of other tribes: so that even should Maaseiah have been written instead of Asaiah merely by an error of transcription, we are not warranted in identifying our Asaiah with the Maaseiah of Nehemiah. — Ver. 6. a Of the sons of Zerah, Jeuel;" also the name of various persons; cf. v. 7, 2 Chron. xxvi. 11: the register in Neh. xi. notices no descendants of Zerah. " And their brethren, 690 (men)." The plural suffix in DJPHK cannot be referred, as Bertheau thinks, to Jeuel, for that name, as being that of the head of a father' s-house, cannot be a collective. The suffix must consequently refer to the three heads mentioned in vers. 4-6, Uthai, Asaiah, and Jeuel, whose brethren are the other heads of fathers'-houses of the three families descended from Judah; cf. ver. 9, where the number of the D^riK mentioned refers to all the heads who had formerly been spoken of. — Vers. 7-9. Of the sons of Benjamin, i.e. of the Benjamites, four heads are named, Sallu, Ibneiah, Elah, and Meshullam; and of the first and fourth of these, three generations of ancestors are mentioned, of the second only the father, of the third the father and grandfather. " And their brethren according to their generations, 956;" cf. on ver. 6. "All these men " are not the brethren whose number is given, but the heads who have been mentioned by name. Now, if we compare this with Neh. xi., we meet in vers. 7-9 with only one of the four heads of Benjamin, Sallu, and that too, as in the Chronicle, as a son of Meshullam, while the ancestors of both are different. Instead of the three others in ver. 8, we have ^p *33, 928; and in

Vers. 10-13. The priests. — The three names Jedaiah, Jehoiarib, and Jachin (ver. 10) denote three classes of priests (cf. xxiv. 7, 17), who accordingly dwelt in Jerusalem. There also dwelt there (ver. 11) Azariah the son of Hilkiah, etc., the prince of the house of God; cf. 2 Chron. xxxi. 13. This is the Azariah mentioned in chap. v. 40, the son of Hilkiah, etc., the grandfather of the Jehozadak who was led captive into Babylon. Then in ver. 12 we have two other heads of the priestly fathers'-houses, with an enumeration of their ancestors, through whom they are traced back to the classes of priests to which they belonged respectively, viz. Adaiah to the class Malchijah (1 Chron. xxiv. 9), and Maasiai to the class Immer (1 Chron. xxiv. 14). According to this, therefore, there dwelt at Jerusalem, of the priesthood, the three classes Jedaiah, Jehoiarib, and Jachin, Azariah the prince of the temple, and of the classes Malchijah and Immer, the fathers'- houses Adaiah and Maasiai. In ver. 13 the whole number is estimated at 1760. A difficulty is raised by the first words of this verse, a And their brethren, heads of their fathers'-houses, p;QI 1760," which can hardly be taken in any other sense than as denoting that the number of the heads of the fathers'-houses amounted to 1760. This, however, is not conceivable, as u fathers'- houses " are not single households, but larger groups of related families. Moreover, EH^n^ which is co-ordinate with the heads of the fathers'-houses, can only denote, as in vers. 6, 9, the heads of the families which belonged to or constituted the fathers'-houses. To arrive at this meaning, however, we must transpose the words Drrnw and DrfafcpVlb ratal, connecting DrrQK~Jvn^ rl with ver. 12, and DiTriN with the number, thus: heads of fathers'-houses, etc., were those mentioned in ver. 12, and their brethren 1760 (men), valiant heroes in the work of the service of the house of God. Before fl?NJ?^ one would expect the word ^'0, as in 1 Chron. xxiii. 24 and Neh. xi. 12, but its presence is not so absolutely necessary as to warrant us in supposing that it has been dropped out, and in inserting it. W v*? may De a^so ta^en as an accusative of relation, u valiant heroes in reference to the work;" or at most a? may be supplied before rosta, as it might easily have been omitted by a clerical error after the immediately preceding 7*0. On comparing our passage with Neh. xi. 10-14, we find there, if 3*$T3 in ver. 10 be altered into 3*1^, the same three classes of priests; but instead of Azariah, Seraiah is prince of the house of God, ver. 11: thereafter we have 822 brethren, performing the work of the house (of God). Then follows Adaiah of the class Malchijah (as in the Chronicles), but with the addition, "his brethren 242;" and then Amashai of the class Immer, but with other ancestors than those of the Maasiai of the Chronicles, and with the addition, " and their brethren, valiant heroes, 128;" and finally, Zabdiel Ben Hagdolim as overseer (president over them). The sum of the three numbers is 1192, as contrasted with the 1760 of the Chronicle.

