The Fallible Synthetic Study Bible — 1 Chronicles 7:14

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1 Chronicles 7:14–19 — The Descendants of Manasseh. 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.

The Voices✦ 4 public domain

Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

This last passage is important, because it expressly declares that the names all represent clans, with the exception of Zelophehad, who “had no sons, but daughters.”

Ellicott's point is that Numbers 26 itself tells us these names are clan names, with one deliberate exception. That exception, Zelophehad, is the hinge of the whole unit.

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Jamieson, Fausset & BrownCommentary Critical and Explanatory1871

The text, as it stands, is so confused and complicated that it is exceedingly difficult to trace the genealogical thread, and a great variety of conjectures have been made with a view to clear away the obscurity.

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Keil & DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament1860s

The statements of 1 Chronicles 7:14 , 1 Chronicles 7:15 are very obscure.

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Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges—1880s

The inhabitants of Gilead were thus in part Aramaeans (Syrians) by descent.

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The descendants of Manasseh: Asriel through his Aramean concubine. She also gave birth to Machir the father of Gilead.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

bə·nê mə·naš·šeh ’aś·rî·’êl hā·’ă·ram·mî·yāh yā·lə·ḏāh ’eṯ- pî·laḡ·šōw ’ă·šer yā·lā·ḏāh mā·ḵîr ’ă·ḇî ḡil·‘āḏ

Word by word12 · parsed

בְּנֵ֣יbə·nêThe descendantsH1121

√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine plural construct

bên: a son, in the widest sense of literal and figurative relationship The construct plural that carries this entire chapter. Strong's itself allows “grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition,” and the commentators here need every inch of that range: Poole reads “The sons of Manasseh, i.e. grandchildren,” and Ellicott says the names “all represent clans.” A genealogy in Chronicles is therefore not a birth record but a claim about who belongs to whom.

מְנַשֶּׁ֔הmə·naš·šehof ManassehH4519

√ Mᵉnashsheh — Menashsheh, a grandson of Jacob, also the tribe descended from him, and its territoryNounpropermasculine singular

אַשְׂרִיאֵ֖ל’aś·rî·’êlAsrielH844

√ ʼAsrîyʼêl — Asriel, the name of two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular

הָֽאֲרַמִּיָּ֔הhā·’ă·ram·mî·yāhthrough his ArameanH761

√ ʼĂrammîy — an Aramite or AramaeanArticleNounproperfeminine singular

ʼĂrammîy: an Aramite or Aramaean The first word in the unit that is not a name but an identity. An Aramean woman stands at the head of a Manassite register, and the Chronicler does not apologise for her or edit her out. Cambridge takes the datum at face value and concludes the Gileadites were partly Aramaean by descent; Ellicott, reading verses 14 and 15 together, says the passage “seems to assert an Aramean and a Benjamite element in the population of Western Manasseh.” The register is candid about mixed blood in a way later readers often were not.

יָלְדָ֕הyā·lə·ḏāh. . .H3205

√ yâlad — to bear youngVerbQalPerfectthird person feminine singular

yâlad: to bear young Qal perfect, third person feminine singular. The same verb and the same form recur at word 8, and the doubling is exactly what the ancient interpreters could not resolve: one yāləḏāh too many for the number of mothers named. Poole notes the verb “is sometimes used of men's begetting, as Genesis 5:18,” which would let the subject shift mid-verse. The grammar is plain; the referents are not.

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

Direct object marker (H853), untranslatable; it marks Machir as what was borne.

פִּֽילַגְשׁוֹ֙pî·laḡ·šōwconcubineH6370

√ pîylegesh — a concubineNounfeminine singular constructthird person masculine singular

pîylegesh: a concubine Construct form with the third person masculine suffix, “his concubine.” The suffix has no stated owner in the immediate clause, which is why Gill, following the Targum, must decide whether the wife or the concubine is the subject of the first yāləḏāh. The word itself is not a euphemism: it names a legally recognised secondary wife whose sons could be counted in the tribal roll, and here one of them is.

אֲשֶׁ֣ר’ă·šer[She also]H834

√ ʼăsher — who, which, what, thatPronounrelative

יָלָ֑דָהyā·lā·ḏāhgave birthH3205

√ yâlad — to bear youngVerbQalPerfectthird person feminine singular

מָכִ֖ירmā·ḵîrto MachirH4353

√ Mâkîyr — Makir, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular

אֲבִ֥י’ă·ḇîthe fatherH1

√ ʼâb — father, in a literal and immediate, or figurative and remote applicationNounmasculine singular construct

ʼâb: father, in a literal and immediate, or figurative and remote application Strong's gloss names the ambiguity exactly. “Machir father-of Gilead” can mean the man who begot a son named Gilead, or the ancestor whose name the region east of the Jordan now bears. Poole insists on the first (“a person so called, as is manifest from 1 Chronicles 7:17”); Barnes observes on verse 17 that “Gilead” came to prevail “above all others in the line of Manasseh.” Both are true in sequence: a person became a place.

גִלְעָֽד׃ḡil·‘āḏof GileadH1568

√ Gilʻâd — Gilad, a region East of the JordanNounproperfeminine singular

Gilʻâd: a region East of the Jordan A masculine person bearing a name the lexicon classes as feminine proper, because it is fundamentally a territory. From here the unit's geography splits: Gilead is transjordanic, yet Ellicott and K&D place this register with western Manasseh.

Literal — word-for-word from the original

“Sons-of Manasseh: Asriel; the-Aramean-woman she-bore, [namely] his-concubine, who she-bore Machir father-of Gilead.”

Where the English smooths the original

בְּנֵ֣י בְּנֵי (bə·nê, H1121 bên, masculine plural construct) is rendered “The descendants” by BSB, and that smoothing is itself an interpretation. The word is simply “sons-of.” Barnes states the reason for the looser rendering: the men listed “were not literally 'sons,' but were among the later descendants of the founders.” The English hides the fact that the Hebrew makes no such distinction and never had to.
הָֽאֲרַמִּיָּ֔ה הָאֲרַמִּיָּה (hā·’ă·ram·mî·yāh, H761 ʼĂrammîy, article plus feminine proper adjective) is “the Aramean woman,” a gentilic with the definite article. BSB's “through his Aramean concubine” fuses this word with pîlaḡšōw two words later and supplies “through,” which the Hebrew does not write. Cambridge draws the ethnic inference the article invites: the Gileadites were “in part Aramaeans (Syrians) by descent.”
אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֲשֶׁר (’ă·šer, H834, relative pronoun) is glossed “[She also]” in brackets because the translators could not find an antecedent for it. That bracket is the whole textual problem in miniature: K&D argues the relative clause “can refer only to Manasseh,” JFB rewrites the verse to make it run, and Pulpit calls the opening clause “unmanageable as it stands.” English readers meet a tidy sentence; the Hebrew hands its reader a dangling ’ăšer.
אֲבִ֥י אֲבִי (’ă·ḇî, H1 ʼâb, masculine singular construct) is “father-of,” but in a register like this it functions as “founder of,” the head from whom a clan and its territory take their name. Gilead is a region east of the Jordan (H1568), so “father of Gilead” names paternity and geography at once, and English “the father of Gilead” keeps only the first sense.

