Bible Commentaries

2. The Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh: 1 Chronicles 5

α. The Tribe of Reuben: 1 Chronicles 5:1-10

1 Chronicles 5:1.And the sons of Reuben, the first-born of Israel,—for he was the first-born; but, because he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given to the sons of 2 Joseph the son of Israel, though he was not to be registered as first-born. For Judah was mighty among his brethren, and of him was the prince; and Joseph 3 had the birthright.—The sons of Reuben, the first-born of Israel: Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi 4 The sons of Joel: Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, 5 Shimi his son. Micah his son, Reaiah his son, Baal his son, 6 Beerah his son, whom Tilgath-pilneser king of Asshur carried away; he was prince among the Reubenites.

7And his brethren by their families, in the register after their generations: the chief Jeiel, and Zechariah 8 And Bela the son of Azaz, the son of Shema,the son of Joel; he dwelt in Aroer, even unto Nebo and Baal-meon 9 And eastward he dwelt unto the entrance into the wilderness from the river Euphrates;for their cattle multiplied in the land of Gilead 10 And in the days of Saul they made war with the Hagarites, and they fell by their hand; and they dwelt in their tents on all the east side of Gilead.

β. The Tribe of Gad: 1 Chronicles 5:11-17

11And the sons of Gad dwelt over against them, in the land of Bashan, unto Salcah 12 Joel the chief, and Shapham the second, and Janai and Shaphat¹ inBashan 13 And their brethren by their father-houses: Michael, and Meshullam, and Sheba, and Jorai, and Jachan, and Zia, and Eber, seven 14 These are the sons of Abihail the son of Huri, the son of Jaroah, the son of Gilead, the son of 15of Michael, the son of Jeshishai, the son of Jahdo, the son of Buz. Ahi the son of Abdiel, the son of Guni, chief of their father-houses 16 And they dwelt in Gilead in Bashan, and in her daughters, and in all the suburbs of Sharon² unto 17 their outgoings. All of them were registered in the days of Jotham king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam king of Israel.

γ. War of the Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh with Arab Nations: 1 Chronicles 5:18-22

And 18 the sons of Reuben, and Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, of valiant men bearing shield and sword, and drawing the bow, and skilful in war, were 19 forty and four thousand and seven hundred and sixty going forth to war. And they made war with the Hagarites, and Jetur, and Naphish, and Nodab 20 And they were helped against them, and the Hagarites were delivered into their hand, and all that were with them; for they cried to God in the battle, and He was entreated of them, because they trusted in Him 21 And they took their cattle; their camels fifty thousand, and sheep two hundred and fifty thousand,22and asses two thousand, and souls of men a hundred thousand. For many fell slain, because the war was of God; and they dwelt in their stead until the captivity.

δ. The half-Tribe of Manasseh: 1 Chronicles 5:23-24

23And the sons of the half-tribe of Manasseh dwelt in the land, from Bashanunto Baal-hermon and Senir and Mount Hermon; these were many 24 And these were the heads of their father-houses, even Epher, and Ishi, and Eliel, and Azriel, and Jeremiah, and Hodaviah, and Jahdiel, valiant heroes, famous men, heads of father-houses.

ε. Carrying of the Three East-Jordanic Tribes into Exile: 1 Chronicles 5:25-26

25And they were untrue to the God of their fathers, and lusted after the godsof the people of the land, whom the Lord destroyed before them 26 And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Asshur, and the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser king of Asshur, and he carried them away, the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah and Habor, and the mountain and the river Gozan, unto this day.

EXEGETICAL

Preliminary Remark.—The three east-jordanic tribes are closely connected by our genealogist on account of their common fate, not only by being here placed together, although by this arrangement the eastern half of Manasseh are severed from their western kindred, but also by the insertion of two historic episodes referring to the common doings and fortunes of the three. The first of these pieces is inserted between Gad and half-Manasseh; the second is transferred to the end, because it describes the catastrophe by which the three tribes lost their independence. “An endeavour after an equable distribution of the historical matter” (Berth.) may lie at the ground of this; for even to the genealogical account of the Reubenites a short war notice, 1 Chronicles 5:10, is appended. But the notable thing is, that the more copious and important of these historical notices refer to the common acts and the common fall of the three (it is not observed that the tribe of Gad, in connection with whose generations the war report, 1 Chronicles 5:18-22, is given, played a specially prominent part in it), by which our section is distinguished as one compact group from the genealogical series of our chapter.

