1 Chronicles 9:35

9:1-44 Genealogies. - This chapter expresses that one end of recording all these genealogies was, to direct the Jews, when they returned out of captivity, with whom to unite, and where to reside. Here is an account of the good state into which the affairs of religion were put, on the return from Babylon. Every one knew his charge. Work is likely to be done well when every one knows the duty of his place, and makes a business of it. God is the God of order. Thus was the temple a figure of the heavenly one, where they rest not day nor night from praising God, Re 4:8. Blessed be His name, believers there shall, not in turn, but all together, without interruption, praise him night and day: may the Lord make each of us fit for the inheritance of the saints in light.

And in Gibeon dwelt the father of Gibeon,.... Whose name is here mentioned, which is not in 1 Chronicles 8:29 . Jehiel: whose wife's name was Maachah; as there, but here called his sister, as a wife sometimes is, Genesis 20:2. From hence to the end of the chapter is a repetition of the ancestors and posterity of Saul king of Israel; which is made to lead on to and connect the following history of the kings of Judah, begun in this book, and carried on in the next unto the Babylonish captivity, see 1 Chronicles 8:29, and the notes there.

(35-44) A duplicate of 1Chronicles 8:29-38 . The genealogy of Saul seems to be repeated, according to the chronicler’s habit (comp. 1Chronicles 6:4 et seq. with 1Chronicles 6:50 et seq.; 1Chronicles 7:6 et seq. with 1Chronicles 8:1 et seq. ) , as a transition or introduction to something else, viz., the account of that king’s final ruin in 1 Chronicles 10. The present list is identical with the former, so far as it extends ( 1Chronicles 8:39-40 is wanting here), but is, on the whole, in better preservation, supplying, as we have seen, several omissions in the other copy. Only the name of Ahaz has fallen out ( 1Chronicles 9:41 ). The correspondence of the two lists appears to be too exact to justify an assumption of different original sources; but the chronicler may have found the repetition already existing in the principal document from which he drew his materials.

In this and the following verses to the end of this chapter he repeats what he said before, 1 Chronicles 8:29 , &c., concerning Saul’s genealogy, that he might make way for the following history; which is a figure called epanalepsis , which is frequent both in sacred and profane writers.

18. the king's gate—The king had a gate from his palace into the temple (2Ki 16:18), which doubtless was kept constantly closed except for the monarch's use; and although there was no king in Israel on the return from the captivity, yet the old ceremonial was kept up, probably in the hope that the scepter would, ere long, be restored to the house of David. It is an honor by which Eastern kings are distinguished, to have a gate exclusively devoted to their own special use, and which is kept constantly closed, except when he goes out or returns (Eze 44:2). There being no king then in Israel, this gate would be always shut.

The family of King Saul. - This register has already occurred in 1 Chronicles 8:29-38 , along with those of other families of the tribe of Benjamin, and is repeated here only to connect the following history of the kingship with the preceding genealogical lists. It forms here the introduction to the narrative of Saul's death in 1 Chronicles 10:1-14 , which in turn forms the transition to the kingship of David. The deviations of this register from that in 1 Chronicles 8:29-38 , show that it has been derived from another document in more complete preservation than that in 1 Chronicles 8 , which had been handed down in connection with other genealogies of the Benjamite families, and had suffered considerably in its text. See the commentary on 1 Chronicles 8:29-38 .