The Voices✦ 4 public domain

Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

We must, therefore, suppose a lacuna of some few words, which gave the name of Machir’s second wife, and the descent of Zelophehad from her.

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Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges—1880s

The statement regarding Maachah is ethnographical, and means that the people of Maachah (a district at the foot of Hermon) were related by blood to Machir (the Eastern Manassites).

Cambridge reads the marriage notices as tribal geography rather than biography. That method is a nineteenth century critical commonplace and should be weighed as a reading, not received as a datum of the text.

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Matthew PooleAnnotations upon the Holy Bible1685

Or Zelophehad is here called the second , because he was the younger brother of Ashriel, who was the eldest son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir.

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The Pulpit CommentarySpence & Exell, eds.1880s

The distinct mention of the marriage of a Manassite to a Benjamite woman is to be noticed.

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Machir took a wife from among the Huppites and Shuppites. The name of his sister was Maacah. Another descendant was named Zelophehad, who had only daughters.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

ū·mā·ḵîr lā·qaḥ ’iš·šāh lə·ḥup·pîm ū·lə·šup·pîm wə·šêm ’ă·ḥō·ṯōw ma·‘ă·ḵāh haš·šê·nî wə·šêm ṣə·lā·p̄ə·ḥāḏ wat·tih·ye·nāh liṣ·lā·p̄ə·ḥāḏ bā·nō·wṯ

Word by word14 · parsed

וּמָכִ֞ירū·mā·ḵîrMachirH4353

√ Mâkîyr — Makir, an IsraeliteConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

לָקַ֤חlā·qaḥtookH3947

√ lâqach — to take (in the widest variety of applications)VerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular

lâqach: to take (in the widest variety of applications) Qal perfect, third masculine singular. With ’iššāh as object it is the ordinary idiom for marrying, but K&D presses the following lə and notes that lāqaḥ ’iššāh lə elsewhere means to take a wife for someone else, citing Judges 14:2, where Samson's father is asked to get the woman for him. On that reading Machir is not the bridegroom but the patriarch arranging marriages, and the verse is about alliance rather than romance.

אִשָּׁה֙’iš·šāha wifeH802

√ ʼishshâh — a womanNounfeminine singular

ʼishshâh: a woman The same noun serves for “woman” and “wife”; only context decides. Here it is indefinite and unnamed, and the name that should follow it never arrives, which is the lacuna Ellicott says we must assume.

לְחֻפִּ֣יםlə·ḥup·pîmfrom among the HuppitesH2650

√ Chuppîym — Chuppim, an IsraelitePreposition-lNounpropermasculine singular

וּלְשֻׁפִּ֔יםū·lə·šup·pîmand ShuppitesH8206

√ Shuppîym — Shuppim, an IsraeliteConjunctive waw, Preposition-lNounpropermasculine singular

וְשֵׁ֤םwə·šêmThe nameH8034

√ shêm — an appellation, as amark or memorial of individualityConjunctive wawNounmasculine singular construct

אֲחֹתוֹ֙’ă·ḥō·ṯōwof his sisterH269

√ ʼâchôwth — a sister (used very widely (like brother), literally and figuratively)Nounfeminine singular constructthird person masculine singular

ʼâchôwth: a sister (used very widely, literally and figuratively) The lexicon's “used very widely, literally and figuratively” is doing heavy work. Cambridge reads the clause as ethnography rather than family history: the people of Maacah, a district at the foot of Hermon, were kin to the eastern Manassites. On that reading “sister” is a treaty term for a related population, and the marriage notice is a map of alliances.

מַעֲכָ֔הma·‘ă·ḵāhwas MaacahH4601

√ Maʻăkâh — Maakah (or Maakath), the name of a place in Syria, also of a Mesopotamian, of three Israelites, and of four Israelitesses and one Syrian womanNounproperfeminine singular

הַשֵּׁנִ֖יhaš·šê·nîAnotherH8145

√ shênîy — properly, double, iArticleNumberordinal masculine singular

shênîy: properly, double, that is, second An ordinal with no series. The Chronicler's source evidently listed a first something; our text has lost it. This single word is the reason K&D judges the first half of the verse “corrupt and defective” while holding the second half “correct and beyond criticism,” a distinction worth noticing: the tradition is not uniformly uncertain, it is uncertain in a locatable place.

וְשֵׁ֥םwə·šêmdescendant was namedH8034

√ shêm — an appellation, as amark or memorial of individualityConjunctive wawNounmasculine singular construct

צְלָפְחָ֑דṣə·lā·p̄ə·ḥāḏZelophehadH6765

√ Tsᵉlophchâd — Tselophchad, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular

וַתִּהְיֶ֥נָהwat·tih·ye·nāhwho hadH1961

√ hâyâh — to exist, iConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person feminine plural

hâyâh: to exist, to become Consecutive imperfect, third person feminine plural: “and there came to be, to Zelophehad, daughters.” The plural verb agrees with the daughters, not with the father, and the idiom of possession is the dative lə. Hebrew does not say he had them; it says they came to be to him. Numbers 27 turns that grammar into a legal question about what comes to them.

לִצְלָפְחָ֖דliṣ·lā·p̄ə·ḥāḏ. . .H6765

√ Tsᵉlophchâd — Tselophchad, an IsraelitePreposition-lNounpropermasculine singular

בָּנֽוֹת׃bā·nō·wṯonly daughtersH1323

√ bath — a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively)Nounfeminine plural

bath: a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship) The last word of the verse and the only place in the unit where a line continues through women who are named nowhere here. Five of them are named in Numbers 26:33 and Numbers 27:1, and one of those names, Mahlah, reappears in verse 18 attached to a different woman.

Literal — word-for-word from the original

“And-Machir took a-woman to-Huppim and-to-Shuppim; and-name-of his-sister Maacah; and-name-of the-second Zelophehad; and-there-were to-Zelophehad daughters.”

Where the English smooths the original

לְחֻפִּ֣ים לְחֻפִּים (lə·ḥup·pîm, H2650, preposition lə plus proper name) is literally “to Huppim,” not “from among the Huppites.” Ellicott says flatly of the smooth English, “The Hebrew cannot mean this,” and renders “of Huppim and of Shuppim,” explaining that the literal “to Huppim and to Shuppim” means “belonging to.” K&D takes the preposition at full strength: lāqaḥ ’iššāh lə normally means “to take a wife for one,” that is, Machir took wives for other men. BSB picks one solution and hides the fork.
אֲחֹתוֹ֙ אֲחֹתוֹ (’ă·ḥō·ṯōw, H269 ʼâchôwth, construct with third person masculine suffix) is “his sister,” and BSB's “The name of his sister was Maacah” leaves the suffix's owner unnamed. Cambridge supplies it: “Render, and his (Machir's) sister's name.” Verse 16 then calls Maacah Machir's wife, which is why Poole understands “sister” of a different relation and Pulpit records that the Peshitta made her Machir's mother instead.
הַשֵּׁנִ֖י הַשֵּׁנִי (haš·šê·nî, H8145 shênîy, article plus masculine ordinal) is “the second,” a bare numeral with nothing to be second to. BSB paraphrases it away as “Another descendant was named.” Ellicott proposes reading the parallel word earlier as ’aḥath and this one as shēnîth, that is, first wife and second wife; Poole keeps it masculine and makes Zelophehad the second son. Pulpit simply says the phrase “is unintelligible.” The English sentence is smooth precisely where the Hebrew is broken.
בָּנֽוֹת בָּנוֹת (bā·nō·wṯ, H1323 bath, feminine plural) is “daughters,” with no word for “only” in the text. BSB's “who had only daughters” imports the restriction from the story in Numbers 27, where the absence of sons is the legal problem. Poole makes the same supplement openly: “Had daughters, i.e. only daughters, and no sons.” The Hebrew states a fact; the English states a lack.

