Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Chronicles 5:1
Now the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel, (for he [was] the firstborn; but, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph the son of Israel: and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright.
Ch. 1Ch 5:1-10. The Genealogy of Reuben
1. he defiled ] Gen 35:22; Gen 49:4.
his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph ] Cp. Gen 48:5, “Ephraim and Manasseh, even as Reuben and Simeon, shall be mine”; words of Jacob which might be interpreted to mean that Reuben and Simeon are to be disinherited, and that Ephraim and Manasseh are to take their places.
the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright ] i.e. though the birthright of Reuben has been given to Joseph, yet the genealogy of Joseph is not to be given before that of Reuben. In 1Ch 5:2 it is shewn that Joseph, though possessing the birthright, was excelled by Judah. In this confusion of claims the natural order is followed and the genealogy of Reuben is given first.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
His birthright was given … – In particular, the right of the first-born to a double inheritance Deu 21:17 was conferred on Joseph, both by the expressed will of Jacob Gen 48:22 and in the actual partition of Canaan Josh. 1617. But though the birthright, as respecting its material privileges, passed to Joseph, its other rights, those of dignity and pre-eminence, fell to Judah; of whom came the chief ruler, an allusion especially to David, though it may reach further, and include a glance at the Messiah, the true Ruler of Israel Mic 5:2.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Ch 5:1-2
Now the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel.
Reubens rights transferred to Joseph
This incident is worth dwelling upon, only because it elucidates a special phase of the Divine government. God is not bound by arbitrary laws. Primogeniture can be changed in the court of heaven. Conduct is the only absolute guarantee of real and enduring primogeniture. Once in grace, always in grace, may be a glorious truth, but everything depends upon what is meant by being in grace. They are not all Israel that are called Israel. We can only prove that we were once in grace by continually living in grace. Any vital breach in the continuance will throw discredit upon the supposed reality of the origin. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER V
The genealogies of Reuben, 1-10.
Of Gad, 11-17.
The exploits of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh,
18-22.
The genealogy of the half tribe of Manasseh, 23, 24.
The idolatry of these tribes and their captivity by the
Assyrians, 25, 26.
NOTES ON CHAP. V
Verse 1. The sons of Reuben the first-born] As Reuben was the eldest son of Jacob, why was not his genealogy reviewed first? This verse answers the question; he lost the birth-right because of the transgression mentioned Ge 35:22; Ge 49:4, and the precedency was given to Judah; from him therefore came the chief ruler. This appears to be the meaning of the place.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
For he was the first-born: these and the following words 1Ch 5:3, which are enclosed within a parenthesis, seem to be inserted here as an answer to a secret objection, or as a reason why Reubens genealogy was not set down first, but Judahs was put before it, which is double; the first follows immediately, the other is in the last clause of this verse. His birthright, i.e. the right of the first-born, which, although it contain in it something of dominion, Gen 27:1,32, which Joseph had in his own person, Ge 49; yet principally consisted in having a double portion, as appears from Deu 21:17, which Joseph enjoyed both in his person and in his posterity, which had two parts of twelve in Canaan. And it is Josephs posterity which is here considered.
Unto the sons of Joseph; Ephraim and Manasseh, each having a distinct portion.
The sons of Israel: this is added emphatically, because they were reputed and treated as if they had been the immediate sons of Jacob; of which see Gen 48:5.
The genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright: this is the second reason, which showeth both why Reubens genealogy was not first mentioned; and if another tribe was to be ranked before it, why that was Judah, and not Joseph, as it might seem most fit for the former reason; because, saith he, the order of their genealogy was not to be ruled by the birthright but by a higher privilege, which was given to Judah, and which here follows.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. Now the sons of ReubenInproceeding to give this genealogy, the sacred historian states, in aparenthesis (1Ch 5:1; 1Ch 5:2),the reason why it was not placed first, as Reuben was the oldest sonof Jacob. The birthright, which by a foul crime he had forfeited,implied not only dominion, but a double portion (De21:17); and both of these were transferred to Joseph, whose twosons having been adopted as the children of Jacob (Ge48:5), received each an allotted portion, as forming two distincttribes in Israel. Joseph then was entitled to the precedency; andyet, as his posterity was not mentioned first, the sacred historianjudged it necessary to explain that “the genealogy was not to bereckoned after the birthright,” but with a reference to asuperior honor and privilege that had been conferred on Judahnotthe man, but the tribe, whereby it was invested with the pre-eminenceover all the other tribes, and out of it was to spring David with hisroyal lineage, and especially the great Messiah (Heb7:14). These were the two reasons why, in the order ofenumeration, the genealogy of Judah is introduced before that ofReuben.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Now the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel,…. Are as follow in 1Ch 5:3 where the account begins; for what comes between this and that is in a parenthesis:
for he was the firstborn; of Jacob by his wife Leah; that must be owned, and Jacob allows it, Ge 49:3 and yet the genealogy in this book begins not with him, as might on that account be expected; the reason follows:
but forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed: by lying with Bilhah his concubine:
his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph the son of Israel; his beloved son by his beloved wife Rachel and so had a double portion given him; his two sons being equally ranked with the other sons of Jacob, and became distinct tribes, and each had their lot in the land of Canaan, see Ge 48:5 compared with De 21:17
and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright; or, “but the genealogy”, c. o neither after the birthright of Reuben, which he had by nature, being Jacob’s firstborn; nor after the birthright of Joseph, which be had by his father’s gift, as it might be thought it should; the reason of which follows.
o “Nee tamen”, Tigurine version.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The families of the tribe of Reuben. – 1Ch 5:1, 1Ch 5:2. Reuben is called the first-born of Israel, because he was the first-born of Jacob, although, owing to his having defiled his father’s bed (Gen 49:4), his birthright, i.e., its privileges, were transferred to the sons of Joseph, who were not, however, entered in the family register of the house of Israel according to the birthright, i.e., as first-born sons. The inf. with expresses “shall” or “must,” cf. Ew. 237, e., “he was not to register,” i.e., “he was not to be registered.” The subject is Joseph, as the Rabbins, e.g., Kimchi, have perceived. The clauses after form a parenthesis, containing the reason of Reuben’s being called , which is still further established by its being shown (in 1Ch 5:2) how it happened that Joseph, although the birthright was given to him, according to the disposition made by the patriarch (Gen 48:5.), yet was not entered in the family registers as first-born. The reason of this was, “for Judah was strong among his brethren, and (one) from him became the Prince;” scil. on the strength of the patriarchal blessing (Gen 49:8-12), and by means of the historic fulfilment of this blessing. The “prevailing” of Judah among his brethren showed itself even under Moses at the numbering of the people, when the tribe of Judah considerably outnumbered all the other tribes (cf. t. i. 2, S. 192). Then, again, it appeared after the division of the land of Canaan among the tribes of Israel, Judah being called by a declaration of the divine will to be the vanguard of the army in the war against the Canaanites (Jdg 1:1.); and it was finally made manifest by the over Israel being chosen by God from the tribe of Judah, in the person of David (cf. 1Ch 28:4 with 1Sa 13:14; 1Sa 25:30). From this we gather that the short, and from its brevity obscure, sentence bears the signification we have given it. “But the birthright was Joseph’s;” i.e., the rights of the progenitor were transferred to or remained with him, for two tribal domains were assigned to his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh, according to the law of the first-born (Deu 21:15-17).
After this parenthetic explanation, the words “the sons of Reuben, the first-born of Israel,” 1Ch 5:1, are again taken up in 1Ch 5:3, and the sons are enumerated. The names of the four sons correspond to those given in Gen 46:9; Exo 6:14, and Num 26:5-7.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Genealogies. | B. C. 715. |
1 Now the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel, (for he was the firstborn; but, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph the son of Israel: and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright. 2 For Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler; but the birthright was Joseph’s:) 3 The sons, I say, of Reuben the firstborn of Israel were, Hanoch, and Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. 4 The sons of Joel; Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, Shimei his son, 5 Micah his son, Reaia his son, Baal his son, 6 Beerah his son, whom Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria carried away captive: he was prince of the Reubenites. 7 And his brethren by their families, when the genealogy of their generations was reckoned, were the chief, Jeiel, and Zechariah, 8 And Bela the son of Azaz, the son of Shema, the son of Joel, who dwelt in Aroer, even unto Nebo and Baal-meon: 9 And eastward he inhabited unto the entering in of the wilderness from the river Euphrates: because their cattle were multiplied in the land of Gilead. 10 And in the days of Saul they made war with the Hagarites, who fell by their hand: and they dwelt in their tents throughout all the east land of Gilead. 11 And the children of Gad dwelt over against them, in the land of Bashan unto Salchah: 12 Joel the chief, and Shapham the next, and Jaanai, and Shaphat in Bashan. 13 And their brethren of the house of their fathers were, Michael, and Meshullam, and Sheba, and Jorai, and Jachan, and Zia, and Heber, seven. 14 These are the children of Abihail the son of Huri, the son of Jaroah, the son of Gilead, the son of Michael, the son of Jeshishai, the son of Jahdo, the son of Buz; 15 Ahi the son of Abdiel, the son of Guni, chief of the house of their fathers. 16 And they dwelt in Gilead in Bashan, and in her towns, and in all the suburbs of Sharon, upon their borders. 17 All these were reckoned by genealogies in the days of Jotham king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam king of Israel.
We have here an extract out of the genealogies,
I. Of the tribe of Reuben, where we have,
1. The reason why this tribe is thus postponed. It is confessed that Reuben was the first-born of Israel, and, upon that account, might challenge the precedency; but he forfeited his birthright by defiling his father’s concubine, and was, for that, sentenced not to excel, Gen. xlix. 4. Sin lessens men, thrusts them down from their excellency. Seventh-commandment sins especially leave an indelible stain upon men’s names and families, a reproach which time will not wipe away. Reuben’s seed, to the last, bear the disgrace of Reuben’s sin. Yet, though that tribe was degraded, it was not discarded or disinherited. The sullying of the honour of an Israelite is not the losing of his happiness. Reuben loses his birthright, yet it does not devolve upon Simeon the next in order; for it was typical, and therefore must attend, not the course of nature, but the choice of grace. The advantages of the birthright were dominion and a double portion. Reuben having forfeited these, it was thought too much that both should be transferred to any one, and therefore they were divided. (1.) Joseph had the double portion; for two tribes descended from him, Ephraim and Manasseh, each of whom had a child’s part (for so Jacob by faith blessed them, Heb 11:21; Gen 48:15; Gen 48:22), and each of those tribes was as considerable, and made as good a figure, as any one of the twelve, except Judah. But, (2.) Judah had the dominion; on him the dying patriarch entailed the sceptre, Gen. xlix. 10. Of him came the chief ruler, David first, and, in the fulness of time, Messiah the Prince, Mic. v. 2. This honour was secured to Judah, though the birthright was Joseph’s; and, having this, he needed not envy Joseph the double portion.
2. The genealogy of the princes of this tribe, the chief family of it (many, no doubt, being omitted), to Beerah, who was head of this clan when the king of Assyria carried them captive, v. 4-6. Perhaps he is mentioned as prince of the Reubenites at that time because he did not do his part to prevent the captivity.
3. The enlargement of the coasts of this tribe. They increasing, and their cattle being multiplied, they crowded out their neighbours the Hagarites, and extended their conquests, though not to the river Euphrates, yet to the wilderness which abutted upon that river, 1Ch 5:9; 1Ch 5:10. Thus God did for his people as he promised them: he cast out the enemy from before them by little and little, and gave them their land as they had occasion for it, Exod. xxiii. 30.
II. Of the tribe of Gad. Some great families of that tribe are here named (v. 12), seven that were the children of Abihail, whose pedigree is carried upwards from the son to the father (1Ch 5:14; 1Ch 5:15), as that 1Ch 5:4; 1Ch 5:5, is brought downwards from father to son. These genealogies were perfected in the days of Jotham king of Judah, but were begun some years before, in the reign of Jeroboam II, king of Israel. What particular reason there was for taking these accounts then does not appear; but it was just before they were carried away captive by the Assyrians, as appears 2Ki 15:29; 2Ki 15:31. When the judgments of God were ready to break out against them for their wretched degeneracy and apostasy then were they priding themselves in their genealogies, that they were the children of the covenant; as the Jews, in our Saviour’s time, who, when they were ripe for ruin, boasted, We have Abraham to our father. Or there might be a special providence in it, and a favourable intimation that though they were, for the present, cast out, they were not cast off for ever. What we design to call for hereafter we keep an inventory of.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
First Chronicles – Chapter 5
Tribe of Reuben, Verses 1-10
As the genealogical account of Israel continues the tribe of Reuben is reached at last. It was deemed necessary to make an explanation why this firstborn of all Jacob’s sons is relegated to a secondary position. It was an act of his father Jacob’s, pronounced in his deathbed predictions about his sons and was the result of an act of incest by Reuben against Jacob’s concubine, Bilhah (Gen 49:3-4; Gen 35:22). He was characterized as unstable, a trait which is prominent in his history, and he never produced any outstanding Bible characters nor did any significant deeds of record.
For this deed of incest, then, Reuben was set aside for the birthright, and it was given to Joseph’s sons. (Joseph was the firstborn of Rachel and Jacob, though much younger than Reuben). Quite early also Judah became the dominant tribe of Leah’s sons, so that Reuben did not succeed to the kingly, or Messianic, line either.
In none of the tribal genealogies are all the generations enumerated. Usually the patriarch’s sons are named, some of the prominent grandsons, and perhaps some of the third or fourth generations. Thereafter significant persons in the tribe’s history and development may be named. In the case of Reuben the prince of the tribe at the time of the Assyrian conquest of the eastern tribes by Tilgath-pilneser is named (verse 6). The prince of the tribe at that time was Beerah, and he was carried away captive by the Assyrians. These tribes (Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh) on the east side of Jordan were the first to suffer captivity by the Assyrian incursions (cf. 2Ki 15:29).
Reuben and Gad, later joined by half-Manasseh had requested their tribal allotment of Moses on the east of Jordan because of the fine pastureland for their cattle (Numbers – Chapter 32). Reuben’s portion was in the south, and this passage shows that they occupied the land to the entrance, or beginning of the wilderness which spread away to the Euphrates River northeastward. In the days of King Saul’s reign they had to contend with the Hagarites, a desert tribe, for the land. They succeeded in dispossessing them and occupying the land.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.] This ch. contains Reuben, Gad, and the half of Manasseh east of Jordan, with two episodes, one on the wars of these tribes, and the other on the removal by Tilgath-pilneser. The upper Assyrian monarchy began 1273 B.C., the lower 747 B.C. [Murphy].
1Ch. 5:1-10.Reuben lost his birthright. The priesthood given to Levi; the double portion (Deu. 21:17) to Joseph, whose sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, reckoned as distinct tribes. Judah had supremacy, 1Ch. 5:2. Chief ruler, prince, i.e., David, and eventually Messiah (Mic. 5:1). 1Ch. 5:3, sons four, as Gen. 46:9; Exo. 6:14. 1Ch. 5:4-6. The line of Joel. 1Ch. 5:7. Brethren, kinsmen of Joel, chief was Jeiel. 1Ch. 5:10. Hagarites, Hagarenes (Psa. 83:6), a tribe of North Arabia, perhaps Agraioi of Strabo [Speak. Com.], or Ismaelites as descendants of Hagar.
1Ch. 5:11-17.Gad. Chiefs, 1Ch. 5:12, and seven others, 1Ch. 5:13. Their pedigree traced back ten generations. For Buz and Ahi are really parts of one name, Buzahi, for which Sept. has Ahibuz by transposing parts. Not informed to what family Guni belonged [Murphy], must have been contemporary with Solomon or David, therefore before the secession of ten tribes.
1Ch. 5:18-22.Wars of Eastern tribes with Arabs. Jetur and Nephish (Naphish) among descendants of Ismael in Chr. 1Ch. 1:31, and in Gen. 25:15. Of Nodab, nothing known. Hagarites made raids from desert. Hence war in self-defence. Confederate tribes prevailed over invaders. Booty indicates dense population and extensive campaign; may be compared with that from Midianites (Num. 31:32-35), and does not exceed amount which kings of Assyria constantly carried off in raids upon tribes of no great note or name [Speak. Com.]. Captivity of Tiglath-pileser (2Ki. 15:29).
1Ch. 5:23-26.Half Manasseh, north of Gad. Three names given of three parts or summits of Antilebanon. Valour or special bravery of Manassites (cf. ch. 1Ch. 12:21). Famous, i.e., men of names, celebrated men. Transgressed, a long description in 2 Kings 17. He carried, i.e., Tilgath. Pul only levied tribute on the land. Deported to places named, as parts of region to which remainder of ten tribes removed by Shalmaneser.
HOMILETICS
THE FORFEITED BLESSING.1Ch. 5:1-3
Reuben, rash and impulsive, lost splendid position and power through passion (Gen. 49:4).
I. The sin through which the blessing was lost. A most abominable and iniquitous act, worthy of death under law of Moses (Lev. 18:8), and not to be mentioned among Christians (1Co. 5:1). Sin dethrones from excellency, stamps disgrace upon character, and entails loss upon posterity.