1. The Tribe of Reuben: 1 Chronicles 5:1-10.—The introductory 1 Chronicles 5:1-2 treat of the birthright of Reuben in its relation to that of Joseph.—For he was the first-born; but because, etc. These words to the close of 1 Chronicles 5:2 form a parenthesis, which, reminding us in its opening words of Genesis 49:4, set forth the ground on which the birthright of Joseph is mentioned along with that of Reuben,—Though he was not to be registered as first-born, literally, “though not to register (לְ before הִתְיַחֵשׂ, to denote that which should take place; see Ew. § 237, c) for the first birth,” that is, in the rank of the first-born. The subject here is perhaps not Reuben (Sept, Vulg.), but Joseph, as Kimchi and other Rabbinical expositors justly observe; for the statement of the following verse refers to Joseph as the chief person spoken of here.

1 Chronicles 5:2. For Judah was mighty among his brethren.גָּבַר, was strong, mighty, in numbers and influence; comp. Genesis 49:8 ff.; Judges 1:1, and 1 Chronicles 2:-4.—And of him was the prince (namely, David, 1 Chronicles 28:4; 1 Samuel 13:14; 1 Samuel 25:30), or, “and of him should be one of the princes” (Kamph.). This concealed reference to the Davidic kingdom that sprang from Judah reminds us in its form of Micah 5:1 (comp. מִמֶּנּוּ here with מִמְּךָ there, and לְנָגִיד with לִהְיוֹת מוֹשֵׁל there).—And Joseph had the birthright. To him were allowed two territories (according to the right of first birth, Deuteronomy 21:15-17), one for Ephraim and one for Manasseh.

1 Chronicles 5:3. Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi. So are the four sons of Reuben named Genesis 46:9, Exodus 6:14; comp. Numbers 26:5-7.

1 Chronicles 5:4-6. The descendants of Joel, as a single line of Reubenites, which is carried through several generations. From which of the four sons this line descended, the author of the present list knew, and perhaps even the Chronist, who incorporated it into his work; but the knowledge is lost to after times.—Shemaiah his son, Gog his Song of Solomon, etc. The first after בְּנוֹ after שְׁמַעְיָה the Sept. has read as a nom. propr, and therefore inserted between Shemaiah and Gog another descendant of Joel, Βαναιά, whereby his whole descendants are increased from seven to eight, though scarcely in accordance with the original text. The seven names occur also elsewhere, but only here in reference to the descendants of Reuben.

1 Chronicles 5:6. Beerah his son, whom Tilgath-pilneser carried away. The Chronist always writes תִּלְגַת פִּלְנְאֶסֶר, whereas in 2 Kings the only form of writing is תִּגְלַת פִּלְאֶסָר (comp. the similar difference between “Nebuchadrezzar” of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and “Nebuchadnezzar” of the other books; see on Daniel 1:1). Whether G. Oppert’s interpretation of the name = תִּגְלַת־ פַּלִּא־סְחַר, “prayer to the son of the Zodiac,” the Assyrian Hercules, be correct, or the certainly preferable one of Schrader (Tuklat-habalasar, “trust in the son of the house of grace,” or, “he who trusts in the house of grace,” that is, in the god Adar; comp. Schrader, Die Keilin-schriften und das AlteT., 1872, pp134 f, 237), the form used in the books of Kings appears the more original.—He was a prince among the Reubenites, that is, Beerah. He was prince of a family of Reubenites, not of the whole tribe; for the לְ (לָרְאוּבֵנִי) indicates a looser sort of connection than the relation of prince to the whole tribe, to be expressed by the stat. constr. The adjective form, “the Reubenite,” denotes here, as in 1 Chronicles 5:26; 1 Chronicles 26:32, generally those belonging to the tribe of Reuben; comp. 1 Chronicles 5:18, גָּדִי, and 1 Chronicles 4:2, הַצָּרְעָתִי, and similar forms in Chronicles.