The Voices✦ 3 public domain

Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

Peresh . . . Sheresh occur nowhere else. Ulam and Rakem (Rekem) were probably sons of the elder, Peresh, whose line would naturally be continued, as usual.

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John GillExposition of the Entire Bible1746–63

and his sons were Ulam and Rakem, that is, either the sons of Peresh or Sheresh, the nearest, as Kimchi observes.

Gill is reporting the medieval Jewish grammarian David Kimchi, who reads the pronoun by proximity. That is a rule of thumb about Hebrew suffixes, not a statement the text itself makes.

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Keil & DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament1860s

Peresh and Shelesh are mentioned only here. בּנין, "his sons" (that is, the sons of the last-named, Shelesh), were Ulam and Rakem, names which are also met with only here.

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Machir’s wife Maacah gave birth to a son, and she named him Peresh. His brother was named Sheresh, and his sons were Ulam and Rekem.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

mā·ḵîr ’ê·šeṯ- ma·‘ă·ḵāh wat·tê·leḏ bên wat·tiq·rā šə·mōw pe·reš ’ā·ḥîw wə·šêm šā·reš ū·ḇā·nāw ’ū·lām wā·rā·qem

Word by word14 · parsed

מָכִיר֙mā·ḵîrMachir’sH4353

√ Mâkîyr — Makir, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular

אֵֽשֶׁת־’ê·šeṯ-wifeH802

√ ʼishshâh — a womanNounfeminine singular construct

ʼishshâh: a woman Here construct, “wife-of,” and the word that contradicts verse 15. Fifteen called Maacah Machir's sister; sixteen calls her his wife. K&D takes verse 16 as the sound text and reconstructs verse 15 accordingly; Pulpit records that the Peshitta solved it a third way by making her his mother. Three ancient or modern solutions, one unresolved verse.

מַעֲכָ֤הma·‘ă·ḵāhMaacahH4601

√ Maʻăkâh — Maakah (or Maakath), the name of a place in Syria, also of a Mesopotamian, of three Israelites, and of four Israelitesses and one Syrian womanNounproperfeminine singular

וַתֵּ֨לֶדwat·tê·leḏgave birth toH3205

√ yâlad — to bear youngConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person feminine singular

yâlad: to bear young Consecutive imperfect, third feminine singular. The narrative form (wayyiqtol) rather than the perfect used in verse 14, which is a small signal that this clause is being told rather than merely listed. For three clauses the register briefly becomes a story.

בֵּ֔ןbêna sonH1121

√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular

וַתִּקְרָ֤אwat·tiq·rāand she named himH7121

√ qârâʼ — to call out to (iConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person feminine singular

qârâʼ: to call out to, to name Consecutive imperfect, third feminine singular. In Genesis this verb with a mother as subject is normally followed by an explanation (“because...”). Here it is followed by nothing. The Chronicler preserves the act of naming and loses its meaning, which is a fair emblem of what survives in a register: the fact that someone was named, not why.

שְׁמוֹ֙šə·mōw. . .H8034

√ shêm — an appellation, as amark or memorial of individualityNounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular

shêm: an appellation, as a mark or memorial of individuality Strong's own gloss, “a mark or memorial of individuality,” is the theological point of the whole chapter. A name in a list is a memorial that an individual existed. Ellicott notes that Peresh and Sheresh “occur nowhere else” in Scripture; their names are the only memorial they have.

פֶּ֔רֶשׁpe·rešPereshH6570

√ Peresh — Peresh, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular

אָחִ֖יו’ā·ḥîwHis brotherH251

√ ʼâch — a brother (used in the widest sense of literal relationship and metaphorical affinity or resemblance (like father))Nounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular

ʼâch: a brother (used in the widest sense of literal relationship and metaphorical affinity) The lexicon again warns that kin terms here may be affinity rather than blood, the same caution Cambridge applied to “sister” in verse 15. Peresh and Sheresh are a rhyming pair, and both are hapax names: K&D, who spells the second Shelesh rather than Sheresh, says of them only that they “are mentioned only here.” Even the form of the brother's name is not fixed in the tradition, which is a useful measure of how little the register carries beyond the bare fact of the pair.

וְשֵׁ֥םwə·šêmwas namedH8034

√ shêm — an appellation, as amark or memorial of individualityConjunctive wawNounmasculine singular construct

שָׁ֑רֶשׁšā·rešShereshH8329

√ Sheresh — Sheresh, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular

וּבָנָ֖יוū·ḇā·nāwand his sonsH1121

√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcConjunctive wawNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine singular

אוּלָ֥ם’ū·lāmwere UlamH198

√ ʼÛwlâm — Ulam, the name of two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular

ʼÛwlâm: Ulam, the name of two Israelites A rare name (four verses in all). The other two occurrences, 1 Chronicles 8:39 and 8:40, stand in the Benjamite register, and Cambridge notes on verse 17 that “A variation in the tradition of their descent is possible.” The Verifier confirms the lexeme is shared; whether the man is shared, no one can say.

וָרָֽקֶם׃wā·rā·qemand RekemH7552

√ Reqem — Rekem, the name of a place in Palestine, also of a Midianite and an IsraeliteConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

Literal — word-for-word from the original

“And-Maacah wife-of Machir bore a-son, and-she-called his-name Peresh; and-name-of his-brother Sheresh; and-his-sons Ulam and-Rekem.”

Where the English smooths the original

וַתִּקְרָ֤א וַתִּקְרָא (wat·tiq·rā, H7121 qârâʼ, consecutive imperfect, third person feminine singular) is “and she called,” an active naming performed by the mother, with šəmōw, “his name,” as its object. BSB's “and she named him” is accurate but flattens a formula that elsewhere in Scripture introduces a reason for the name. Here no reason is given, and the silence is part of what makes Peresh a cipher.
אָחִ֖יו אָחִיו (’ā·ḥîw, H251 ʼâch, construct with third masculine suffix) is “his brother,” and the suffix's owner is grammatically Peresh. BSB agrees. But the next clause, “and his sons,” carries the same kind of suffix and no one can say which brother it attaches to: Gill records that “either the sons of Peresh or Sheresh, the nearest, as Kimchi observes,” while Ellicott reasons the other way, that Ulam and Rekem were “probably sons of the elder, Peresh.” English pronouns look decided; Hebrew suffixes here are not.
וּבָנָ֖יו וּבָנָיו (ū·ḇā·nāw, H1121, masculine plural construct with third masculine suffix) is “and his sons,” verbless. BSB supplies “were” to make an English sentence. Hebrew registers are habitually verbless in exactly this way, listing relations without predicating anything, which is why they resist narrative reading and why so much of this unit's difficulty is a difficulty of supplied verbs.

