Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
1 Chronicles 4:32

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Descendants of Judah and Simeon (2:1-4:43)

Having listed the children of Jacob (Israel) starting with the eldest son Reuben, the writer immediately turns his attention to the tribe of Judah, the tribe that produced the dynasty of David (2:1-17). He traces the line of David first, then goes back to deal with a number of other important people in Judah and lists their descendants (18-55). On completing this, he returns to list the family of David (3:1-9), the descendants of David who reigned after him to the captivity (10-16), and further descendants who lived during the time of the captivity and later (17-24). The section concludes with a collection of miscellaneous branches from Judah’s family tree (4:1-23).

The tribe of Simeon had no tribal territory of its own, but dwelt within the territory of Judah (Joshua 19:1,Joshua 19:9). It is therefore dealt with here, immediately after the listings for Judah. Some of the Simeonites’ conquests, which are not mentioned elsewhere, are also recorded (24-43).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

"The sons of Simeon: Nimuel, and Jamin, Jarib, Zerah, Shaul; Shallum his son. Mibsam his son, Mishma his son. And the sons of Mishma: Hammuel his son, Zaccur his son, Shimei his son. And Shimei had sixteen sons and six daughters; but his brethren had not many children, neither did all their family multiply like to the children of Judah. And they dwelt at Beersheba, and Moladah, and Hazarshual, and at Bilhah, and at Ezem, and at Tolad, and at Bethuel, and at Hormah, and at Ziklag. and at Beth-marcaboth, and at Hazarsusim, and at Beth-bari, and at Shaaraim. These were their cities unto the reign of David. And their villages were Etham, and Ain, and Rimmon, and Tochen, and Ashan, five cities. And all their villages which were round about the same cities, unto Baal. These were their habitations, and they have their genealogy. And Meshobab, and Jamlech, and Joshah the son of Amaziah, and Joel, and Jehu the son of Joshibiah, the son of Seraiah, the son of Asiel, and Elioenai, and Jaakobah, and Jeshohaiah, and Asaiah, and Adiel, and Jesemiel, and Benaiah, and Ziza the son of Shiphi, the son of Allon, the son of Jedaiah, the son of Shimri, the son of Shemaiah - these mentioned by name were princes in their families: and their fathers' houses increased greatly. And they went to the entrance of Gedor, even to the east side of the valley, to seek pasture for their flocks. And they found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide, and quiet, and peaceable; for they that dwelt there aforetime were of Ham. And these written by name came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and smote their tents, and the Meunim that were found there, and destroyed them utterly unto this day, and dwelt in their stead; because there was pasture there for their flocks. And some of them, even of the sons of Simeon, five hundred men, went to mount Seir, having for their captains Pelatiah, and Neariah, and Rephaiah, and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi. And they smote the remnant of the Amalekites that escaped, and have dwelt there unto this day."

"The sons of Simeon" "This list differs from that in Genesis 46:10 and in Numbers 26:12; and this may have been occasioned by the same person having different names, one list giving one name, and another list giving the other. The matter is really of no importance."George DeHoff's Commentary, Vol. 3, p. 362.

"In these chapters there is a sense of the grand sweep of human history and of the purpose of God which runs through it. None of us are mere creatures of today; we are the product of generations and generations of mankind; and in our lives there are tides of influence that began to move in the remotest antiquity. Our lives gain enormously in depth and meaning when we see our small existence as part of the whole adventure of man upon the earth."The Layman's Bible Commentary, Vol. 7, p. 131.

The first paragraph here (1 Chronicles 4:1-23) gives further genealogies connected with the tribe of Judah. It is by no means clear why these particular genealogies were kept or considered important enough to be included here.

"Caleb the son of Jephunneh" This man, along with Joshua, was one of the faithful spies sent out by Moses to spy out the land of Canaan.

