The Fallible Synthetic Study Bible — 1 Chronicles 7:20

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

1 Chronicles 7:20–29 — The Descendants of Ephraim. 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

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges—1880s

These four names are taken from Numbers 26:35-36 , where they appear to correspond with Shuthelah … Becher … Tahan … Eran

source ↗

Albert BarnesNotes on the Bible1834

The sons of Ephraim - The genealogy is difficult. It is perhaps best to consider Ezer and Elead 1 Chronicles 7:21 as not sons of Zabad and brothers of the second Shuthelah, but natural sons of Ephraim.

source ↗

Matthew PooleAnnotations upon the Holy Bible1685

Bered his son; either, 1. The son of Shuthelah; and so Tahath the son of Bered ; and so the rest, which make up seven succeeding generations.

Poole lays out both readings and then argues against neither dogmatically; his willingness to leave the question open is the honest posture this passage forces.

source ↗

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 concise note covers the whole of chapter 7 and says nothing about Ephraim in particular. It is included because it names the chapter's real oddity, the tribes the chronicler leaves out, not because it comments on v. 20.

source ↗

The descendants of Ephraim: Shuthelah, Bered his son, Tahath his son, Eleadah his son, Tahath his son,

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

ū·ḇə·nê ’ep̄·ra·yim šū·ṯā·laḥ ū·ḇe·reḏ bə·nōw wə·ṯa·ḥaṯ bə·nōw wə·’el·‘ā·ḏāh ḇə·nōw wə·ṯa·ḥaṯ bə·nōw

Word by word11 · parsed

וּבְנֵ֥יū·ḇə·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, etcConjunctive wawNounmasculine plural construct

bên: a son, in the widest sense Strong's explicitly extends bên to grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition. The whole interpretive fight over vv. 20 to 27 rides on that width: if bên is strict biological sonship the chronology breaks, and if it is clan succession it does not. Cambridge and Ellicott both take the names as clans rather than individuals.

אֶפְרַ֖יִם’ep̄·ra·yimof EphraimH669

√ ʼEphrayim — Ephrajim, a son of JosephNounpropermasculine singular

ʼEphrayim: Ephrajim, a son of Joseph The name stands here both for the patriarch born in Egypt (Genesis 46:20, cited by K&D) and for the tribe that bore his name. The chronicler has just finished Manasseh; Ephraim and Manasseh together are "the sons of Joseph" of v. 29, so this register is one half of a single Joseph file.

שׁוּתָ֑לַחšū·ṯā·laḥShuthelahH7803

√ Shûwthelach — Shuthelach, the name of two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular

וּבֶ֤רֶדū·ḇe·reḏBeredH1260

√ Bered — Bered, the name of a place south of Palestine, also of an IsraeliteConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

בְּנוֹ֙bə·nōwhis 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 constructthird person masculine singular

bên (construct + 3ms suffix): his son The repeated bᵉnô is the chronicler's shorthand for succession. Cambridge notes the four names of this verse are drawn from Numbers 26:35-36, where the parallel list reads Shuthelah, Becher, Tahan, Eran, so the repeated "his son" here may be the chronicler's own framing laid over an older clan list.

וְתַ֣חַתwə·ṯa·ḥaṯTahathH8480

√ Tachath — Tachath, the name of a place in the Desert, also of three IsraelitesConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

בְּנ֔וֹbə·nōwhis sonH1121

וְאֶלְעָדָ֥הwə·’el·‘ā·ḏāhEleadahH497

√ ʼElʻâdâh — Eladah, an IsraeliteConjunctive wawNounproperfeminine singular

בְנ֖וֹḇə·nōwhis sonH1121

וְתַ֥חַתwə·ṯa·ḥaṯTahathH8480

√ Tachath — Tachath, the name of a place in the Desert, also of three IsraelitesConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

Second occurrence of Tahath in four words. Poole answers the obvious objection by allowing either that the first Tahath died before the second was born, or that two were Ephraim's sons and two his grandsons named after an uncle.