The Voices✦ 4 public domain

Joseph BensonCommentary on the Old and New Testaments1810s

Namely, Ashriel and Zelophehad, named 1 Chronicles 7:14-15 , the relative being here referred to the remoter antecedent, as is frequent in the Hebrew.

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Albert BarnesNotes on the Bible1834

The name "Gilead" prevailed above all others in the line of Manasseh, the term "Gileadite" almost taking the place of "Manassite."

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Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

Bedan ( i.e., ben Dan “the Danite” in 1Samuel 12:11 is a judge between Jerubbaal and Jephthah. Here a clan is meant, not a person.

Ellicott's etymology of Bedan as ben Dan is a conjecture, not a datum; Pulpit, on the same verse, takes the name as a person and worth identifying.

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The Pulpit CommentarySpence & Exell, eds.1880s

While all the names of the preceding verse are strange to us, this name excites much interest, as possibly to be identified with the Bedan ( 1 Samuel 12:11 ) who is placed after Jerubbaal ( i.q. Gideon ), and before Jephthah and Samuel.

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The son of Ulam: Bedan. These were the sons of Gilead son of Machir, the son of Manasseh.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

ū·ḇə·nê ’ū·lām bə·ḏān ’êl·leh bə·nê ḡil·‘āḏ ben- mā·ḵîr ben- mə·naš·šeh

Word by word10 · parsed

וּבְנֵ֥יū·ḇə·nêThe sonH1121

אוּלָ֖ם’ū·lāmof UlamH198

√ ʼÛwlâm — Ulam, the name of two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular

בְּדָ֑ןbə·ḏānBedanH917

√ Bᵉdân — Bedan, the name of two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular

Bᵉdân: Bedan, the name of two Israelites One of the rarest lexemes in the unit: two verses in all of Scripture. The other is 1 Samuel 12:11, where Samuel lists Bedan among the deliverers God sent. Whether the two are one man is exactly what the commentators split on, and Strong's own gloss (“the name of two Israelites”) has already decided against identity. Pulpit concedes the difficulty honestly: “Who in the Book of Judges is to answer to this Bedan of the Book of Samuel it is impossible to say.”

אֵ֚לֶּה’êl·lehTheseH428

√ ʼêl-leh — these or thosePronouncommon plural

ʼêl-leh: these or those The summary demonstrative that closes a genealogical block. Its reach is the interpretive question of the verse, and two respectable answers stand: a long reach back to verses 14 and 15 (Poole, Benson), or a short reach over material now lost (Ellicott). Either way the formula asserts belonging: whatever names stood here, they are counted to Gilead.

בְּנֵ֣יbə·nêwere the sonsH1121

גִלְעָ֔דḡil·‘āḏof GileadH1568

√ Gilʻâd — Gilad, a region East of the JordanNounproperfeminine singular

Gilʻâd: a region East of the Jordan Barnes observes that in Manasseh's line this name outgrew every other, “the term 'Gileadite' almost taking the place of 'Manassite.'” A tribe named for a son of Joseph came to be known by a stretch of land on the far side of the river.

בֶּן־ben-sonH1121

Construct “son-of”, the second link of the chain; no independent weight.

מָכִ֖ירmā·ḵîrof MachirH4353

√ Mâkîyr — Makir, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular

בֶּן־ben-the sonH1121

מְנַשֶּֽׁה׃mə·naš·šehof ManassehH4519

√ Mᵉnashsheh — Menashsheh, a grandson of Jacob, also the tribe descended from him, and its territoryNounpropermasculine singular

Mᵉnashsheh: Menashsheh, a grandson of Jacob, also the tribe descended from him, and its territory The lexicon's threefold gloss (man, tribe, territory) is the interpretive key to this whole unit. Every name in verses 14 to 19 hovers between those three senses, and most of the disagreement among the commentators is disagreement about which sense is meant in a given clause.

Literal — word-for-word from the original

“And-sons-of Ulam: Bedan. These [are] sons-of Gilead, son-of Machir, son-of Manasseh.”

Where the English smooths the original

וּבְנֵ֥י וּבְנֵי (ū·ḇə·nê, H1121, masculine plural construct) is “and the sons of,” yet only one name follows. BSB regularises it to “The son of Ulam: Bedan.” The plural is the register's standing formula and it does not bend to the count, which is one small piece of evidence that these are clan headings rather than family snapshots.
אֵ֚לֶּה אֵלֶּה (’êl·leh, H428, common plural demonstrative) is “These,” the closing formula of a register section. BSB reads “These were the sons of Gilead,” but the referent of “these” is genuinely disputed: Poole and Benson take it back past the intervening verses to Ashriel and Zelophehad in verses 14 and 15, “the relative being here referred to the remoter antecedent, as is frequent in the Hebrew,” while Ellicott thinks a whole series of names has dropped out between the demonstrative and this summary.
בֶּן־ בֶּן־ (ben-, H1121, masculine singular construct) occurs twice here in a descending chain, Gilead son-of Machir son-of Manasseh. English inserts commas and the definite article (“the son of”); Hebrew simply stacks the construct forms with no punctuation and no verb, so that three generations are welded into one noun phrase.
בְּדָ֑ן בְּדָן (bə·ḏān, H917 Bᵉdân) is transliterated without comment in every English Bible, but the name occurs in only two verses in the whole Hebrew canon, here and 1 Samuel 12:11. Ellicott parses it as ben Dan, “the Danite,” and says “Here a clan is meant, not a person”; Pulpit takes the opposite line and finds the identification with Samuel's Bedan of “much interest.” The English gives a name where the Hebrew gives a puzzle.

The Voices✦ 4 public domain

Geneva Study BibleMarginal Notes1599

And {h} his sister Hammoleketh bare Ishod, and Abiezer, and Mahalah. (h) Meaning, the sister of Gilead.

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The Pulpit CommentarySpence & Exell, eds.1880s

The name of the mother, Hammoleketh , is compounded of the article and Moleketh, or Meleketh, a Chaldee form, found several times in the Book of Jeremiah, of the word for "queen."

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Albert BarnesNotes on the Bible1834

His descendants formed one of the most important branches of the Manassites. They furnished to Israel the greatest of the Judges, Gideon Judges 6:11 , Judges 6:24 , Judges 6:34 , and were regarded as the leading family among the so-called "sons of Gilead.

Barnes states the Gideon connection as settled. K&D, on the same verse, argues that this Abiezer is a different man from the Abiezer of Joshua 17:2, so the claim should be received as probable rather than certain.