II. The persons to whom the blessing was bestowed. Taken from one and given to another.
1. Josephs sons had double portion. Ephraim and Manasseh reckoned distinct tribes; blessed by the expressed will of Jacob (Gen. 48:22) and in the partition of Canaan (Joshua 16, 17).
2. Judah had pre-eminence. Honour to Judah, and birthright to Joseph. One need not envy the other. (a) In power. The sceptre assigned to Judah (Gen. 49:10). (b) In dignity. From him came chief ruler David first, and afterwards the Saviour. Those related to Christ, the Prince of Peace, have a better portion than men endowed with wealth and perishing honour.
III. The principle on which the blessing was given. The writer careful to explain why Judah was made supreme. The genealogy not reckoned after the birthright; not in natural, but in providential order; not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
THE LINE OF REUBEN.1Ch. 5:1-10
I. The chief of the tribe. The genealogy traced to Beerah, the head of the clan, when carried into Assyria (1Ch. 5:6). What are termed unfortunate positions and evil days are controlled, if not created, by God. My times are in thy hand.
II. The privileges of the tribe. Degraded, but not entirely disinherited. Sullied honour not always lost happiness. Reubens sons had their share of honour and estate, were valiant in war, and helped in victory. Their inheritance received before Judah or Ephraim.
III. The enlargements of the tribe (1Ch. 5:9-10). They increased in cattle and population, crowded out their neighbours, and extended conquests into the wilderness and near the Euphrates.
IV. The disinheritance of the tribe. The prediction exactly fulfilled in history, Thou shalt not excel. Reuben made no figure, and produced no judge, prophet, or eminent person. He lingered among the sheepfolds, preferred the shepherds pipe to the trumpet of battle. Robbed of pre-eminence, his individuality fades away. Remote from the centre of government and religion, he lost faith in Jehovah, went after other gods, and finally carried off into captivity.
UNITY AND ITS ACHIEVEMENTS.1Ch. 5:11-22
The three tribes united went to war and gained victory.
I. A description of the army (1Ch. 5:18).
1. Courageous in character. Sons of valour.
2. Skilful in the use of weapons. Men able to bear buckler and sword, and to shoot with the bow and skilful in war.
3. Aggressive in spirit. Went out to war.
4. Great in number. Four and forty thousand seven hundred and threescore.
II. The method in which they fought (1Ch. 5:20).
1. United in rank. Men who could keep rank (1Ch. 12:3).
2. Earnest in prayer. For they cried to God in the battle.
3. Thoroughly reliant upon God. They put their trust in him. They cried unto thee and were delivered; they trusted in thee and were not confounded.
III. The success they achieved. Not only helped and delivered, but enriched.
1. The booty enormous. They took away their cattle, &c. (1Ch. 5:21).
2. The slain numerous. There fell down many slain, &c. The Church united, courageous, and prayerful, ever victorious.
THE APOSTATE TRIBES.1Ch. 5:23-26
Special attention paid to this great sin of the tribes, this beginning of national evil and national suffering.
I. Shameful apostasy. A full description in 2 Kings 17 of idolatries, heathen and native.
1. Beginning in forgetfulness of God. They transgressed against the God of their fathers (1Ch. 5:25). One known to them as a nation, venerated by their fathers and worthy of their service.
2. Ending in forsaking God. Went a whoring after the gods of the people. Forsaking their own God, they worshipped idols of the heathen. Man must have a god, will worship something, even if he adores himself. Whoring, a strong, emphatic word, indicative of special aggravation and intense jealousy.
II. Merited judgment. We have a full and impressive vindication of divine procedure. Patience exhausted, and God, whom they had forsaken, permitted captivity to cure national evils.
1. Utter defeat. (a) First God stirred up Pul, King of Assyria (1Ch. 5:26). The first of northern sovereigns who invaded Palestine was bribed by silver to return (2Ki. 15:16-20). Tribute was imposed, which caused prophetic protest, great dissatisfaction, and impoverished the kingdom by reducing its territory and its inhabitants. (b) Then Tiglath inflicted utter defeat. Valour and numbers of no avail. When God has left us, defence is gone.
2. Helpless exile. They were carried away into distance and slavery. Gods instruments, many and varied, to chastise. Idolatry most destructive sin to people loved and led by Jehovah. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
1Ch. 5:2. Judah prevailed.
1. God in family history.
2. Persons giving pre-eminence to families, David and Messiah from Judah.
3. Grace distinguishing families in civil and religious matters, in national and individual life.
1Ch. 5:18-20. Cried in battle. So did Jabez (ch. 4); Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20); the thundering legion; the late King of Sweden, whose prayer before the great battle of Lutzen, where he fell, was, Jesus, vouchsafe this day to be my strong helper, and give me courage to fight for the honour of thy name. Prayer alone he held the surest piece of his whole armour [Trapp].
1Ch. 5:25. Transgressed.
1. Danger of proximity to the world. The tribes on the borders had intercourse with neighbouring people, then drawn into sin.
2. Fearful consequences of yielding to enticements of the world. Cast off by God, invaded by enemies, and displaced by Providence. Be governed by faith, not by sense. Lot.
1Ch. 5:26. Stirred up.
1. Gods influence over mens spirit. Stirred up, moved, prompted. The kings heart, the most absolute and uncontrollable will, is in the hand of the Lord as rivers of water (Pro. 21:1).
2. Gods control over mans conduct. Despotic rule, political projects, and ambitious wars directed to the fulfilment of his purpose. Pul restrained in conduct. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few (Isa. 10:7).
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 5
1Ch. 5:2. Judahs pre-eminence.
Some must be great. Great officers will have
Great talents. And God gives to evry man
The virtue, temper, understanding, taste,
That lifts him into life, and lets him fall
Just in the niche he was ordained to fill
[Cowper].
1Ch. 5:18. Valiant men. It is not the will of God that his people should be a timorous people [Mt. Henry].
1Ch. 5:20. Helped. We are like William of Orange, with a few followers and an empty purse, making war against the master of half the world with the mines of Peru for a treasury. But like William, too, when questioned concerning our resources, we can reply, Before we took up this cause we entered into a close alliance with the King of Kings [Sword and Trowel].
1Ch. 5:26. Carried away. When lesser warnings will not serve, God looks into his quiver for deadly arrows. Abuse of mercy ripens us for judgment [Nicholls].
Heaven gives the needful but neglected call.
What day, what hour, but knocks at human hearts
To wake the soul to sense of future scenes?
[Young]
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
5. THE DESCENDANTS OF THE TRIBE OF REUBEN (1Ch. 5:1-10)
TEXT
1Ch. 5:1. And the sons of Reuben the first-born of Israel (for he was the first-born; but, forasmuch as he defiled his fathers couch, his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph the son of Israel; and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright. 2. For Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the prince; but the birthright was Josephs), 3. the sons of Reuben the first-born of Israel: Hanoch, and Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. 4. The sons of Joel: Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, Shimei his Song of Solomon , 5. Micah his son, Reaiah his son, Baal his Song of Solomon , 6. Beerah his son, whom Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria carried away captive: he was prince of the Reubenites. 7. And his brethren by their families, when the genealogy of their generations was reckoned: the chief, Jeiel, and Zechariah , 8. and Bela the son of Azaz, the son of Shema, the son of Joel, who dwelt in Aroer, even unto Nebo and Baal-meon: 9. and eastward he dwelt even unto the entrance of the wilderness from the river Euphrates, because their cattle were multiplied in the land of Gilead. 10. And in the days of Saul, they made war with the Hagrites, who fell by their hand: and they dwelt in their tents throughout all the land east of Gilead.
PARAPHRASE
1Ch. 5:1. The oldest son of Israel was Reuben, but since he dishonored his father by sleeping with one of his fathers wives, his birthright was given to his half brother, Joseph. So the official genealogy doesnt name Reuben as the oldest Song of Solomon 2. Although Joseph received the birthright, yet Judah was a powerful and influential tribe in Israel, and from Judah came a Prince. 3. The sons of Reuben, Israels son, were: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, Carmi. 4. Joels descendants were his son Shemaiah, his grandson Gog, and his great-grandson Shime-i. 5. Shime-is son was Micah; his grandson was Reaiah; and his great-grandson was Baal. 6. Baals son was Beerah. He was a prince of the tribe of Reuben and was taken into captivity by King Tilgath-pilneser of Assyria. 7, 8. His relatives became heads of clans and were included in the official genealogy: Je-iel, Zechariah, Bela (the son of Azaz, grandson of Shema, and great grandson of Joel). These Reubenites lived in Aroer and as far distant as Mount Nebo and Baal-meon. 9. Joel was a cattle man, and he pastured his animals eastward to the edge of the desert and to the Euphrates River, for there were many cattle in the land of Gilead. 10. During the reign of King Saul, the men of Reuben defeated the Hagrites in war and moved into their tents on the eastern edges of Gilead.
COMMENTARY
Once more the natural law of the first-born is violated as the chronicler has already given attention to Judah and Simeon. Reuben was Jacobs first son borne by Leah (Gen. 29:32). This son, who was the hope of Jacobs family, proved unworthy of the trust when he dared to sin sexually with Bilhah, his fathers concubine (Gen. 35:22). In the patriarchal meeting (Gen. 49:3-4), Reuben was disinherited. Genesis, chapter 48, describes the blessings pronounced on Josephs sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. The record would indicate that Reubens blessing was shared with the sons of Joseph. Judah, however, received a blessing and a responsibility which was greater than Reubens and which also exceeded that of the sons of Joseph. Reubens sons are listed in Num. 26:5-7 when in the second census his warriors numbered 43,730. These sons are Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. The names that follow in 1Ch. 5:4-10 are Reubens descendants. Reubens territory lay beyond the Jordan to the south and east. These tribes suffered at the hands of the Assyrians when Tilgath-pilneser and his armies overthrew Samaria and scattered the tribes of Israel in 72221 B.C. Aroer and Nebo were located beyond the Jordan eastward. Nebo was the region from which Moses once viewed Canaan. The Gilead country bordered the Jordan river on the east and pertained to the territory of Reuben. The Hagrites may have derived from Hagar. There was a tribe by this name in northern Arabia. At some time the Reubenites fought with these people and displaced them in the Gilead region.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
I.THE REUBENITES (1Ch. 5:1-10).
(1) Reuben the firstborn of Israel.See Gen. 49:3 : Reuben, my firstborn thou! my strength, and firstfruits of my manhood; also Gen. 29:32.
For he was the firstborn.The parenthesis is an assertion of the legitimacy of the Davidic monarchy, as against the fact that both Reuben and Joseph had claims prior to those of Judah.
He defiled his fathers bed.Gen. 49:4, Jacobs curse: Bubbling like the waters, excel thou not! For thou wentest up thy fathers couches. Then thou defiledst my bed (See Gen. 35:22).
His birthright was given to the sons of Joseph.The reading of some MSS., and the Syriac and Arabic, to Joseph, is probably original. This transfer of the rights of primogeniture is not elsewhere mentioned. It is, however, a fair inference from Jacobs curse, and from the special blessing of Joseph (Gen. 49:22-26) and of his two sons (Gen. 48:15-20), considered in the light of historical fulfilment. Ephraim was always a leading tribe (Jdg. 2:9; Jdg. 4:5; Jdg. 5:14; Jdg. 8:1-2; Jdg. 12:1; Jdg. 12:15).
And the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright.Rather, though he was not to be registered as firstborn (literally, according to the primogeniture). The subject is Joseph or the sons of Joseph, who received the forfeited rights of Reuben, but not the first place in lists of the tribes. What those rights were is defined by Deu. 21:15-17, which rules that the son of a hated wifeif he be firstborn (the case of Reuben, son of Leah), shall inherit a double portion, for he is the firstfruits of his strength, the right of the firstborn is his; words obviously referring to Gen. 49:4-5.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1, 2.
His birthright was given unto Joseph This might be readily inferred from the censure of Reuben in Gen 49:4, compared with the ample blessings pronounced on Joseph, (Gen 49:22-26,) and the paternal gift of the “one portion above his brethren,” recorded Gen 48:22; but the transfer of Reuben’s birthright to Joseph is nowhere else expressly recorded. The birthright of the firstborn entitled its possessor to a double portion of the inheritance, (Deu 21:17,) and Joseph’s rights in this regard were conceded in the allotment of Canaan by his receiving the large territory assigned to Ephraim and Manasseh, the latter receiving two portions, one east and the other west of the Jordan.
The genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birth-right Joseph’s honour in receiving the birthright did not, however, yield him the noblest genealogy, for in this respect Judah prevailed above his brethren, and was honoured in being the father of a line of kings the most celebrated in human history.
Of him came the chief ruler The princely David, and the magnificent Solomon, and their descendants who reigned at Jerusalem, while dynasty after dynasty rose and fell in the kingdom of Israel, and also in Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia. The chief ruler here doubtless refers particularly to David, but may also point to the prince Messiah, that greatest “ruler in Israel,” who came from “among the thousands of Judah.” Mic 5:2.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Genealogy of the Twelve Sons of Israel 1 Chronicles 4-8 gives a brief chronology of the twelve sons of Israel. However, there appears to be no certain order in listing these twelve children of Jacob, although a reference is made to Reuben’s genealogy being listed out of the order of birthright (1Ch 5:1).
1Ch 5:1, “Now the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel, (for he was the firstborn; but, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph the son of Israel: and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright .”
The genealogies are listed in the following order:
Judah 1Ch 4:1-23
Simeon 1Ch 4:24-43
Reuben 1Ch 5:1-10
Gad 1Ch 5:11-22
Manasseh (east) 1Ch 5:23-26
Levi 1Ch 6:1-81
Issachar 1Ch 7:1-5
Benjamin 1Ch 7:6-12
Naphtali 1Ch 7:13
Manasseh (west) 1Ch 7:14-19
Ephraim 1Ch 7:20-28
Asher 1Ch 7:30-40
Note that the tribes of Dan and Zebulun are not listed in these chapters.
If we compare the order of their births, we find that these genealogies in 1 Chronicles were not listed by order of birth:
1. Leah Reuben
2. Leah Simeon
3. Leah Levi
4. Leah Judah
5. Bilhah Dan
6. Bilhah Naphtali
7. Zilpah Gad
8. Zilpah Asher
9. Leah Issachar
10. Leah Zebulun
11. Rachel Joseph (Manasseh and Ephraim)
12. Rachel Benjamin
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Posterity of Reuben
v. 1. Now, the sons of Reuben, the first-born of Israel, (for he was the first-born; but, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed, v. 2. for Judah prevailed above his brethren, v. 3. the sons, I say, Reuben, the first-born of Israel, v. 4. The sons of Joel, v. 5. Micah, his son; Reaia, his son; Baal, his, son;
v. 6. Beerah, his son, whom Tilgath-pilneser, king of Assyria, carried away captive; he was prince of the Reubenites, v. 7. And his brethren by their families, when the genealogy of their generations was reckoned, v. 8. And Bela, the son of Azaz, the son of Shema v. 9. and eastward he, v. 10. And in the days of Saul they made war with the Hagarites,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
1Ch 5:1-10
THE SONS OF REUBEN. The tribe of Reuben is now taken third in order by the compiler, though Reuben was the first of all the sons of Israel. The distinct statements of 1Ch 5:1 and 1Ch 5:2, respecting the degradation of Reuben and his loss of the rights of primogeniture, are not to be understood, however, as mentioned in any way to account for his standing third here. That Judah takes in any genealogy the first place needs no other apology than that contained in this passage, “Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler” (i.e. David, and in him “David’s greater Son and Lord”). And that Simeon is taken immediately after Judah was natural enough, both because the second place belonged to him, and because his tribe, in journeying, in settlement, and in acknowledged friendship, was so nearly related to that of Judah. It is as an important historical fact, a lesson and stern memento of crime, that the tale of Reuben is here as elsewhere told. Indeed, in the remarkably exalting language applied to Reuben (Gen 49:3) by the dying father in those “blessings” of his sons which were so marvellously living with prophecy, that “blessing” see. reed weighted with hard reality, and may really carry this meaning: “O Reuben I though thou art my firstborn, though my might and the beginning of my strength, though the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power,” yet, because of thy boiling lust (Gen 35:22) “thou shall not excel.” In that endowing charter of the patriarch’s death-bed, the birthright of Reuben is not in so many words given to Joseph and his sons, but what is given to Joseph is so abundant above the lot of all the others, that we find no difficulty in accepting the formal statement of the fact here first found in this passage. The large measure of promise meted to Judah (Gen 49:8-12) rests, no doubt, upon the title already referred to. There would seem to be also a righteous moral reason in Joseph after all becoming heir to the birthright, inasmuch as he was the eldest child of her who was Israel’s real love, and who, but for deception and sharp practice, would have been his first wife. How he remembered her, and with what determined practical consequence, the affecting passage, Gen 48:1-7, Gen 48:16, Gen 48:21, Gen 48:22, sufficiently reveals; yet comp. Deu 21:15-17. The meaning of the last clause of Deu 21:1 is evidently that, though thus Reuben was the natural firstborn, and Joseph had really the birthright, the registration did not proceed in this instance (probably partly for the very reason of the ambiguity) by the order of birthright, but everything yielded to the special call for precedence on the part of Judah (Deu 21:2).