Vers. 14-17. The Levites. — Of these there dwelt in Jerusalem, Shemaiah the son of Hasshub, the son of, etc., a Merarite; and (ver. 15) Bakbakkar, Heresh, and Galal; and Mattaniah the son of Micah, a descendant of Asaph, and consequently a Gershonite (ver. 16); and Obadiah the son of Shemaiah, a descendant of Jeduthun, consequently also a Merarite; and Berechiah the son of Asa, the son of Elkanah, who dwelt in the villages of the Netophathite, i.e. of the lord or possessor of Netopha, a locality in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem; cf. Neh. vii. 26. This remark does not refer to Shemaiah, who cannot have dwelt at the same time in Jerusalem and in the village of the Netophathite, but to his grandfather or ancestor Elkanah, who is thereby to be distinguished from the other men who bore this name, which often occurs in the family of Kohath. All these men are, according to the analogy of the other names in our register, and according to the express statement of the superscription, ver. 34, to be regarded as heads of Levitic fathers'-houses, and were probably leaders of the music, since those mentioned in vers. 15, 16 were descendants of Asaph and Jeduthun, and may therefore with certainty be assumed to have belonged to the Levitic musicians. A confirmation of this supposition is found in the superscription, ver. 33, inasmuch as the mention of the singers in the first line goes to show that the enumeration of the Levites began with the singers. If we compare Neh. xi. 15-18 with our passage, we find that these two, Shemaiah and Mattaniah, are mentioned, and on the whole their forefathers have the same names, vers. 15 and 17; but between the two we find Shabbethai and Jozabad of the chief of the Levites set over the external service of the house of God. After Mattaniah, who is chief of the Asaphitcs there also, mention is made of Bakbukiah as the second among his brethren, and Abda the son of Shammua, a descendant of Jeduthun (ver.

17); according to which, even if we identify Bakbakkar with Bakbukiah, and Abda with Obadiah, the Heresh, Gala], and Berechiah of the Chronicles are wanting in Nehemiah, and instead of these three, only Jozabad is mentioned. — Ver 17. " The doorkeepers/ Shallum, Akkub, Talmon, Ahiman, and their brethren: Shallum the chief." The service was so divided among the four just named, that each along with his brethren performed the duty of watching by one of the four sides and chief entrances of the temple (cf. vers. 24 and 26), and these four were consequently heads of those divisions of the Levites to whom was committed the duty of the watch. In Neh. xi. 20, on the contrary, the doorkeepers mentioned are Akkub, Talmon, and their brethren, 172 (men); but the other two chiefs named in the Chronicle are there omitted, while in the Chronicle no number is given. Here the agreement between the two registers ceases. In the Chronicle there follows first of all, in vers. 18-2 6a, some remarks on the service of the doorkeepers; and then in 266-32 the duties of the Levites in general are spoken of; and finally, in vers. 32 and 34 we have subscriptions. In Nehemiah, on the other hand, we find in ver. 20 the statement that the remaining Israelites, priests, and Levites dwelt in their cities; and after some statements as to the service of the Levites, the enumeration of these cities is introduced.

In glancing back over the two catalogues, it is seen that the differences are at least as great as the coincidences. But what conclusions are we to deduce from that fact? Bertheau thinks u from this it is certain that both catalogues cannot have been drawn up independently of each other," and " that both have been derived from one and the same source, which must have been much more complete, and much richer in names, than our present catalogues; cf. Movers, S. 234." We, however, judge otherwise. The discrepancies are much too great to allow us to refer them to free handling by epitomizers of some hypothetical more detailed catalogue, or to the negligence of copyists. The coincidence, in so far as it actually exists, does not justify us in accepting such far-fetched suppositions, but may be satisfactorily explained in another way. It consists indeed only in this, that in both registers, (1) sons of Judah and Benjamin, priests and Levites, are enumerated; (2) that in each of these four classes of the inhabitants of Jerusalem some names are identical. The first of these coincidences clearly does not in the least prove that the two catalogues are derived from the same source, and treat of the same time; for the four classes enumerated constituted, both before and after the exile, the population of Jerusalem. But neither does the identity of some of the names prove in the slightest degree the identity of the two catalogues, because the names denote, partly classes of inhabitants, and partly heads of fathers'-houses, i.e. of groups of related households, which did not change with each generation, but sometimes continued to exist for centuries; and because, a priori, we should expect that those who returned from exile would, as far as it was possible, seek out again the dwelling-places of their pre-exilic ancestors; and that consequently after the exile, on the whole, the same families wdio had dwelt at Jerusalem before it would again take up their abode there. In this way the identity of the names Jedaiah, Jehoiarib, and Jachin in the two catalogues may be accounted for, as these names do not denote persons, but classes of priests, which existed both before and after the exile. A similar explanation would also apply to the names of the doorkeepers Akkub and Talmon (ver. 17; Neh. ver. 19), as not merely the priests, but also the other Levites, were divided for the service according to their fathers'-houses into classes which had permanent names (cf. chap. xxv. and xxvi.). Of the other names in our register only the following are identical: of the Benjamites, Sallu the son of Meshullam (ver. 7; Neh. ver. 7); of the priests, Adaiah (ver. 12; Neh. ver. 12), with almost the same ancestors; and of the Levites, Shemaiah and Mattaniah (ver. 10 f.; Neh. vers. 15, 17). All the other names are different; and even if among the priests Maasiai (ver. 12) should be identical with Amashai (Neh. ver. 13), and among the Levites Bakbakkar and Obadiah(vers. 16 and 15) with Bakbukiah and Abda (Neh. ver. 17), we cannot identify the sons of Judah, Uthai and Azaiah (ver. 4 f.), with Athaiah and Maaseiah (Neh. ver. 4 f.), for their ancestors are quite different. The similarity or even the identity of names, were it in two or three generations, cannot of itself prove the identity of the person?, as we have already seen, in the genealogy of the line of Aaron (v. 29 ff.), that, e.g., the series Amariah, Ahitub, and Zadok recurs at various times; cf. ver. 33 f. and ver. 37 f. Everywhere in the genealogical lines the same names very often recur, as it was the custom to give the children the names of their ancestors; cf. Tob. i. 9, Luke i. 59. Win. bill R. W. ii. S. 133;