בְּנֽוֹ׃bə·nōwhis sonH1121

Literal — word-for-word from the original

And-sons-of Ephraim: Shuthelah, and-Bered his-son, and-Tahath his-son, and-Eleadah his-son, and-Tahath his-son,

Where the English smooths the original

וּבְנֵ֥י וּבְנֵי (ū·ḇə·nê, H1121 bên) is a masculine plural construct, "and-sons-of." BSB's "The descendants of Ephraim" is a fair sense rendering, but it hides that the Hebrew noun is the same bên that recurs ten times in this unit as "his son." Strong's itself defines bên as "a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense," including grandson, subject and nation, which is precisely the ambiguity Poole and Barnes fight over here.
בְּנוֹ֙ בְּנוֹ (bə·nōw) is not a verb and not a clause: it is a bare construct noun with a third masculine singular suffix, "his-son," laid down again and again without any "was." English must supply the copula; the Hebrew simply stacks names. That stacking is exactly why the chain can be read as lineal descent (Gill) or as a set of brothers under one father (Poole's second option).
וְתַ֣חַת וְתַחַת (wə·ṯa·ḥaṯ, H8480 Tachath) appears twice in this one verse, at indices 5 and 9. English simply prints "Tahath" twice and moves on; the Hebrew gives no hint whether one man is being restated, two men share a name, or the text has suffered. Ellicott records that Tahath may itself be a corruption of Tahan, and that Tahath is elsewhere a desert station (Numbers 33:26).
וּבֶ֤רֶד וּבֶרֶד (ū·ḇe·reḏ, H1260 Bered) reads as a personal name here, yet Strong's glosses H1260 as "Bered, the name of a place south of Palestine, also of an Israelite." Ellicott records that Bered at Genesis 16:14 is a place in the desert of Shur and suspects the name here is a mistake for Becher. The smooth English "Bered his son" carries none of that doubt.

The Voices✦ 4 public domain

Keil & DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament1860s

are rather the Canaanite or Philistine inhabitants of Gath, as distinguished from the Israelites, who had settled in Canaan only under Joshua.

source ↗

Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

In 1Chronicles 7:21-22 we have a brief memorial of an ancient raid of two Ephraimite clans upon the territory of Gath, for the purpose of lifting cattle, much as the Highland freebooters used to drive off the herds of their Lowland neighbours.

source ↗

Jamieson, Fausset & BrownCommentary Critical and Explanatory1871

the tenor of the context leads rather to the conclusion that "the men of Gath" were the aggressors, who, making a sudden foray on the Ephraimite flocks, killed the shepherds including several of the sons of Ephraim.

JFB's reading depends entirely on rendering the particle kî as "when" rather than "because." It is a real option, but it is a choice about a particle, not a fact recovered from the text.

source ↗

Geneva Study BibleMarginal Notes1599

(i) Which was one of the five principal cities of the Philistines and who slew the Ephraimites.

source ↗

Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son. Ezer and Elead were killed by the natives of Gath, because they went down to steal their livestock.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·zā·ḇāḏ bə·nōw wə·šū·ṯe·laḥ bə·nōw wə·‘ê·zer wə·’el·‘āḏ wa·hă·rā·ḡūm ’an·šê- han·nō·w·lā·ḏîm bā·’ā·reṣ ḡaṯ kî yā·rə·ḏū lā·qa·ḥaṯ ’eṯ- miq·nê·hem

Word by word16 · parsed

וְזָבָ֥דwə·zā·ḇāḏZabadH2066

√ Zâbâd — Zabad, the name of seven IsraelitesConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

בְּנ֛וֹbə·nōwhis sonH1121

וְשׁוּתֶ֥לַחwə·šū·ṯe·laḥand ShuthelahH7803

√ Shûwthelach — Shuthelach, the name of two IsraelitesConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

בְּנ֖וֹbə·nōwhis sonH1121

וְעֵ֣זֶרwə·‘ê·zerEzerH5829

√ ʻÊzer — Ezer, the name of four IsraelitesConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

וְאֶלְעָ֑דwə·’el·‘āḏand EleadH496

√ ʼElʻâd — Elad, an IsraeliteConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

וַהֲרָג֗וּםwa·hă·rā·ḡūmwere killedH2026

√ hârag — to smite with deadly intentConjunctive wawVerbQalConjunctive perfectthird person common pluralthird person masculine plural

hârag: to smite with deadly intent A verb of deliberate killing, not accident or battle-casualty. It is the verb of Cain at Genesis 4:8 and of the sword in the prophets. Its plural object suffix carries both Ezer and Elead, as K&D insists, which is why the two names in this verse are read as a pair rather than as father and son.

