The Pulpit Commentary
2. THE LINE OF JUDAH, TO HIS THREE GREAT-GRANDSONS. The line of Judah is, with a well-known object, the first to be taken up, although Judah stands fourth of Israel's sons. Judah has five sons: three, Er, Onan, Shelah, by a Canaanitess, the daughter of Shad; and two, Pharez and Zerah, by Tamar, his own daughter-in-law, under the circumstances described (Gen_38:6-30). There all these names are found in exact accord in the Authorized Version, in the Hebrew text, and in the Septuagint. The Septuagint Version, however (Gen_38:2), by an evident inaccuracy of translation, gives Shua as the name, not of the father, but of the daughter, ᾗ ὄνομα Σαυά. Parallel passages are also found (Gen_46:12; Num_26:19-22). Er and Onan died without issue, and the descendants of Shelah are not mentioned till we reach 1Ch_4:21-23. The line is now carried on by the twin sons of Tamar (1Ch_4:5, 1Ch_4:6). Pharez, with two sons, Hezron and Hamul (Gen_46:12; Rth_4:18), and Zerah, with five sons, Zimri (or Zabdi, Jos_7:1), Ethan, Heman, Calcol, Dara (or with many manuscripts, followed by the Targum, Syriac, and Arabic versions, Darda). If these last four names are not identical with those in 1Ki_4:31, they are not to be found in any available connection elsewhere, and the last two not at all. Upon this supposition, it is held by some that this very passage proves that the compiler drew on resources not possessed by us. The weight of evidence seems, however, largely in favour of the persons being the same. (See Gilbert Barrington's 'Old Testament Genealogies,' 1:206-208, well summarized in art. "Darda," Smith's 'Bible Dictionary,' for as competent a discussion of the question as the present data will allow.) It needs to be constantly remembered that an enumeration like the above, of five so-called sons, does not necessarily involve their being five brothers, although in this case it looks the more as though they were so, as it is said five of them in all

We have then so far seven grandsons to Judah, when a new name, unmentioned before, is introduced—Carmi. He is neither described as one of the seven grandsons nor as descended from any one of them, but unenviably enough is marked as the father of Achar—later form of Achau—the troubler of Israel. Jos_7:1-18 supplies the missing link, and states that Carmi is son of Zimri (Zabdi), one of the aforesaid seven grandsons. By the punishment of death, visited upon this Achar, with his sons and daughters (Jos_7:24, Jos_7:25), it may be presumed that the line of Judah through him became extinct.

The Pulpit Commentary
The line through Ethan, another of the seven grandsons, seems to stop with Azariah, a name found nowhere else.

The Pulpit Commentary
3. THE LINE OF JUDAH PURSUED THROUGH THE THREE BRANCHES OF HEZRON'S SONS. The track of genealogy then returns upon Pharez, and to the name of Hezron, the most important by far of the seven grandsons. His three sons are announced, and, as beginning with the firstborn, so presumably in order of seniority. They are: (A), Jerahmeel; (B), Ram; (C), Chelubai.

The Pulpit Commentary
(B) Ram is taken first in order, at once to push on the lineage of Judah to the great landmark DAVID, who is reached at the seventh generation from Ram (Rth_4:19-22; Mat_1:3-5; Luk_3:31-33), his name being ranked last of seven brothers only, sons of Jesse.

Salma, Hebrew שַׂלְמָא; but Rth_4:20, שַׂלְמָה and in following verse שׂלְמוֹן. The variation of the first two of these forms has many parallels, as between Chronicles and the earlier Old Testament Scriptures.

The Pulpit Commentary
Give us what we have not elsewhere, the names of the fourth, fifth, and sixth sons of Jesse, viz. Nathaneel, Raddai (but see 1Ki_1:8), and Ozem. But, on the other hand, they make it appear that David was the seventh of seven, instead of (1Sa_14:10, 1Sa_14:11; 1Sa_17:12) the eighth of eight sons. The missing son, any way, belongs to the seventh place. The Syriac and Arabic versions have taken the Elihu of 1Ch_27:18, and put him in this place. Others, following the Septuagint, suppose this Elihu, if strictly a brother of David, to be Eliab, the oldest. The explanation of the absence of the name here may be that he died early and without issue, and would accordingly be the less wanted in a genealogical register.