1 Chronicles 5:7-9. The brothers of Beerah, that is, the families among the descendants of Joel most nearly related to his family.—And his brethren by their families (before לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָיו supply אִישׁ, every one by his family; comp. Numbers 2:34; Numbers 11:10), in the register after their generations (or order of birth): the chief Jeiel, etc. הָרֹאשׁ the head, the first, the chief of the family. Comp. 1 Chronicles 5:12; 1 Chronicles 9:17, where, however, this epithet stands after the name of the person in question, while in 1 Chronicles 12:3, 1 Chronicles 23:8, as here, it stands before.

1 Chronicles 5:8. And Bela the son of Azaz, the son of Shema, the son of Joel; scarcely any other than the Joel of 1 Chronicles 5:4. From him sprang Bela in the third generation, a clear proof that he belonged only in the wider sense to the brethren of Beerah, who descended from him in the seventh generation, and that he was at all events considerably older than the latter; see on 1 Chronicles 5:10.—He dwelt in Aroer, even unto Nebo and Baal-meon. Aroer, now a ruin, Arrayr on the river Arnon (comp. Joshua 12:2; Joshua 13:9; Joshua 13:16); Nebo, a place on Mount Nebo, in the range of Abarim, over against Jericho ( Numbers 32:38; Numbers 33:47); Baal-meon, perhaps the ruins Myun, two miles south of Heshbon (comp. Numbers 32:38, where it is also found along with Nebo).

1 Chronicles 5:9. And eastward he dwelt, unto the entrance into the wilderness from the river Euphrates, that is, to the line where the great wilderness begins, that extends from the Euphrates to the east border of Peræa, or Gilead as it is called in this verse; for Gilead ( Genesis 31:21; Genesis 37:25; Joshua 13:11; Joshua 17:1; Judges 5:17, etc.) is the general term usual in the Old Testament for the territory of Israel east of the Jordan; comp. on 1 Chronicles 5:16.

1 Chronicles 5:10. And in the days of Saul (the first king of Israel) they made war with the Hagarites (or Hagarenes; comp. Psalm 83:7), the same North Arabian tribe that appears, 1 Chronicles 5:19-20, as the adversary of the east-jordanic Israelites, perhaps the ’Αγραῖοι of Strabo, xiii. p767, occurring, according to Schrader, in the form Hagaranu (or Ha-ar-gi-‘i) several times in the Assyro- Babylonian cuneate inscriptions.—And they fell by their hand, or, even into their hands, of which the consequence was, that the victors dwelt in the tents of the vanquished (that is, occupied their country, Genesis 9:27), “on all the east side of Gilead,” that is, on the whole east border of the land of Gilead and beyond it (with עַל־כָּל־פְּנֵי comp. עַל פְּנֵי, “close before,” Genesis 16:12). Who are these conquerors? Are they the Reubenites in general, or only those of the family of Bela? Against the latter alternative, which is defended by Keil, appears to be the circumstance that in 1 Chronicles 5:8-9 Bela is spoken of in the singular. But this singular begins even in 1 Chronicles 5:9 b to pass into the plural (מִקְנֶיהֶם), and the mighty outspreading of the Belaites mentioned there seems intended to prepare for the notice of their war with their Hagarene neighbours. Moreover, the statement in 1 Chronicles 5:8, that Bela was great-grandson of Joel, while Beerah was his descendant in the seventh generation, corresponds with the fact that this conquest of the Hagarites preceded the deportation of the Reubenites under Beerah by Tilgath-pilneser, 1 Chronicles 5:6, some centuries. After the removal of a considerable portion of the Reubenites, so wide an outspreading of another Reubenite family as is here related would scarcely have taken place. We must therefore refer what is recorded from 1 Chronicles 5:7 of the family of the brothers of Beerah, and especially of that of Bela, to a much earlier time than that which is related in 1 Chronicles 5:6, because the narrative issues in the present notice of a war in the time of Saul; and there is no good ground why we should isolate this war notice, and regard it as an unconnected appendix to the genealogy of Reuben (against Berth. and others, and also against Hoffmann, Das gelobte Land in den Zeilten des getlhieilten Reichs, etc1871, p27).

