Bible Commentaries
1 Chronicles 7

Verse 6

The sons of Benjamin; Bela, and Becher, and Jediael, three.

Three — They were ten, Genesis 46:25, and five of them are named, chap1Chronicles8:1, but here only three are mentioned, either because these were most eminent; or because the other families are now extinct.

Verse 7

And the sons of Bela; Ezbon, and Uzzi, and Uzziel, and Jerimoth, and Iri, five; heads of the house of their fathers, mighty men of valour; and were reckoned by their genealogies twenty and two thousand and thirty and four.

Heads — Each of them head of that family to which he belonged. For it may seem by comparing this with chap8:3, etc. that these were not the immediate sons of Belah, but his Grand-children descended each from a several father.

Verse 14

The sons of Manasseh; Ashriel, whom she bare: (but his concubine the Aramitess bare Machir the father of Gilead:

She — His wife; his concubine is here opposed to her.

Verse 15

And Machir took to wife the sister of Huppim and Shuppim, whose sister’s name was Maachah;) and the name of the second was Zelophehad: and Zelophehad had daughters.

Second — Of the second son or grandson of Machir; for so Zelophehad was.

Had daughters — Only daughters, and no sons.

Verse 17

And the sons of Ulam; Bedan. These were the sons of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh.

These — Ashriel and Zelophehad, named verse14,15, the relative being here referred to the remoter antecedent; as is frequent in the Hebrew.

Verse 18

And his sister Hammoleketh bare Ishod, and Abiezer, and Mahalah.

His — Gilead’s sister.

Mahalah — Understand, and Shemida, out of the next verse.

Verse 21

And Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son, and Ezer, and Elead, whom the men of Gath that were born in that land slew, because they came down to take away their cattle.

Slew — This history is not recorded else where in scripture, but it is in the ancient Hebrew writers. The Philistines (one of whose cities Gath was) and the Egyptians were next neighbours; and in those ancient times it was usual for such to make inroads one into another’s country, and to carry thence what prey they could take. And as the Philistines had probably made such inroads formerly into Egypt, and particularly into the land of Goshen, which was the utmost part of Egypt bordering upon the Philistines land; so the Israelites might requite them in the like kind: and particularly the children of Ephraim, to their own loss. And this seems to have happened a little before the Egyptian persecution, and before the reign of that new king mentioned Exodus 1:8. And this clause, that were born in that land, may be added emphatically, as the motive which made them more resolute in their fight with the Ephraimites, because they fought in, and for their own land, wherein all their wealth and concerns lay.

Verse 23

And when he went in to his wife, she conceived, and bare a son, and he called his name Beriah, because it went evil with his house.

Bare a son — Thus the breach was in some measure repaired, by the addition of another son in his old age. When God thus restores comfort to his mourners, he makes glad according to the days wherein he afflicted, setting the mercies over against the crosses, we ought to observe the kindness of his providence. Yet the joy that a man was born into his family could not make him forget his grief. For he gives a melancholy name to his son, Beriah, that is, in trouble: for he was born when the family was in mourning. It is good to have in remembrance the affliction and the misery which are past, that our souls may be humbled within us.