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1 Chronicles6:8

✦ Public-domain source — quoted & attributed⚙ AI synthesis — generated, verify

1 Chronicles 6:8 — . Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

8

Ahitub was the father of Zadok, Zadok was the father of Ahimaaz,

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wa·’ă·ḥî·ṭūḇ hō·w·lîḏ ’eṯ- ṣā·ḏō·wq wə·ṣā·ḏō·wq hō·w·lîḏ ’eṯ- ’ă·ḥî·mā·‘aṣ

Word by word8 · parsed
וַאֲחִיטוּב֙wa·’ă·ḥî·ṭūḇAhitubH285
√ ʼĂchîyṭûwb — Achitub, the name of several priestsConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular
ʼĂchîyṭûwb: Ahitub, the name of several priests A relatively rare name (15 verses in the canon), and that rarity is exactly the trouble: an Ahitub stands in Eli's line of Ithamar at 1 Samuel 14:3 and 22:9, and an Ahitub stands here in Eleazar's line as father of Zadok. Pulpit notes that in 1 Chronicles 9:11 and Nehemiah 11:11 the same name appears as father of Meraioth and grandfather of Zadok, and calls the repetition of Ahitub and Zadok later in this very chapter "very possibly the result of some error," though he allows the repetition may equally be legitimate. The Chronicler does not resolve it for us.
הוֹלִ֣ידhō·w·lîḏwas the father ofH3205
√ yâlad — to bear youngVerbHifilPerfectthird person masculine singular
yâlad: to bear young (Hifil) The causative hōlîḏ is the single verb carrying the whole high-priestly list of vv. 4 to 15, and K&D draws the inference the older commentators drew: the purpose of the enumeration is to communicate the succession of high priests from Eleazar to Jehozadak. K&D also concedes the verb's elasticity, that hōlîḏ in genealogical lists "may express mediate procreation," a grandson introduced as begotten by the grandfather, which is how twenty-two generations are made to span some 863 years. So the verb is doing chronological work it cannot be pressed to do precisely.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
ʼêth: object marker Untranslatable; it simply marks Zadok as the one begotten.
צָד֔וֹקṣā·ḏō·wqZadokH6659
√ Tsâdôwq — Tsadok, the name of eight or nine IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
Tsâdôwq: Zadok, the name of eight or nine Israelites The hinge name of the chapter. Geneva's marginal gloss runs, verbatim: "Who was high priest after Abiathar was deposed, according to the prophecy of Eli the priest, 1Sa 2:31,35." That reads 1 Samuel 2:31 and 2:35 as fulfilled here; Gill records, from Josephus and the Jewish writers, that the office had been translated into Ithamar's family in the days of Uzzi and "where it continued to the times of Solomon, when it was restored to Zadok, of the line of Eleazar." This verse is therefore the quiet seam where a displaced line is sewn back in.
וְצָד֖וֹקwə·ṣā·ḏō·wqZadokH6659
√ Tsâdôwq — Tsadok, the name of eight or nine IsraelitesConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular
Tsâdôwq: Zadok Repeated as subject with the waw: the one received in v. 8a is the one who gives in v. 8b.
הוֹלִ֥ידhō·w·lîḏwas the father ofH3205
√ yâlad — to bear youngVerbHifilPerfectthird person masculine singular
yâlad: to bear young (Hifil) The second identical hōlîḏ. The Chronicler's refusal to vary the verb is the point: no reign, no deed, no death is recorded, only the transmission. Whatever else a priest did, this is what the register keeps.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
ʼêth: object marker Again marking the son as the one acted upon.
אֲחִימָֽעַץ׃’ă·ḥî·mā·‘aṣAhimaazH290
√ ʼĂchîymaʻats — Achimaats, the name of three IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
ʼĂchîymaʻats: Achimaats, the name of three Israelites Also rare (15 verses). Cambridge sends the reader to 2 Samuel 15:27, 17:17-21 and 18:19 following, where Ahimaaz is not a name in a list but a young man running: the priest's son who carries word across the Jordan for David and then outruns the Cushite to Mahanaim with news of the battle. Chronicles keeps only his begetting; Samuel keeps his feet.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. One verb, eight words, a restored office — 1 Chronicles 6:8