1Ch 5:3
The four sons of Reuben here given are first enumerated in Gen 46:9; then in Exo 6:14; and again in Num 26:5-7, where are also found the corresponding chief families of the tribe, the total of their fighting numbers amounting to 43,730, compared with 46,500 at the time of the Sinai census (Num 2:11), a diminution due to the plague for the idolatry of Baal-peor (Num 25:9).
1Ch 5:4-6
From which of the four sons of Reuben the line came in which Joel would appear, we do not know. Juntas and Tremellius say Hanoch, others Carmi, while the Syriac Version has Carrot vice Joel. It is to be remarked that in Num 26:8-10 a line of descent through Pallu is given, but reaching only to the second generation, Beerah in the present list will be only ninth at furthest from Reuben, so that it is evident that it is a very fragmentary genealogy, whether the hiatus be only one, viz. between Reuben’s son and Joel, or whether both there and elsewhere also. Of none of the eight persons beginning with Joel and ending with Beerah is anything else known, unless either Shemaiah or Shimei may be identical with the Shema of verse 8, in which case it might be also that the Joel of verse 8 is identical with that of verse 4. In this passage and 1Ch 8:30 Baal appears as the name of a man. In this passage, and in 1Ch 8:26 and 2Ch 28:20, we have a different form in each part of the word, of the Tiglath-pileser of 2Ki 15:29; 2Ki 16:7. These slight differences in the position of the radicals, with the introduction or omission of the , make as many as four different readings in the Hebrew. Tiglath-pileser, the second Assyrian king who came into conflict with the Israelites, reigned about B.C. 747-727. Gesenius thinks that the former half of the word is the same as Diglath, i.q. Tigris; and that the latter, a root occurring also in the name Nabo-pola-saris, is from an Assyrian verb meaning “to guard.” He translates the word as “Lord of the Tigris.” The Assyrian reproduction of the name is Tigulti-pal-tsira (Smith’s ‘Bible Dictionary’), or Tukulti-pal-zara (‘Speaker’s Commentary,’ in loc.). The Captivity is spoken of further in the last verse of this chapter and in 2Ki 15:27-31. The Septuagint reads 2Ki 15:4 and 2Ki 15:5 differently: “The sons of Joel, Semei and Banaea his son; and the sons of Gog the son of Semei,” etc; and this in all three editionsVatican, Alexandrine, and Aldine.
1Ch 5:7, 1Ch 5:8
Of Jeiel, Zechariah, Bela, and Asaz nothing further is known. Shema and Joel may be those of verse 4, as above. The expression, his brethren, i.e. the brethren of Beerah, must be read generally. The intimation, when the genealogy of their generations was reckoned, is probably explained by the contents of verse 17 (of which hereafter). Aroer ( or ); a place east of the Jordan, overhanging the torrent of Arnon, which was a boundary between Moab and the Amorites, and afterwards between Moab and Reuben. There is little doubt that Burckhardt has identified the ruins of Aroer (see Num 32:38; Deu 2:24, Deu 2:36; Deu 3:8, Deu 3:12, Deu 3:16; Jos 12:1, Jos 12:2; Jos 13:9, Jos 13:16; Jdg 11:13, Jdg 11:26, where note transposition of letters in the Hebrew; 2Ki 10:33). Moab seems to have regained it later (Jer 48:1-47; see interesting arts. “Amen” and “Areer,” Smith’s’ Bible Dictionary’). Nebo and Baal–meon are also mentioned together in Num 32:38; and Baal-meon with Moab in Eze 25:9. This Nebo, the town, is distinct from Mount Nebo. It is remarkable that it is not mentioned, unless under one of the “changed” names (Num 32:38), in the list of the towns of Reuben (Jos 13:15-23). Nebo was the name of a heathen deity, known among the Chaldeans (Isa 46:1), Babylonians, and Assyrians; and this constituted one reason, if not the reason, for changing its name when it had been affixed to the Moabite city.
1Ch 5:9
Keil and others refer this verse to the people of Bela; yet others apply it to Joel It would seem nearest the facts to apply it to the main subject of the paragraphReuben. Gilead (Deu 3:12-16) had for its boundaries, on the north Bashan, on the south Moab, on the east the Arabian desert. Its situation evidently exposed it to Assyrian invasion and frequent encounter with desert tribes (Jos 17:1; Num 26:29, Num 26:30).
1Ch 5:10
Among such conflicts, one with a people descended presumably from Hagar or Ishmael (though 1Ch 27:30, 1Ch 27:31, and Psa 70:1-5 : Psa 13:6 are somewhat needlessly interpreted to be opposed to this) is here alluded to. It takes us to the time of Saul, and from that time up to the time of “the Captivity” (1Ch 5:22) the victorious Reubenites, Gadites, and people of the half-tribe Manasseh had the benefit of enlarged domain at their expense: “They dwelt in their steads,” after seizing great spoil. It is exceedingly likely that we have the perpetuation of the name Hagarenes in the Agraeei (modern Hejer) of Strabo, 16:767; Pliny, ‘Hist. Nat.,’ 6:32; Dionysius, ‘Perieg.,’ 956; Pt. 5:2 (see art. “Hagarenes” in Smith’s ‘Bible Dictionary’).
1Ch 5:11-17
The tribe of Gad is taken next, and occupies but few lines. Gad was born seventh in order of all the sons of Jacob (Gen 30:9-12), and first of the children of Leah’s maid Zilpah. The compiler seems to pass easily on to Gad, from the mere circumstance of the name of the tribe being so constantly linked with that preceding, in the matter of local settlement on the east of Jordan, after the journeyings of the wilderness (Jos 13:7, Jos 13:8). The geography in 1Ch 5:11 and 1Ch 5:16 offers very little difficulty. Compared with the time of the first settling of the Gadites (Deu 3:10-13; Jos 13:25, Jos 13:30), it is evident that they had pushed their borders further to the north, trenching somewhat upon the lot of the half-tribe Manasseh, as they also in turn extended their limits northward to Hermon (verse 23). This reconciles Jos 13:30 with the present passage. Salcah, or (Authorized Version) Salchah (Deu 3:10; Jos 13:11), is probably to be identified as the modern Sulkhad, at the extreme eastern point of the plain Hauran, which is bordered by the desert. “In Gilead in Bashan” may be read, with some, as two coordinate places, separating them by a stop; or may point to a time when Bashan included the upper half of Gilead. Sharon, which Keil, quoting Reland, ‘Pal. Ill.,’ 370, would make the well-known Sharon of Carmel and the Mediterranean, is, though unmentioned elsewhere, probably distinguished sufficiently from it by the absence of the article, which is invariably prefixed to the other. Stanley’s suggestion would seem exceedingly apt, that it is one in fact, as one in derivation and meaning, with the Mishor (i.e. “level ]ands,” “table-land”) of Gilead and Bashan. With this explanation, however, the term “suburbs” does not so well agree. Upon the other side, distant as the well-known Sharon is, a link of connection might be found with it, in that the other Manasseh half-tribe stretched into its plains; and in that case the last word of the verse, , might mean (Jos 17:9) “the outgoings” of the land or regions in question to the “sea”-coast.
1Ch 5:12
The four proper names in this verse are not known in connection with the same persons elsewhere. The Septuagint translates Shaphat as “the scribe,” applying the description to the foregoing Jaanai.
1Ch 5:13
And their brethren. This chapter (see 1Ch 5:7) seems to introduce the use of this word, which must be understood generically. The seven persons are nowhere else mentioned.
1Ch 5:14, 1Ch 5:15
These are the children of Abihail; i.e. the seven “brethren” of the preceding verse. A rapid line of descent, or rather of ascent, consisting of ten generations, from Abihail to Guni, here follows. The division between these verses has unfortunately cut in half one name, i.e. Buzaki. The translators of the Septuagint saw that the two verses composed one line of ascent, but instead of piecing “Aki” to “Buz,” translated it as” brother.” Though this line takes us some way back, we find nowhere else any clue or identification of any of these ten persons. Of the twenty-one persons in all, therefore, named as belonging to the tribe of Gad, nothing else is known; and we have nothing to guide us to connect them with any one rather than another of the original” sons of Gad” (Gen 46:16; Num 16:15-18).
1Ch 5:17
The very form of the language of this verse would indicate that two genealogies are intended. This quite tallies with the fact that there were two chronicles, one for each division of the nation, i.e. “the chronicles of the kings of Judah” (2Ki 15:6) and “the chronicles of the kings of Israel” (2Ki 15:11), in which same chapter both Jeroboam (II.) of Israel and Jotham of Judah are spoken of, the latter beginning to reign in Judah some twenty years (the exact chronology is very confused here) after the death of the former. Although presumably it would be an object of closer interest with Israel than with Judah to effect the registration of the Gadite genealogy, yet it was most just that Judah should do so as well. This would both vindicate Judah’s own right place and be a happy omen of the continued predominance of her position compared with that of Israel. Independently of the question of effecting the actual registration, however, it is quite possible that, so long as history ran by the side of history. Israel would gather and keep all it could of Judah, and Judah all it could of Israel.
1Ch 5:18-22
These verses appear to be the fuller development of the war in Saul’s time, mentioned in 1Ch 5:10the account apparently there delayed till the genealogy of the tribe of Gad had been given, and which still seems premature till the contents of 1Ch 5:23 and 1Ch 5:24 should have been given.
1Ch 5:19
The name of Nodab we have not elsewhere; but those of Jetur and Nephish are names from the very origin of the tribe of Ishmael (Gen 25:13-16; 1Ch 1:29-31). It would be possible to consider them here as in apposition with the description, the Hagarites (respecting whom see note on 1Ch 5:10); but they may more probably be regarded as favourite names, still repeated in the descendants of the tribe. The people of Nephish have not made their mark deep on the page of ethnographic history; but the people of Jetur have done so. Their stinted territory appears in the name Ituraea (Luk 3:1). Their people reappear also. Nor is it an unnoticeable contribution to the truth of our history here to put, side by side with the description of the qualities and of the arms and weapons of warfare of the Manassites and their helpers of Reuben and Gad (1Ch 5:18), those of the Ituraeans, their antagonists (Virgil, ‘Georg.,’ 2:448; Cicero, ‘Philippians,’ 2:44; Luean, ‘Pharsalia,’ 7:230; see Smith’s ‘Bible Dictionary,’ 1:905).
1Ch 5:21
Of men; literally, of the soul, i.e. life of men.
1Ch 5:23, 1Ch 5:24
“The half-tribe of Manasseh” is here very briefly treated of. Manasseh and his brother Ephraim stand in the place of Joseph, both the children of Joseph’s Egyptian wife, Asenath, and born before the famine. Though Manasseh was the elder, Jacob gave the chief blessing (Gen 48:10-22) to Ephraim. The Manassites were descended from Manasseh through his son Machir, born of a Syrian concubine. Machir evidently was spes gregis (though apparently not the only son, for see Asriel, or Ashriel, in above references), and is repeatedly mentioned with his son Gilead. It is probable that the division of the tribe was determined partly according to the energy of those who composed it at the time of divisionthe more warlike being more adapted to the east of Jordan. Nevertheless Machir is distinctly mentioned westward, as well as with Gilead eastward (comp. Jdg 5:14-17; Jos 13:29-31). (For the further prosecution of this part of the subject, see Exposition, 1Ch 7:14-19.)
1Ch 5:23
Baal-hermon, etc. These three names need scarcely be read as different names for exactly the same region, but as designating different sides or heights of what was essentially one and the same well-known mountain district, with which would agree Psa 43:1-5 :6, “Therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.’ So Deu 3:8-10 tells us that Hermon was called Sirion by the Sidonians; Shenir, i.q. Senir (, exactly the same word in the Hebrew text in all the four places of its occurrence So Deu 4:8; Eze 27:5), by the Amorites. And the suggestion of Grove is likely enough, that Baal-hermon was the Phoenician cast of the name. If any point were to be gained by reading the names, however, as intended to cover exactly the same tract, it may be noted
(1) that the Hebrew conjunction will perfectly admit of being translated “even;” and
(2) that the order of the names, going from the foreign to the native Hermon itself, would so far favour it.
1Ch 5:24
Epher; same root with Ophrah (Jdg 6:11, Jdg 6:15). Of the seven heads of this half-tribe here quoted, no individual mention is made elsewhere. 1Ch 12:19-22 confirms their renown for valour.
1Ch 5:25, 1Ch 5:26
The “transgressors” here described include manifestly not this half-tribe Manasseh alone, but the other tribes of Israel of whom this chapter has treated.
1Ch 5:25
And they went a-whoring (); so 2Ch 21:11, 2Ch 21:13. This verb, in one form of its root or another, occurs as many as ninety-seven times in the Pentateuch, Judges, Joshua, Psalms, Proverbs; and prophets, for only twice in Kings and four times in Chronicles, in all the rest of the Old Testament writings.
1Ch 5:26
Pul and Tilgath-pilneser. These two were chosen ministers of God’s will, if not ministers of himself. We can identify the date of this punishment which befell the transgressing Israelites east of the Jordan. The visit of the former, in the reign of Menahem (2Ki 15:15-20), may be interpreted and might have operated as a lesson and a warning. He was bought off with a thousand talents of silver. It seems to be said with significance,” So the king of Assyria turned back, and stayed not there in the land.” It was in the reign of Pekah, the usurping successor of Menahem’s son Pekahiah, that the completer punishment fell, and Tilgath-pilneser effected the captivity spoken of here and in 2Ki 15:27-29. The name Pul cannot, it would appear, be a pure Assyrian name, and there is reason to think it may be identified with Vul-lush (grandson of the Shalmaneser who warred with Benhadad, etc.), a name found on Assyrian monuments, and belonging to a king who reigned at Calah, B.C. 8004750 (see art. “Pul,” Smith’s ‘Bible Dictionary’). Tilqath-pilneser (see notes on 2Ki 15:6) was probably the founder of the lower dynasty of Assyria, and first king of the new empire. His first invasion was one chiefly of Israel and Samaria (2Ki 15:29; Isa 9:1). His second was of a much more significant character. Called in to aid Judah under Ahaz against Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Syria in alliance, he both conquered these latter and brought into vassalage Judah itself (2Ki 15:37; 2Ki 16:9, 2Ki 16:10; 2Ch 28:6-8; Isa 9:1). Halah; Habor Hara; Gozan. This enumeration exceeds that of 2Ki 17:6 by the addition of Hara, important as helping with consistent witness to the antiquity of the region described. Halah (not the “Calah” of Gen 10:11) is believed to be identifiable with Chalcitis, its verbal resemblance to which comes out a little more evidently in its Hebrew form (). A trace of it possibly remains in the name of a hill, Gla, on the Khabour, i.q. Habor of this passage, an important tributary of the Euphrates, and not the “Chebar” of Ezekiel. This name Khabour is found in an Assyrian inscription dating upwards of eight centuries before Christ. The mention of Habor in 2Ki 17:6 and 2Ki 18:11 is, in the Authorized Version, made to convey the impression of a place “by” the “river of Gozan,” instead of being, what the Hebrew says, “the river of Gozan.” Here, on the other hand, Gozan is, in the Authorized Version, incorrectly translated as a river itself, instead of the region of a river. It is, according to the testimony of Layard, a remarkably fertile tract, being the Gauzanitis of Ptolemy, and substantially the Mygdonia of Polybius and Strabo. Hara; , with little doubt, the same as , Haran, or Charran (Gen 11:31), the ancient adopted home of Abraham, in Padan-aram, in Mesopotamia, on the Belik, a small tributary of the Euphrates. It is the Greek Carrhae of Strabo and Polybius. These four names purport to give us, probably in brief, the information that those of the Captivity here alluded to were dividedsome to settle at Halab on one river, some in Hara on another, and the rest in the district called Gauzanitis. The region called Halah and that called Gau-zanitis, however, were both watered by the Khabour, and therefore the insertion of the name Haran where it is inserted occasions some difficulty.
HOMILETICS
1Ch 5:25.-The end of idolatry.