1Ch_2:16, 1Ch_2:17

These verses do not say that David "begat" Zeruiah and Abigail, but that these two were sisters of the foregoing seven brethren. Light is thrown upon this by 2Sa_17:25, which says that Abigail was the daughter of one Nahash, and that Zeruiah was her sister. But it is to leave us in greater darkness as to who Nahath was: whether Nahath was another name for Jesse, or the name of Jesse's wife, or the name of a former husband of Jesse's wife, to whom she bore these two daughters before she became wife to Jesse, and that former husband possibly none other than the Ammonite king (2Sa_10:2)—or whether none of these conjectures be near the truth, some of which on the face of them seem unlikely enough, is as yet unsettled. Meantime it is worth remembering that Zeruiah named one of her celebrated sons, and probably the eldest of them, Abishai, after Jesse, Ishai being the same as our Jesse; yet from the above premises it is taken that she was strictly sister of Abigail, and therefore was not really related to Jesse. The subject is treated interestingly under the various names in Smith's 'Bible Dictionary.' The husband of Zeruiah is given nowhere, while the husband of Abigail, hero called Jether the Ishmeelite, is, in the passage already referred to (2Sa_17:25), called Ithra (which is a slightly altered form of the name), an Israelite, with little doubt an error for Ishmaelite. In the same passage also her own name appears as אֲבִיגַל, instead of אֲבִיגַיִל, though many manuscripts have this latter.

(C) Chelubai. The descendants of Caleb (Chelubai), placed third of Hezron's sons, are next dealt with; but the subject is almost immediately interrupted by resumed reference to Hezron (1Ch_2:21-24), and by the table of Jemh-meel and his descendants (1Ch_2:25-41); after which the table of Caleb, apparently the same Caleb, is carried on (1Ch_2:42-49). Taking these broken portions, however, just as they come, we are immediately met by a series of uncertainties and surprises. 1Ch_2:18 is obscure in that it says Caleb had children by Azubah (the Hebrew construction also unusual), a wife, or indeed strictly a woman (not even using the ordinary formula "his wife"), and by Jerioth, of whom nothing is said; and the verse adds obscurity by saying, her sons are these, without plainly indicating to which woman reference is made. It may be safely presumed, however, from what follows, that Azubah is intended, though no other part of Scripture helps us By so much as a mention of the sons' names to determine it certainly. Meantime one Hebrew manuscript and the Chaldee Paraphrase are found to omit the words "and by Jerioth." The Vulgate, and the Syriac and Arabic versions, make Jerioth one of the children—possibly a daughter—of Caleb and Azubah, and this view is supported by Kennicott and Houbigant (Barrington's 'Genealogies,' 1:210). The tone of 1Ch_2:19 may certainly he held to offer some countenance to the assumption that either Jerioth's name ought to appear as that of a child or not at all. The name Ephrath in this verse abounds with interest. The ancient name of the town of Bethlehem, and also apparently of a district round it, is the same word which is found here as the name of a woman. In either case it is more generally written אֶפְרָתָה, as even in the two other appearances of it in this very chapter. Two manuscripts, followed by two ancient editions, and apparently by the Vulgate, substitute aleph for the above final he. In Mic_5:1, Bethlehem is found united with Ephratah in one compound word. The mother Ephrath is here interesting for her descendants given, her son Hur, grandson Uri, and great-grandson Bezaleel. Further reference to these is made in verse 50.

The first interruption to the record of Caleb's posterity is now occasioned by a resumed reference to Hezron, who at the age of threescore took to wife (as it seems from 1Ch_2:24) Abiah, sister to Gilead, daughter of the eminent man Machir, who was Manasseh's oldest son by an Aramitess concubine (1Ch_7:14). Two sons of Hezron by Abiah are given (the latter of them a posthumous child), but the elder having a son called Jair tracked, no doubt as one who became famous by the number of cities he took. He was thus connected on the father's side with a great family of Judah, and on the mother's with a great family of Manasseh. He is probably not the Jair of Jdg_10:3, with his "thirty sons, thirty ass colts, and thirty cities." And יָאִיר is not יָעִיד of 2Sa_21:19; 1Ch_20:5. Evident stress is laid on his maternal descent. Thus (Num_32:41) he is styled son of Manasseh, and hence also the explanation of the last clause of verse 23, infra, all these belonged to the sons of Machir the father of Gilead. Some of the cities alluded to are the Havoth-Jair (Num_32:41; Deu_3:14; Jos_13:30), Englished as the "groups of dwellings of Jair," on which see interesting note in Stanley's 'Sinai and Palestine', vocabulary, pp. 526, 527. They lay in the trans-Jordanic district Trachonitis, the modern El-leyah and Jebel-Hauran. It is not possible to harmonize exactly the numbers of the cities given here with those in passages quoted above; nor is the translation of verse 23, Authorized Version, very certainly the correct one. E. Bertheau, in his 'Die Bucher der Chronik erklart; 15. Kurzgef. exegetisches Handbuch. z. A.T.,' translates, "And Geshur and Aram took the Havvoth-Jair from them with Kenath and her daughter-towns, sixty cities." "Took" is supposed to mean here "retook," or "recovered." Though this suits the Hebrew syntax better, it does not suit so well our immediate context; nor have we any other information of such re, covering of them.