Nothing happens in this verse except a verb, twice. הוֹלִיד (hō·w·lîḏ, H3205, Hifil) is the only predicate the Chronicler allows the high priests of vv. 4 to 15, and K&D says why the monotony is deliberate: "the descendants of Eleazar are enumerated in twenty-two generations; the word הוליד, 'he begat,' being repeated with every name," so that the list communicates "the succession of high priests from Eleazar... to Jehozadak." Barnes titles the whole passage in a single line as the genealogy of the high priestly stem to the captivity. What looks like filler is a constitutional document.

ii. The seam: where a lost priesthood comes back — 1 Chronicles 6:8

JFB notes at v. 5 that in Uzzi's days "the high priesthood was, for unrecorded reasons, transferred from Eleazar's family to Ithamar's, in which it continued for several generations." Gill gives the source and the terminus: from Josephus and the Jewish writers, the office passed to Ithamar's house, of which Eli was first high priest, "where it continued to the times of Solomon, when it was restored to Zadok, of the line of Eleazar." The Chronicler records none of that. He writes only that Ahitub caused Zadok to be born. Geneva supplies the missing verdict in a marginal gloss, calling Zadok the one who held office "after Abiathar was deposed, according to the prophecy of Eli the priest, 1Sa 2:31,35." So three authorities converge on this name from outside the verse, and the verse itself says nothing.

iii. Two Ahitubs, and an honest crack in the record — 1 Chronicles 6:8

Pulpit will not smooth it over. Ahitub is "here and elsewhere plainly given as father of Zadok," yet "seems to be given as father of Meraioth" in 1 Chronicles 9:11 and Nehemiah 11:11, and grandfather of Zadok there; and the reappearance of both names at vv. 11 and 12 is, he says, "very possibly the result of some error," while conceding it may equally be legitimate repetition. Cambridge adds the Samuel evidence that David's reign had two high priests at once, with Zadok always named first. K&D, working the arithmetic, gets 863 years for twenty-two generations, calls the resulting average of 39 1/4 years per link "a very high one," and saves it only by allowing that hōlîḏ "may express mediate procreation." Three of the most careful voices on this verse all tell the reader the same thing: the list is abbreviated, and they know it.

iv. Ahimaaz, kept here as a name only — 1 Chronicles 6:8

Cambridge's whole comment on the last word is a string of references: 2 Samuel 15:27, 17:17-21, 18:19 and following. There Ahimaaz is the priest's son hidden at En-rogel, the runner who begs Joab for leave to carry the news and outstrips the Cushite. Pulpit does the same for Zadok, tracing him from "a young man mighty of valour" at Hebron (1 Chronicles 12:28) to 1 Kings 2:35. Chronicles knows all of it and keeps none of it. ⚙ The editorial logic seems to be that the post-exilic community needed the credentials, not the adventures: Henry's remark that priests "were more concerned than any other Israelites, to preserve their descent clear, and to be able to prove it; because all the honours and privileges of their office depended upon their descent" is the best available account of why this verse survives at all.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ This is our own fallible reading, offered to be tested. Read only in itself, 1 Chronicles 6:8 makes one claim: that the priesthood is something no man takes and every man receives. The grammar says it twice. The name that will act is in the accusative, marked by אֶת־, before it is ever a subject; Zadok is begotten before Zadok begets. Nothing here is earned, and nothing here is chosen. Yet the register is also, on its own terms, incomplete: Pulpit and K&D both show that the chain skips links, and Scripture elsewhere (1 Samuel 2:31-35) says outright that this line was once broken by judgment and later restored by a word of promise. So the verse holds two things at once, and we think it means to. A priesthood that rests on descent is secure in a way no achievement is, and fragile in a way no promise is: it can be deposed, lost to another house, carried into Babylon with Jehozadak, and finally stopped by death. The Chronicler's flat repetition of hōlîḏ is not dull. It is the sound of an office being handed down because it cannot be held.

The verb is causative twice over: no priest in this verse gives himself the office he hands on. (This line is our own reading, not Scripture.)