אַנְשֵׁי־’an·šê-by the nativesH582

√ ʼĕnôwsh — a man in general (singly or collectively)Nounmasculine plural construct

הַנּוֹלָדִ֣יםhan·nō·w·lā·ḏîm. . .H3205

√ yâlad — to bear youngArticleVerbNifalParticiplemasculine plural

yâlad (Nifal participle): to be born The passive of the same root that in v. 23 gives "she bore a son." The chronicler uses one root for two opposite scenes: men born in the land who kill, and a son born in the house of the bereaved. That is the unit's whole hinge, and it is a real lexical link, not a reading imported from outside.

בָּאָ֔רֶץbā·’ā·reṣ. . .H776

√ ʼerets — the earth (at large, or partitively a land)Preposition-b, ArticleNounfeminine singular

גַת֙ḡaṯof GathH1661

√ Gath — Gath, a Philistine cityNounproperfeminine singular

כִּ֣יkîbecauseH3588

√ kîy — (by implication) very widely used as a relative conjunction or adverb (as below)Conjunction

יָרְד֔וּyā·rə·ḏūthey went downH3381

√ yârad — to descend (literally, to go downwardsVerbQalPerfectthird person common plural

yârad: to descend, go downwards In the Joseph narratives this verb is the standing idiom for going down to Egypt (Genesis 42:2, Genesis 46:3). Ellicott notes the expression "came down" is often used of going from Canaan to Egypt but not the reverse, and concludes the descent must have been made upon Philistia from the hill country of Ephraim.

לָקַ֖חַתlā·qa·ḥaṯto stealH3947

√ lâqach — to take (in the widest variety of applications)Preposition-lVerbQalInfinitive construct

lâqach: to take, in the widest variety of applications A neutral verb of taking; BSB's "to steal" is an interpretation, not a gloss. K&D supplies "(to plunder)" as explanation, and Ellicott speaks of "lifting cattle." The Hebrew itself says only "to take."

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

מִקְנֵיהֶֽם׃miq·nê·hemtheir livestockH4735

√ miqneh — something bought, iNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine plural

miqneh: something bought, cattle The word is built on the root of buying and possession, so it means livestock precisely as property. That is why the raid is a property crime and why Ephraim's mourning in v. 22 is set against a story about herds.

Literal — word-for-word from the original

and-Zabad his-son, and-Shuthelah his-son, and-Ezer and-Elead. And-they-slew-them the-men-of the-ones-born in-the-land, Gath, because they-went-down to-take their-livestock.

Where the English smooths the original

וַהֲרָג֗וּם וַהֲרָגוּם (wa·hă·rā·ḡūm, H2026 hârag) is active with a plural object suffix: "and-they-slew-them." BSB's passive "were killed by" reverses the grammar and quietly settles who acts. Poole notes that the word "whom" is not in the Hebrew at all, the text running "and the men of Gath slew them," which is why the antecedent of "them" is genuinely open. hârag is defined by Strong's as "to smite with deadly intent," not a neutral "kill."
הַנּוֹלָדִ֣ים הַנּוֹלָדִים (han·nō·w·lā·ḏîm, H3205 yâlad) is an articular Nifal participle, "the ones-being-born," and it governs "in the land." BSB compresses the whole phrase into "the natives," losing the passive birth-verb. Ellicott renders it literally "born in the land" and takes it as "aborigines of Canaan as contrasted with the Ephraimites, who were foreign invaders."
יָרְד֔וּ יָרְדוּ (yā·rə·ḏū, H3381 yârad, Qal perfect 3cp) means "to descend, go downwards." The direction is the hinge of the whole episode. Cambridge argues the verb suits a descent from the hills of Ephraim but not an invasion from Goshen; Gill argues the opposite, that "came down" is what one says of going from Palestine to Egypt. BSB's "they went down" preserves the verb but not the argument.
כִּ֣י כִּי (kî, H3588) is rendered "because" by BSB, but Strong's calls it a relative conjunction "very widely used." JFB stakes an entire reconstruction on the alternative: read kî as "when" they came down, and the men of Gath become the aggressors rather than the Ephraimites. One particle decides whether this is a raid or a reprisal.