2. The Tribe of Gad: 1 Chronicles 5:11-17.—And the sons of Gad dwelt over against them in the land of Bashan, that is, over against the Reubenites dwelling beside the Dead Sea in the mountain-range of Abarim or Moab, and also beyond the Jordan in middle Gilead, which formed the southern part of the former kingdom of Og king of Bashan ( Numbers 21:3; Deuteronomy 3:11). The extension of this tract inhabited by the Gadites to the east is shown to be considerable by the addition “unto Salchah”(as in Joshua 13:11). For Salchah, now Sulkhad, lies on the southern slope of Jebel Hauran, six or seven hours east of Bozra, and therefore about thirty hours in a direct line east from Jordan.

1 Chronicles 5:12. Joel the chief, and Shapham the second, and Janai and Shaphat in Bashan, that is, dwelling, the יָֽשְׁבוּ of the previous verse completing the sense here. It is uncertain how these four Gadite heads of families are genealogically connected with the immediate descendants of Gad named in Genesis 46:16. The omission of those seven sons of Gad enumerated in Genesis (Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, Areli) is surprising, and raises the suspicion of a gap in the text. On the variant reading of the Sept. for וְשָׁפָט, see Crit. Note. As שָׁפָט occurs elsewhere as a proper name, for example, 1 Chronicles 3:22, its retention here is the less doubtful.

1 Chronicles 5:13. And their brethren by their father-houses, that is, by the families at whose head they stood, and which were named after them. For the plur. בֵּית אֲבוֹתֵיהֶם comp. on 1 Chronicles 4:38 Luther has erroneously taken the phrase for a singular, and therefore translated, “and their brethren of the house of their fathers,” etc. The term “brethren” stands naturally in as wide a sense as in 1 Chronicles 5:7. A statement of the country where they dwelt does not follow the names of these seven brothers of the four Gadite heads of families already named. But their pedigree is first given, 1 Chronicles 5:14-15, through eight generations, terminating in a not otherwise known Buz, who has perhaps as little to do with his namesake the son of Nahor, Genesis 22:21, as with the progenitor of Elihu, Job 32:2.

1 Chronicles 5:15. Ahi, the son of Abdiel, the son of Guni, chief of their father-houses. This Ahi we may suppose to have lived at the beginning of the eighth century b.c, under Jeroboam2. of Israel, or half a century later, under Jotham of Judah, as 1 Chronicles 5:17 shows.

1 Chronicles 5:16. And they dwelt in Gilead, in Bashan, and in her daughters, and in all the suburbs of Sharon unto their outgoings. The first of these designations of place is the widest and most general: it embraces both “Bashan and her daughters” and “the suburbs of Sharon;” see on 1 Chronicles 5:9. The suffix in בִּבְנוֹתֶיהָ refers to both countries, the more extensive Gilead and the narrower Bashan forming merely the northern part of Gilead; and the “suburbs” or pastures (מִּגְרָשִׁים, as in Numbers 35:2 ff.; Joshua 21:11 ff.; Ezekiel 48:15) of Sharon are no doubt to be sought in Gilead, as nothing is known of a dwelling or a grazing of any Gadites on the well-known plain of Sharon, west of Jordan, between Cæsarea and Joppa ( Song of Solomon 2:1; Isaiah 33:9; Isaiah 35:2; Isaiah 65:10); and the “outgoings” of the suburbs of Sharon are not necessarily outgoings or boundaries on the sea, as Keil, referring to Joshua 17:9, will have it; comp. on the contrary, Numbers 34:4-5. Kamph. is right, who at the same time mentions a plausible conjecture of the early expositors, that Shirion should be read for Sharon. But we see no reason why there should not be a Sharon east of the Jordan. Comp. Smith’s Bibl. Dict., Art. “Sharon.”

