1Ch 4:8-22 | KD | STEP | contain a fragment, the connection of which with the sons of Judah mentioned in 1 Chron 2 is not clear. Coz begat Anub, etc. The name קוץ occurs only here; elsewhere only הקּוץ is found, of a Levite, , cf. Ezr 2:61 and - in the latter passage without any statement as to the tribe to which the sons of Hakkoz belonged. The names of the sons begotten by Coz, , do not occur elsewhere. The same is to be said of Jabez, of whom we know nothing beyond what is communicated in and 1Ch 4:10. The word יעבּץ denotes in a town or village which is quite unknown to us; but whether our Jabez were father (lord) of this town cannot be determined. If there be any genealogical connection between the man Jabez and the locality of this name or its inhabitants ( ), then the persons named in would belong to the descendants of Shobal. For although the connection of Jabez with Coz and his sons is not clearly set forth, yet it may be conjectured from the statements as to Jabez being connected with the preceding by the words, “Jabez was more honoured than his brethren.” The older commentators have thence drawn the conclusion that Jabez was a son or brother of Coz. Bertheau also rightly remarks: “The statements that he was more honoured than his brethren (cf. ), that his mother called him Jabez because she had borne him with sorrow; the use of the similarly sounding word עצב along with the name יעבּץ (cf. ; Gen 19:37., , ; , , etc.); and the statement that Jabez vowed to the God of Israel (cf. ) in a prayer (cf. ), - all bring to our recollection similar statements of Genesis, and doubtless rest upon primeval tradition.” In the terms of the vow, עצבּי לבלתּי, “so that sorrow may not be to me,” there is a play upon the name Jabez. But of the vow itself only the conditions proposed by the maker of the vow are communicated: “If Thou wilt bless me, and enlarge my coast, and Thy hand shall be with me, and Thou wilt keep evil far off, not to bring sorrow to me,” - without the conclusion, Then I vow to do this or that (cf. Gen 28:20.), but with the remark that God granted him that which he requested. The reason of this is probably that the vow had acquired importance sufficient to make it worthy of being handed down only from God’s having so fulfilled his wish, that his life became a contradiction of his name; the son of sorrow having been free from pain in life, and having attained to greater happiness and reputation than his brothers.

‏ 1 Chronicles 4:8-22

1Ch 4:8-10 1Ch 4:8-10 contain a fragment, the connection of which with the sons of Judah mentioned in 1 Chron 2 is not clear. Coz begat Anub, etc. The name קוץ occurs only here; elsewhere only הקּוץ is found, of a Levite, 1Ch 24:10, cf. Ezr 2:61 and Neh 3:4 - in the latter passage without any statement as to the tribe to which the sons of Hakkoz belonged. The names of the sons begotten by Coz, 1Ch 4:8, do not occur elsewhere. The same is to be said of Jabez, of whom we know nothing beyond what is communicated in 1Ch 4:9 and 1Ch 4:10. The word יעבּץ denotes in 1Ch 2:55 a town or village which is quite unknown to us; but whether our Jabez were father (lord) of this town cannot be determined. If there be any genealogical connection between the man Jabez and the locality of this name or its inhabitants (1Ch 2:55), then the persons named in 1Ch 4:8 would belong to the descendants of Shobal. For although the connection of Jabez with Coz and his sons is not clearly set forth, yet it may be conjectured from the statements as to Jabez being connected with the preceding by the words, “Jabez was more honoured than his brethren.” The older commentators have thence drawn the conclusion that Jabez was a son or brother of Coz. Bertheau also rightly remarks: “The statements that he was more honoured than his brethren (cf. Gen 34:19), that his mother called him Jabez because she had borne him with sorrow; the use of the similarly sounding word עצב along with the name יעבּץ (cf. Gen 4:25; Gen 19:37., Gen 29:32-33, Gen 29:35; Gen 30:6, Gen 30:8, etc.); and the statement that Jabez vowed to the God of Israel (cf. Gen 33:20) in a prayer (cf. Gen 28:20), - all bring to our recollection similar statements of Genesis, and doubtless rest upon primeval tradition.” In the terms of the vow, עצבּי לבלתּי, “so that sorrow may not be to me,” there is a play upon the name Jabez. But of the vow itself only the conditions proposed by the maker of the vow are communicated: “If Thou wilt bless me, and enlarge my coast, and Thy hand shall be with me, and Thou wilt keep evil far off, not to bring sorrow to me,” - without the conclusion, Then I vow to do this or that (cf. Gen 28:20.), but with the remark that God granted him that which he requested. The reason of this is probably that the vow had acquired importance sufficient to make it worthy of being handed down only from God’s having so fulfilled his wish, that his life became a contradiction of his name; the son of sorrow having been free from pain in life, and having attained to greater happiness and reputation than his brothers. 1Ch 4:11-12

