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1
Chronicles Chapter Seven
1 Chronicles 7
Chapter Contents
Genealogies.
Here is no account either of Zebulun or Dan. We can
assign no reason why they only should be omitted; but it is the disgrace of the
tribe of Dan, that idolatry began in that colony which fixed in Laish, and
called it Dan, Judges 18 and there one of the golden calves was
set up by Jeroboam. Dan is omitted, Revelation 7. Men become abominable when they
forsake the worship of the true God, for any creature object.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on 1 Chronicles》
1 Chronicles 7
Verse 6
[6] The
sons of Benjamin; Bela, and Becher, and Jediael, three.
Three —
They were ten, Genesis 46:25, and five of them are named, chap.
1 Chronicles 8:1, but here only three are
mentioned, either because these were most eminent; or because the other
families are now extinct.
Verse 7
[7] And the sons of Bela; Ezbon, and Uzzi, and Uzziel, and Jerimoth, and Iri,
five; heads of the house of their fathers, mighty men of valour; and were
reckoned by their genealogies twenty and two thousand and thirty and four.
Heads —
Each of them head of that family to which he belonged. For it may seem by
comparing this with chap. 8:3, etc. that these were not the immediate sons
of Belah, but his Grand-children descended each from a several father.
Verse 14
[14] The
sons of Manasseh; Ashriel, whom she bare: (but his concubine the Aramitess bare
Machir the father of Gilead:
She —
His wife; his concubine is here opposed to her.
Verse 15
[15] And
Machir took to wife the sister of Huppim and Shuppim, whose sister's name was
Maachah;) and the name of the second was Zelophehad: and Zelophehad had
daughters.
Second — Of
the second son or grandson of Machir; for so Zelophehad was.
Had daughters —
Only daughters, and no sons.
Verse 17
[17] And the sons of Ulam; Bedan. These were the sons of Gilead, the son of
Machir, the son of Manasseh.
These —
Ashriel and Zelophehad, named verse 14,15, the relative being here referred to the remoter
antecedent; as is frequent in the Hebrew.
Verse 18
[18] And
his sister Hammoleketh bare Ishod, and Abiezer, and Mahalah.
His —
Gilead's sister.
Mahalah —
Understand, and Shemida, out of the next verse.
Verse 21
[21] And
Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son, and Ezer, and Elead, whom the men of Gath
that were born in that land slew, because they came down to take away their
cattle.
Slew —
This history is not recorded else where in scripture, but it is in the ancient
Hebrew writers. The Philistines (one of whose cities Gath was) and the
Egyptians were next neighbours; and in those ancient times it was usual for
such to make inroads one into another's country, and to carry thence what prey
they could take. And as the Philistines had probably made such inroads formerly
into Egypt, and particularly into the land of Goshen, which was the utmost part
of Egypt bordering upon the Philistines land; so the Israelites might requite
them in the like kind: and particularly the children of Ephraim, to their own
loss. And this seems to have happened a little before the Egyptian persecution,
and before the reign of that new king mentioned Exodus 1:8. And this clause, that were born in
that land, may be added emphatically, as the motive which made them more
resolute in their fight with the Ephraimites, because they fought in, and for
their own land, wherein all their wealth and concerns lay.
Verse 23
[23] And
when he went in to his wife, she conceived, and bare a son, and he called his
name Beriah, because it went evil with his house.
Bare a son —
Thus the breach was in some measure repaired, by the addition of another son in
his old age. When God thus restores comfort to his mourners, he makes glad
according to the days wherein he afflicted, setting the mercies over against
the crosses, we ought to observe the kindness of his providence. Yet the joy
that a man was born into his family could not make him forget his grief. For he
gives a melancholy name to his son, Beriah, that is, in trouble: for he was
born when the family was in mourning. It is good to have in remembrance the
affliction and the misery which are past, that our souls may be humbled within
us.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on 1 Chronicles》
07 Chapter 7
Verses 1-11
Now the Sons of Issachar were, Tola, and Puah, Jaahub, and
Shimrom, four.
Statistics
1. Statistics play an important part in Chronicles and in the Old
Testament generally.
2. Biblical statistics are examples in accuracy and thoroughness of
information, and recognitions of the more obscure and prosaic manifestations of
the higher life. In these and other ways the Bible gives an anticipatory
sanction to the exact sciences.
3. Statistics are the only form in which many acts of service can be
recognised and recorded. The missionary report can only tell the story of a few
striking conversions; it may give the history of the exceptional self-denial in
one or two of its subscriptions; for the rest we must be content with tables
and subscription-lists.