1 Chronicles 5:17. All of them were registered in the days of Jotham, etc. “All of them” refers to the collective families of the Gadites from 1 Chronicles 5:11, not merely to those mentioned 1 Chronicles 5:13 ff. Of the two kings of the eighth century under whose reign the registration took place, that of the rightful kingdom of Judah is, contrary to the order of time, named first. We meet with no other notices of these two registrations of the tribe of Gad, of which that undertaken by Jeroboam 2 of Israel (825–784), at all events, coincides with the restoration of the old boundaries of the northern kingdom mentioned 2 Kings 14:25 ff. A temporary subjection of the tribe of Gad by Jotham of Judah (759–743), or perhaps by his predecessor, the powerful Uzziah (811–759), as a prelude to the second registration here mentioned, is easily conceivable, because after Jeroboam’s death a long weakening of the northern kingdom by internal strife and anarchy ensued, from which it recovered under Pekah’s reign of twenty years (759–39). Comp. Keil, p77, where, however, Pekah’s reign, probably by an error of the press, is stated to be of only ten years’ duration.

3. War of the Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh with Arab Tribes: 1 Chronicles 5:18-22.—On the reason why this account is inserted here after the families of Gad, see Preliminary Remark.—Of valiant men, literally, of sons of valour (מִן בְּנֵי חַיִל; comp. גִּבּוֹרֵי חַיִל 1 Chronicles 5:24). These and the following descriptions of the military prowess of these tribes are confirmed by 1 Chronicles 12:8; 1 Chronicles 12:21, at least with regard to Gad and half-Manasseh. With לְמוּדֵי מִלְחָמָה, comp. the partic. Pualמְלֻמְּדֵי, Song of Solomon 3:8 and 1 Chronicles 25:7. The number44,760, which certainly rests on an exact numeration, nearly agrees with that given in Joshua 4:13, but not with the added numbers yielding a far greater sum in Numbers 1:21; Numbers 1:25; Numbers 26:7; Numbers 26:18. The difference is explained by this, that the statements in Numbers refer to the time when the whole tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh were armed for war under Moses, and in a wandering state, and each of these tribes, at least of the first two, numbered more than40,000 men fit for war, whereas the present statement, like that in Joshua 4:13, refers to the time after they were settled beyond the Jordan, when the number of troops available for external service was naturally much smaller; comp. on 1 Chronicles 21:5.

1 Chronicles 5:19. And they made war with the Hagarites. The same tribe of northern Arabs with which Reuben alone, 1 Chronicles 5:10, had been at war. The present common fight of all the tribes beyond the Jordan with this tribe is perhaps to be dated later than that of Reuben; comp. ver: 22.—And Jetur, and Naphish, and Nodab. The first two tribes (of which יְטוּר has given name to the district of Ituræa) occurred in 1 Chronicles 1:31 and in Genesis 25:15 as descendants of Ishmael. Nodab, also a Beduin tribe, occurs nowhere else. The name appears to signify “noble, princely,” and might possibly be the source of the Nabatæans (Arab,nabt); for to identify this at once with נְבָיוֹת, Genesis 25:13, Isaiah 60:7, as is usually done, has its difficulties; comp. Chwolsohn, Die Sabier, i698; Quatremè Revelation, Les Nabatéens, Par1835; Muhlau, De prov. Aguri et Lemuelis orig. et indole, p28 f.

1 Chronicles 5:20. And they were helped against them. וַיֵּעָֽזְרוּ, namely, of God; comp. 2 Chronicles 26:15; Psalm 28:7.—And all that were with them, namely, the Ituræans, etc, the confederates of the Hagarites.—And he was entreated of them. וְנַעְתּוֹר is not an unusual form of the perf. Niphal (for וְנֶעְתַּר, Isaiah 19:22), but, what alone suits for continued narrative, as here, infin. abs. Niph., with a perfect meaning; comp. נַחְתּוֹם, Esther 8:8; נַהֲֽפוֹךְ, Esther 9:1.