The Voices✦ 4 public domain

Jamieson, Fausset & BrownCommentary Critical and Explanatory1871

The calamity spread a deep gloom around the tent of their aged father, and was the occasion of his receiving visits of condolence from his distant relatives, according to the custom of the East, which is remarkably exemplified in the history of Job

source ↗

John GillExposition of the Entire Bible1746–63

For the loss of his son and grandchildren for the above fact was done while the Israelites were in Egypt, and Ephraim the patriarch yet alive; nor is there any need to suppose another Ephraim, different from him:

Gill takes the plain reading, that the patriarch himself is alive and mourning in Egypt. Cambridge and Ellicott both judge that reading chronologically impossible. The brief preserves the disagreement rather than settling it.

source ↗

Matthew PooleAnnotations upon the Holy Bible1685

Or rather, the name of Ephraim may be put patronymically (as the learned speak) for the son and successor of Ephraim; who being now in Ephraim’s stead the head of the tribe, as old Ephraim was in his time, might well be called by the same name.

source ↗

Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

This is either what we should call a metaphorical description of the enfeebling of the tribe of Ephraim by the disaster which had befallen two of its chief houses, and of its subsequent recovery owing to the natural increase of its numbers, and the formation of a new and populous clan, that of Beriah;

source ↗

Their father Ephraim mourned for many days, and his relatives came to comfort him.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

’ă·ḇî·hem ’ep̄·ra·yim way·yiṯ·’ab·bêl rab·bîm yā·mîm ’e·ḥāw way·yā·ḇō·’ū lə·na·ḥă·mōw

Word by word8 · parsed

אֲבִיהֶ֖ם’ă·ḇî·hemTheir fatherH1

√ ʼâb — father, in a literal and immediate, or figurative and remote applicationNounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine plural

אֶפְרַ֥יִם’ep̄·ra·yimEphraimH669

√ ʼEphrayim — Ephrajim, a son of JosephNounpropermasculine singular

וַיִּתְאַבֵּ֛לway·yiṯ·’ab·bêlmournedH56

√ ʼâbal — to bewailConjunctive wawVerbHitpaelConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular

ʼâbal (Hitpael): to bewail The Hitpael of this root is the formal, drawn-out mourning of Genesis 37:34, where Jacob mourns for Joseph many days. Ephraim is Joseph's son; the chronicler puts Joseph's son into Joseph's father's posture. That resonance is lexical and structural, not invented, though no commentator in this brief draws it.

רַבִּ֑יםrab·bîmfor manyH7227

√ rab — abundant (in quantity, size, age, number, rank, quality)Adjectivemasculine plural

rab: abundant in quantity, number, rank A very common adjective doing formulaic work here. Its weight is idiomatic rather than theological: "many days" marks an unmeasured period of grief.

יָמִ֣יםyā·mîmdaysH3117

√ yôwm — a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb)Nounmasculine plural

אֶחָ֖יו’e·ḥāwand his relativesH251

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

ʼâch: a brother, in the widest sense The width of this noun is the point. JFB reads the visit as the Eastern custom of condolence by distant relatives and compares Job 2:11 and John 11:19. Poole reads it simply as kinsmen. Either way the mourner is not left alone, which is the one unambiguous mercy in the paragraph.

וַיָּבֹ֥אוּway·yā·ḇō·’ūcameH935

√ bôwʼ — to go or come (in a wide variety of applications)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural

לְנַחֲמֽוֹ׃lə·na·ḥă·mōwto comfort himH5162

√ nâcham — properly, to sigh, iPreposition-lVerbPielInfinitive constructthird person masculine singular

nâcham (Piel): properly, to sigh The same root that names Noah at Genesis 5:29 and that God uses of himself when he relents. Here it is what brothers do at a tent door. The Piel infinitive with the suffix makes the man, not the loss, the object: they came to comfort him.

Literal — word-for-word from the original

Their-father Ephraim mourned-himself many days, and-his-brothers came to-comfort-him.

