The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 52

which eh; ii. had mncle us familiar. Even three, the easy Keri of "and Zobar" is then the ohject or advantage of rcpMting followed by the Scptungint, and wns fol- the first four of these, so far as what follows lowed by our 1611 Authorized Version. is concerned, is not evident. We keep near Ver. 8.-The link of connection between the close of eh. ii. also in respect of another the persons named in this verse and the allusion to the Zorathites (eh. ii. 53), whose !ribe of ~udah is utterly unknown. Tho families were replenished by the two sons mtrod11ct10n of them, o.brupt as it is, is, of .Tahath, Ahumai and Lo.had, of all of how~ver, paralleled by mony others im- whom this is all we know. mediately followiug in this chapter, ns well Vers. 3, 4.-Etam is, with little doubt, the as elsewhere. Nothing has yet been pro- name of a place (2 Chron. xi. 6) in Judah, duced in elucidation of any one of the south of Jerusalem. It was near Tekoah persons designated by these names or of (ver. 5, and eh. ii. 24) aud Bethlehem their relation to the context. ' (next verse). The hiatus in the first clause may possibly be supplied by "the families Ver. 9.-This is not Iese true of Oui name of" from the last verse, or, more fitly, by ?f vers. 9, 10, which, however, has made "the sons of," inasmuch as some manuscripts its own mark amid the whole scene. The have it so. The Septuagint, however, and epi~ode of these two ver~es, offering itself Vnlgate displace" the father of" (i.e. chief amid what should seem, superficially, 11, dry of), replacing it by "the sons of." The mass of dead names, is welcomo and grate- l-iyriao Version leaves out any notice of the ful ns the oasis of the desert and it warns sister, Hazelelponi, and gives the former us th~t life lies hidden at ou; every footfall part of the verse thus: "These are Amina- o~ this ground, spreo.d over though it is dab's sons, Ahizareel, Nesma, and Dibas, with monument and inscription, nnd hol- Pheguel and Hnsia; These are the sons of low, as we thought, with the deadest of the Hur, the firstborn of Ephratha, who was dead. But the glimpse of old real life the father," etc. With this the Axabic given us in this brief fragment of a bio- Version is partly in agreement, but closes graphy is refreshing and is very suggestive. the verse with the words, " These are the It seems an insufficient and unnatural sons of Hur, son of Ephratha, the father of method of accounting for the suddenness of whom [plural] was of Bethlehem." The the appearance of this episode to suppose Chronicle Targum translates, "the .-abbi• (' Speaker's Commentary,' in loc.) that the dwellirig at Etam." This variety indicates name of J'abez was well known, from any the difficulty felt by each in turn. 'l'he cause, to those for whom Chronicles may he ,·crse, however, purports to give the names supposed to have been primarily intended. of three brothers and one ~ister (Hazelel- We prefer by far one account of it, viz. poni, i.e. the shadow looking at me, that the work in our hands is not in its Gesenins) connected with Etam, as in the original complete state ; or, variously put, following verse Penuel with Gedor (eh. ii. that it is in its uncompleted original state. 51) and Ezer with Hnshah (eh. xi. 29; No root corresponding to the characters 6f 2 Sam. x.xiii 27). Of no one of these, in this name in present order is known; it is all six other descendants of Hur, additional possible that dome euphonic reason makes to those found at the close of eh. ii., is any- the name y:aip~ out of the real word (future thing distiuct known. It iii to be noted Kai) .:i~Y~, i.e. he causes pains. We can- that Hur himself i, here called father of not suppose there would be any " play" Bethlehem, while (eh. ii. 51) his son Salma appreciable on n transposition of alpha- is so ea lied. betical characters for mere ploy's so.ke. Vera. 5-7.-Another before-mentioned The resemblance that almost each part of persou /eh. ii. 24) is brought forward, viz. this brief and abruptly introduced narra- Ashnr, the posthumous son of Hezron by Ahia, tion bears to incidents recorded in Genesis now again, as there, Btyled father, or chief, (xxxiv. l!J; xxxiii. 20; iv. 25; xxix. 32; of Tekoa, a town, as above, near Etam, Beth- xxviii. 20) and Exodus speaks for itself, lehem, etc. He is brouglit forward that the and strongly countenances the supposition names of his two wives, with four children that it is a genuine deposit of the gcnuiuely to tl,e latter of them and three to the olt.len history of Judah. The mother's former, may be given. The Roman Septua- reason for the naming of the child ; tho gint unaccouutably gives different names language and matter and form (Gen. xvii. to the mothers, and reveraee the groups of 18-20; Exod. xxxii. 32) of the prayer of the four and three children. Nothing else the child, when presumably he wus no is known of theije nine persons. The last longer a child ; and the discriminating use two names of the group of four more rc- of the words Elohim (vcr. 10) of Israel, as ser11 lJ!c iu form the name of the head of a compared with the name Jehovah (eh. ii. 3; fauiil.v thnn an illlJfridual name; and for v. 41), generully found herc,-all help to J~zc,ar, the widrlJc name of tho i:roup of produce this impres8ion, lllthough eome of OJI, IV, 1-43.] '!'HE l!'IllSl' BOOK OF '!'HE CHRONICLES. 13