1 Chronicles 8:17

8:1-40 Genealogies. - Here is a larger list of Benjamin's tribe. We may suppose that many things in these genealogies, which to us seem difficult, abrupt, and perplexed, were plain and easy at that time, and fully answered the intention for which they were published. Many great and mighty nations then were in being upon earth, and many illustrious men, whose names are now wholly forgotten; while the names of multitudes of the Israel of God are here kept in everlasting remembrance. The memory of the just is blessed.

8. Shaharaim begat children in the country of Moab—He had probably been driven to take refuge in that foreign land on the same calamitous occasion that forced Elimelech to emigrate thither (Ru 1:1). But, destitute of natural affection, he forsook or divorced his two wives, and in the land of his sojourn married a third, by whom he had several sons. But there is another explanation given of the conduct of this Benjamite polygamist. His children by Hushim are mentioned (1Ch 8:11), while his other wife is unnoticed. Hence it has been thought probable that it is Baara who is mentioned under the name of Hodesh, so called because her husband, after long desertion, returned and cohabited with her as before.

Bertheau would identify three of the sons of Elpaal - Meshullam, Heber, and Ishmerai - with Misham, Eber, and Shemer, 1 Chronicles 8:12 , 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 1 Chronicles 8:12 . Of these descendants of Elpaal, also, nothing further is known, and the same may be said of the nine sons of Shimhi, 1 Chronicles 8:19-21 ; of the eleven sons of Shashak, 1 Chronicles 8:22-25 ; and of the six sons of Jeroham, 1 Chronicles 8:26 , 1 Chronicles 8:27 , although some of these names are met with elsewhere singly. The concluding remark, 1 Chronicles 8:28 , "These are heads of fathers'-houses," refers, without doubt, to all the names from 1 Chronicles 8:15 or 1 Chronicles 8:14 to 1 Chronicles 8:27 . "According to their generations - heads" is in apposition to the preceding, as in 1 Chronicles 9:24 , but the meaning of the apposition is doubtful. The word ראשׁים 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 אבות ראשׁי, "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 either 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, "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.