Notwithstanding the exceeding brevity of style of the genealogical portion of Chronicles, it is not entirely without reflections of a moral and religious kind. Few they certainly are; but, when they do occur, they are of a very pronounced sort. This chapter has spoken of the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and has spanned their history, though with many a gap in it, from the first up to their captivity. This last event approached, is not to be recorded, however, without a previous and very distinct notification of what led to it. These causes, we well know, were the same with all the other tribes who were also taken into captivity, and in other parts of these genealogies corresponding allusion is made to the Captivity in respect of the other tribes as well. But the statements before us, for whatever reason now attached to the above-mentioned two tribes and a half, are emphatic. They invite us to take the opportunity of lingering awhile, and of asking what it is in their twofold shape they contain and suggest. The brevity of the solemn indictment will be helpful to us, and when we have purposely departed awhile from that brevity it will be convenient to return to it again. Up and down the history of these two and a half tribes and of all the other tribes, the mournful facts, the miserable facts, are but too apparent during the successions of many generations. Yet we have the indictment almost formally drawn up (2Ki 7:7-17), and though but a summary, yet it reads with a fearful fulness and directness. The pointedness and exactness of the counts of the charge are such as to bespeak only too certainly their fidelity to facts. It seems necessary only in briefest outline to rehearse them. “They feared other gods; walked in the statutes of the heathen, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made; did secretly those things not right against the Lord their God; built them high places in all their citiesfrom the tower of the watchman to the fenced city; set up images and groves in every hill, under every green tree; burnt incense in all the high places as did the heathen; wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger; served idols, whereof the Lord said, ‘Ye shall not do this;’ would not hear; hardened their necks; rejected his statutes and his covenant with their fathers, and his testimony; followed vanity; became vain; went after the heathen; left all the commandments of the Lord; made molten images, even two calves; worshipped all the host of heaven; served Baal; caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire; used divinations and enchantments; sold themselves to do evil.” It is to be observed, then, that this thick succession of allegations of sin laid at the door of a people who might have been so blessed, is what underlies the two concise statements of the text, “They transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a-whoring after the gods of the people of the had, whom God destroyed before them.” And these two statements describe one sin, the name of which is idolatry. We may inquire here
I. IN WHAT THE SIN OF IDOLATRY CONSISTS. Described briefly, it consists in permitting the creature-sense of dependence, of disposition to follow, of affection, and the creature-duty of service, to become supremely attached to any object lower than the highest. Among all matters of possession and of material acquisition around us, that may be an admirable modesty and a moderation to be imitated which should exhibit a man, not grasping the utmost possible of attainment, not straining for the highest which might possibly be touched. But there are tendencies of affection, of obedience, of practical service, belonging to us as creatures, and which are bound to find their end in God alone, in none beneath him. True nature, the simplest dictates of gratitude, reason itself, when unobstructed, proclaim the inherent right to these to lie in the Creator himself. He is the idolater who in these circumstances leaves the One absolute Highest and Best, in order to lean upon, to waste affection upon, to serve systematically, the lower. Once make this concession, once sacrifice this highest dictate of an intelligent nature, and the heart and life are laid wide open to every distraction, to the incursion of every disorder. The indictment already quoted above is the sufficient commentary, the ample illustration hereof.
II. WHAT IT IS IN HUMAN NATURE WHICH SEEMS IN ALL AGES TO HAVE MADE IT SO READY A VICTIM TO THE SIN OF IDOLATRY. When the nature of the sin of idolatry is barely stated, as a seeming preference for the lower and the insecure and the temporary in comparison of the opposites of these, it seems almost incredible that it should have had, should still have, so wide a sway. It were to have been supposed that men would know and would choose in the long run the best for themselves. One consideration by itself is sufficient to explain this; for idolatry is human nature‘s protest against living and walking by faith! It is the old battle, the battle also ever new, of sense against faith. And true as it is that faith is not less really a principle of human nature than sense a part of it, the principle has too generally been the party in the conflict compelled to succumb. Men, till they have been divinely renewed, appear always to have found the exercise of faith, in its higher domains, their “strange work.” They have not repudiated it in their own human relations; they have testified to the existence of the germ of it in themselves; that germ has not refused to show life and growth in human evil and while it could raise its head at all in earthly atmosphere, but it undoubtedly has seemed smitten and blighted in proportion as the atmosphere offered it has been most pure and nearest heaven. Idolatry evidently fights against faith in two of its highest functions.
1. As that which offers to reveal to an inner eye rather than display to the bodily eye.
2. And as that which whispers ever, “Wait, wait,” expectant of a future, possibly even a distant future, in place of seizing the gratification of the present hour. It is against these same things that an unregenerate human nature ever opposes itself. Those vast spheres of life, that tremendous force of life which the bodily eye cannot see, and that power which gives to distance nearness, to the far, far-off future the name of “now,” are the aversion of sense, the delights of faith. The Israelites’ idolatry in grosser form brings out, from the very first instances in which the charge of it was fixed upon them, these as the plain rather than deep or mysterious causes of it. A more developed world’s idolatry, a wiser world’s idolatry, a far subtler world’s idolatry, needs not to go in quest of any deeper, remoter sources. These are deep enough and too incontestable.
III. WHAT CONSIDERATIONS OF SPECIAL AGGRAVATION ARE INSTANCED HERE.
1. The hosts of the people “transgressed against the God of their fathers.“ The sin of their idolatry was, therefore, heightened by the fact that it was against:
(1) One long known to them as a nation;
(2) One entitled to their more scrupulous veneration for the houour and the love they owed their own fathers;
(3) One of whom those fathers had oft told them “the wondrous works he had wrought” on their behalf. The history of their own God, which began for them with Abraham, which received so striking an impulse in Joseph, which was the talk of the whole earth from the deliverance from Egypt and the passage of the Red Sea, which glittered again with event and circumstance and miracle in the journeyings of the wilderness, and which shone bright as the noonday sun in the glorious reigns of David and Solomon;was this a history which could permit them to transgress idolatrously against him who had invested them with all that was greatest and most merciful and fullest of glory?
2. While the people thus forsook their own God and the God of their fathers, for whom, for what was it they thus acted? It was to supersede him
(1) by the very gods of the people of the land, whom they superseded, and of whose land they took possession;
(2) by the very gods of the people whom their own God alone had driven out and had destroyed before them, and from their vengeance had safely preserved them. Privilege, mercy, and warning they flagrantly set at nought. They forfeited, without the pretence of an excuse, exalted place, distinguishing honour. Unprovoked, untempted except of their own evil heart and lusts, they forsook the true God and their true and mighty Friend in order to go with an unholy love, with a self-ruining service, after false gods. Such rebellion was indeed “the sin of witchcraft,” such “stubbornness was iniquity and idolatry.” And to a people so long led and loved of the Lord, so well fed and securely kept, that rebellion and stubbornness brought what they ever must bring to those who yield to them, the loss of their very highest good, the forfeiting of their grandest privileges, and the dread eclipse of Divine favour and presence.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON
1Ch 5:2.–Judah’s pre-eminence.
The tribe of Judah holds the first and most prominent place in these genealogies. Reuben was the firstborn, and Joseph had the birthright; but precedence was given to Judah. This was foretold in the remarkable language in which old Jacob, upon his dying bed, spoke of this one of his sons and the tribe of which he was the progenitor.
I. THE TRIBE OF JUDAH TOOK PRECEDENCE OF ALL. When the tribes were numbered under Moses, that of Judah was found to exceed all the others in number. When the Israelites were organized for the war against the Canaanites, Judah was divinely appointed to be the vanguard of the army. A similar precedence is accorded to the tribe of Judah in this Book of Chronicles.
II. FROM THE TRIBE OF JUDAH SPRANG DAVID AND THE ROYAL HOUSE. Of Israel the Lord chose Judah, and of that tribe the family of Jesse, and of that family the youthful David. The great King of Israel and his glorious son shed a splendour upon the national annals. And when the separation of the kingdoms came about, the kingdom of Judah was distinguished in many ways, both civil and religious, above the sister kingdom of Northern Palestine.
III. The greatest distinction and privilege of Judah was this: FROM THIS TRIBE SPRANG THE MESSIAH. Jesus, the Son of David, was a descendant from Judah. This was the true “Lion of the tribe of Judah.”
PRACTICAL LESSONS.
1. Mark the hand of God in family history. Providence raises up one house and sets down another. Families are sometimes selected to fulfil high purposes; and when they are found faithful to their vocation honour is put upon them by him who says, “Them that honour me I will honour.”
2. Remember your accountability to God for family advantages. If God has given much, he will require the more.T.
1Ch 5:18-22.–Victors and vanquished.
The two tribes and a half who occupied the province east of the Jordan were naturally regarded with hostility or jealousy by their Arab neighbours. Conflicts arose, having reference especially to the possession of the rich pasture-lands. In the time of Saul, and apparently under a later king, there was war between the trans-Jordanic tribes and the Hagarites, an Ishmaelitish race. These verses record the war and its result, namely, the defeat of the Hagarites and the possession of the land by the Israelites until the time of the Captivity. Observe
I. THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF THE VICTORY. The warriors engaged on behalf of Israel were numerous, amounting to forty-four thousand men. They were not only numerous, but valiant, well armed, and trained to fight.
II. THE EXPLANATION OF VICTORY. The chronicler gives this account of the matter: “The war was of God;” “They cried to God in the battle, and he was entreated of them.” All strength and valour are from God, and in this respect we are justified in ascribing victory unto him. It is not, however, every just cause that triumphs, and defeat is sometimes the lot of the innocent and those who contend for their rights and liberty. It is a consolation to know that, in any case, what happens is permitted by Providence and is overruled by Providence for good. The King of Sweden, before the great battle of Lutzen, prayed, “Jesus, vouchsafe this day to be my strong Helper, and give me courage to fight for the honour of thy Name!”
III. THE FRUITS OF VICTORY. There were immediate fruits in the vast spoil and booty taken by the conquerors (1Ch 5:21), and abiding fruits in the lands which the tribes won and possessed and inhabited for generations.
PRACTICAL LESSONS.
1. Trace the hand of God even in human wars.
2. Concerning wars in which both parties profess to fight for justice, let nations accustom themselves deliberately to ask, “Is the war of God?” If men would be guided by the answer to this question, many wars would be checked and prevented, and the blessings of peace would oftener be secured.T.
1Ch 5:25, 1Ch 5:26.–Judgment and retribution.
History is something more than a mere record of events. Chronicles, strictly speaking, are the materials only of history. But this book contains, again and again, the Divine philosophy of history. It exhibits the action of the moral, the righteous Ruler of Israel and of mankind. In the history of the trans-Jordanic tribes we have an illustration of the working of great principles of Divine government.
I. THE OCCASION AND REASON OF THE DIVINE DISPLEASURE, Surrounded by heathen, they themselves largely lapsed into heathenism. This was all the more discreditable in them because they forsook Jehovah, the God of their fathers, who had done great things for their nation, and because they attached themselves to the worship of the deities of the very people over whom their God had given them victory and rule. Accordingly their conduct is represented as spiritual fornication, or adultery.
II. THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE DIVINE DISPLEASURE. Under Divine providence, Pul was permitted to make war upon the idolatrous tribes and lay them under tribute, and afterwards Tilgath-pilneser was permitted to carry the people away captive into Assyria. God always has instruments to effect his purposes; even the wicked are used by him to chasten and punish the disobedient and rebellious.
III. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIVINE DISPLEASURE. It would be an interesting subject of inquiry why God thus chastened his chosen people again and again by way of captivity. This we know, that the exile in the East was the means of confirming the Hebrews in their monotheism, and that never again did they lapse into idolatry.
PRACTICAL LESSONS.
1. As to sin, we are taught that its root, its essence, is in departing from God.
2. As to the Divine government, we are taught that God “will not clear the guilty,” and that “the way of transgressors is hard.”
3. And we have suggested to us the mercy of God in his provision of reconciliation and acceptance upon repentance, faith, and return to himself.T.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
1Ch 5:1-17.-The three threads of destiny.
“That is my destiny” is the creed of a foolish fatalism or else the half-hearted excuse of a soul sadly conscious of sin and failure. The full truth respecting a man’s or a nation’s destiny is that it depends on three factorscircumstance, the Divine will, and character. This is well illustrated here.
I. CIRCUMSTANCE. Mention is made of the birthright (1Ch 5:1). Usually the eldest son enjoyed this, and, with this, dominion and a double share in the division of the estate. Through all the tribes of Israel, for succeeding generations, the authority and the possessions of individual men depended on their birthwhose children they were and whether they were the firstborn or not. In the ease of Joseph’s sons (1Ch 5:1), Manasseh and Ephraim had the headship of a most powerful tribe, because they were the sons of the estimable and beloved sons of Joseph. “The sons of Reuben” (verse 3) took their share of honour and estate, whatever may have been left them by their father, etc. So with us in every age and land. What our fortune and future will be, in what society we shall move, what consideration we shall enjoy, etc.,this depends largely on what men call “the accident of birth,” the parentage from which we spring, on the circumstances in which we enter the world and in which we pass our earlier years. Circumstance is one thread of destiny. The fact is a reason why we should not pride ourselves on our good position; also why we should not despise others in positions much lower than our own.
II. THE DIVINE WILL. “Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler” (verse 2). And how came Judah to prevail? Was it not chiefly, if not wholly, by the distinguishing grace of God? He chose David to be the ruler, to be King of Israel, to be the ancestor of the Messiah (see Gen 49:8; Jdg 1:1, Jdg 1:2; 1Ch 28:4). Our heritage here is, in part, chosen for us of God (Psa 47:4). He determines our portion by
(1) the mental faculties and moral dispositions with which he endows us;
(2) the providential openings he provides for us;
(3) the direct Divine promptings with which he inspires us.
And since God has so much to do with our fortunes in this world, we should
(1) be humble in prosperity;
(2) be contented in lowliness;
(3) be submissive in adversity.
III. CHARACTER. Reuben might have had a far more honourable and influential position than he and his posterity enjoyed. Circumstances favoured it; God would have been willing to sanction it. But he forfeited it by his sin (verse 1). His shameful incontinence lowered the level of his fortunes and of those of his children. Had he been a better man he would have held a larger share of prominence and power. Character is a strong thread in the cord of human destiny. What we shall be in the world, to what we shall rise, and what heritage we shall leave to our children,all this depends in very large part indeed on the character we form in youth;
(1) purity,
(2) sobriety,
(3) honesty,
(4) diligence,
(5) sagacity,
(6) courage,
(7) civility (pleasantness of address),
these are the constituents of success. When these are absent, life must be a failure; when present, it is almost certain to be a success. But there is one thing not to be overlooked, viz. that we may make sure and must make sure of the destiny of the good and holy”the heritage of them that fear God’s Name.” Apart from this, success is short-lived and superficial. With this, temporal misfortunes may be calmly borne, for beyond is an everlasting portion which will make these soon to be forgotten.C.
1Ch 5:18-26.–Devotion, declension, and doom.
In this brief story we have a painfully characteristic piece of human historyfirst, spiritual soundness; then consequent prosperity; then laxity and sin; then punishment and disaster. We trace the steps.
I. A COMMENCEMENT IN MORAL AND SPIRITUAL SOUNDNESS. These two tribes and a half were brave and godly men: “valiant men” (1Ch 5:18); godly men also, for they “cried to God in the battle, and they put their trust in him” (1Ch 5:20); and it is clear that they were acting so much under the direction and in the service of Jehovah that it could be said of their struggle “the war was of God” (1Ch 5:22). It is possible that a war of the same kind, a struggle between contending armies, may now be “of God,” and that godly soldiers may cry, with genuine and acceptable devotion, for Divine succour. But such engagements are rare. The illustration of this truth is found now in other fields:
(1) in the battle of life;
(2) in the struggle against particular evils, such as drunkenness, impurity, etc.;
(3) in the great missionary campaign. Here are three principal virtues in all moral and spiritual warfarevalour (1Ch 5:18), prayer (1Ch 5:20), and trust in his Word (1Ch 5:20).
II. CONSEQUENT SUCCESS AT THE HAND OF GOD. “They were helped against them, and the Hagarites were delivered into their hand,” etc. (1Ch 5:20). Beside the security and joy of victory came possessions (1Ch 5:21) and a home (1Ch 5:22, 1Ch 5:23). Those who, in the battles they fight under God, strive in accordance with his will, manfully, prayerfully, and expectantly, will certainly be rewarded with
(1) the joy of victory,
(2) increase of power and spiritual wealth, and
(3) the approval and reward of the Divine Captain.
Too oftenalas for human infirmity!comes
III. SPIRITUAL DECLENSION. “They transgressed against the God of their fathers,” etc. (1Ch 5:25). Their comfortable prosperity led to free intercourse with ungodly neighbours, and this to laxity of thought and word, and this, ultimately, to defection and rank disobedience. So is it only too often in the history of men, of Churches, of nations. Their early piety leads to an enjoyable prosperity; this leads to intimate association and intercourse with those less devout and pure; and this to contamination and corruption. It is the course which humanity has taken in every dispensation, in every land, in every Church; not necessarily, but with a lamentable frequency. So common is the case that all prosperous piety may well hear a loud voice bidding it Beware! Spiritual declension is unperceived in its beginning; spreads through the soulthrough the rankswith perilous subtlety; grows with gathering rapidity; is increasingly hard to overcome; is fatal in its final issues. It leads to
IV. A MISERABLE DOOM. It ended, in the case of these Israelites, in defeat and exilein national destruction (1Ch 5:26). It ends, with us:
1. In utter defeat and failure; so that the purpose of our life, whether individual or collective, is wholly thwarted.
2. In spiritual exile; in disastrous separation from God. He is no longer with us as he once was; he is no longer in us. We live apart from him in a far country.
3. In saddest disappointment. The Master is grieved that his Church (his disciple) has fallen from its (his) high estate; the good and wise grieve over one more deplorable defection.C.
HOMILIES BY F. WHITFIELD
1Ch 5:1-8.-Reuben.