The genealogy of the men of Rechah. - As to their connection with the larger families of Judah, nothing has been handed down to us. Chelub, another form of the name Caleb or Chelubai (see 1Ch 2:9 and 1Ch 2:18), is distinguished from the better known Caleb son of Hezron (1Ch 2:18 and 1Ch 2:42), and from the son of Jephunneh (1Ch 4:15), by the additional clause, “the son of Shuah.” Shuah is not met with elsewhere, but is without reason identified with Hushah, 1Ch 4:4, by the older commentators. Mehir the father of Eshton is likewise unknown. Eshton begat the house (the family) of Rapha, of whom also nothing further is said; for they can be connected neither with the Benjamite Rapha (1Ch 8:2) nor with the children of Rapha (1Ch 20:4, 1Ch 20:6, 1Ch 20:8). Paseah and Tehinnah are also unknown, for it is uncertain whether the sons of Paseah mentioned among the Nethinim, Ezr 2:49; Neh 7:51, have any connection with our Paseah. Tehinnah is called “father of the city of Nahash.” The latter name is probably not properly the name of a town, but rather the name of a person Nahash, not unlikely the same as the father of Abigail (2Sa 17:25), the step-sister of David (cf. 1Ch 2:16). The men (or people) of Rechah are unknown. 1Ch 4:13-14 Descendants of Kenaz. - קנז is a descendant of Hezron the son of Pharez, as may be inferred from the fact that Caleb the son of Jephunneh, a descendant of Hezron’s son Caleb, is called in Num 32:12 and Jos 14:6 קנזּי, and consequently was also a descendant of Kenaz. Othniel and Seraiah, introduced here as קנז בּני, are not sons (in the narrower sense of the word), but more distant descendants of Kenaz; for Othniel and Caleb the son of Jephunneh were, according to Jos 15:17 and Jdg 1:13, brothers. ^{▼▼The words used in Jdg 1:13, cf. Jos 15:17, of the relationship of Othniel and Caleb, הקּטון כלב אחי בּן־קנז, may be, it is true, taken in different senses, either as signifying filius Kenasi fratris Caleb, according to which, not Othniel, but Kenaz, was a younger brother of Caleb; or in this way, filius Kenasi, frater Calebi minor, as we have interpreted them in the text, and also in the commentary on Jos 15:17. This interpretation we still hold to be certainly the correct one, notwithstanding what Bachmann (Buch der Richter, on 1Ch 1:13) has brought forward against it and in favour of the other interpretation, and cannot see that his chief reasons are decisive. The assertion that we must predicate of Othniel, if he be a younger brother of Caleb, an unsuitably advanced age, is not convincing. Caleb was eighty-five years of age at the division of the land of Canaan (Jos 14:10). Now if we suppose that his younger or youngest brother Othniel was from twenty-five to thirty years younger, as often happens, Othniel would be from sixty to sixty-one or fifty-five to fifty-six years of age at the conquest of Debir, - an age at which he might well win a wife as the reward of valour. Ten years later came the invasion of the land by Cushan Rishathaim, which lasted eight years, till Othniel had conquered Cushan R., and there were judges in Israel. This victory he would thus gain at the age of seventy-eight or seventy-three; and even if he filled the office of judge for forty years-which, however, Jdg 3:11 does not state - he would have reached no greater age than 118 or 113 years, only three or eight years older than Joshua had been. If we consider what Caleb said of himself in his eighty-fifth year, Jos 14:11, “I am still strong as in the day that Moses sent me (i.e., forty years before); as my strength was then, even so is my strength now for war, both to go out and to come in,” we cannot think that Othniel, in the seventy-third or seventy-eighth years of his age, was too old to be a military leader. But the other reason: “that Caleb is always called son of Jephunneh, Othniel always son of Kenaz, should cause us to hesitate before we take Othniel to be the proper brother of Caleb,” loses all its weight when we find that Caleb also is called in Num 32:12 and Jos 14:6 קנזי = בּן־קנז, and it is seen that Caleb therefore, as well as Othniel, was a son of Kenaz. Now if the Kenazite Caleb the son of Jephunneh were a brother of Kenaz, the father of Othniel, we must suppose an older Kenaz, the grandfather or great-grandfather of Caleb, and a younger Kenaz, the father of Othniel. This supposition is certainly feasible, for, according to 1Ch 4:15 of our chapter, a grandson of Caleb again was called Kenaz; but if it be probable is another question. For the answering of this question in the affirmative, Bachmann adduces that, according to 1Ch 4:13, Othniel is undoubtedly the son of Kenaz in the proper sense of the word; but it might perhaps be difficult to prove, or even to render probable, this “undoubtedly.” In the superscriptions of the single genealogies of the Chronicle, more than elsewhere, בּני has in general a very wide signification. In 1Ch 4:1 of our chapter, for instance, sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons of Judah are all grouped together as יהוּדה בּני. But besides this, the ranging of the sons of Caleb the son of Jephunneh (1Ch 4:15) after the enumeration of the sons of Kenaz in 1Ch 4:13 and 1Ch 4:14, is clearly much more easily explicable if Caleb himself belonged to the קנז בּני mentioned in 1Ch 4:13, than if he was a brother of Kenaz. In the latter case we should expect, after the analogy of 1Ch 2:42, to find an additional clause קנז אחי after בּן־יפנּה כּלב; while if Caleb was a brother of Othniel, his descent from Kenaz, or the fact that he belonged to the קנז בּני, might be assumed to be known from Num 32:12.}