1 Chronicles 5:21. Camels, fifty thousand. Luther, Starke, and even Kamph, in Bunsen’s Bibelwerk, incorrectly (not observing the plur. חֲמִשִּׁים), “five thousand.” The enormous Numbers, that are explained by the great riches in herds of the north Arabians, remind us of the like statements regarding the rich booty in the war with Midian, Numbers 31:11; Numbers 31:32 ff.

1 Chronicles 5:22. For many fell slain. The greatness of the defeat which the foe sustained accounts for the extremely great value of the booty taken from them. On the further explanatory sentence, “for the war was of God,” comp. 2 Chronicles 25:20; 1 Samuel 17:47.—And they dwelt in their stead, in the seats of the conquered tribes; unhindered, they made use of their abodes and pastures, “until the captivity,” until the deportation decreed by Tilgath-pilneser, 1 Chronicles 5:6.

4. The half-Tribe of Manasseh: 1 Chronicles 5:23-24.—From Bashan unto Baal-hermon and Senir and Mount Hermon. As Bashan is the district inhabited by Gad bordering on the south, 1 Chronicles 5:12, it denotes here the south border, while Baal-hermon ( Judges 3:3, or “Baal-Gad under Hermon,” Joshua 12:7; Joshua 13:5), Senir (later, by the Arabs, Sunir; according to Ezekiel 27:8, the name of a part of the Hermon range; according to Deuteronomy 3:9, an Amorite name for the whole of Hermon), and Mount Hermon (or Antilibanus, now Jebel esh Sheik) designate the north border. On account of this wide extent from south to north, and also in breadth, it is said of those belonging to this half-tribe, “these were many;” comp. Numbers 26:34, where the number of military age in this whole tribe is said to be52,700.

1 Chronicles 5:24. And these were the heads of their father-houses, even Epher. The ו before עֵפֶר may be rendered “even“; but it is surprising, and raises the suspicion that perhaps a name has fallen out. None of these heads of families of East Manasseh is otherwise known, so that we know nothing of the deeds for which they were called “valiant heroes, famous men.”

5. Carrying away into Exile of the three east-Jordanic Tribes: 1 Chronicles 5:25-26.—And they were untrue, etc, namely, the three eastern tribes named in the following verse, and not merely the Manassites. For the terms, as for the fact, comp. 2 Kings 17:7 ff.—The people of the land, whom the Lord had destroyed before them, are the Amorites and the subjects of Og of Bashan.