Reuben was the eldest son of Jacob. The birthright which was his, included dominion and a double portion; both of these were forfeited by sin (see Gen 49:3, Gen 49:4) and were transferred to Joseph. But as Joseph’s posterity was not mentioned first, the historian explains by saying that the genealogy was not to be reckoned by birthright, as the superior honour and privilege had been previously Conferred on Judah. This tribe had the pre-eminence over all the tribes, not on account of Judah himself, but because Christ, “the chief Ruler” (see 1Ch 5:2), was to come out of it. Reuben’s sin comes in here as a parenthesis. God will brand sin wherever he sees it. It is no trifle with him, nor does he ever forget it. Only one thing can blot it outthe blood of the Lamb. We may forget it, but he will make it to Come in as a parenthesis in our own life or in that of our posterity, that we may learn what an evil and bitter thing it is, and that he will not trifle with it. But these fruits of sin, these parentheses, how they come in ages after, marring the brightest escutcheon, hindering our blessing, and tarnishing God’s glory! The curse of our crime is handed down through generations, and the innocent child is humiliated and thrown back and its fairest prospects blighted. Again we have Christ brought before us, at the opening of this chapter, in the prominence given to the tribe of Judah. The natural birthright is set aside. It is so always. Nature’s order is reversed in the kingdom of God. “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.” This is the law of God’s kingdom. Man’s rejected is God’s chosen. Grace, and not nature, takes the lead. Little did Reuben’s posterity judge of the chief reason why he was set aside. Little did Judah’s posterity know the chief reason for his pre-eminence. God was putting down one and raising up another with reference to the future manifestation and glory of his dear Son. To human eye this did not appear. Thus was God working behind the scenes, working out the counsels of his own will, and all with a view to the glory of Christ. So it is now. We see the sin of man as in Reuben; we see the counterworking of Satan, crossing, to all human appearance, the purposes of God; but behind all God is working. God is raising up one and putting down another, and all with reference to the advancement of the kingdom and glory of his dear Son. It does not appear so to our short-sighted judgment, but we are no judges of God’s ways and thoughts: “His ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts.” Behind every little event in your daily life God is working. And he is never more really carrying out his purposes of wisdom and grace and love than when those events seem to run counter to this end. Judge of God’s ways by the opposite. The more apparently opposed the more really he is there.W.
1Ch 5:18-24.–Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh: their valour.
We have first a description of the men brought before us. They were “valiant men, men able to bear buckler and sword, and to shoot with bow, and skilful in war.” Such are God’s children to be at all times. They are not to rest in their Christianity, not to sit down and fold their hands because they are saved. No; they are to “fight the good fight of faith,” to “war a good warfare,” to “put on the whole armour of God,” to be “good soldiers of Jesus Christ.” In order to be “good soldiers” they must be “valiant” for the truth; they must be “able” men, endued with the power of the Holy Spirit. They must be men able to bear “buckler and sword, and to shoot with bow, and skilful in war.” They must be men trained of God’s Holy Spirit, men “able” to use all the spiritual weapons of truth in the armoury of God. They must be “able to shoot with bow”to send home some pointed arrow of truth to some heart and conscience by word and by deed. They must be “able to bear the sword”to use the Word of God, the “sword of the Spirit,” with power. So that the “sword” and the” bow “may be said to take in the near and the distantthe “sword“ the hand-to-hand conflict; the bow the distant weapon, the arrow well aimed. The different aspects of truth, the different ways of using it, the different attitudes which the Christian is to take with regard to the enemy,these are the points of instruction shadowed forth by this variety of weapon. He is to be taught of God’s Spirit, disciplined by prayer, by meditation, by the reading of the Word, by dependence on God, yea, and by his own defeats and failures, his sorrows and sins, so as to be “skilful in war.” And observe that this spiritual warfare is to be no mere head-knowledge, no mere talk, no hollow profession. It is a real thing. Mark it here”they went out to the war;” “they made war;” “they were helped against” the enemy in the war; they conquered in the war (verses 18-20). Here are the four stages of Christian warfare in all its realitythey “went out;” they “made;” they were “helped;” they conquered. And why did they conquer? What was the secret of their victory? Was it their “valour,” their “sword,” their “bow,” their “buckler,” their “skill“? Ah, no! All would have been in vain if it had depended on these. “The Hagarites were delivered into their hand, for they cried to God in the battle.“ “Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” “if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say; if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us: then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul: then the proud waters bad gone over our soul. Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth” (Psa 124:1-6). Nor were the Reubenites conquerors only. “They took away their cattle; of their camels fifty thousand, and of sheep two hundred and fifty thousand, and of asses two thousand, of men an hundred thousand.“ What a victory, and what abundance of spoil! Yes; the Lord’s battles are always sure thingssure victory and sure spoil. He giveth great victory; he enables us to carry away rich blessings from the spiritual conflict. It is no mere winning with the Christian. It is a glorious warfare and an equally glorious victory. “In all these things,” says the apostle, “we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” We do indeed “war a good warfare.” There are “Hagarites” all round you and within you. Be “skilful in war:” gird the “buckler,” the “bow,” and the “sword” of truth close to your souls. “Go out to the war;” “make war.” “Cry to God” in the battle. “Put your trust in him.” “Your labour in the Lord is not in vain.” So shall you be a conqueror; so shall you carry away great spoil; so shall “many fall down slain” by you. Be a “valiant“ man; so shall you be “more than conqueror” in everything that is against you. And remember, it is not your battle, but God’s. Mark what is said: “There fell down many slain, because the war was of God.“ Yes; the war is of God. He cannot look upon sin. He has no part in this world. It is all in spirit contrary to him. He would have you not “conformed” to it but “transformed.” “This is not your rest. Arise ye, and depart.” He has better things in store for you. Everything here is too poor for the King’s sons. You are waiting for the gold and the jewels and the crowns of the celestial city. “Arise ye, and depart.” This war, this discipline, this struggle with sin, those defeats, those humiliations, those hot scalding tears, those bleeding hearts, those mysteries and baffling enigmas making you cry out, “What does it all mean?”it is all of God. This warfare is fitting you for the glory. It is making you to know yourself and to know Jesus. It is brightening your crown; it is tuning your golden harp; it is weaving your starlit diadem. Yes; “the war is of God.” Oh, if you could only see it! If you could only look at it, just for a moment, from yonder height of glory, how it would all seem right then! If you could only look at it through the tearless eye, up on the height, out of the smoke and din and roar of the battle in the plain, how it would all be right! Yes; “the war is of God.” Then war a good warfare. The Captain of your salvation will soon be here to reward you with the crown. “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” Mark the elements of this great victory: “They cried to God in the battle, and be was entreated of them; because they put their trust in him.” “When Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed.” So here. Not prayer without trustthat is unbelief. Not trust without prayerthat is presumption. Prayer and trustthat is victory.W.
1Ch 5:25, 1Ch 5:26.–Reuben’s fall.
We now come to the fall of the very people who, only a few verses before, had been so conspicuous for prayer and faith and victory. And what was the cause of it? “They went a-whoring after the gods of the people of the land.“ The world around; the pleasure-seeking, self-seeking world; the attractive, smiling, seducing world;this drew them aside, this stole their hearts from God. What the Hagarites had failed to do, the “gods of the people of the land” did. Satan conies to God’s people in one of two formseither as a “roaring lion” or as an “angel of light.” Where he cannot succeed in one way he will try the other. He came as a “roaring lion” in the form of the “Hagarites,” but he failed. He then came as an “angel of light” in the” gods of the people of the land;” thus they fell. It is the same always. Behold it in the case of good King Hezekiah. Satan tried him as a “roaring lion” in the person of Sennacherib and his threatening letter. Hezekiah threw himself on God, and triumphed. Satan next came as an “angel of light” in the form of the “letters and a present from Merodach-baladan, King of Babylon.” Hezekiah saw not the hook beneath the gilded bait; thus he fell (Isa 39:1). And what is the commentary of the Holy Spirit on this? “Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him.“ Why? Only in mercy and love, “that he might know all that was in his heart” (2Ch 32:1-33 :81). Ah! when God leaves a man, even for a moment, there is no foreseeing to what a depth he will fall. “God left him “solemn words!“that he might know all that was in his heart.” How little we know what a serpent-coil of evil is hidden in our hearts! “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool.” “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,” etc. What a filthy stream! Who would trust it? Who would look into it for good? None but the fool. Trust only Jesus. Trust a Saviour’s promise, a Saviour’s love, a Saviour’s power, but never trust your heart. Christian reader, learn the lesson. And where are these people of God seen next? “And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul King of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser King of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day.” God will chastise. His people must know the bitterness of their sin. And what strange places the sins of God’s people have brought them into! Some have gone back into the world; some are seen walking no more with Jesus; some are buried in different forms of error; some are seen hankering after the world and its vanities with a fervour and anxiety of which the world itself would be ashamed; some are seen with marks and shadows in their Christian character, that have proved and are proving a sad stumbling-block to others. Yes; these are “Halah” and “Habor” and “Hara,” into which their great enemy has brought them. They have been “carried away.” And what has done it? Let the prophet answer: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags: and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.“ Christian reader, learn the solemn lesson. Know your heart, but only to distrust it. Trust only in Jesus. Abide in him. Only thus can you be safe.W.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
1Ch 5:1.–Instability.
For the earlier references to Reuben, see Gen 29:32; Gen 35:22; Gen 49:3, Gen 49:4; comp. Gen 48:15, Gen 48:22. The joy Leah felt at Reuben’s birth was not maintained as his character and disposition unfolded. The weakness of his character is fixed in a sentence by his father, “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.” Evidently the one act of sin to which Jacob referred in illustration did but seal the impression which Jacob previously had of his firstborn son. This subject may be effectively introduced by a picture of the aged Jacob spending his failing strength in prophetic messages to his children. These were evidently based on paternal observation of their characteristic qualities, but they involve the seer‘s power to discern how those qualities affect the future developments of each tribe. Compare Moses’ prophecy concerning Reuben (Deu 33:6). The figure of the water (unstable as water) is that of water boiling over, or swelling in flood, or driven up in storm; and includes . sudden passion, violent impulses, lack of self-restraint, as well as uncertainty, unsteadiness. The general lessons to be learned from this recalling of Reuben to mind may be thus set forth.
I. EACH MAN HAS HIS PROVIDENTIAL PLACE. It is by no accident that men have their places in families as firstborn or younger sons, or that they belong to families of particular rank and class. These are all in the Divine arrangement. They fit into the precise endowments and possibilities of the individual, and the Divine method of his testing and culture by trial. Reuben was the firstborn, and in the faithful keeping of that place lay all the noble possibilities of his life. A man may come to occupy other places, and after failure may recover position and influence to some extent; but it should ever be deeply impressed upon us that our highest hopes and best possibilities of service to God and to our race must always depend on our recognizing, keeping, and worthily filling, our providential place.
II. KEEPING THE PROVIDENTIAL PLACE DEPENDS ON CHARACTER, NOT CIRCUMSTANCE. Illustrate that the firstborn of a family often loses his place, and one of the younger members becomes practically the family head, the one on whom all depend. This may occur through such circumstances as the removal of the firstborn to a distance, but more often it is due to failure in the unfolding of character. Time shows that the firstborn cannot be relied on, cannot carry the family burden or help to realize the family hope. So, apart from all the plottings of Jacob, Esau, by reason of failure in character, failed from the family headship; and Reuben proves himself unfitted by his untamed impulsiveness for the place of influence and authority. The birthright is not taken away from a man, but the man loses it himself, or the providential workings shift all the honour and responsibility and dignity of it on to the worthy shoulders. It is largely true that a man wins and keeps what he deserves.
III. THE ONE THING THAT MAKES MEN MISS OPPORTUNITY AND PLACE IS INSTABILITY. They cannot be “steadfast, unmovable.“ So much of men’s failure is not open and manifest wrong. Some of the saddest failures in life are of men who are morally good, but weak; men who cannot reach “patient continuance in well-doing.” The Apostle James deals vigorously with this kind of failure, using the illustration of “water” or the “sea-wave‘ (Jas 1:6-8). Instability may take a milder form, as “uncertainty,” “inability to decide,” “wavering;” or an intenser form, as is illustrated in Reuben: then it is “unchecked impulse,” “tendency to passion,” “failure to restrain one’s self by righteous principle.” But each form of the evil suffices to lose a man his place. Compare the Evangelist Mark. “Not one great action, not one judge, prophet, or leader, from the tribe of Reuben is ever mentioned in history.”
IV. EXACTLY WHAT CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE DOES FOR MEN IS TO GIVE THEM STRENGTH AND CONTINUANCE. Its work is to give the soul rootage, as it were, in God, so that the growth may be steadily upward and outward. It finds a foundation on which the whole building of character, fitly framed together, may grow into a holy temple. Its message is, “Be ye steadfast, unmovable,” etc. (1Co 15:58); and its models are the heroic martyrs who, strong in God, stand fast, and, having done all, stand.R.T.
1Ch 5:2.–Birthrights and supremacies.
A significant fact of the early history of the patriarchs is here brought to remembrance. It is one so curious as to carry suggestions and lessons for all the ages, and so is recorded for our instruction. By providential arrangement the tribal birthright was Reuben’s; he, however, lost it through his wrongdoing, and his father shifted it from the eldest son of his first with to the eldest son of his second but really his own chosen wifefrom Reuben to Joseph. Man’s adjustments of the Divine order are not always sealed by God. Jacob’s were not in this case. As the years passed on, Judah came to the front, ultimately gained the sovereignty, and from this tribe came the permanent Davidic dynasty. Joseph, represented by the tribe of Ephraim, struggled, age after age, to keep the birthright place, but in vain; and in the conflict of the two tribes we may find illustration of the hopelessness of pressing mere human adjustments against the providential order. Neither the individual nor the community may ever hope to “resist God and prosper.” It is ever ill work “running upon the bosses of Jehovah’s buckler.”
I. MAN CANNOT READJUST THE DIVINE ORDER. Yet that is exactly what we, in our self-will, are ever striving to do. Even when we know what is God’s will, we try to get it twisted about so that it may at least seem to conform to our will. This is a very common but very subtle form of Christian error and sin. We know what we wish or want, so we deceive ourselves into the idea that this is what God wishes or wants for us, and fail in that simple openness to Divine lead which is the right spirit to cherish. Scripture illustrations may be found in Rebekah, whose will was to gain the birthright and blessing for her favourite son, so she took the Divine order into her own adjustment, and won those things for him by deceptions which, very properly, brought heavy penalties on her and on him. Or in Balaam, who professed to do exactly what God wished him to do, and yet evidently did what he himself planned to do, forcing from God that fatal “Go.” Or in Saul, who could not simply wait God’s time and the arrival of his prophet, but, arranging the Divine order according to his own self-will, must himself offer the sacrifice. The forms in which nowadays men take the ordering of their lives into their own hands may be illustrated, and, as a contrast, mention may be made of David, who, though tempted to slay King Saul, would not interfere with the Divine order, though he might easily have seemed to himself to have been only fulfilling the Divine promise. We must wait for God as well as on him.
II. MAN FINDS HIS TRUE GOOD IN FOLLOWING THE DIVINE ORDER. Not in the helplessly passive way of poor aged Eli, but in an active and loyal way, we may say, “It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.” Keble expresses the right state of mind for the child of God, in his picture of the man sanctified by affliction, “wishing, no longer struggling, to be free.” The Divine order for our life may differ wholly from the order of our own plannings. It may even seem to flesh and blood painful and humiliating. Still let life unfold, and it proves the way of best blessing for us and for others through us. Let eternity unfold, and we sing through all the ages of the “good way wherein the Lord our God led us.” David shows us the attitude to which the Divine order is revealed. “The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way.”
III. FOLLOWING THE DIVINE ORDER MAY LEAD A MAN TO HIGHER THINGS THAN HIS BIRTH PROMISED. Illustrate from Judah, and from cases of men born in the disabilities of poverty, or of the weakness of hereditary disease, who have been led in God’s providence to high place, powers, and usefulness. Let us find our faculty and endowment. It is the key to God’s purpose in our life; let us develop it. Life will then bring to us its best. Let us but follow on along the line of our Divine endowment, and even the “least may become the first.”R.T.
1Ch 5:18-22.–Man’s power and God’s power in war.
It was a characteristic feature of Jewish thought, and it was a fitting expression of the theocratic principle, that God was recognized as directly concerned in and related to every event, and in such a way as made him, in a very real and deep sense, the cause of the event. The observation of this peculiarity is necessary to the understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures, and it alone explains some of the Scripture difficulties, especially those which seem to assert that God is the author of evil, that he hardened Pharaoh’s heart, sent an evil spirit to Saul, and a lying spirit into the prophets, etc. Still, admitting this general feature, there appears to be an unusual positiveness and strength about the assertions in this passage, that “the war was of God;” that “they cried to God in the battle, and he was entreated of them; because they put their trust in him.” Probably the historical reference is to the “great war in the time of Saul between the trans-Jordanic Israelites and the Hagarenes, who then occupied the rich tract north and north-east of Gilead, known as the Hauran at the present day.” A study of the map will impress the importance of the subjection of this district to the security of the trans-Jordanic tribes. The Hagarenes were “noted for their thievish habits, and were regarded as savage and warlike.” We note, from these verses, that the difficulty of putting rightly together man‘s working and God‘s strengthening finds constant and ever-varied illustration in Holy Scripture, coming up to view in very unlikely places. Here the instance is a striking one, because, in the common and less thoughtful estimate of men, war is precisely the thing in which God is not wanted; in which the whole foreground is occupied with man’s armies, man’s weapons, man’s skill, and man’s energies, and there is plainly no room for God. The instance is an impressive one, because in such unusual circumstances we are called to learn the lesson of trust, and to see that man only achieves a true success when he is strong in God. Even in his wars man should find the principle working that is so skilfully expressed by the apostle in relation to the personal life: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Php 2:12, Php 2:13; see the form in the Revised Version). The possibility of uniting energy and trust in wartimes may be illustrated in the soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus and of Cromwell.