Kenaz, therefore, can neither have been the father of Othniel nor father of Caleb (in the proper sense of the word), but must at least have been the grandfather or great-grandfather of both. Othniel is the famous first judge of Israel, Jdg 3:9. Of Seraiah nothing further is known, although the name is often met with of different persons.

The sons of Othniel are Hathath. The plural בּני, even when only one name follows, is met with elsewhere (vide on 1Ch 2:7); but the continuation is somewhat strange, “and Meonothai begat Ophrah,” for as Meonothai is not before mentioned, his connection with Othniel is not given. There is evidently a hiatus in the text, which may most easily be filled up by repeating וּמעונתי at the end of 1Ch 4:13. According to this conjecture two sons of Othniel would be named, Hathath and Meonothai, and then the posterity of the latter is given. The name מעונתי (my dwellings) is not met with elsewhere. It is not at all probable that it is connected with the town Maon, and still less that it is so in any way with the Mehunim, Ezr 2:50. Ophrah is unknown, for of course we must not think of the towns called Ophrah, in the territory of Benjamin, Jos 18:23, and in that of Manasseh, Jdg 6:11, Jdg 6:24. Seraiah, who is mentioned in 1Ch 4:13, begat Joab the father (founder) of the valley of the craftsmen, “for they (i.e., the inhabitants of this valley, who were descended from Joab) were craftsmen.” The valley of the חרשׁים (craftsmen) is again mentioned in Neh 11:35, whence we may conclude that it lay at no great distance from Jerusalem, in a northern direction. 1Ch 4:15

Of Iru, Elah, and Naam, the sons of Caleb the son of Jephunneh (cf. on 1Ch 4:13), nothing more is known. To connect Elah with the Edomite chief of that name (1Ch 1:52) is arbitrary. Of Elah’s sons only “and Kenaz” is mentioned; the ו copul. before קנז shows clearly that a name has been dropped out before it.Descendants of various men, whose genealogical connection with the sons and grandsons of Judah, mentioned in 1Ch 4:1, is not given in the text as it has come to us. 1Ch 4:16

Sons of Jehaleleel, a man not elsewhere mentioned. Ziph, Ziphah, etc., are met with only here. There is no strong reason for connecting the name זיף with the towns of that name, Jos 15:24, Jos 15:55. 1Ch 4:17-19