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Keil & DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament1860s

A third branch of the descendants of Gilead were descended from Machir's sister Hammoleketh, a name which the Vulgate has taken in an appellative sense.

source ↗

His sister Hammolecheth gave birth to Ishhod, Abiezer, and Mahlah.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wa·’ă·ḥō·ṯōw ham·mō·le·ḵeṯ yā·lə·ḏāh ’eṯ- ’î·šə·hō·wḏ wə·’eṯ- ’ă·ḇî·‘e·zer wə·’eṯ- maḥ·lāh

Word by word9 · parsed

וַאֲחֹת֖וֹwa·’ă·ḥō·ṯōwHis sisterH269

√ ʼâchôwth — a sister (used very widely (like brother), literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawNounfeminine singular constructthird person masculine singular

ʼâchôwth: a sister The third kinship suffix in this unit whose owner must be supplied by the reader (compare verses 15 and 16). Geneva, Poole and Benson attach her to Gilead; K&D attaches her to Machir. Nothing in the consonants decides it.

הַמֹּלֶ֑כֶתham·mō·le·ḵeṯHammolechethH4447

√ Môleketh — Moleketh, an IsraelitessArticleNounproperfeminine singular

Môleketh: Moleketh, an Israelitess A name that is also a title. The article prefixed to it is the tell: Hebrew proper names do not normally take the definite article, so “the Moleketh” reads as “the one who reigns,” which is why the Vulgate simply wrote regina. K&D notes drily that “the Vulgate has taken it in an appellative sense,” and declines to follow. Whether a woman of Manasseh once held rule in a corner of Gilead is a question this single article raises and cannot answer.

יָלְדָה֙yā·lə·ḏāhgave birth toH3205

√ yâlad — to bear youngVerbQalPerfectthird person feminine singular

yâlad: to bear young Qal perfect. Three of the unit's six verses turn on this verb, and in every case the subject is a woman. For all the trouble the text gives about fathers and clans, the register's actual engine is women bearing children: the Aramean concubine, Maacah, and Hammoleketh.

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

Direct object marker (H853) before Ishhod; repeated at words 5 and 7.

אִישְׁה֔וֹד’î·šə·hō·wḏIshhodH379

√ ʼÎyshᵉhôwd — Ishod, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular

ʼÎyshᵉhôwd: Ishod, an Israelite Ellicott parses the name as “Man of majesty,” K&D as “man of splendour.” Neither can say more: the man is unknown outside this verse, and both note it. The name is a boast; the record is a blank.

וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853

√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker

אֲבִיעֶ֖זֶר’ă·ḇî·‘e·zerAbiezerH44

√ ʼĂbîyʻezer — Abiezer, the name of two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular

ʼĂbîyʻezer: Abiezer, the name of two Israelites The one genuinely consequential name in the verse. Barnes says the descendants of Abiezer “formed one of the most important branches of the Manassites” and “furnished to Israel the greatest of the Judges, Gideon”; Cambridge simply glosses “Gideon's family; Jdg 6:11.” K&D dissents, arguing from the form Jeezer in Numbers 26:30 and from this man's lowly position in the list that our Abiezer “is different from that in Joshua 17:2.” The thread to Gideon is strong but not unanimous, and it is worth holding loosely.

וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853

√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker

מַחְלָֽה׃maḥ·lāhand MahlahH4244

√ Machlâh — Machlah, the name apparently of two IsraelitessesNounproperfeminine singular

Machlâh: Machlah, the name apparently of two Israelitesses Strong's “apparently of two” is itself a judgment call, and the caution is well placed: the same lexeme (five verses in all) names a daughter of Zelophehad in Numbers 26:33 and Numbers 36:11, three verses after Zelophehad was named here.

Literal — word-for-word from the original

“And-his-sister Hammoleketh bore Ishhod, and-Abiezer, and-Mahlah.”

Where the English smooths the original

וַאֲחֹת֖וֹ וַאֲחֹתוֹ (wa·’ă·ḥō·ṯōw, H269, construct with third masculine suffix) is “and his sister,” and once again the suffix has no stated owner. BSB prints “His sister Hammolecheth” and leaves the reader to guess. Geneva supplies the antecedent in a bracketed gloss, “Meaning, the sister of Gilead”; Poole says the same; K&D instead makes her “Machir's sister.” One unvoweled pronoun, two different family trees.
הַמֹּלֶ֑כֶת הַמֹּלֶכֶת (ham·mō·le·ḵeṯ, H4447 Môleketh, article plus feminine proper noun) is transliterated as a personal name, Hammolecheth, but it is built on the root for reigning and carries the definite article, which is unusual for a name. Pulpit dissects it as “the article and Moleketh, or Meleketh, a Chaldee form... of the word for 'queen.'” Gill reports that the Targum renders it “that reigned” and the Vulgate translates it outright: “a queen bare Ishod.” English keeps the sound and loses the title.
יָלְדָה֙ יָלְדָה (yā·lə·ḏāh, H3205, Qal perfect, third feminine singular) is the same form used twice in verse 14, and here it governs three objects in a row, each marked by אֶת־. BSB's “gave birth to Ishhod, Abiezer, and Mahlah” hides the triple object marker, which in Hebrew gives each child a separate grammatical weight rather than folding them into a list.
מַחְלָֽה מַחְלָה (maḥ·lāh, H4244 Machlâh) is a woman's name closing a list of sons, unremarked in English. K&D flags the collision the reader would otherwise miss: “A daughter of Zelophehad is called Mahlah in Numbers 26:33; Numbers 27:1, but she is not the person here mentioned.” Pulpit calls the two names “identical.” The register repeats a name it has already used three verses earlier for someone else.

The Voices✦ 4 public domain

Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

The name points to West Manasseh. Ahian, Likhi, and Aniam, are not mentioned elsewhere.

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Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges—1880s

This name represents the Israelite portion of the inhabitants of Shechem: the rest of the inhabitants were Hivites or Canaanites. See Judges 9.

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John GillExposition of the Entire Bible1746–63

Another son of Gilead's sister, unless the same with Ishod; from him sprung the family of the Shemidaites, Numbers 26:30 .

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Matthew HenryConcise Commentary on the Whole Bible1706

Here is no account either of Zebulun or Dan. We can assign no reason why they only should be omitted;

Henry's note is on the whole chapter, not on this verse. He goes on to connect Dan's omission with the idolatry that began at Laish, an inference he draws rather than a statement Chronicles makes.

source ↗

And these were the sons of Shemida: Ahian, Shechem, Likhi, and Aniam.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

way·yih·yū bə·nê šə·mî·ḏā‘ ’aḥ·yān wā·še·ḵem wə·liq·ḥî wa·’ă·nî·‘ām

Word by word7 · parsed

וַיִּהְי֖וּway·yih·yūAnd these wereH1961

√ hâyâh — to exist, iConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural

hâyâh: to exist, to become Consecutive imperfect, third masculine plural. The same root that stood in verse 15 for Zelophehad's daughters coming to be. The unit opens with a woman bearing and closes with a clause of bare existence: these men were. For four of the names in this verse that is the entire surviving record.