I. MAN‘S OWN WORK IN WAR. It is usually entered upon for reasons of state. The times bring round to some men the spirit of conquest. Nations undertake wars to secure their boundaries, to repress the encroachments of neighbours, etc.; and even in sacred wars, such as the Crusades, the real object is the securing of some human sovereignty, such as was claimed by the pope. War is the great sphere for the exercise of man’s trained physical powers. And it is usual for success in war to follow the greatest army and the highest efficiency. So it is of all human things the most intensely human.
II. MAN‘S TRUST IN GOD IN WAR. If the object of the war be right, man need never separate God from it. And, to impress this, Scripture shows us God fighting with and by means of armies; even saying distinctly, “the war was of God.” We have not to decide the right in historical cases, which demand a fuller basis of judgment and more complete knowledge than we possess; but we must decide the right of any wars which we sanction, and only when assured of the right can we trust God for success.
III. GOD‘S WORK THROUGH MAN IN WAR. None can read the story of the race without seeing that God has used war as one of the severer agents in his providential workings for the sum total of good. And no,, man. can read aright’ the “signs of his times” without finding God in battle-fields, making the wrath of man praise him.” Impress for all right spheres of human life the practical compatibility of trust and toil.R.T.
1Ch 5:25.-The sin of idolatry and its judgments.
In the Divine wisdom it had been planned that the idolatrous Canaanites should be wholly dispossessed, so that no remnants of the race should exert an evil influence on God’s people when settled in their lands. Such a plan distinctly intimates the Divine sense of the peril in which the contact of idolatry would place an unsophisticated people. And such the Israelites were, for though their fathers had known Egyptian idolatry, the race that entered Canaan had been entirely isolated in the desert districts. They failed to carry out fully the Divine plan. Some of the Canaanites were left unconquered through the hurry of the tribes to locate themselves on their allotted lands. Some were left because the people had not faith in God enough to conquer them. And these remnants became a snare and a trap to the simple people, who were easily fascinated by ceremonial and licence. We learn
I. THE TEMPTATION OF IDOLATRY. From the standpoint of our spiritual Christianity, we sometimes wonder how any one can be attracted by the helpless and often hideous idols of heathen nations, or deceived by the claims of their priests; and yet the appeal of idolatry being to certain marked features of human nature, a little searching might show idolatry, in a skilful disguise, even imperilling our spiritual Christianity, and it is not quite certain that any of us could claim the right to “cast the first stone.” To what in man does idolatry make its appeal?
1. To the sensuous element. We want everything brought within the sphere of the senses, and we only consider that we know What the senses can apprehend. So it is ever attractive to man to offer him his God as within the grasp of his senses. He will delude himself into the idea that the sense-form only helps him to realize the spiritual and invisible Being, the great Spirit, but almost inevitably the sense-hold becomes a slavery, and the thing seen is accepted as the reality.
2. To the aesthetic element, or taste, the love of the beautiful. A spiritual and invisible God asks from his creatures a spiritual and invisible worship, with a material expression held within careful limitations. A God within sense-limits only asks sense-service, and man satisfies himself with making it ornate, elaborate, and the perfection of taste, according to the sentiment of the age. Illustrate from refined Greek humanism.
3. To the active element. Idolatry has something for its votaries to do, many prayers to say, pilgrimages to take, sacrifices to bring, etc; good works by which to win favour.
4. To the sensual element. All idolatrous systems are more or less immoral, and give licence to the bodily lusts and passions. The purity of the claims of spiritual religion constitute, for man as he is, one of its chief disabilities. Show how Canaanite idolatry illustrates these, in its influence on the Israelites.
II. THE SIN OF IDOLATRY. Take the case of nations outside the covenant; what may be known of God by them declares him as above his creation, and naturally claiming first and sole allegiance (see St. Paul’s speech at Athens, and Rom 1:1-32.). Take the case of the nation within the covenant; a special aggravation is its sin against light and against its own pledge. Idolatry is a rash sin, for it sins against the basis commandment, which requires us to love God first. Its sinful character is sufficiently revealed and declared in its corrupting and debasing influence. It “brings forth death.”
III. THE JUDGMENT OF IDOLATRY. This is always spiritual; seen in the deterioration of the nations that serve idols. It is usually also material, and is seen in the mental, moral, and governmental slavery of the nations where idol-gods are sought. Divine judgments oftenwe can hardly say alwaystake their character from the sins which they judge. This the idea of Dante’s ‘Inferno.’ Close by pressing St. John’s counsel, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”R.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
2. The Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh: 1 Chronicles 5
. The Tribe of Reuben: 1Ch 5:1-10
1Ch 5:1.And the sons of Reuben, the first-born of Israel,for he was the first-born; but, because he defiled his fathers bed, his birthright was given to the sons of 2Joseph the son of Israel, though he was not to be registered as first-born. For Judah was mighty among his brethren, and of him was the prince; and Joseph 3had the birthright.The sons of Reuben, the first-born of Israel: Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi. 4The sons of Joel: Shemaiah his son, Gog his Song of Solomon , 5 Shimi his son. Micah his son, Reaiah his son, Baal his Song of Solomon 6 Beerah his son, whom Tilgath-pilneser king of Asshur carried away; he was prince among the Reubenites.
7And his brethren by their families, in the register after their generations: the chief Jeiel, and Zechariah 8 And Bela the son of Azaz, the son of Shema,the son of Joel; he dwelt in Aroer, even unto Nebo and Baal-meon. 9And eastward he dwelt unto the entrance into the wilderness from the river Euphrates;for their cattle multiplied in the land of Gilead. 10And in the days of Saul they made war with the Hagarites, and they fell by their hand; and they dwelt in their tents on all the east side of Gilead.
. The Tribe of Gad: 1Ch 5:11-17
11And the sons of Gad dwelt over against them, in the land of Bashan, unto Salcah. 12Joel the chief, and Shapham the second, and Janai and Shaphat1 inBashan. 13And their brethren by their father-houses: Michael, and Meshullam, and Sheba, and Jorai, and Jachan, and Zia, and Eber, seven. 14These are the sons of Abihail the son of Huri, the son of Jaroah, the son of Gilead, the son 15of Michael, the son of Jeshishai, the son of Jahdo, the son of Buz. Ahi the son of Abdiel, the son of Guni, chief of their father-houses. 16And they dwelt in Gilead in Bashan, and in her daughters, and in all the suburbs of Sharon2 unto17their outgoings. All of them were registered in the days of Jotham king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam king of Israel.
. War of the Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh with Arab Nations: 1Ch 5:18-22
And 18the sons of Reuben, and Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, of valiant men bearing shield and sword, and drawing the bow, and skilful in war, were19forty and four thousand and seven hundred and sixty going forth to war. And they made war with the Hagarites, and Jetur, and Naphish, and Nodab. 20And they were helped against them, and the Hagarites were delivered into their hand, and all that were with them; for they cried to God in the battle, and He was entreated of them, because they trusted in Him. 21And they took their cattle; their camels fifty thousand, and sheep two hundred and fifty thousand,22and asses two thousand, and souls of men a hundred thousand. For many fell slain, because the war was of God; and they dwelt in their stead until the captivity.
. The half-Tribe of Manasseh: 1Ch 5:23-24
23And the sons of the half-tribe of Manasseh dwelt in the land, from Bashanunto Baal-hermon and Senir and Mount Hermon; these were many. 24And these were the heads of their father-houses, even Epher, and Ishi, and Eliel, and Azriel, and Jeremiah, and Hodaviah, and Jahdiel, valiant heroes, famous men, heads of father-houses.
. Carrying of the Three East-Jordanic Tribes into Exile: 1Ch 5:25-26
25And they were untrue to the God of their fathers, and lusted after the godsof the people of the land, whom the Lord destroyed before them. 26And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Asshur, and the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser king of Asshur, and he carried them away, the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah and Habor, and the mountain and the river Gozan, unto this day.
EXEGETICAL
Preliminary Remark.The three east-jordanic tribes are closely connected by our genealogist on account of their common fate, not only by being here placed together, although by this arrangement the eastern half of Manasseh are severed from their western kindred, but also by the insertion of two historic episodes referring to the common doings and fortunes of the three. The first of these pieces is inserted between Gad and half-Manasseh; the second is transferred to the end, because it describes the catastrophe by which the three tribes lost their independence. An endeavour after an equable distribution of the historical matter (Berth.) may lie at the ground of this; for even to the genealogical account of the Reubenites a short war notice, 1Ch 5:10, is appended. But the notable thing is, that the more copious and important of these historical notices refer to the common acts and the common fall of the three (it is not observed that the tribe of Gad, in connection with whose generations the war report, 1Ch 5:18-22, is given, played a specially prominent part in it), by which our section is distinguished as one compact group from the genealogical series of our chapter.
1. The Tribe of Reuben: 1Ch 5:1-10.The introductory 1Ch 5:1-2 treat of the birthright of Reuben in its relation to that of Joseph.For he was the first-born; but because, etc. These words to the close of 1Ch 5:2 form a parenthesis, which, reminding us in its opening words of Gen 49:4, set forth the ground on which the birthright of Joseph is mentioned along with that of Reuben,Though he was not to be registered as first-born, literally, though not to register ( before , to denote that which should take place; see Ew. 237, c) for the first birth, that is, in the rank of the first-born. The subject here is perhaps not Reuben (Sept., Vulg.), but Joseph, as Kimchi and other Rabbinical expositors justly observe; for the statement of the following verse refers to Joseph as the chief person spoken of here.
1Ch 5:2. For Judah was mighty among his brethren., was strong, mighty, in numbers and influence; comp. Gen 49:8 ff.; Jdg 1:1, and 1Ch 2:-4.And of him was the prince (namely, David, 1Ch 28:4; 1Sa 13:14; 1Sa 25:30), or, and of him should be one of the princes (Kamph.). This concealed reference to the Davidic kingdom that sprang from Judah reminds us in its form of Mic 5:1 (comp. here with there, and with there).And Joseph had the birthright. To him were allowed two territories (according to the right of first birth, Deu 21:15-17), one for Ephraim and one for Manasseh.
1Ch 5:3. Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi. So are the four sons of Reuben named Gen 46:9, Exo 6:14; comp. Num 26:5-7.
1Ch 5:4-6. The descendants of Joel, as a single line of Reubenites, which is carried through several generations. From which of the four sons this line descended, the author of the present list knew, and perhaps even the Chronist, who incorporated it into his work; but the knowledge is lost to after times.Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, etc. The first after after the Sept. has read as a nom. propr., and therefore inserted between Shemaiah and Gog another descendant of Joel, , whereby his whole descendants are increased from seven to eight,, though scarcely in accordance with the original text. The seven names occur also elsewhere, but only here in reference to the descendants of Reuben.
1Ch 5:6. Beerah his son, whom Tilgath-pilneser carried away. The Chronist always writes , whereas in 2 Kings the only form of writing is (comp. the similar difference between Nebuchadrezzar of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Nebuchadnezzar of the other books; see on Dan 1:1). Whether G. Opperts interpretation of the name = , prayer to the son of the Zodiac, the Assyrian Hercules, be correct, or the certainly preferable one of Schrader (Tuklat-habalasar, trust in the son of the house of grace, or, he who trusts in the house of grace, that is, in the god Adar; comp. Schrader, Die Keilin-schriften und das AlteT., 1872, pp. 134 f., 237), the form used in the books of Kings appears the more original.He was a prince among the Reubenites, that is, Beerah. He was prince of a family of Reubenites, not of the whole tribe; for the () indicates a looser sort of connection than the relation of prince to the whole tribe, to be expressed by the stat. constr. The adjective form, the Reubenite, denotes here, as in 1Ch 5:26; 1Ch 26:32, generally those belonging to the tribe of Reuben; comp. 1Ch 5:18, , and 1Ch 4:2, , and similar forms in Chronicles.
1Ch 5:7-9. The brothers of Beerah, that is, the families among the descendants of Joel most nearly related to his family.And his brethren by their families (before supply , every one by his family; comp. Num 2:34; Num 11:10), in the register after their generations (or order of birth): the chief Jeiel, etc. the head, the first, the chief of the family. Comp. 1Ch 5:12; 1Ch 9:17, where, however, this epithet stands after the name of the person in question, while in 1Ch 12:3, 1Ch 23:8, as here, it stands before.
1Ch 5:8. And Bela the son of Azaz, the son of Shema, the son of Joel; scarcely any other than the Joel of 1Ch 5:4. From him sprang Bela in the third generation, a clear proof that he belonged only in the wider sense to the brethren of Beerah, who descended from him in the seventh generation, and that he was at all events considerably older than the latter; see on 1Ch 5:10.He dwelt in Aroer, even unto Nebo and Baal-meon. Aroer, now a ruin, Arrayr on the river Arnon (comp. Jos 12:2; Jos 13:9; Jos 13:16); Nebo, a place on Mount Nebo, in the range of Abarim, over against Jericho (Num 32:38; Num 33:47); Baal-meon, perhaps the ruins Myun, two miles south of Heshbon (comp. Num 32:38, where it is also found along with Nebo).
1Ch 5:9. And eastward he dwelt, unto the entrance into the wilderness from the river Euphrates, that is, to the line where the great wilderness begins, that extends from the Euphrates to the east border of Pera, or Gilead as it is called in this verse; for Gilead (Gen 31:21; Gen 37:25; Jos 13:11; Jos 17:1; Jdg 5:17, etc.) is the general term usual in the Old Testament for the territory of Israel east of the Jordan; comp. on 1Ch 5:16.
1Ch 5:10. And in the days of Saul (the first king of Israel) they made war with the Hagarites (or Hagarenes; comp. Psa 83:7), the same North Arabian tribe that appears, 1Ch 5:19-20, as the adversary of the east-jordanic Israelites, perhaps the of Strabo, xiii. p. 767, occurring, according to Schrader, in the form Hagaranu (or Ha-ar-gi-i) several times in the Assyro- Babylonian cuneate inscriptions.And they fell by their hand, or, even into their hands, of which the consequence was, that the victors dwelt in the tents of the vanquished (that is, occupied their country, Gen 9:27), on all the east side of Gilead, that is, on the whole east border of the land of Gilead and beyond it (with comp. , close before, Gen 16:12). Who are these conquerors? Are they the Reubenites in general, or only those of the family of Bela? Against the latter alternative, which is defended by Keil, appears to be the circumstance that in 1Ch 5:8-9 Bela is spoken of in the singular. But this singular begins even in 1Ch 5:9 b to pass into the plural (), and the mighty outspreading of the Belaites mentioned there seems intended to prepare for the notice of their war with their Hagarene neighbours. Moreover, the statement in 1Ch 5:8, that Bela was great-grandson of Joel, while Beerah was his descendant in the seventh generation, corresponds with the fact that this conquest of the Hagarites preceded the deportation of the Reubenites under Beerah by Tilgath-pilneser, 1Ch 5:6, some centuries. After the removal of a considerable portion of the Reubenites, so wide an outspreading of another Reubenite family as is here related would scarcely have taken place. We must therefore refer what is recorded from 1Ch 5:7 of the family of the brothers of Beerah, and especially of that of Bela, to a much earlier time than that which is related in 1Ch 5:6, because the narrative issues in the present notice of a war in the time of Saul; and there is no good ground why we should isolate this war notice, and regard it as an unconnected appendix to the genealogy of Reuben (against Berth. and others, and also against Hoffmann, Das gelobte Land in den Zeilten des getlhieilten Reichs, etc. 1871, p. 27).
2. The Tribe of Gad: 1Ch 5:11-17.And the sons of Gad dwelt over against them in the land of Bashan, that is, over against the Reubenites dwelling beside the Dead Sea in the mountain-range of Abarim or Moab, and also beyond the Jordan in middle Gilead, which formed the southern part of the former kingdom of Og king of Bashan (Num 21:3; Deu 3:11). The extension of this tract inhabited by the Gadites to the east is shown to be considerable by the addition unto Salchah(as in Jos 13:11). For Salchah, now Sulkhad, lies on the southern slope of Jebel Hauran, six or seven hours east of Bozra, and therefore about thirty hours in a direct line east from Jordan.
1Ch 5:12. Joel the chief, and Shapham the second, and Janai and Shaphat in Bashan, that is, dwelling, the of the previous verse completing the sense here. It is uncertain how these four Gadite heads of families are genealogically connected with the immediate descendants of Gad named in Gen 46:16. The omission of those seven sons of Gad enumerated in Genesis (Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, Areli) is surprising, and raises the suspicion of a gap in the text. On the variant reading of the Sept. for , see Crit. Note. As occurs elsewhere as a proper name, for example, 1Ch 3:22, its retention here is the less doubtful.