Geshur was a small district between Argob and Bashan; and Aram, commonly translated Syria, i.e. the ancient Syria, viz. the territory of Damascus. Kenath, rechristened by its subduer Nobah (Num_32:42), and retaining this name at the time of Gideon, and Zeba and Sahnunnah subsequently vindicated the life of its old name, and regained it, replaced in the present day by Kenawat. And the towns thereof; Hebrew literally, her daughters; i.e. the small, subordinate groups of people (Num_21:25, "All the villages thereof," literally, daughters). All these belonged to the sons of Machir, the father of Gilead, might perhaps be open to the translation, "All these were the possessions of Machir, the possessor of Gilead."

The Pulpit Commentary
The remaining verse of this section brings another point of difficulty unsolved yet. No place Caleb-ephratah is known, and no sort of accounting for Hezron dying anywhere but in Egypt, whither he went with Jacob (Gen_46:12), is producible. The Vulgate has Ingressus est Caleb ad Ephratam, but our Hebrew text cannot be made to justify it, if for nothing else, for want of a preposition אֶל before "Ephrata." This reading of the Vulgate has suggested to others that by a slight but still gratuitous alteration of our Hebrew text בָא might be substituted for the preposition בְּ prefixed to the name of Caleb; but upon that showing we have to suppose that Caleb did leave Egypt on his own account and travel to Ephratah, and then there fails any strong connection between that fact and what is said about Abiah. Still, the explanation might receive some countenance from the fact that it is said that Abiah's son became the father—or founder—of Tekoa, a place near Bethlehem, in South Judah (1Sa_30:14). Bertheau has at this point suggested that Caleb-ephratah, instead of being included in Neger-Caleb, may rather, in distinction from it, designate the northern portion of the territory of Caleb. The solution of the problem will probably not yield to anything but a justly restored text.

The Pulpit Commentary
We reach here the second interruption in the account of Caleb's posterity. (A) Jerahmeel, though the eldest Hezronite son, has as yet been passed by in favour of Ram and in favour of Caleb, so far as regards part of his descendants. Jerahmeel himself is mentioned nowhere else, but his people collectively are (1Sa_27:10; 1Sa_30:29). On the other hand, this place alone supplies the lists of names, and we have not the aid of any collation. 1Ch_2:25 purports in the Authorized Version to give five sons of Jerahmeel by his first wife, of name not given. The absence of the conjunction "and," however, in the Hebrew text before the last name, Ahijah, suggests that this may be the name of the first wife the presence of which seems greatly required by the contents of the next verse. Some particle being required, Le Clerc, accepting the suggestion of Junins and Tremellius, proposes to supply מֵאֵת, and Bertheau the same preposition, but in a simpler form, prefixed to the name Ahijah (see Barrington's 'Genealogies,' 1:180).

For עְטָרָה, one manuscript has אָטֶר, and another קְטוּרָה reht.

The Pulpit Commentary
One manuscript makes Nadab and Abishur two additional sons of Onam, by omitting the words and the sons of Shammai.

The Pulpit Commentary
אֲבִיגַיִל אֲבִיחַיִל אֲבִיהַיִל, are the readings of various manuscripts in this verse.