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

Zadok and Abiathar: the two priests of David's house structural / thematic: confirmed

The pairing of אֲחִיטוּב and צָדוֹק in this verse is the same pairing that appears in David's court lists at 2 Samuel 8:17 and its Chronicles parallel, 1 Chronicles 18:16. Cambridge reads those lists as showing "that there were two highpriests in David’s day; Zadok however is always mentioned before his colleague." The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes, but the link is a shared pair of personal names inside a royal administrative list, not a quotation of one text by another.

2 Samuel 8:17 · 1 Chronicles 18:16

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H285 ʼĂchîyṭûwb (in 15 vv) and H6659 Tsâdôwq (in 50 vv). The rarity of H285 makes the link real, but both are proper names in parallel administrative lists, so no verbal or quotation claim is made.

Ahimaaz, who is a runner everywhere but here structural / thematic: confirmed

The last word of the verse, אֲחִימָעַץ, is the man Cambridge points to at 2 Samuel 15:27, 17:17-21 and 18:19 following: the priest's son used as a courier during Absalom's revolt, who outruns the Cushite to bring David word from Mahanaim. The Verifier finds Zadok and Ahimaaz named together across those Samuel verses and again at 1 Chronicles 6:53. ⚙ Chronicles keeps the name and drops the narrative, which is itself the Chronicler's method: the register preserves office, Samuel preserves character.

2 Samuel 15:27 · 2 Samuel 18:19 · 2 Samuel 18:27 · 1 Chronicles 6:53

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6659 Tsâdôwq (in 50 vv) and H290 ʼĂchîymaʻats (in 15 vv) across all four refs. Shared personal names in differing genres (narrative vs register), so structural rather than verbal.

The missing Meraioth: where the Chronicler disagrees with himself flagged: verify source

1 Chronicles 9:11 and Nehemiah 11:11 give an Ahitub who is father of Meraioth and only then ancestor of Zadok, and both call him "ruler of the house of God." Pulpit lays the problem out plainly and says the recurrence of Ahitub and Zadok at vv. 11 and 12 of this chapter "is very possibly the result of some error," while allowing that it may be a genuine repetition of names in a later generation. We record this link as real in its lexemes and unresolved in its sense.

1 Chronicles 9:11 · Nehemiah 11:11 · 1 Chronicles 6:12

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H285 ʼĂchîyṭûwb (in 15 vv) and H6659 Tsâdôwq (in 50 vv) in all three refs. Flagged because the generational relation the shared names imply is contested: Pulpit judges the recurrence possibly erroneous and offers no settled resolution.

The same line carried down to Ezra structural / thematic: confirmed

Ezra 7:2 runs the scribe's own pedigree back through Zadok and Ahitub to Aaron, using the identical two names this verse joins. ⚙ The register in 1 Chronicles 6 is not antiquarian: it is the document by which a returned exile establishes his right to handle the Law, and Henry's observation that a priest's honours and privileges "depended upon their descent" is the practical stake.

Ezra 7:2

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H285 ʼĂchîyṭûwb (in 15 vv) and H6659 Tsâdôwq (in 50 vv). Ezra 7:2 abbreviates the same priestly line rather than quoting this verse, so the tier is structural.

A succession of many, because death kept intervening structural / thematic: confirmed

Hebrews 7:23-24 states the principle that this verse embodies without comment, that the earlier priests had to be many in number because death kept preventing any one of them from continuing in office. (Our summary, not a quotation: the brief carries no New Testament text.) Every hōlîḏ in 1 Chronicles 6 is a funeral implied. ⚙ The link is conceptual and cannot be verbal: Hebrews is Greek and this verse Hebrew, so no shared Strong's lexeme exists or could exist, and we make no claim that Hebrews cites Chronicles.