Ezra, whose four sons are enumerated, is likewise unknown. The singular בּן is peculiar, but has analogies in 1Ch 3:19, 1Ch 3:21, and 1Ch 3:23. Of the names of his sons, Jether and Epher again occur, the former in 1Ch 2:53, and the latter in 1Ch 1:33 and 1Ch 5:24, but in other families. Jalon, on the contrary, is found only here. The children of two wives of Mered are enumerated in 1Ch 4:17 and 1Ch 4:18, but in a fashion which is quite unintelligible, and shows clear traces of a corruption in the text. For (1) the name of a woman as subject of ותּהר, “and she conceived (bare),” is wanting; and (2) in 1Ch 4:18 the names of two women occur, Jehudijah and Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh. But the sons of Jehudijah are first given, and there follows thereupon the formula, “and these are the sons of Bithiah,” without any mention of the names of these sons. This manifest confusion Bertheau has sought to remove by a happy transposition of the words. He suggests that the words, “and these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered had taken,” should be placed immediately after וילון. “By this means we obtain (1) the missing subject of ותּהר; (2) the definite statement that Mered had two wives, with whom he begat sons; and (3) an arrangement by which the sons are enumerated after the names of their respective mothers.” After this transposition the 1Ch 4:17 would read thus: “And the sons of Ezra are Jether, Mered, ... and Jalon; and these are the sons of Bithia the daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered took; and she conceived (and bare) Miriam, and Shammai, and Ishbah, the father of Eshtemoa (1Ch 4:18), and his wife Jehudijah bore Jered the father of Gedor, etc.” This conjecture commends itself by its simplicity, and by the clearness which it brings into the words. From them we then learn that two families, who dwelt in a number of the cities of Judah, were descended from Mered the son of Ezra by his two wives. We certainly know no more details concerning them, as neither Mered not his children are met with elsewhere. From the circumstance, however, that the one wife was a daughter of Pharaoh, we may conclude that Mered lived before the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. The name Miriam, which Moses’ sister bore, is here a man’s name. The names introduced by אבי are the names of towns. Ishbah is father (lord) of the town Eshtemoa, in the mountains of Judah, now Semua, a village to the south of Hebron, with considerable ruins dating from ancient times (cf. on Jos 15:50). היהוּדיּה means properly “the Jewess,” as distinguished from the Egyptian woman, Pharaoh’s daughter. Gedor is a town in the high lands of Judah (cf. on 1Ch 4:4). Socho, in the low land of Judah, now Shuweikeh, in Wady Sumt (cf. on Jos 15:35). Zanoah is the name of a town in the high lands of Judah, Jos 15:56 (which has not yet been discovered), and of a town in the low land, now Zanua, not far from Zoreah, in an easterly direction (cf. on Jos 15:34). Perhaps the latter is here meant. In 1Ch 4:19, “the sons of the wife of Hodiah, the sister of Naham, are the father of Keilah the Garmite, and Eshtemoa the Maachathite.” The stat. contr. אשׁת before הודיּה shows that Hodiah is a man’s name. Levites of this name are mentioned in Neh 8:7; Neh 9:5; Neh 10:11. The relationship of Hodiah and Naham to the persons formerly named is not given. קעילה is a locality in the low land of Judah not yet discovered (see on Jos 15:44). The origin of the Epithet הגּרמי we do not know. Before אשׁתּמע, אבי with ו copul. is probably to be repeated; and the Maachathite, the chief of a part of the inhabitants of Eshtemoa, is perhaps a descendant of Caleb by Maachah (1Ch 2:48). 1Ch 4:20

Of Shimon and his four sons, also, nothing is known. בּן־חנן is one name. Ishi is often met with, e.g., 1Ch 4:42 and 1Ch 2:31, but nowhere in connection with Zoheth (not further noticed). The names of the sons are wanting after בּן־זוחת. 1Ch 4:21-22 Descendants of Shelah, the third son of Judah, 1Ch 2:3, and Gen 38:5. - All the families of Judah enumerated in vv. 2-20 are connected together by the conjunction ו, and so are grouped as descendants of the sons and grandsons of Judah named in 1Ch 4:1. The conjunction is omitted, however, before שׁלה בּני, as also before יהוּדה בּני in 1Ch 4:3, to show that the descendants of Shelah form a second line of descendants of Judah, co-ordinate with the sons of Judah enumerated in vv. 1-19, concerning whom only a little obscure but not unimportant information has been preserved. Those mentioned as sons are Er (which also was the name of the first-born of Judah, 1Ch 2:3.), father of Lecah, and Laadan, the father of Mareshah. The latter name denotes, beyond question, a town which still exists as the ruin Marash in the Shephelah, Jos 15:44 (see on 1Ch 2:42), and consequently Lecah (לכה) also is the name of a locality not elsewhere mentioned. The further descendants of Shelah were, “the families of the Byssus-work of the house of Ashbea,” i.e., the families of Ashbea, a man of whom nothing further is known. Of these families some were connected with a famous weaving-house or linen (Byssus) manufactory, probably in Egypt; and then further, in 1Ch 4:22, “Jokim, and the man of Chozeba, and Joash, and Saraph, which ruled over Moab, and Jashubi-lehem.” Kimchi conjectured that כּזבה was the place called כזיב in Gen 38:5 = אכזיב, Jos 15:44, in the low land, where Shelah was born. לחם ישׁבי is a strange name, “which the punctuators would hardly have pronounced in the way they have done if it had not come down to them by tradition” (Berth.). The other names denote heads of families or branches of families, the branches and families being included in them. ^{▼▼Jerome has given a curious translation of 1Ch 4:22, “et qui stare fecit solem, virique mendacii et securus et incendens, qui principes fuerunt in Moab et qui reversi sunt in Lahem: haec autem verba vetera,” - according to the Jewish Midrash, in which למואב בּעלוּ אשׁר was connected with the narrative in the book of Ruth. For יוקים, qui stare fecit solem, is supposed to be Elimelech, and the viri mendacii Mahlon and Chilion, so well known from the book of Ruth, who went with their father into the land of Moab and married Moabitesses.}

Nothing is told us of them beyond what is found in our verses, according to which the four first named ruled over Moab during a period in the primeval time; fir, as the historian himself remarks, “these things are old.”