"Jabez… named in sorrow" The mother's statement that she bore him in sorrow is "probably a reference to unusual suffering in childbirth."The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 6a, p. 43. Jabez's prayer is one of the noblest found in the O.T., and has often been used as a sermon text. Basing his criticism on an alleged meaning of the word `evil,' Elmslie called this prayer un-Christian. "His prayer was crude and selfish. His conscience was not troubled by the thought that others would suffer if he gained his wishes."The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 3, p. 359. We do not agree with such opinions, because God's answering Jabez's prayer indicates the purity of the petitioner's motives.

"The sons of Simeon" "The genealogy of Simeon is fragmentary, reflecting the fact this tribe lost its identity quite early and was absorbed into the tribe of Judah."The New Layman's Bible Commentary, p. 479.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 4

In chapter four, we follow another line from Caleb through one of his sons called Er. And you get a different line of Caleb from that which was earlier given. Now in this particular line in verse nine, as we've been listing a lot of names, suddenly he pauses on one fellow who stands out. Now in all of these names, suddenly you get a man and he stands out. Now why does one stand out above the other?

Jabez was more honourable than his brothers: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bore him with sorrow ( 1 Chronicles 4:9 ).

Now the word Jabez means sorrow, and thus, why a parent would tag a name like that upon a child, I really don't know. It is rather, to me, unfortunate name to place upon a child. It would seem to me that it could cause some psychic problems. She bore him with sorrow, whether or not it was a difficult pregnancy, or whether or not some deformity existed in the child when he was born that created sorrow. It could be that he was blind. It could be that he was impaired some way physically. And so rather than the great joy of having a son, because of a physical impairment it would create sorrow. Oh, Jabez, you know, sorrow. And so they named him sorrow for whatever cause or reason. But that is... The name isn't the thing that makes him outstanding. It's his character that makes him outstanding.

And Jabez called upon the God of Israel ( 1 Chronicles 4:10 ),

He was outstanding because he was a man of prayer. There are far too few men of prayer. And yet, the men of prayer are the men who really do accomplish things for the glory of God. There is a book called Power through Prayer that I would like to recommend for excellent reading by E.M. Bounds. Andrew Murray has also written a beautiful book on prayer. There is a biography of Hyde; it's called Praying Hyde. Whenever I read of these men of prayer, I long in my heart to be a man of prayer. I really don't consider myself a man of prayer. I know that I don't pray enough. These men of prayer, these men that were capable of spending hours in prayer. Praying Hyde would spend up to eight hours a day. Now that I call a man of prayer.

And the things that were wrought for God. You know, we think we got to be out there, you know, hustling for the Lord. And we find ourselves always so deeply involved in activities for God, as though we can accomplish so much by our activities. But I am convinced that we can accomplish more for God through prayer than any of our efforts that we get involved in, especially if those efforts are not backed by prayer.

Now you say, "If you're not a man of prayer then how come the Lord has done so much through your ministry?" 'Cause I got so many people praying for me. And I appreciate your prayers. And the work that is wrought here is wrought as a result of prayer. God has blessed the ministry of Calvary Chapel because of prayer. And years ago when we were just twenty-five people, I said to them, "Alright now."

Because it is interesting, we made a survey in the summer camp that I was conducting one time. We sought to sort of get the spiritual tenor of the children, you know. And how often do you read your Bible, and how often do you pray? And on that little question, most of them put three times a day. And immediately of course, we figured out for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And realizing that people usually pray for their breakfast, lunch and dinner, we suggested that they put a little sort of a postscript on their breakfast, lunch and dinner prayers as they asked the Lord to bless the food and give thanks for the food, we told them to put a little addition to their prayer, "And Lord, please bless Calvary Chapel."