The Pulpit Commentary
The Authorized Version is not justified in substituting children for the Hebrew "sons;" the object evidently being to make this statement reconcilable with 1Ch_2:34, which says that Sheshan had only daughters. The difficulty can be removed, possibly, by supposing that Ahlai died (yet see 1Ch_11:41), or that, at the time to which 1Ch_2:34 refers, only daughters were in question. Wall's conjecture, that Ahlai of 1Ch_2:31 is the same with Attai of 1Ch_2:35, would have more probability if aleph were not the initial letter of the one, and ayin of the other. Still, as all the other "sons" of this passage mean sons strictly, it would be unlikely that sons of Sheshan only should mean "grandsons." The genealogy now proceeds through Sheshan's daughter, name not given (unless possibly Ahlai), married to his Egyptian servant Jarha, down to (1Ch_2:41) Elishama, at the twentieth generation from Jerahmeel. To this, however, the Septuagint, adds one generation more, καὶ Ἐλισμὰ ἐγέννησε τὸν Ἰσμαήλ. The Egyptian servant Jarha is not heard of elsewhere; that he was enfranchised before his marriage with Sheshan's daughter is likely enough (Deu_23:8; 1Sa_30:11). The language of the end of 1Ch_2:33, These were the sons of Jerahmeel, would seem to exclude the following thirteen descendants of Jarha and Sheshan's daughter from the genealogy. Yet this is scarcely likely to be the intention, which perhaps was satisfied with simply marking a distinction by the pause.

The name Zabad throws considerable doubt on the opinion that no one of Jerahmeel's descendants given in this genealogy can be found elsewhere in the Old Testament; for compare again 1Ch_11:41.

The Pulpit Commentary
So also compare Azariah with 2Ch_23:1. These two names are abundantly interesting here. Zabad, the tenth from Jerahmeel, or fourteenth from the patriarch Judah himself, brings us to the time of David, by exactly the same interval as seven other perfect genealogies, four of these having the very same number of steps, viz. fourteen, two having fifteen, and that of David himself having eleven steps. An analogous and equally interesting correspondence can be traced with the name Azariah. See the important art. "Zabad," Smith's 'Bible Dictionary;' and its further remarks as to the evidence of the genealogy in the fact of its twenty-fourth and last name tallying well with the time of Hezekiah, the sixth king after Athaliah (1Ch_4:41).

The Pulpit Commentary
These verses are occupied with the resumption of descendants of Caleb—the Caleb apparently of 1Ch_2:9 and 1Ch_2:18, though, this being so, the last clause in 1Ch_2:49, the daughter of Caleb, Achsa, will require accounting for. This statement would lead us to suppose that we were assuredly reading of Caleb the son of Jephunneh; but it cannot be so. The name of Caleb, with the questions gathering round it, will be best considered here. Of the nine times in which it occurs in this chapter, the mere duplicates (of 1Ch_2:20, 1Ch_2:46, 1Ch_2:48) may be at once counted off. The compound "Caleb-ephratah" of 1Ch_2:24 has been already dealt with. Nor need we for the present suppose 1Ch_2:50 to have any real meaning inconsistent with its apparent meaning, viz. that Caleb is the name of a grandson (son of Hut) as well as of the grandfather. There remain the occasions of the occurring of the word in 1Ch_2:9, 1Ch_2:18, 1Ch_2:42, 1Ch_2:49.

1. The first appearance, then, of the name in this chapter (1Ch_2:9) exhibits it in a form different from that in which it appears the other times in this chapter or elsewhere, viz. as כְלוּבַי, instead of כָלֵב (or once as a patronymic, 1Sa_25:3, כּלִבִּי). The Vulgate follows the Hebrew, but the Septuagint has at once substituted Caleb. The Syriac Version has Salchi, and the Arabic Sachli, both of them, no doubt, mere transcribers' errors through the mistake of a letter. This form "Chelubai" is, then, an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, and no different account has yet been given of the name appearing thus on this one occasion. It may be described, with Lange ('Comm. Old Testament,' in loc.), as "adjectivus gentilis" to כְלוּב, which word, however, occur where it will, is never treated as a synonym with Caleb except by the Septuagint, and then but once (1Ch_4:11), making Lange's further claim of three forms for the name of Caleb wrong. The name might be translated the "Cheluban" or "Chelubite."