Hebrews 7:23-24

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew): no shared Strong's number is possible, so no verbal tier is available. The recorded basis is the shared structure of a priesthood transmitted by repeated generation, which Hebrews 7:23 names explicitly as succession caused by death.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The faithful priest promised against Eli's house ancient/widely-held

Geneva's marginal note on this very verse reads Zadok as the man who held office "after Abiathar was deposed, according to the prophecy of Eli the priest, 1Sa 2:31,35" (that prophecy promising a faithful priest who would walk before the LORD's anointed forever). Gill independently records, from Josephus and the Jewish writers, that the office was restored to Zadok "of the line of Eleazar," and Ezekiel 44:15 later singles out the sons of Zadok as those who kept charge when Israel went astray. ⚙ Read forward, the promise of 1 Samuel 2:35 overshoots Zadok: no son of Ahitub walked before the anointed forever, and Jehozadak ends this very list in Babylon. Henry, commenting on the whole chapter, puts the conclusion bluntly: though believers and ministers may be very useful to the church, "none but our great High Priest can make atonement for sin, nor can any be accepted but through his atonement." That is the widely-held reading, and it is Henry's own words on this passage, not ours.

1 Samuel 2:35 · Ezekiel 44:15 · Hebrews 7:23-25

A priesthood by descent, and a priesthood that death cannot hand on ancient/widely-held

The single repeated verb of this list, הוֹלִיד (H3205, Hifil), makes descent the whole credential. K&D states the rule the register assumes: "The son so begotten was, when he lived after his father, the heir of the high-priestly dignity." Hebrews 7:16 sets against exactly this a priest qualified not by a legal requirement of fleshly descent but by the power of an indestructible life, and Hebrews 7:3 describes Melchizedek as one whose genealogy is simply not recorded. (Both are our summaries, not quotations: our brief supplies no New Testament text, and we will not reconstruct one from memory.) ⚙ The contrast is precise rather than incidental: Chronicles proves priesthood by producing a father, and Hebrews argues that the greater priest is the one who needs no such proof. This is the standard apostolic argument, not a novelty of ours, though the tie to this particular verse is our own application.

Hebrews 7:3 · Hebrews 7:16 · Psalm 110:4

The line that ends in exile novel

K&D traces the purpose of vv. 4 to 15 as recording the succession "from Eleazar... to Jehozadak, whom Nebuchadnezzar caused to be carried away into Babylon," and Gill notes that Jehozadak's son Joshua, born in captivity, came out at the proclamation of Cyrus. ⚙ Our reading, offered as fallible: the register is honest about its own failure. The chain of hōlîḏ that begins with Aaron does not end at a functioning altar but in deportation, and the son who returns must begin again in rubble. A priesthood whose continuity depends on begetting can be interrupted by an empire. We mark this application as our own; the historical facts are K&D's and Gill's.

1 Chronicles 6:15 · Haggai 1:1 · Zechariah 3:1-5

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text: BSB (CC0) for 1 Chronicles 6:8, with the Berean interlinear supplying eight words, two of them the untranslated object marker אֶת־ (H853). Verse numbering differs between traditions: K&D treats this material as 1 Chronicles 5:30-41, and English 6:8 sits there in the Hebrew reckoning. Readers comparing editions should expect the offset.

Sources: Poole has no note on this verse; Barnes has one line only. Henry's comment is on the whole chapter (6:1-81), not on v. 8, and JFB's is attached to v. 5, so where we cite them the reader should know we are drawing on context rather than on verse-level exposition. The K&D entry in our brief is capped, with roughly 16,000 further characters unread; his chronological argument is quoted only as far as the brief carries it, and we have not followed it to its conclusion.

What is uncertain: the relation of Ahitub, Meraioth and Zadok across 1 Chronicles 6:8, 1 Chronicles 9:11 and Nehemiah 11:11 is unresolved, and Pulpit himself allows for textual error. K&D's own arithmetic (863 years across twenty-two generations) implies omitted names, which he concedes the Hifil hōlîḏ permits. The transfer of the high priesthood from Eleazar's line to Ithamar's and back to Zadok rests, as Gill and JFB both say, on Josephus and later Jewish tradition rather than on any statement in the biblical text; JFB says only that the transfer happened "for unrecorded reasons." Treat it as tradition, not as Scripture. The redemptive-historical readings and every sentence marked ⚙ are our own fallible synthesis, offered to be tested against the text.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)