And fourteen-and-a-half years ago, we began praying, "And Lord, please bless Calvary Chapel." And He has. Now, of course, I think that's one of the great sources of power in the church. And this is the thing that the people who come to analyze and to study and to find, you know, the program and so forth, this is the thing that they never see. Nor do they take into consideration, and that is the place of prayer in the ministry of Calvary Chapel. You see, they don't come all night and see the light on in the Prayer Room and realize that there are men there in the Prayer Room praying all night unto the Lord for the needs of the church and for the requests that have been brought in and those requests that are called in all night long. Oh, what power is generated by those men in their prayer, in the times of prayer all night long.

Now I'd like to recommend to a lot of you fellows, get started; get involved. You know, when I go to the men's prayer meeting on Saturday night and I hear the men praying, I can tell you the men who are in the all-night prayer times. I'll tell you, they really learned to pray. And it's thrilling to have men of prayer within the body. But it's also thrilling to have so many women that also have banded together in prayer, the Monday morning prayer fellowship there. And the many prayer fellowships throughout the area where the ladies gather during the day and homes for a time of prayer. And so we've got ladies praying all day and men praying all night. No wonder God is blessing Calvary Chapel in such a glorious way.

"And Jabez called upon the God of Israel." Now his prayer was really sort of for personal things.

Oh Lord, bless me indeed, enlarge my coast, keep your hand on me, keep me from evil, that it would not grieve me! And God answered his prayer, granted his request ( 1 Chronicles 4:10 ).

You know, God wants to bless you and to me. That's always exciting to realize that God wants to bless me. For as I look at myself I say, "How could God ever bless me?" Now He doesn't bless me because I'm so good, but because He's so good. And He just likes to bless people. I need the blessings. I like the blessings. I want the blessings. "Oh Lord, bless me indeed."

"Enlarge my coast." I think that one of the problems that we all have is that of narrowness. We always seem to want to define our borders, draw our close circle. "O God, enlarge my borders." You see, it's our church. "Oh, but they're Baptist. They're Nazarene. They're..." And we want to sort of exclude others. We've got this special exclusive fellowship. Foolishness! We have no corner upon God at all. We used to sing, "Jesus loves us all one and all, you and me, everybody one and all." And the Lord is no respecter of persons. The Lord is no respecter of churches. "God, enlarge my borders. Help me to see beyond the narrow walls of denominationalism."

I have found that the more spiritual a person becomes, the less denominational he becomes. And we quit talking about my church, and we start talking about His church, and we see it made up of Catholics and Presbyterians and Lutherans and Methodists. And the whole shebang, you might say. All of us a part of His glorious church. We see the purposes of God wrought in the many fellowships that have been created.

One of the signs of cultism is that of narrowness and, "We are the only ones. We're exclusive. Everybody else is Babylon. Everybody else is wrong. We're the only ones that have the true truth. Everyone else has, well, how could you have a false truth? So we are the truly true church." And this narrowness, sectarianism, it is carnal.

Paul said, "While some of you say, 'I'm of Cephas, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos'" ( 1 Corinthians 1:12 ). He said that's a mark of spiritual immaturity. You're a babe in Christ. You haven't grown up. It's a mark of carnality. Are you not carnal? Do you not walk as men as long as one is saying, "I'm of Cephas, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos?" And it's a mark of spiritual immaturity. "O God, enlarge my coast." Lord, enlarge the borders of my life. Let me see the whole kingdom of God. The whole body of Christ.

Then of course, "Keep your hand upon me." Oh how important it is that God keeps His hand upon my life. David said, "You held me by my right hand" ( Psalms 73:23 ). Lord, keep holding my hand. I need You to hold me up. But Lord, if You don't hold me up I'll surely fall. Then finally, "Keep me from evil lest it grieve me." Now this is farsightedness, which we need more of.

One of the problems of the world today is as Peter described. He said you only see that which is close. "You do not see that which is far off" ( 2 Peter 1:9 ). And we only so many times look at an experience for the immediate benefits, but this is always, always the snare of Satan. Shortcut. You don't have to take God's way. You can have immediate fulfillment. And just about every enticement that Satan lays before you, the bait is immediate fulfillment.