4. Our chronicler’s interest in statistics lays healthy emphasis on
the practical character of religion. There is a danger of identifying spiritual
force with literary and rhetorical gifts; to recognise the religious value of
statistics is the most forcible protest against such identification. The
supreme service of the Church in any age is its influence on its own
generation, by which it moulds the generation immediately following. That
influence can only be estimated
by a careful study of all possible information and especially of statistics.
5. The lists in Chronicles are few and meagre compared to the records
of Greenwich Observatory or the volumes which contain the data of biology and
sociology; but the chronicler becomes, in a certain sense, the forerunner of
Darwin, Spencer, and Galton. (W. H. Bennett, M. A.)
Verse 11
Fit to go out for war and battle.
The need for preparation
“Fit to go” is an expression which points to the matter of
qualification. Mere age does not make a man fit to sit in the council, or to go
forth to battle, or to assume the position of dignity, We must undergo
discipline, instruction, mortification. Do not go out until you are qualified.
When you are truly qualified you will know the fact by the using of holy
impulses, by the pressure as of an invisible hand urging you on in the right
way, the way of Divine decree and destiny. To-day should always be a
preparation for to-morrow; everything we learn should have in it something more
than itself. When the gymnast undergoes his discipline, it is that he may use his
acquired strength in other and better directions than mere amusement. Let all
eating and drinking, all reading and study, all companionship and travel, have
before it a high purpose, a purpose of preparation for battle and race, for
conflict and suffering. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Fit for war
Genius, say some, is but a capacity for hard work. This is not a
whole truth; there must be work in accordance with law. The miner who digs for
gold on the seashore will never find it, though he dig ever so laboriously; but
if he study gold and the geologic strata in which it lives, he has begun to put
himself in harmony with law. Mere work, unless properly directed, is like
riding a hobby-horse; there is energy and motion, but no progress For years
Napoleon was living in miniature the battles he was to fight, analysing
strategic moves and positions, and training his mind to thus grasp a new
situation on the instant. Von Moltke studied the military topography of all
Europe, and with marvellous foresight thought out how to win. His victory was
no triumph of mere fortune or special inspiration. It was but the logical
outcome of his trained mind, and a trained mind ever lights the torch of its
own inspiration. Leonardo da Vinci always carried in his girdle his sketch-book
in his walks “in Florence, constantly looking for picturesque” faces. “In the
silence of the night, he would counsel himself,” recall the ideas of the things
you have studied. Design in your spirit the contours and outlines of the figures you have seen
during the day.” (New Science Review.)
Verse 21-22
Whom the men of Gath that wore born in that land slew.
The massacre of Ephraim’s children
In the mines of Peru, there are veins of peculiar richness; but
the very rubbish is valuable. In the Bible there are passages of peculiar
importance, but there is nothing trifling, nothing useless. To be able to
extract from the more barren portions of Scripture the instructions they were
intended to communicate is a talent which every Christian should cultivate.
This passage teaches us--
I. That there is
no individual or society secure from sudden and severe misfortune. Oh! it is
natural for us, when we are happy, to cherish the thought that we shall continue
to be happy. And we may be placed in circumstances in which such an
anticipation seems not only natural but reasonable. Our worldly substance may
be abundant; our bodily constitution may be sound and strong, promising us a
long and healthy life; our children may be growing up around us, with every
appearance of being the support and comfort of our declining years. We may
enjoy the affection of our friends. Very few persons have ever been so
prosperous, or had equal ground to presume on the permanence of their
prosperity as Ephraim. We have reason to hope that Ephraim was a good man. He
was certainly the son of a very good man. We cannot doubt that his father
Joseph gave him a religious education. We know that Ephraim was a wealthy man.
It was, indeed, his great wealth that excited the cupidity of these Philistine
robbers. It is obvious that he had reached a good old age, and he had gathered
around him children and children’s children, and the children of children’s
children. You can easily suppose the good old man retiring to rest happy in his
possessions, and happier still in his anticipations, for he had reason to
anticipate coming prosperity. God had spoken good of all the descendants of
Israel, but of none had He spoken so much good as of Ephraim. In his numerous
descendants he probably pleased himself with the thought, that he saw the begun
accomplishment of the promise that his seed should become a multitude of
nations. But what a fearful and sudden reverse was he destined to experience!