בְּנֵ֣יbə·nêthe sonsH1121

שְׁמִידָ֑עšə·mî·ḏā‘of ShemidaH8061

√ Shᵉmîydâʻ — Shemida, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular

Shᵉmîydâʻ: Shemida, an Israelite One of only two or three Manassite clans the Chronicler actually names, out of the six listed in Numbers 26:30 to 26:34. K&D counts them and concludes that “only two are here spoken of”, Ashriel in verse 14 and Shemida here, “or perhaps three” if Abiezer is the Jeezer of Numbers 26:30. The register is not a full account and never claimed to be.

אַחְיָ֣ן’aḥ·yānAhianH291

√ ʼAchyân — Achjan, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular

וָשֶׁ֔כֶםwā·še·ḵemShechemH7928

√ Shekem — Shekem, the name of a Hivite and two IsraelitesConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

Shekem: Shekem, the name of a Hivite and two Israelites A rare lexeme (three verses) whose referent here is contested at the level of persons. Numbers 26:31 and Joshua 17:2 place a Shechem among the sons of Gilead; this verse places one among the sons of Shemida. Pulpit concludes “it is a different Shechem”; so does K&D. Meanwhile Cambridge hears the name of the city and reads the entry as demography, a record that Israelites as well as Hivites and Canaanites lived in Shechem.

וְלִקְחִ֖יwə·liq·ḥîLikhiH3949

√ Liqchîy — Likchi, an IsraeliteConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

Liqchîy: Likchi, an Israelite Gill records the older guess that Likhi is the Helek of Numbers 26:30, which would make him a clan founder. K&D rejects it: there is no more reason to identify Likhi with Helek than to identify Aniam with Noah. The two positions are both in the tradition and both are inference from similar sounds.

וַאֲנִיעָֽם׃פwa·’ă·nî·‘āmand AniamH593

√ ʼĂnîyʻâm — Aniam, an IsraeliteConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

ʼĂnîyʻâm: Aniam, an Israelite The last name in the unit, attested in this verse alone. He is kept because he belonged, not because anything is known about him, and that is the most honest thing this chapter says about the value of a name.

Literal — word-for-word from the original

“And-they-were sons-of Shemida: Ahian, and-Shechem, and-Likhi, and-Aniam.”

Where the English smooths the original

וַיִּהְי֖וּ וַיִּהְיוּ (way·yih·yū, H1961 hâyâh, consecutive imperfect, third masculine plural) is a real verb of existence, “and they came to be,” where most of the surrounding clauses have no verb at all. BSB renders it “And these were,” which sounds like a list heading. The Hebrew form is the narrative tense: the register briefly says that these men happened, and then stops.
וָשֶׁ֔כֶם וָשֶׁכֶם (wā·še·ḵem, H7928 Shekem) is simply “and Shechem” in English, a man in a list. The lexeme is rare (three verses) and is also the name of a Manassite clan in Numbers 26:31 and Joshua 17:2, and of a Canaanite city. Cambridge reads the name here as a population: “This name represents the Israelite portion of the inhabitants of Shechem.” K&D insists the two men must be “distinguished.” The English name carries none of that freight.
וַאֲנִיעָֽם וַאֲנִיעָם (wa·’ă·nî·‘ām, H593 ʼĂnîyʻâm) closes the unit, and in the Masoretic text the word is followed by the section marker pe, which English versions do not print. K&D notes that some have tried to connect the name with Noah the daughter of Zelophehad and rejects it. Ellicott records the plain state of the evidence: Ahian, Likhi and Aniam “are not mentioned elsewhere.”

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. A register that will not come out even — 7:14-7:15

Six verses, roughly sixty words of Hebrew, and something close to unanimous distress among the commentators. JFB says the text “is so confused and complicated that it is exceedingly difficult to trace the genealogical thread.” K&D calls the statements of verses 14 and 15 “very obscure,” judges the first half of verse 15 “corrupt and defective,” and nevertheless holds the second half “correct and beyond criticism.” Pulpit calls the opening clause “unmanageable as it stands” and the phrase “the name of the second” simply “unintelligible.” Cambridge, characteristically brief, records “A difficult section” and that “The text is much disturbed” in these very verses. Ellicott concludes that we “must, therefore, suppose a lacuna of some few words.”

⚙ Two things should be said about that chorus. First, it is evidence of honesty, not of failure: the Masoretes copied a damaged line rather than repairing it, and every conjecture on offer here (Movers and Bertheau's deletion of אשׂריאל, K&D's dropped בן־מנשּׁה, Ellicott's ’aḥath and shēnîth, JFB's rewritten sentence) is modern, and each is offered as conjecture. Second, the damage is localised. The grammar of verse 15's close is intact and no one disputes it: וַתִּהְיֶנָה לִצְלָפְחָד בָּנוֹת, there came to be, to Zelophehad, daughters. What survives undamaged is precisely the clause the rest of the canon builds on.

ii. Aramean, Benjamite, queen: who is actually in this list — 7:14-7:18

Strip away the textual argument and look at who the Chronicler names. An הָאֲרַמִּיָּה, an Aramean woman, and she is a פִּילַגְשׁוֹ, a concubine. A marriage tie to Huppim and Shuppim, whom Ellicott identifies as “the two Benjamite clans of 1Chronicles 7:12,” prompting his conclusion that “The whole passage seems to assert an Aramean and a Benjamite element in the population of Western Manasseh.” Cambridge draws the same inference from the gentilic alone: the inhabitants of Gilead “were thus in part Aramaeans (Syrians) by descent,” and of Maacah, that the clause “is ethnographical.” Pulpit thinks the cross-tribal marriage worth stopping for: “The distinct mention of the marriage of a Manassite to a Benjamite woman is to be noticed.” Then a woman called הַמֹּלֶכֶת, the article attached to a word for reigning, which Gill reports the Targum rendering “that reigned” and the Vulgate translating outright as a queen, and which Pulpit traces to “a Chaldee form... of the word for 'queen.'”

⚙ A register kept to prove pedigree could have quietly dropped the Syrian concubine and the Benjamite in-laws. This one does not. Whatever else these verses are, they are not an exercise in purity. The line runs through a foreign secondary wife, a marriage outside the tribe, and a woman whose name may be a title, and the Chronicler writes all three down in the same voice he uses for Machir.

iii. What a name is worth when nothing else survives — 7:16-7:19

Count what the commentators can say about the men of verses 16 to 19. Ellicott: “Peresh . . . Sheresh occur nowhere else.” K&D on the same pair, and on Ulam and Rakem, “names which are also met with only here.” Ellicott again on the last verse: Ahian, Likhi and Aniam “are not mentioned elsewhere.” Pulpit on the queen's other children: “Of Ishod and Mahalah nothing is known.” Two names in the whole stretch carry any weight outside it, and both are contested. Barnes says Abiezer's descendants “furnished to Israel the greatest of the Judges, Gideon,” while K&D argues from Numbers 26:30 that “our Abiezer is different from that in Joshua 17:2.” Pulpit finds Bedan of “much interest” as the deliverer of 1 Samuel 12:11, while Ellicott says “Here a clan is meant, not a person.”