2. The Caleb called here first "Chelubai," again "Caleb the son of Hezron," and now "Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel," some, and Keil among them, have endeavoured to identify with Caleb the son of Jephunneh. This latter is a well-known figure in history. He, together with Joshua, was among those who, departing from Egypt, were pursued of Pharaoh, and of all the host these two alone lived to enter into the promised land. This is enough to give him distinction and a prominent place before the eye. To this Caleb unmistakable reference is made in twenty-eight passages, in sixteen of which he is called "son of Jephunneh," and in three of those sixteen "son of Jephunneh the Kenazite." Now, he tells us himself (Jos_14:7) that he was forty years old in the seceded year after the Exodus. But it seems (Gen_46:12, Gen_46:26) that Hezron, grandson of Judah, and the father of the Caleb of this chapter, was, however young, one of those who went down into Egypt with Jacob, at a date, according to any chronology, which must render it impossible for any son of his to have been alive and only forty years of age at the time of the Exodus. This being so, either the statement already referred to, found at the close of verse 49, that "the daughter of Caleb was Achsa," must be an interpolation from some ignorant transcriber's marginal annotation, or, unlikely as it is, Caleb the son of Hezron and Caleb the son of Jephunneh both named a daughter Achsa. It is, moreover, likely enough that the frequent describing of Caleb the son of Jephuuneli in this style was occasioned by the desire to distinguish him from some other Caleb, not a contemporary, indeed, but already well known m a generation preceding but not too remote. Other considerations decidedly concur with this view: e.g. Ram is brother of Caleb the son of Hezron; he has a grandson, Nahshon, of great distinction, "a prince of the children of Judah," whose sister Aaron married; he was the elect of the Judah tribe to assist Moses and Aaron in the first numbering of the people (Num_1:7). Great prominence is given to him (Num_7:12; Num_10:14). He was clearly (Mat_1:4; Luk_3:32) fifth in descent from Judah, in perfect agreement with the table of this chapter. Now, it was this grandson of the elder brother of Caleb who was contemporary with Caleb the son of Jephunneh. Similarly, the Bezaleel of this chapter (verse 20), a great-grandson of Caleb the Hezronite, is spoken of (Exo_31:1; Exo_35:30) at the same date exactly at which Caleb the son of Jephunneh says he was still but forty years of age

3. The identity of the Caleb of verse 50, son of Hut, with Caleb the son of Jephuuneh is supposed by some, but is not clear. It appears to be asserted, without explanation, in the arts. "Caleb" and "Ephrath," signed A. C. H; Smith's 'Bible Dictionary,' though in the second part of the latter article it is alluded to as only possible. On the other hand, it may rather be that Caleb the son of Jephunneh, instead of being identical with this Caleb the son of Hur, is so called in order to distinguish him from this latter as a contemporary. Again, it has been happily conjectured ('Speaker's Commentary,' in loc.) that just as verse 33 closes the table of Jerahmeel with "These were the sons of Jerahmeel," so verse 49 should close the table of Caleb (verse 42) with the words, These were the Boris of Caleb. With a slight alteration, verse 50 would then begin The sons of Hur, etc. This is, however, only conjecture. Verse 42, then, must be considered to give us another family of Caleb, i.e. a family by another wife, of name not given, just possibly the Jerioth unaccounted for in verse 18. The first statement lauds us in perplexity. Mesha (מֵישַׁע) is the firstborn (i.e. by the wife or woman in question), and the founder of Ziph. And amid some omission or corruption of text, we are then confronted with the words, and the sons of Marsehah (מָרֵישָׁה) the father (or again, perhaps founder) of Hebron. The reading of the Septuagint gives Mareshah in both of these passages, and may come from a Hebrew text that we have not. The substitution could, however, scarcely be accounted for as a mere clerical error, considering both the omission of a resh and the replacing of an he with an ayin. The sentence refuses at present any treatment except the unsatisfactory one of pure conjecture. But employing this, it may be noted that the omitting of the words, "the sons of," before Mareshah would most help to clear the verse of confusion. In this and following verses, Ziph, Hebron, Tappuah, Jorkoam, and Beth-zur, are all names of places certainly, whether or not they are all of persons.

Give the names (the first of which appears as that of a man also, next verse and 1Ch_1:33) of two additional concubines of Caleb, and of their descendants.

Offers us another name, Jahdai, not to be accounted for with any certainty. It is not linked to the context, and nothing is known of the six sons assigned to the person owning it. That Gazez occurs twice in the previous verse is remarkable, and suggestive, possibly, of mistake. The Septuagint omits altogether the clause in which it is found the second time. Houbigant translates, "Porro Haran genuit Jahdai," and so summarily removes the difficulty from his way (Barrington's 'Genealogies,' 1:210). Hiller ('Onomasticon,' S.) would make it the same name as Moza, but without any pretence of argument. A more reasonable suggestion than this might be that Jahdai is the name of yet another concubine of Caleb (Lange, 'O.T. Comm.,' in loc.).

The Pulpit Commentary
Machbenah is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον (for Madmannah and Gibea, Jos_15:31, Jos_15:57). The last sentence of this verse is treated above.