This affecting incident reads a lesson to us all. It tells those who are
afflicted, “in patience to possess their souls”; and it bids those who are
happy, “join trembling with their mirth.” It tells those who are in affliction
to give God thanks that they have not been afflicted as Ephraim was. We may
have been bereaved of much, it may be, but where is any of us that can for a
moment compare his bereavements with those of Ephraim?
II. That the
dispensations of Divine providence are often apparently in direct opposition to
the declarations of the Divine promise. It is difficult to conceive a more
striking illustration of this general principle than that furnished by the
remarkable incident recorded in the passage before us. Ephraim, as a descendant
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had an interest in all the promises made to his
illustrious ancestors. “I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth,” said
Jehovah to Abraham; “as the number of the stars, so shall thy seed be.” Ephraim
was one of the sons of Joseph, and of course Ephraim had his share in the
remarkable blessing that was pronounced on his father. “Joseph is a fruitful
bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall.” Nor
was this all; Ephraim had a share in that blessing which Jacob pronounced on
himself, and on his brother Manasseh. When Joseph heard that his father was
sick, apparently to death, he went to visit him, and he took along with him his
two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Jacob having been told that his son Joseph was
coming to see him, strengthened himself, and sat upon his bed. “And Jacob said
unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz, in the land of Canaan, and
blessed me, and said unto me, Behold I will make thee fruitful, and multiply
thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people,” etc. There was more even
than this. There was a great peculiarity in the manner in which Jacob
pronounced this blessing. He crossed his hands, and laid his right hand on
Ephraim, the youngest, and his left hand on Manasseh, the eldest; and when
Joseph attempted to alter the position of the old man’s hands, he replied, “I
know it, my son, I know it,” etc. Such was the promise; and in the narrative
before us, you see the providence. Can two things be more apparently in direct
opposition? Here is a promise that Ephraim shall be more prosperous than all
his brethren; and here is a providence that deprives Ephraim at once of all his
property, and, as it would seem, of all his children also. Nor is this at all
an unparalleled or even an uncommon case, so far as apparent contrariety
between the providence and promise of God is concerned. Was it like a
fulfilment of a promise made to Israel that Jehovah would give them a good and
large land, flowing with milk and honey, to lead them directly into the depths
of the Arabian wilderness and keep them wandering there for forty years? Was it
like a fulfilment of the promise which God had made to David, that he would
make him the ruler of his people, when he drove him from the court of Saul, and
exposed him to imminent hazard of his life on the mountains of Israel from the
persecutions of his infuriated enemy? I can appeal to the experience of every
Christian. Is it not distinctly stated in God’s Word that no evil shall happen
to the righteous? Is it not distinctly said, what is good God will give His
people? Now, I put it to every Christian, if he has not in the course of his
life met with much which at the time he could not help thinking evil for him?
The reason of this apparent inconsistency of the providence with the promises
of God, is by no means that there is a real opposition between them. It is the
same God who speaks in His Word that works in His providence--and He is the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. His Word and His work are really perfectly
harmonious; and in many eases those dispensations, which are apparently
frustrating the promise are, in reality, fulfilling it. The reason why the
promise and the providence of God often seem to us to be at variance, is our
ignorance of the extent and of the particular design of the Divine
dispensations. If we could see the commencement, and progress, and issue of all
God’s dispensations, we would gladly say, He is doing all things well, as we
shall by and by be constrained to say, He has done all things well. But in the
present state this must be a matter of faith, not of sense. It is the Divine
appointment, that here we must walk by faith.
III. That the
dissolution of those connections that bind us together in a variety of
relations in human life, occasions to all rightly constituted minds severe
suffering and permanent sorrow. It would be a miserable world--at least I am
sure it would not be
a happy one--if there were no husbands and wives, parents and children, and
brothers and sisters, relative and friends. That man must be deplorably
selfish, who, on reflecting on the various sources of his happiness, does not
find social relation and affection one of the most copious. In proportion to
the happiness springing from these relations, is the pain that is occasioned
when they are dissolved, especially when they are unexpectedly and violently
dissolved. Not merely are our friends the proper objects of a much stronger
kind of affection than any other species of property; but their loss is of all
other earthly losses the most irreparable. Our property, our reputation, our
health, may be lost and regained. But a friend whom we have lost by death, we
never can bring back again from the grove. (J. Brown, D. D.)
Family sorrow
I. The Cause Of
Sorrow.
II. The Sympathy In
The Sorrow.
III. The Remembrance
Of The Sorrow.
1. Perpetuated in joy.
2. Perpetuated in sorrow. (J. Wolfendale.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》