1Ch 5:13. And their brethren by their father-houses, that is, by the families at whose head they stood, and which were named after them. For the plur. comp. on 1Ch 4:38 Luther has erroneously taken the phrase for a singular, and therefore translated, and their brethren of the house of their fathers, etc. The term brethren stands naturally in as wide a sense as in 1Ch 5:7. A statement of the country where they dwelt does not follow the names of these seven brothers of the four Gadite heads of families already named. But their pedigree is first given, 1Ch 5:14-15, through eight generations, terminating in a not otherwise known Buz, who has perhaps as little to do with his namesake the son of Nahor, Gen 22:21, as with the progenitor of Elihu, Job 32:2.
1Ch 5:15. Ahi, the son of Abdiel, the son of Guni, chief of their father-houses. This Ahi we may suppose to have lived at the beginning of the eighth century b.c., under Jeroboam 2. of Israel, or half a century later, under Jotham of Judah, as 1Ch 5:17 shows.
1Ch 5:16. And they dwelt in Gilead, in Bashan, and in her daughters, and in all the suburbs of Sharon unto their outgoings. The first of these designations of place is the widest and most general: it embraces both Bashan and her daughters and the suburbs of Sharon; see on 1Ch 5:9. The suffix in refers to both countries, the more extensive Gilead and the narrower Bashan forming merely the northern part of Gilead; and the suburbs or pastures (, as in Num 35:2 ff.; Jos 21:11 ff.; Eze 48:15) of Sharon are no doubt to be sought in Gilead, as nothing is known of a dwelling or a grazing of any Gadites on the well-known plain of Sharon, west of Jordan, between Csarea and Joppa (Son 2:1; Isa 33:9; Isa 35:2; Isa 65:10); and the outgoings of the suburbs of Sharon are not necessarily outgoings or boundaries on the sea, as Keil, referring to Jos 17:9, will have it; comp. on the contrary, Num 34:4-5. Kamph. is right, who at the same time mentions a plausible conjecture of the early expositors, that Shirion should be read for Sharon. But we see no reason why there should not be a Sharon east of the Jordan. Comp. Smiths Bibl. Dict., Art. Sharon.
1Ch 5:17. All of them were registered in the days of Jotham, etc. All of them refers to the collective families of the Gadites from 1Ch 5:11, not merely to those mentioned 1Ch 5:13 ff. Of the two kings of the eighth century under whose reign the registration took place, that of the rightful kingdom of Judah is, contrary to the order of time, named first. We meet with no other notices of these two registrations of the tribe of Gad, of which that undertaken by Jeroboam 2 of Israel (825784), at all events, coincides with the restoration of the old boundaries of the northern kingdom mentioned 2Ki 14:25 ff. A temporary subjection of the tribe of Gad by Jotham of Judah (759743), or perhaps by his predecessor, the powerful Uzziah (811759), as a prelude to the second registration here mentioned, is easily conceivable, because after Jeroboams death a long weakening of the northern kingdom by internal strife and anarchy ensued, from which it recovered under Pekahs reign of twenty years (75939). Comp. Keil, p. 77, where, however, Pekahs reign, probably by an error of the press, is stated to be of only ten years duration.
3. War of the Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh with Arab Tribes: 1Ch 5:18-22.On the reason why this account is inserted here after the families of Gad, see Preliminary Remark.Of valiant men, literally, of sons of valour ( ; comp. 1Ch 5:24). These and the following descriptions of the military prowess of these tribes are confirmed by 1Ch 12:8; 1Ch 12:21, at least with regard to Gad and half-Manasseh. With , comp. the partic. PualSon 3:8 and 1Ch 25:7. The number 44,760, which certainly rests on an exact numeration, nearly agrees with that given in Jos 4:13, but not with the added numbers yielding a far greater sum in Num 1:21; Num 1:25; Num 26:7; Num 26:18. The difference is explained by this, that the statements in Numbers refer to the time when the whole tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh were armed for war under Moses, and in a wandering state, and each of these tribes, at least of the first two, numbered more than 40,000 men fit for war, whereas the present statement, like that in Jos 4:13, refers to the time after they were settled beyond the Jordan, when the number of troops available for external service was naturally much smaller; comp. on 1Ch 21:5.
1Ch 5:19. And they made war with the Hagarites. The same tribe of northern Arabs with which Reuben alone, 1Ch 5:10, had been at war. The present common fight of all the tribes beyond the Jordan with this tribe is perhaps to be dated later than that of Reuben; comp. ver: 22.And Jetur, and Naphish, and Nodab. The first two tribes (of which has given name to the district of Itura) occurred in 1Ch 1:31 and in Gen 25:15 as descendants of Ishmael. Nodab, also a Beduin tribe, occurs nowhere else. The name appears to signify noble, princely, and might possibly be the source of the Nabatans (Arab,nabt) ; for to identify this at once with , Gen 25:13, Isa 60:7, as is usually done, has its difficulties; comp. Chwolsohn, Die Sabier, i. 698; Quatremre, Les Nabatens, Par. 1835; Muhlau, De prov. Aguri et Lemuelis orig. et indole, p. 28 f.
1Ch 5:20. And they were helped against them. , namely, of God; comp. 2Ch 26:15; Psa 28:7.And all that were with them, namely, the Iturans, etc., the confederates of the Hagarites.And he was entreated of them. is not an unusual form of the perf. Niphal (for , Isa 19:22), but, what alone suits for continued narrative, as here, infin. abs. Niph., with a perfect meaning ; comp. , Est 8:8; , Est 9:1.
1Ch 5:21. Camels, fifty thousand. Luther, Starke, and even Kamph., in Bunsens Bibelwerk, incorrectly (not observing the plur. ), five thousand. The enormous numbers, that are explained by the great riches in herds of the north Arabians, remind us of the like statements regarding the rich booty in the war with Midian, Num 31:11; Num 31:32 ff.
1Ch 5:22. For many fell slain. The greatness of the defeat which the foe sustained accounts for the extremely great value of the booty taken from them. On the further explanatory sentence, for the war was of God, comp. 2Ch 25:20; 1Sa 17:47.And they dwelt in their stead, in the seats of the conquered tribes; unhindered, they made use of their abodes and pastures, until the captivity, until the deportation decreed by Tilgath-pilneser, 1Ch 5:6.
4. The half-Tribe of Manasseh: 1Ch 5:23-24.From Bashan unto Baal-hermon and Senir and Mount Hermon. As Bashan is the district inhabited by Gad bordering on the south, 1Ch 5:12, it denotes here the south border, while Baal-hermon (Jdg 3:3, or Baal-Gad under Hermon, Jos 12:7; Jos 13:5), Senir (later, by the Arabs, Sunir; according to Eze 27:8, the name of a part of the Hermon range; according to Deu 3:9, an Amorite name for the whole of Hermon), and Mount Hermon (or Antilibanus, now Jebel esh Sheik) designate the north border. On account of this wide extent from south to north, and also in breadth, it is said of those belonging to this half-tribe, these were many; comp. Num 26:34, where the number of military age in this whole tribe is said to be 52,700.
1Ch 5:24. And these were the heads of their father-houses, even Epher. The before may be rendered even; but it is surprising, and raises the suspicion that perhaps a name has fallen out. None of these heads of families of East Manasseh is otherwise known, so that we know nothing of the deeds for which they were called valiant heroes, famous men.
5. Carrying away into Exile of the three east-Jordanic Tribes: 1Ch 5:25-26.And they were untrue, etc., namely, the three eastern tribes named in the following verse, and not merely the Manassites. For the terms, as for the fact, comp. 2Ki 17:7 ff.The people of the land, whom the Lord had destroyed before them, are the Amorites and the subjects of Og of Bashan.
1Ch 5:26. And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul. , as 2Ch 21:16 (comp. 2Ch 36:22; Ezr 1:1; Ezr 1:5). L. Lavater justly remarks: in mentem illis dedit, movit eos, ut expeditionem facerent contra illos. Pul is, moreover, named as the beginner of the oppressions coming from Assyria (comp. 2Ki 15:19 f.); the removal itself is completed by Tiglath-pileser, as the sing. , referring only to him, shows. Besides, the Assyriologists, especially Rawlinson, Schrader (p. 124 ff.), declare Pul to be the same with Tiglath-pileser, and his name a mere mutilation of the latter name, because the Assyrian inscriptions nowhere exhibit any such thing as a ruler Pul almost contemporary with Tiglath-pileser.Carried them away, the Reubenites, etc. The suffix in is more precisely defined by the following accusatives , introduced by (according to later usage); comp. Ew. 277e.And brought them to Halah and Habor, and the mountain and the river Gozan, unto this day. , perhaps = , Gen 10:11, at all events = , a region described by Strabo and Ptolemy: On the east side of the Tigris, near Adiabene, north of Nineveh, on the borders of Armenia. Not far from this Halah (the name of which occurs on the Assyrian monuments in the form Kal–hu; comp. Schrader, Die Keilenschriften und d. A, T. p. 20 f.) is to be sought , perhaps a district in North Assyria, after which both the mountain (Ptolem. vi. 1), near the Median border, and a river flowing into the Tigris (Khabur Chasani, now Khabur), are named. We are not here to think of the Mesopotamian river Chaboras, rising at Nisibis, and falling into the Euphrates near Circesium, as its Hebrew name is , Eze 1:1. The river Gozan, also, is scarcely to be sought in Mesopotamia (where there is certainly a district , the present Kaushan, bordering on that river Chebar, and where also Schrader, p. 161, has pointed out a place Guzana, near NisibisNasibinain an Assyrian inscription), but perhaps in the border land of Assyria and Media, where the Median city , mentioned by Ptol. vi. 2, lay, and where also a river Ozan (in full, Kizil-Ozan, the red Ozan) is found, the Mardos of the old Greeks, rising south-east of the lake Urumiah, forming the boundary of Assyria and Media, and falling into the Caspian Sea. As all these places point to the north of Assyria and to Media, so the term before the last, the mountain, appears to mean the Median highlands; and, indeed, seems to be the Aramaic form for the Hebrew , mountain, the popular designation in that region of the Median highlands (al Jebal among the Arabs); comp. also 2Ki 17:6, where, in place of , the cities of Media ( ) are named. Keil on our passage and on 2Ki 17:6, Bhr on the latter, Ew. (Gesch. iii. p. 318), M. Niebuhr (Gesch. Assurs und Babels), Wichelhaus (Das Exil der 10 Stmme,S right; while Thenius, Berth., Hitz. think, without sufficient grounds, of parts of Mesopotamia, near the Euphrates. Moreover, not merely the Chronist, but the sources used by him, appear to have assumed as the place to which Tiglath-pileser removed the tribes beyond the Jordan, the same region in the north of Assyria to which, 2Ki 17:6, some decennia afterwards, Shalmaneser transplanted the remaining tribes of the northern kingdom. Whether this statement be historically correct, or involve the confounding of two different events (as Berth, will have it), must remain undecided. From 2Ki 15:29, where the country to which Tiglath-pileser brought the 2 tribes is simply called Asshur, the inaccuracy of the present statements cannot be proved.
d. The Family of the Levites, with a Statement of their Seats in the different Tribes.1 Chronicles 5:276:66
1. The Family of Aaron, or the High-priestly Line to the Exile: 1 Chronicles 5:2741
[1Ch 6:1 ff] 1 Chronicles 5:27, 28.The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. And the sons of 29Kohath: Amram, Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel. And the sons of Amram: Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam. And the sons of Aaron: Nadab and Abihu, 30Eleazar and Ithamar. Eleazar begat Phinehas, and Phinehas begat Abishua. 31, 32And Abishua begat Bukki, and Bukki begat Uzzi. And Uzzi begat Zerahiah, 33and Zerahiah begat Meraioth. Meraioth begat Amariah, and Amariah begat 34, 35Ahitub. And Abitub begat Zadok, and Zadok begat Ahimaaz. And Ahimaaz 36begat Azariah, and Azariah begat Johanan. And Johanan begat Azariah, he that served as priest in the house that Solomon built in Jerusalem. 37, 38And Azariah begat Amariah, and Amariah begat Ahitub. And 39Ahitub begat Zadok, and Zadok begat Shallum. And Shallum begat Hilkial 40and Hilkiah begat Azariah. And Azariah begat Seraiah, and Seraiah begat 41Jehozadak. And Jehozadak went away, when the Lord carried away Judah and Jerusalem by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.
Footnotes:
[1]For the Sept. read or ; for it gives the words by .
[2]For the cod. Vat. of the Sept. has (possibly from an original ; comp. Exeg. Note).
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The genealogies of Israel in the tribe of Reuben, and also in the tribe of Gad, form the principal subjects of this chapter.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
These verses are too important and interesting to be hastily passed by. Reuben, the eldest of Jacob’s sons, having forfeited the birth-right by reason of his incest, had the sentence of his father put in execution: see Gen 49:4 . Joseph, therefore, had his and his own portion conferred upon him; for the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, which sprung from Joseph, both of them had each a portion. So the dying patriarch blessed them by faith in the promised seed. Heb 11:21 . But Joseph had not the whole, for Judah yet more eminently, on account of the promised seed, took precedency of both. So declared Jacob by the spirit of prophecy, when dying: The sceptre was not to depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until the Shiloh should come. And this was literally the case in the royal line going on with Judah, until that Jesus came. Gen 49:10 . And when Christ came the Jews themselves confessed to Pilate, that they had no king but Caesar. Joh 19:15 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Gaps In History Painful Memories Agonistic Prayer intellectual Sins
1Ch 5
This chapter treats of the tribes east of Jordan, Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh, with short notices of their conquest and their final captivity. At the very opening of the chapter we come upon the well-assured doctrine, that the highest privileges may be transferred to other than the original and legitimate lines. Men hold their great influence only so long as they continue their noble behaviour. Reuben was the firstborn, and therefore entitled to honours and enjoyments of a peculiar kind, but because of a great sin, he dispossessed himself of the rights of the firstborn, and those rights were transferred to Joseph as to their substantial value. Joseph, or the sons of Joseph, did not occupy the first place in the lists of the tribes, but they succeeded to all that was really valuable in the primogeniture. What that was is clearly set forth in Deu 21:15-17 . The incident is worth dwelling upon, only because it elucidates a special phase of divine government. God is not bound by arbitrary laws. Primogeniture can be changed in the court of heaven. Reuben may have said that whatever events transpired, he would still be the firstborn of Israel; believing this he might give rein to his passions, and withhold nothing from the flame of his desire; but God distinctly taught him that there is a law above law, that all human institutions are subject to the law and criticism of righteousness, and that conduct is the only absolute guarantee of real and enduring primogeniture. A melancholy thing indeed that Reuben should be the firstborn, and yet that one born after him should bear the blessing which was due to the eldest son. In this case Reuben had a right to a double inheritance, but that right was transferred to Joseph. There is a theory which expresses itself in the much-abused words, “Once in grace, always in grace.” That may be a glorious truth, but everything depends upon what is meant by being “in grace.” They are not all Israel that are called Israel. A momentary experience of the goodness of God may not be regarded as constituting newness of spirit and of life. We can only prove that we were once in grace by continually living in grace. Any vital breach in the continuance will throw discredit upon the supposed reality of the origin. Connected with such transfers of dignity and power, there cannot but be a measure of melancholy in the experience of those who are called upon to sustain the lapse of primogeniture. Joseph and Judah, who divided between them the pre-eminence and the rights of Reuben, cannot but have felt that their honour was due to their brother’s disgrace. Elisha took up a mantle that had never been stained, but, alas! many are called upon to succeed Iscariots in the noblest apostleships of life. But whilst there is a measure of melancholy, it should be balanced by increase of spiritual vigilance. “Be sober and watch unto the end.” “Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.” “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.”
In the eighth verse we come upon the name of Bela, whose descent is traced like that of Berrah, but through fewer names. This circumstance is only worthy of notice because intermediate names are often omitted in genealogies. A notable example is given in the book of Joshua ( Jos 7:18 ); we read “Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah” but in verse twenty-four we simply read “Achan the son of Zerah.” Here we are reminded that there are many gaps in history. As much may be learnt from omissions as from distinctly registered particulars. Often in history we seem to step from one mountain top to another without taking note of the localities which lie between. Even the life of a man may be summarised by two or three striking events. On many a tombstone, indeed, the longest life is simply indicated by the words “born” and “died.” What then can be made of history? As a matter of fact, history can never be exhaustively written. It may be questioned whether any man who has lived a long and active life can really write his whole biography. Let him take what pains he may he will be conscious that much has been left out; even where a diary has been sedulously kept, it can tell but little of motive, purpose, desire, and all the mysterious operations of the soul; the spirit will not be imprisoned in words; after the words have expended their whole strength in embodying life there is something in life which will not condescend to be represented in symbols or uttered in signs. Let us continually remind ourselves of the lesson we have had so much occasion to set forth, that two or three famed sons in a family do not blot out all the sweet life, the gentle piety, the unobtrusive industry, and the anxious prayers of many an unknown member of the household. We belong to one another. We cannot always trace the influences which have culminated in eminence and power. Be assured that how famous soever any man may be there is a vital defect in his character in so far as he fails to remember all that made his home the beginning of his greatness.
