1 Chronicles 3:9

3:1-24 Genealogies. - Of all the families of Israel, none were so illustrious as the family of David: here we have a full account of it. From this family, as concerning the flesh, Christ came. The attentive observer will perceive that the children of the righteous enjoy many advantages.

These were all the sons of David,.... By his wives: beside the sons of the concubines; who are not reckoned, and how many they were is not known; he had ten concubines at least, 2 Samuel 15:16 and 2 Samuel 20:3. And Tamar their sister; not the sister of the sons of the concubines, but of his other sons, and only of Absalom by the mother's side, of whom see 2 Samuel 13:1.

Verse 9. - This verse plainly adds concubines , perhaps the ten spoken of in 2 Samuel 15:16 , to the number of the mothers of the foregoing sons. The mention of only one daughter of David, viz. Tamar , follows the manifest ordinary rule, that daughters are not recorded at all, except for one of two reasons - either that through a daughter the line was saved, or that the daughter had from some special reason made a place for herself in history. 1 Chronicles 3:9

(9) Sons of the concubines. —David’s concubines ( pilagshim, πλλακαί ) are mentioned several times in Samuel ( e.g., 2Samuel 12:11 ), but their sons here only. However repugnant to modern ideas, it was and is part of the state of an Oriental potentate to possess a harem of many wives. And Tamar (was) their sister.—Not the only one, but the sister whose unhappy fate had made her famous (2 Samuel 13). A comparison of the above lists of David’s sons with the parallels in Sam. makes it improbable that they were drawn from that source; for (1) the Hebrew text of the chronicle appears, in this instance, to be quite as original as that of Samuel; (2) Some of the names differ, without our being able to pronounce in favour of one or the other text; (3) The form of the lists is different, especially that of the second. The chronicler alone gives the number of the four and nine sons, assigning the former to “Bathshua the daughter of Ammiel,” and arranging the latter in three triads. 1Chronicles 3:9 also is wanting in Samuel.

Bathshua, the daughter of Ammiel - Both names are here given in an unusual form, but it may be doubted whether in either case there has been any corruption. In "Bathshua," for "Bathsheba," a ו (v) replaces the ב (b) of the earlier writer, "w" and "b" having nearly the same sound. In "Ammiel," for "Eliam," the two elements which form the name are inverted, as in Jehoiachin equals Jechoniah, and the like.

In Jerusalem thirteen other sons were born to him, of whom four were the children of Bathsheba. The thirteen names are again enumerated in the history of David, in 1 Chronicles 14:7-11 , which in the parallel passage, 2 Samuel 5:14-16 , only eleven are mentioned, the two last being omitted (see on the passage). Some of the names are somewhat differently given in these passages, owing the differences of pronunciation and form: שׁמעה is in both places שׁמוּע; אלישׁמע, between Ibhar and Eliphalet, is in 1 Chronicles 14 more correctly written אלישׁוּע. Elishama is clearly a transcriber's error, occasioned by one of the following sons bearing this name. אליפלט, shortened in 1 Chronicles 14:6 into אלפּלט, and נוגה, are wanting in 2 Samuel 5:15 , probably because they died early. אלידע, 1 Chronicles 3:8 , 2 Samuel 5:16 , appears in 1 Chronicles 14:7 as בּעלידע; the mother also of the four first named, בּתשׁוּע, the daughter of Ammiel, is elsewhere always בּת־שׁבע, e.g., 2 Samuel 11:3 , and 1 Kings 1:11 , 1 Kings 1:15 , etc.; and her father, Eliam ( 2 Samuel 11:3 ). בּתשׁוּע has been derived from בּתשׁוע, and בּתשׁוע is softened from בּתשׁבע; but אליעם has arisen by transposition of the two parts of the name עמּיאל, or Ammiel has been altered to Eliam. Besides these, David had also sons by concubines, whose names, however, are nowhere met with.