⚙ The Chronicler, writing for a returned remnant reassembling itself out of exile, keeps names he can say nothing about. Strong's gloss on שֵׁם is unexpectedly exact here: a name is “a mark or memorial of individuality.” For Ahian and Aniam the mark is all there is. Henry, surveying the chapter, notices the inverse case and asks why Zebulun and Dan are missing, concluding that “We can assign no reason why they only should be omitted.” Being written down is not nothing, and being left out is not nothing either.

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

⚙ What follows is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested against the text and the fathers, not received on its authority. Scripture here is doing something it does not explain: it is spending six verses of inspired text on a list that its own most careful readers cannot untangle, about men of whom nothing else is known. The temptation is to justify the passage by what it yields elsewhere, the Gideon of Abiezer's clan, the daughters of Zelophehad and their case in Numbers 27. Those links are real and the Verifier confirms the lexemes. But they do not account for Ahian, Likhi and Aniam, who yield nothing at all.

The reading offered here is simpler. God keeps names. He keeps them when the copying hand has slipped and the clause has come apart; the damaged line was preserved rather than corrected. He keeps the name of an Aramean concubine's son in a tribal roll. He keeps four names in verse 19 that no later writer ever needed. Chronicles was compiled for people coming back from exile who were trying to prove they still belonged, and its answer to them is a list, not an argument. If the Lord troubles to record Aniam, whose entire history is that he existed and was Shemida's, then the fear that one might be forgotten is the fear this chapter exists to answer. The daughters of Zelophehad make the point legally in Numbers 27, where a line with no sons is not allowed to fall out of the inheritance; this chapter makes it by simple stubborn transcription. Hold this loosely: the commentators here draw no such conclusion, and this is the machine layer speaking.

A genealogy is what love looks like when it has been reduced to bookkeeping. (This line is commentary, 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.

Zelophehad's daughters: the clause that survived, and the law it produced verbal / quotation: confirmed

The one part of verse 15 that K&D calls “correct and beyond criticism” is the part the rest of the canon needs: צְלָפְחָד had daughters. Numbers 26:33 names five of them, Mahlah among them; Numbers 36:11 names them again when the inheritance law is amended so their portion stays inside Manasseh. Poole supplies what the Hebrew leaves unsaid: “Had daughters, i.e. only daughters, and no sons.” The Verifier reports the shared Hebrew lexemes, and both are rare: H6765 Tsᵉlophchâd in nine verses and H4244 Machlâh in five. Ellicott notes that Numbers 26 singles this man out as the one name in the list that is a person rather than a clan, “who 'had no sons, but daughters.'” ⚙ The Chronicler assumes his readers know the case; he records only the fact that generated it.

Numbers 26:33 · Numbers 36:11 · Numbers 27:1

basis: Verifier: shared rare Hebrew lexemes H6765 Tsᵉlophchâd (in 9 vv) and H4244 Machlâh (in 5 vv) at Numbers 26:33 and Numbers 36:11; Numbers 27:1 shares H4353 Mâkîyr (in 20 vv), H4519 Mᵉnashsheh (in 133 vv) and H1568 Gilʻâd (in 123 vv). The link is lexical identity of rare proper names across registers, not a quotation of one text by another.

Two clans out of six: this register against Numbers and Joshua verbal / quotation: confirmed

Numbers 26:30 to 26:34 and Joshua 17:2 list six Manassite families. K&D counts what is left here and finds that “only two are here spoken of”, Ashriel in verse 14 and Shemida in verse 19, “or perhaps three” if the Abiezer of verse 18 is the Jeezer of Numbers 26:30. Pulpit makes the same count independently and calls the differences hard “to give any coherent account of.” The Verifier confirms the lexical overlap: Joshua 17:2 shares H844 ʼAsrîyʼêl, a lexeme in only three verses, and Numbers 26:31 shares both H844 and H7928 Shekem (also three verses). ⚙ The Chronicler is abridging a list he expects his readers already to hold, which is why he can drop four clans and still write “These were the sons of Gilead.”

Numbers 26:31 · Joshua 17:2 · Numbers 26:32

basis: Verifier: shared rare Hebrew lexemes H844 ʼAsrîyʼêl (in 3 vv) at both Numbers 26:31 and Joshua 17:2, H7928 Shekem (in 3 vv) at Numbers 26:31, and H8061 Shᵉmîydâʻ (in 3 vv) at Numbers 26:32. Rare lexeme identity across the parallel clan lists; the tier records the verbal link, not a claim that Chronicles quotes Numbers.

Huppim and Shuppim: a Benjamite phrase in a Manassite verse flagged: verify source

The two names in verse 15 stand twelve verses earlier in this same chapter, inside the Benjamite register (1 Chronicles 7:12), and again at Genesis 46:21 and 1 Chronicles 26:16. The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes H2650 and H8206, each occurring in only three verses. What that shared vocabulary means is disputed at the root. Ellicott takes them as “the two Benjamite clans of 1Chronicles 7:12” and reads a real marriage alliance. K&D reports Bertheau's contrary conjecture that “these names have been brought thence into our verse by some gloss,” that is, that the words are an intrusion from the neighbouring list and mean nothing here at all, and K&D himself declines to endorse either reconstruction. ⚙ Because the basis of the link is contested at the level of whether the words belong in the verse, this is flagged rather than confirmed.

1 Chronicles 7:12 · Genesis 46:21 · 1 Chronicles 26:16

basis: Verifier: shared rare Hebrew lexemes H2650 Chuppîym (in 3 vv) and H8206 Shuppîym (in 3 vv) at 1 Chronicles 7:12, with H2650 at Genesis 46:21 and H8206 at 1 Chronicles 26:16. The lexemes are certain; the provenance is not, since K&D reports Bertheau's conjecture that the names entered 1 Chronicles 7:15 as a gloss from the Benjamite list.

Bedan: two verses, one name, and a judge nobody can place verbal / quotation: confirmed

H917 Bᵉdân occurs in exactly two verses in the Hebrew Bible: this one and 1 Samuel 12:11, where Samuel names Bedan among the deliverers the Lord sent. The Verifier confirms the shared lexeme. Pulpit seizes on it, calling the name one that “excites much interest, as possibly to be identified with the Bedan (1 Samuel 12:11) who is placed after Jerubbaal (i.q. Gideon), and before Jephthah and Samuel,” and then admits, “Who in the Book of Judges is to answer to this Bedan of the Book of Samuel it is impossible to say.” Ellicott parses the name as ben Dan, “the Danite,” and rules the identification out: “Here a clan is meant, not a person.” ⚙ The lexeme link is as strong as a link can be (these are the only two occurrences); the identification of the two men is a coin toss between two respectable commentators, so the thread is tiered on the word, not on the man.

1 Samuel 12:11

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H917 Bᵉdân (in 2 vv), the only two occurrences in the canon. The verbal link is certain; whether the two references denote the same person is disputed (Pulpit for, Ellicott against), and the tier claims only the lexeme.