In the ninth verse we come upon the subject of painful memories
“And eastward he inhabited unto the entering in of the wilderness from the river Euphrates; because their cattle were multiplied in the land of Gilead.” ( 1Ch 5:9 ).
As their flocks and herds increased the Reubenites extended eastward even to the great desert lying between the Euphrates and Syria. This desert was inscribed all over with recollections which could not but be painful to the restored exiles. This desert has been described as a vast wedge interposed between the valley of the Euphrates and the fertile strip of coast along the Mediterranean which effectually shuts off Palestine from the rest of western Asia. The point to be remembered is that the desert had been the theatre of inexpressible suffering. Do we not ourselves often come upon old places, old acquaintanceships which reminds us of desert experiences, of graves dug in our hearts, of losses which no prosperity can repair? To some of us the world is full of frightful places. We remember where the holy vow was broken, where our best strength utterly gave way, where the word of blasphemy was forced out of our lips, where we were tempted to give up faith in prayer. On the other hand, there are places clothed with immortal beauty, and upon these our memory should dwell with holy delight. We remember the very spot at which we gave up our whole heart to the Son of God: we see quite vividly the green field or the flowery lane where we plighted the word of troth which only death can violate: we see the old quiet grey homestead associated with joy, festival, and gladness of every tone and hue: sometimes we long to go back to these old places which now by their very venerableness have become personal sanctuaries. Blessed be God, it is even now in the power of every man to create one holy place in the desert of life, for at this very moment the sinner may repent, and in this very place he may begin to pray. Do not let us yield to the temptation always to be dwelling upon the deserts, the churchyards, the stony places of the past; such exercises of memory may but becloud and discourage the heart: rather turn to the brighter scenes and take courage to regard them as merely symbolical of a greater glory yet to come. Truly to some travellers the way seems to have been all wilderness, or the path has lain through a very battlefield, so fierce has been life’s controversies and so many have been life’s losses. This bitter experience is never to be ignored, for by ignoring we should simply lose influence with those whom we attempt to comfort: better show that we are fully aware of the extent and desolateness of the desert before we point out the beauty and the accessibleness of the garden of God.
In verse twenty we see an instance of what may be described as agonistic prayer:
“And they were helped against them, and the Hagarites were delivered into their hand, and all that were with them: for they cried to God in the battle, and he was intreated of them; because they put their trust in him.” ( 1Ch 5:20 ).
It is beautiful to notice how in Bible times natural events were regarded as closely associated with the hand of God. Nothing was looked upon as unrelated or self-contained. On the contrary, everything was traced to the immediate action and purpose of God. Here we have men of valour, bearing shield and sword and drawing bow, and trained warfare, nearly fifty thousand strong, and yet they turn the very battlefield into a house of prayer. Circumstances give to prayer its real significance. Sometimes too we can only pray in mere words, for our feeling is not always excited and ardent. Sabbath after Sabbath we may assemble together, and in quietness hardly distinguishable from indifference, we may go through our religious exercises; but suddenly there comes an epidemic, a war, a family bereavement, a national crisis, or some other event which profoundly affects our feeling, then the very words which but a week ago were uttered without emotion express the keen agony of our souls. For our comfort let us remember that God knows all the circumstances under which we pray, and that the quietness of our utterance need not in any degree impair the earnestness of our meaning. On the other hand, do not let us suppose that indifference is a sign of piety. So prone is the heart to forget God, and to turn away from the discipline of life, that we need continual exhortation not to yield to the sleep which would first overcome us, and then deepen into death.
Verse twenty-five relates to the transgressions of the people against God, whose hearts went out after the idols of the land. If we turn to the Book of Kings, we shall be surprised to find how the fatal sin of Israel was often of an intellectual kind, as distinguished from the baser iniquities, which corrupt and overthrow the soul. There were three instances in which the intellectual sin of Israel was conspicuous: (1) in the worship of the holy places; (2) in adoration of the heavenly bodies, and the productive powers of nature; (3) in the practice of magic and divination. Here we find nothing of adultery, drunkenness, theft, or licentiousness of any kind. Here, indeed, is a species of intellectual elevation and refinement; certainly there is nothing coarse and brutish in the usual sense of the terms. Instances of this kind have surely a direct bearing upon ourselves. There are sins and sins. One man is simply a sinner of the coarse type, a criminal seen and known of all men and cast out by society; another man sins intellectually, that is to say, he mentally deposes God, and more or less secretly endeavours to live without him; never breaking any of the great social commandments, and thereby forfeiting social confidence, yet all the while committing the sin against the Holy Ghost. In this way men write their own bibles, invent their own deities, banish from the mind all the old orthodoxies, and in hidden vanity walk after the counsel of their own hearts. In all these matters God alone can judge; we only know crime, we have not penetration keen enough to penetrate the disguises of sin. We may however exhort one another to be careful lest we indulge sin under the pretence that we cannot justly be charged with crime. The whole question in its highest aspect relates to the condition of the heart. “The Lord looketh on the heart.” “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” “God be merciful to me a sinner.” O thou that lookest upon the heart and from whom nothing can be hidden, enter not into judgment with us, for in thy sight shall no flesh living be justified: show us our sin until we be ashamed of it, and lead us to the cross of thy Son, there to begin in brokenheartedness, the better, the eternal life.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
1Ch 5:1 Now the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel, (for he [was] the firstborn; but, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph the son of Israel: and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright.
Ver. 1. But, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed.] See Trapp on “ Gen 35:22 “
But, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed.] He might well say as Lysimachus did, when for a draught of water he had parted with his kingdom, Ah, for how short a (sinful) pleasure, how great privileges and blessings have I forfeited!
His birthright.
Joseph the son of Israel,
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1 Chronicles Chapter 5 – Chapter 9
Then in 1Ch 5 comes Reuben; for, having had before us the purpose of God, we are not taken back merely to the line of nature. Reuben falls into the second place. “Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler; but the birthright was Joseph’s.” v. 2. This is given as a kind of parenthetical explanation of why Judah is first among the tribes, and Reuben sinks into a secondary place. Reuben, however, is now pursued; and in 1Ch 6 , come the sons of Levi after the half tribe of Manasseh too had been introduced in the verses before. We can understand why the sons of Levi are thus brought forward. Further, we have Issachar and Benjamin all brought before us in this section – Benjamin not merely in the 1Ch 7 , but also in 1Ch 8 , answering a little to Judah. Thus we have a repetition. The reason is plain. Benjamin and Judah are repeated because they were each connected with royalty – Benjamin with Saul – Judah with David – and as Judah is mentioned first in relation to David, and next to the people, so Benjamin is first brought in in relation to the people, and then in relation to Saul. This is why we have Benjamin again in the 8th chapter. We have the connection with the king, but the king after the flesh. Then there is another reason why Benjamin is brought in, and that is that he had a particular connection with Jerusalem; and we shall find that this is also a grand point in the Chronicles. It is not merely the land, but Jerusalem and Zion, as I hope to show later, all being connected immediately with the purpose of God.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
forasmuch. Compare Gen 35:22; Gen 49:4.
not to be reckoned, &c. = not to be enrolled in the place of the firstborn.
birthright. See note on Gen 25:31.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 5
Now in chapter five we get to the descendants of Reuben, who lost his birthright. It was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel.
And so his genealogy is not reckoned after the birthright ( 1Ch 5:1 ).
That genealogy after the birthright, of course, will come to Joseph.
But Judah prevailed above his brothers, and of him came the chief ruler or David; but the birthright was Joseph’s ( 1Ch 5:2 ):
So even though the birthright was Joseph, the leadership was to come from Judah, and ultimately from Judah is to come Jesus Christ.
Now in verse nine, we read concerning the tribe of Reuben.
That they went east and inhabited the entering of the wilderness from the river Euphrates: because their cattle were multiplied in the land of Gilead ( 1Ch 5:9 ).
And so they went over to what is present-day Iraq, as far as Iraq, and they dwelt in that area. And so the tribe of Reuben and then next to the tribe of Gad, these are the tribes that settled on the east bank of the Jordan River. And then after them, the half the tribe of Manasseh, and it gives the names of some of those from the half the tribe of Manasseh, those all that dwelt on the other side.
But in verse twenty-five concerning the tribe of Reuben and Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh.
They transgressed against the God of their fathers, and they went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them. And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul the king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgathpilneser the king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, unto Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day ( 1Ch 5:25-26 ).
And so, they were the first to fall. Those tribes that settled on the east bank of the Jordan River. And the reason for their fall is their transgression against the God of their fathers and their beginning to worship other gods. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
1Ch 5:1-10
1Ch 5:1-10
“And the sons of Reuben the first-born of Israel (for he was the first-born; but, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s couch, his birthright was given to Joseph the son of Israel; and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright. For Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the prince; but the birthright was Joseph’s), the sons of Reuben the first-born of Israel: Hanoch, and Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. The sons of Joel: Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, Shemei his son, Micah his son, Reaiah his son, Baal his son, Beerah his son, whom Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria carried away captive: he was prince of the Reubenites. And his brethren by their families, when the genealogy of their generations was reckoned: the chief Jeiel, and Zechariah, and Bela the son of Azaz, the son of Shema, the son of Joel, who dwelt in Aroer, even unto Nebo, and Baal-meon: and eastward he dwelt even unto the entrance of the wilderness from the river Euphrates, because their cattle were multiplied in the land of Gilead. And in the days of Saul they made war with the Hagrites, who fell by their hand; and they dwelt in their tents throughout all the land east of Gilead.”
E.M. Zerr:
2Ch 5:1. In several preceding chapters and some to follow, the family registers receive attention from the inspired writer. But it has not been done according to the order of birth. The present verse takes up the register of Reuben the firstborn of Jacob. After stating that he was the firstborn, an explanation is injected into the account of why he did not retain his place in the blood line genealogy; that it was because of his sin about his father’s bed. (Gen 35:22). That sin not only deprived him of this honor, but also of his property rights, which was a part of the advantage of being the firstborn. This inheritance was given to the descendants of Joseph, and by that a prophecy of Jacob was fulfilled. See Gen 48:22; Deu 21:17; Jos 17:14.
2Ch 5:2. Chief ruler refers to Christ, who was from the tribe of Judah. Hence Reuben lost his property rights to Joseph, and the genealogy to Judah.
2Ch 5:3-6. Tilgath-pilneser is the same as Tiglath-pileser who was of Assyria. Beerah was a prince among the descendants of Reuben, and this Assyrian king carried him off into the Assyrian captivity. (2Ki 15:29; 2Ki 16:7).
2Ch 5:7-8. Beerah had some brethren who were chief men, and they are named in this paragraph.
2Ch 5:9 – This particular man, Bela, took possession of some pasture land as far as the Euphrates River. The reader may ask whether this was justified by the promise to Abraham; Gen 15:18 shows that it was.
2Ch 5:10. The Hagarites were a people named after Hagar, the handmaid of Sarah. They occupied a territory east of Palestine that is otherwise called Gilead. While Hagar’s son was begotten by Abraham, the inheritance was to come through the son of his wife Sarah. (Gen 25:5). It was proper, therefore, for these sons of Reuben to take this land, since they were descended from Isaac, the son of Sarah.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The worth principally attracting attention in this chapter are those connected with the name of Reuben. Here the ultimate light flames on the record: “the Prince,” toward whose advent everything moves, is named.
Yet He does not come through the line of birthright. The birthright was given to Joseph, while the Prince came through Judah. In this connection also the principle of divine selection flames out. The actual firstborn of the sons of Israel was Reuben, but he, through sin, forfeited the birthright, which, as we have seen, passed to Joseph.
In these occasional gleams of light on the progress of events, nothing is clearer than the revelation of the all- seeing God, whose selections are based on His own infinite justice. Such light is at once the occasion of joy and fear in the heart. Confidence is born of the certainty of the divine method. This very assurance must have the effect of solemnizing the heart as it makes clear that no supposed right obtains for one moment in the economy of God if its conditions be violated by the disobedience of men.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
am 2294, etc. bc 1710, etc
he was: 1Ch 2:1, Gen 29:32, Gen 46:8, Gen 49:3, Exo 6:14, Num 1:5, Num 16:1, Num 26:5
forasmuch: Gen 35:22, Gen 49:4, Lev 18:8, Lev 20:11, Deu 27:20, 1Co 5:1
birthright: 1Ch 26:10, Gen 48:15-22, Deu 21:17, Col 1:15
and: Gen 25:23, 1Sa 16:6-11
reckoned: Jos 14:6
Reciprocal: Gen 48:5 – Reuben Num 1:20 – General Num 2:10 – camp of Reuben Deu 33:17 – the firstling Jos 14:4 – the children 1Ch 6:28 – firstborn 1Ch 12:37 – the other side 2Ch 11:22 – made Abijah Eze 22:10 – discovered Eze 47:13 – Joseph Mat 1:2 – Jacob begat
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Ch 5:1. The son of Israel This is added emphatically, because the sons of Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim were treated as if they had been the immediate sons of Jacob. The genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright This is the second reason which showeth both why Reubens genealogy was not first mentioned, and if another tribe was to be ranked before it, why that was Judah, and not Joseph, because the order of their genealogy was not to be ruled by the birthright, but by a higher privilege, which was given to Judah.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Ch 5:19. The Hagarites, that is, the Ishmaelites, who descended from Hagars son.
1Ch 5:21. Fifty thousand. The LXX read, five thousand. The ancient way of numbering by letters, instead of figures, occasioned these variations.
1Ch 5:22. The war of God. Great things in scripture are said to be of God; as the mount of God, the cedars of God, or a battle gained by the special providence of God. The two tribes and a half beyond the Jordan, though separated from the house of David, were prospered more than those tribes under the kingdom of Samaria, until they became equally apostate.
1Ch 5:23. Baal-hermon and Senir. See the note on Psalms 133.
REFLECTIONS.
The sad case of Reuben has already been considered. Genesis 35. and 49. It resembles the sin of the incestuous Corinthian: and we cannot but admire the firmness of Jacob and St. Paul, who pronounced the lenient sentence of excommunication against the offenders, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord.
The Hagarian war, though we know not the exact time when it happened, marks the full accomplishment of the prediction, that the son of the bondwoman should not be heir with the son of the freewoman. The immense booty now taken, farther demonstrates that God had blessed Ishmael according to his promise. But what avail wealth and prosperity where wickedness prevails? It is just so much spoil treasured up for the enemy. Tilgath-pilneser ultimately punished the Israelites as they had punished their brethren, the Ishmaelites. Thus the sacred writings keep to the general point, first to trace the degeneracy, and then the chastisement of every family and of every nation.
The phrase, to this day, shows that the remnants did not return from the shore of the Caspian sea, when they returned from Babylon to rebuild the temple.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
PART I (1 Chronicles 1-9). Genealogical Lists, together with Geographical and Historical Notes.These chapters form a general introduction to the whole work. They contain the following genealogies, often in an incomplete form: Adam to Israel (1Ch 1:1 to 1Ch 2:2)with the exception of Cains descendants (Gen 4:16-22)the whole material is taken from Genesis 1-36; Judah (1Ch 2:3-55); David (1Ch 3:1-24); Judah again, and made up of fragments (1Ch 4:1-23); Simeon (1Ch 4:24-43); Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe (the eastern) of Manasseh (1Ch 5:1-26); Levi and the Levitical cities (1Ch 6:1-81); Issachar (1Ch 7:1-5); Benjamin (1Ch 7:6-12); Naphtali (1Ch 7:13); half the tribe of Manasseh (the western) (1Ch 7:14-19); Ephraim (1Ch 7:20-29); Asher (1Ch 7:30-40); Benjamin again, together with the house of Saul (1Ch 8:1-40). Then follows an enumeration of the inhabitants of Jerusalem given in the order: sons of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, Manasseh, priests, Levites, doorkeepers (1Ch 9:1-44); 1Ch 9:35-44 are repeated verbally from 1Ch 8:29-38.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
5:1 Now the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel, (for he [was] the firstborn; but, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given unto the {a} sons of Joseph the son of Israel: and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright.
(a) Because they were made two tribes, they had a double portion.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
3. The families of Transjordan ch. 5
Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh settled east of the Jordan River. Reuben would have normally been the son of Jacob through whom the greatest blessing would come since he was the first-born. However, because of his sin (1Ch 5:1), God passed him over. God blessed Joseph with the double portion of the birthright. He did this by elevating Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, to equality among Jacob’s other sons, Joseph’s brothers. God’s blessing of Judah with leadership over the Israelites was contrary to natural order. It was pure grace for those tribes.
God was not only faithful to bless as He had promised, but He also judged sin as He had said He would (1Ch 5:25-26). This is the reason the Transjordanian tribes went into captivity.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
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{e-Sword Note: 1 and 2 Chronicles were largely in topical format in the printed edition. When possible, this content has been divided by verse/chapter. Content that could not fit elsewhere was placed in the 1 and 2 Chronicles Book Comments for e-Sword.}