You don't have to go by way of the cross. You can have immediate fulfillment right now. Just turn aside from God's path. You see, it's over here. Here's where you're going to find it. And he seeks to turn us aside from God's path. "O God, keep me from evil lest it grieve me," because the end of that path when you turn aside from God's path, the end of that path is always grief. You may be all excited now. You may be breathless over the thrills and the anticipation of what this experience is going to bring to you. But oh, six months down the line, the grief that you're going to go through. "O God, keep me from evil lest it grieve me."

Sometimes I think it would be valuable if all of you could sit in my office and just listen to the stories of grief because someone turned aside from God's path seeking fulfillment. You couldn't talk to them at that time. They would say, "Oh, you don't understand. This is different. This is something special." "Yes, but God's Word says..." "Oh, but you know this is an exception." How is it that we always think our case is our exception? The old Greek proverb was, "The dice of the gods are loaded." By which they were saying, "Hey man, you can't go against God and win." Every time you try to go against God, you're going to lose. You're going to end up the loser. And so, "God keep me from evil lest it be a grief unto me." God answered his prayer.

Now we get back in the names again. One name stands out. We, with verse twenty-four, begin with the tribe of Simeon, and many of the names of those within the tribe of Simeon are given. A certain number of the tribe of Simeon, five hundred men, came down to the area of Edom, the land of Gedor. There was good pastureland there. And there they set up on the east side of the great African rift, the Dead Sea, and they found a good pasture for their flocks. They drove out the inhabitants of that land for it was good pastureland. And they dwelt there quietly and peaceably. They had driven out some of the descendants of Ham who had been there from the times of old. And this was during the time that Hezekiah was king over Israel. And they then went on down to mount Seir and took a part of the area that was of the Edomites, killing the Amaleks that were there. And it says, "They are dwelling there to this day."

Now the tribe of Simeon was, of course, one of the ten tribes from the northern kingdom. And it is interesting that a branch from Simeon went down and established there in the area of mount Seir. A rabbi recently sought to prove that those tribes in Afghanistan that are presently fighting against the Russian invasion are actually related to the tribes of Israel. They are part of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom. And he has done quite a scholarly job and research in proving that Israel is already fighting against Russia in Afghanistan. And many of these tribal people that have since, of course, embraced the Moslem religion are actually descendants from the ten tribes that were scattered at the time of the Assyrian invasion. Whether or not that is true, I do not know. But I do know that God knows where those people are, and He's going to gather them together. During the great tribulation He is going to seal ten thousand from each tribe, because He knows exactly who they are. "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. The family of Simeon 4:24-43

The writer may have listed Simeon’s descendants next because the Simeonites shared the tribal territory God gave to Judah. The Judahites absorbed many of them through intermarriage shortly after settlement in the land.

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And their villages were Etam, and Ain, Rimmon, and Tochen, and Ashan, five cities. There are but four mentioned in