Ulam in two registers: Manasseh here, Benjamin there structural / thematic: confirmed

H198 ʼÛwlâm is a four-verse lexeme. Two of those verses are here (7:16, 7:17); the other two are 1 Chronicles 8:39 and 8:40, in the Benjamite genealogy, where the sons of Ulam are mighty archers. Cambridge notices the coincidence without resolving it: “Sons of Ulam are mentioned (1 Chronicles 8:40) among the descendants of Benjamin. A variation in the tradition of their descent is possible.” ⚙ Since the claim is a motif of overlapping tribal traditions rather than one text drawing on another, the tier is structural even though the shared lexeme is genuinely rare.

1 Chronicles 8:39 · 1 Chronicles 8:40

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H198 ʼÛwlâm (in 4 vv) at 1 Chronicles 8:39 and 8:40, with H8145 shênîy (in 151 vv) also shared at 8:39. A real verbal overlap inside a shared pattern of duplicated names between the Manassite and Benjamite registers; Cambridge treats the relationship as an open variation, so no quotation is claimed.

The tribal roll as a form: Manasseh counted, Dan not structural / thematic: confirmed

Henry, looking at the whole chapter, asks why two tribes are absent: “Here is no account either of Zebulun or Dan. We can assign no reason why they only should be omitted.” He then observes that Dan is missing again from the sealing of Revelation 7, where Manasseh is named. ⚙ That is a real formal resonance, a tribal roll in which some names are written and one is not, and the Chronicler's own roll does the same thing eight centuries earlier. It is not a verbal link and cannot be: Revelation is Greek and Chronicles is Hebrew, so no Strong's lexeme is shared and none could be. Note also that Henry's inference (that Dan's omission is a judgment on the idolatry at Laish) is his reading; neither Chronicles nor Revelation states a reason.

Revelation 7:6 · Judges 18:30

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew), so no shared Strong's lexeme is possible and none is claimed. The recorded basis is the shared literary form of an enumerated tribal roll in which Manasseh is listed and Dan is absent, an omission Henry notes in both places. The causal explanation Henry offers is his own inference and is not asserted here.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

Out of Abiezer, a deliverer: the smallest clan and the pattern of rescue novel

Barnes says of verse 18 that Abiezer's descendants “furnished to Israel the greatest of the Judges, Gideon,” and Cambridge glosses the name simply “Gideon's family.” Gill and Pulpit record the same connection; K&D disputes it, holding that this Abiezer differs from the one in Joshua 17:2. ⚙ If Barnes is right, then the deliverer of Judges 6 to 8 comes out of a name that stands here in the middle of a broken list, born to a woman whose own name may only be a title, in the least consequential position in the register. That is the pattern Gideon himself states when he protests that his clan is the weakest in Manasseh and he the least in his father's house. Scripture returns to the shape repeatedly, and Paul states it as principle: God chooses the weak and the things that are not. ⚙ The extension of that pattern to Christ, a deliverer raised from an unregarded branch of an obscure line, is the machine's reading here; none of the commentators in this unit makes a christological claim on these verses, and the Abiezer identification itself is contested by K&D. Marked novel accordingly.

Judges 6:11 · Judges 6:15 · 1 Corinthians 1:27

Why anyone kept these lists at all ancient/widely-held

⚙ The register in front of us is damaged, partial and largely anonymous, and it was still copied, vowel-pointed and carried through exile, Second Temple, and every subsequent century. The reason the church can read Matthew 1 and Luke 3 as history rather than as assertion is that Israel kept records like this one when there was no visible reason to, for men like Ahian and Aniam who contributed nothing to the story. The genealogical habit that preserves Aniam is the same habit that preserves the line from Abraham and David to the birth at Bethlehem. This is not a hidden meaning in 1 Chronicles 7; it is the plain function of the genre, and it is the ancient and widely held ground on which the evangelists' own genealogies stand. The commentators here confine themselves to the Manassite problem and say nothing of Christ; the connection drawn is the genre's, not theirs.

Matthew 1:1 · Luke 3:23 · Hebrews 7:14

Daughters who inherit, and an inheritance that does not depend on sons novel

The undamaged clause of verse 15 says that to Zelophehad there came daughters. In Numbers 27 that fact becomes a petition and then a statute: the inheritance passes to them, and a line with no son is not struck off the land. Ellicott notes that Numbers marks Zelophehad out as the one individual in a list of clans, precisely because of this. ⚙ Paul's argument in Galatians runs along the same grain, that heirship in Christ is not finally secured by descent or by sex, and that those who are Christ's are Abraham's seed and heirs according to promise. The analogy is a real one and the Numbers case is its Old Testament footing, but the step from a Manassite land statute to Galatians 3 is the machine's, made without a commentator in this unit to stand behind it. Marked novel.

Numbers 27:7 · Galatians 3:29

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:

Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text. This is one of the genuinely damaged places in the Hebrew Bible, and the unit should be read with that stated plainly. K&D holds the first half of 1 Chronicles 7:15 to be “corrupt and defective” while defending the second half as “correct and beyond criticism”; JFB calls the passage “confused and complicated”; Pulpit calls verse 14's opening clause “unmanageable as it stands” and verse 15's “the name of the second” unintelligible; Cambridge says “The text is much disturbed in 1 Chronicles 7:14-15; and there is hardly any material available for the illustration of 1 Chronicles 7:16-17.” Ellicott posits a lacuna. Every reconstruction reported in this unit (Movers, Bertheau, Ellicott, JFB, K&D) is a modern conjecture, not a manuscript reading, and none is adopted here.

What the literal renderings do. The literal line for each verse follows the word order and word count of the interlinear as supplied in the brief, including the two occurrences of yāləḏāh in verse 14 that the English versions redistribute. Where the interlinear order differs from the arrangement a reader may find in a printed Masoretic text, the brief's order has been followed rather than corrected, and the resulting roughness in verse 14 is the text's, not a smoothing.

Names. The lexicon supplied for this unit gives most of the proper names no meaning beyond “an Israelite,” and that is the honest state of the evidence. Where a name has been glossed (Ishhod as “man of splendour,” Hammoleketh as bearing the sense “queen”), the gloss is quoted from K&D, Pulpit, Ellicott or Gill and attributed, never supplied by the machine.

What is uncertain. Whether the Abiezer of verse 18 is Gideon's ancestor (Barnes, Cambridge, Gill, Pulpit yes; K&D no). Whether the Bedan of verse 17 is the judge of 1 Samuel 12:11 (Pulpit open to it; Ellicott against). Whether Maacah is Machir's wife, sister, or, per the Peshitta as reported by Pulpit, his mother. Whether the Shechem of verse 19 is the Manassite clan head of Numbers 26:31 (K&D and Pulpit say no). Whether Likhi is Helek (Gill open, K&D against). None of these is settled here.

Provenance of the ⚙ layer. The thread bases are the Verifier's computed shared Strong's lexemes with their canonical frequencies, reproduced as given. The Revelation 7 thread carries no lexeme basis and says so, since a Greek text cannot share a Hebrew Strong's number. Two of the three christological readings are marked novel because no commentator in this unit makes a christological claim on these verses at all.

✦ = 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)