1 Chronicles 5:26. And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul. וַיַּעַר, as 2 Chronicles 21:16 (comp. 2 Chronicles 36:22; Ezra 1:1; Ezra 1:5). L. Lavater justly remarks: in mentem illis dedit, movit eos, ut expeditionem facerent contra illos. Pul is, moreover, named as the beginner of the oppressions coming from Assyria (comp. 2 Kings 15:19 f.); the removal itself is completed by Tiglath-pileser, as the sing. וַיַּגְלֵם, referring only to him, shows. Besides, the Assyriologists, especially Rawlinson, Schrader (p 124 ff.), declare Pul to be the same with Tiglath-pileser, and his name a mere mutilation of the latter name, because the Assyrian inscriptions nowhere exhibit any such thing as a ruler Pul almost contemporary with Tiglath-pileser.—Carried them away, the Reubenites, etc. The suffix in וַיַּגְלֵם is more precisely defined by the following accusatives לָֽרְאוּבֵנִי וגו׳, introduced by ל (according to later usage); comp. Ew. § 277e.—And brought them to Halah and Habor, and the mountain and the river Gozan, unto this day. חְלַח, perhaps = כֶּלַח, Genesis 10:11, at all events = Καλαχήνη, a region described by Strabo and Ptolemy: “On the east side of the Tigris, near Adiabene, north of Nineveh, on the borders of Armenia.” Not far from this Halah (the name of which occurs on the Assyrian monuments in the form Kal-hu; comp. Schrader, Die Keilenschriften und d. A, T. p20 f.) is to be sought חָבוֹר, perhaps a district in North Assyria, after which both the mountain Χαβώρας (Ptolem. vi1), near the Median border, and a river flowing into the Tigris (Khabur Chasaniœ, now Khabur), are named. We are not here to think of the Mesopotamian river Chaboras, rising at Nisibis, and falling into the Euphrates near Circesium, as its Hebrew name is כְּבָר, Ezekiel 1:1. The river Gozan, also, is scarcely to be sought in Mesopotamia (where there is certainly a district Γαυζανῖτις, the present Kaushan, bordering on that river Chebar, and where also Schrader, p161, has pointed out a place Guzana, near Nisibis—Nasibina–in an Assyrian inscription), but perhaps in the border land of Assyria and Media, where the Median city Γαυζανία, mentioned by Ptol. vi2, lay, and where also a river Ozan (in full, Kizil-Ozan, the red Ozan) is found, the Mardos of the old Greeks, rising south-east of the lake Urumiah, forming the boundary of Assyria and Media, and falling into the Caspian Sea. As all these places point to the north of Assyria and to Media, so the term before the last, “the mountain,” appears to mean the Median highlands; and, indeed, הָרָא seems to be the Aramaic form for the Hebrew הָר, mountain, the popular designation in that region of the Median highlands (al Jebal among the Arabs); comp. also 2 Kings 17:6, where, in place of הָרָא, the “cities of Media” (עָרֵי מָדָי) are named. Keil on our passage and on 2 Kings 17:6, Bähr on the latter, Ew. (Gesch. iii. p318), M. Niebuhr (Gesch. Assurs und Babels), Wichelhaus (Das Exil der10 Stämme,S right; while Thenius, Berth, Hitz. think, without sufficient grounds, of parts of Mesopotamia, near the Euphrates. Moreover, not merely the Chronist, but the sources used by him, appear to have assumed as the place to which Tiglath-pileser removed the tribes beyond the Jordan, the same region in the north of Assyria to which, 2 Kings 17:6, some decennia afterwards, Shalmaneser transplanted the remaining tribes of the northern kingdom. Whether this statement be historically correct, or involve the confounding of two different events (as Berth, will have it), must remain undecided. From 2 Kings 15:29, where the country to which Tiglath-pileser brought the2½ tribes is simply called Asshur, the inaccuracy of the present statements cannot be proved.

d. The Family of the Levites, with a Statement of their Seats in the different Tribes.— 1 Chronicles 5:27–6:66

1. The Family of Aaron, or the High-priestly Line to the Exile: 1Chronicles 5:27–41

[ 1 Chronicles 6:1 ff] 1 Chronicles 5:27, 28.The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. And the sons of 29 Kohath: Amram, Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel. And the sons of Amram: Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam. And the sons of Aaron: Nadab and Abihu, 30Eleazar and Ithamar. Eleazar begat Phinehas, and Phinehas begat Abishua31, 32And Abishua begat Bukki, and Bukki begat Uzzi. And Uzzi begat Zerahiah, 33and Zerahiah begat Meraioth. Meraioth begat Amariah, and Amariah begat34, 35Ahitub. And Abitub begat Zadok, and Zadok begat Ahimaaz. And Ahimaaz 36 begat Prayer of Azariah, and Azariah begat Johanan. And Johanan begat Prayer of Azariah, he that served as priest in the house that Solomon built in Jerusalem37, 38And Azariah begat Amariah, and Amariah begat Ahitub. And 39 Ahitub begat Zadok, and Zadok begat Shallum. And Shallum begat Hilkial 40 and Hilkiah begat Azariah. And Azariah begat Seraiah, and Seraiah begat 41 Jehozadak. And Jehozadak went away, when the Lord carried away Judah and Jerusalem by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.

Footnotes