Joshua 19:7 one might be added since, or new built, namely, Tochen; these, according to Kimchi, were all that remained for them to dwell in, in the times of David; and therefore they were obliged to seek out for new settlements for themselves and flocks, as in 1 Chronicles 4:39, &c.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      24 The sons of Simeon were, Nemuel, and Jamin, Jarib, Zerah, and Shaul:   25 Shallum his son, Mibsam his son, Mishma his son.   26 And the sons of Mishma; Hamuel his son, Zacchur his son, Shimei his son.   27 And Shimei had sixteen sons and six daughters; but his brethren had not many children, neither did all their family multiply, like to the children of Judah.   28 And they dwelt at Beer-sheba, and Moladah, and Hazar-shual,   29 And at Bilhah, and at Ezem, and at Tolad,   30 And at Bethuel, and at Hormah, and at Ziklag,   31 And at Beth-marcaboth, and Hazar-susim, and at Beth-birei, and at Shaaraim. These were their cities unto the reign of David.   32 And their villages were, Etam, and Ain, Rimmon, and Tochen, and Ashan, five cities:   33 And all their villages that were round about the same cities, unto Baal. These were their habitations, and their genealogy.   34 And Meshobab, and Jamlech, and Joshah the son of Amaziah,   35 And Joel, and Jehu the son of Josibiah, the son of Seraiah, the son of Asiel,   36 And Elioenai, and Jaakobah, and Jeshohaiah, and Asaiah, and Adiel, and Jesimiel, and Benaiah,   37 And Ziza the son of Shiphi, the son of Allon, the son of Jedaiah, the son of Shimri, the son of Shemaiah;   38 These mentioned by their names were princes in their families: and the house of their fathers increased greatly.   39 And they went to the entrance of Gedor, even unto the east side of the valley, to seek pasture for their flocks.   40 And they found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide, and quiet, and peaceable; for they of Ham had dwelt there of old.   41 And these written by name came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and smote their tents, and the habitations that were found there, and destroyed them utterly unto this day, and dwelt in their rooms: because there was pasture there for their flocks.   42 And some of them, even of the sons of Simeon, five hundred men, went to mount Seir, having for their captains Pelatiah, and Neariah, and Rephaiah, and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi.   43 And they smote the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped, and dwelt there unto this day.

      We have here some of the genealogies of the tribe of Simeon (though it was not a tribe of great note), especially the princes of that tribe, 1 Chronicles 4:38; 1 Chronicles 4:38. Of this tribe it is said that they increased greatly, but not like the children of Judah,1 Chronicles 4:27; 1 Chronicles 4:27. Those whom God increases ought to be thankful, though they see others that are more increased. Here observe, 1. The cities allotted them (1 Chronicles 4:28; 1 Chronicles 4:28), of which see Joshua 19:1-9, c. When it is said that they were theirs unto the reign of David (1 Chronicles 4:31; 1 Chronicles 4:31) intimation is given that when the ten tribes revolted from the house of David many of the Simeonites quitted these cities, because they lay within Judah, and seated themselves elsewhere. 2. The ground they got elsewhere. When those of this tribe that revolted from the house of David were carried captive with the rest into Assyria those that adhered to Judah were remarkably owned of God and prospered in their endeavours to enlarge their coasts. It was in the days of Hezekiah that a generation of Simeonites, whose tribe had long crouched and truckled, was animated to make these bold efforts. (1.) Some of them attacked a place in Arabia, as it should seem, called the entrance of Gedor, inhabited by the posterity of accursed Ham (1 Chronicles 4:40; 1 Chronicles 4:40), made themselves masters of it, and dwelt there. This adds to the glory of Hezekiah's pious reign, that, as his kingdom in general prospered, so did particular families. It is said that they found fat pastures, and yet the land was quiet; even when the kings of Assyria were giving disturbance to all their neighbours this land escaped their alarms. The inhabitants being shepherds, who molested none, were not themselves molested, till the Simeonites came and drove them out and succeeded them, not only in the plenty, but in the peace, of their land. Those who dwell (as we do) in a fruitful country, and whose land is wide, and quiet, and peaceable, have reason to own themselves indebted to that God who appoints the bounds of our habitation. (2.) Others of them, to the number of 500, under the command of four brethren here named, made a descent upon Mount Seir, and smote the remainder of the devoted Amalekites, and took possession of their country, 1 Chronicles 4:42; 1 Chronicles 4:43. Now the curses on Ham and Amalek had a further accomplishment, when they seemed dormant, if not dead; as had also the curse on Simeon, that he should be divided and scattered (Genesis 49:7): yet to him it was turned into a blessing, for the families of Simeon, which thus transplanted themselves into those distant countries, are said to dwell there unto this day (1 Chronicles 4:43; 1 Chronicles 4:43), by which it should seem they escaped the calamities of the captivity. Providence sometimes sends those out of trouble that are designed for preservation.