Where the English smooths the original

וַיִּתְאַבֵּ֛ל וַיִּתְאַבֵּל (way·yiṯ·’ab·bêl, H56 ʼâbal) is Hitpael, the reflexive or iterative stem: not simply "mourned" but something nearer "put himself into mourning," the sustained observance of grief rather than a mood. BSB's flat "mourned" loses the stem entirely.
רַבִּ֑ים רַבִּים (rab·bîm, H7227 rab) is an adjective of quantity, size, age, number, rank or quality. Paired with yāmîm it makes the standing Hebrew idiom for an indefinitely long stretch, not a countable number of days. English "for many days" reads as vague; the Hebrew phrase is formulaic and weighty.
אֶחָ֖יו אֶחָיו (’e·ḥāw, H251 ʼâch) is "his brothers." BSB renders "his relatives," which is defensible since Strong's gives ʼâch "in the widest sense of literal relationship and metaphorical affinity," and Poole glosses it "his kinsmen, as that word is frequently used." But the English choice already decides a question the Hebrew leaves open.
לְנַחֲמֽוֹ׃ לְנַחֲמוֹ (lə·na·ḥă·mōw, H5162 nâcham) is a Piel infinitive construct with object suffix. Strong's traces the root to "properly, to sigh," that is, to breathe heavily with another. The Piel makes it causative-intensive: to bring someone to that sighing relief. "To comfort him" is right, but the root is bodily, not sentimental.

The Voices✦ 4 public domain

Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

There is an allusive play on the words Beriah (“gift”) and bera’ah (“in evil”) such as we often meet with in Genesis (see Genesis 5:29 ; Genesis 11:9 ). To call such plays on words derivations would be a tasteless anachronism. Their purpose is to point a moral, not to teach etymology.

source ↗

Joseph BensonCommentary on the Old and New Testaments1810s

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.

source ↗

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges—1880s

Heb. Beriah because it went beraah , a play on the sound of the name.

source ↗

John GillExposition of the Entire Bible1746–63

and he called his name Beriah; which signifies being "in evil" or calamity, he being born in an evil time:

source ↗

And again he slept with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. So he named him Beriah, because tragedy had come upon his house.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

way·yā·ḇō ’el- ’iš·tōw wat·ta·har wat·tê·leḏ bên way·yiq·rā ’eṯ- šə·mōw bə·rî·‘āh kî ḇə·rā·‘āh hā·yə·ṯāh bə·ḇê·ṯōw

Word by word14 · parsed

וַיָּבֹא֙way·yā·ḇōAnd again he slept withH935

√ bôwʼ — to go or come (in a wide variety of applications)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular

bôwʼ: to go or come The same root as way·yā·ḇō·’ū in v. 22, where the brothers came to comfort. Comfort came in, and then the father went in; the chronicler's two clauses of consolation are built on one verb. This is a lexical observation from the interlinear, not a claim any commentator in the brief makes.

אֶל־’el-. . .H413

√ ʼêl — near, with or amongPreposition

אִשְׁתּ֔וֹ’iš·tōwhis wifeH802

√ ʼishshâh — a womanNounfeminine singular constructthird person masculine singular

וַתַּ֖הַרwat·ta·harand she conceivedH2029

√ hârâh — to be (or become) pregnant, conceive (literally or figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person feminine singular

וַתֵּ֣לֶדwat·tê·leḏand gave birth toH3205

√ yâlad — to bear youngConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person feminine singular

yâlad: to bear young The active counterpart of the Nifal participle at 7:21 index 8, "the ones born in the land." The men born in the land took life; the woman who bears gives it back. One root, two directions.

בֵּ֑ןbêna 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

וַיִּקְרָ֤אway·yiq·rāSo he namedH7121

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

qârâʼ: to call out to Naming in Hebrew narrative is an act of interpretation: the father reads his own history and fixes it into a word his son will carry for life. Benson: the joy of a birth could not erase the grief, so the name itself becomes the memorial.

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

שְׁמוֹ֙šə·mōwhimH8034

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

בְּרִיעָ֔הbə·rî·‘āhBeriahH1283

√ Bᵉrîyʻâh — Beriah, the name of four IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular

Bᵉrîyʻâh: Beriah, the name of four Israelites The name is given a reason in the verse itself, which is rare. Ellicott holds the real derivation is from baraʼ and that the clause is an allusive play, not an etymology; Cambridge and Gill read it straightforwardly as "in evil." The brief does not settle which is right, and neither will this note.

כִּ֥יkîbecauseH3588

√ kîy — (by implication) very widely used as a relative conjunction or adverb (as below)Conjunction

בְרָעָ֖הḇə·rā·‘āhtragedyH7451

√ raʻ — bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral)Preposition-bAdjectivefeminine singular

raʻ: bad or evil, natural or moral The word covers both calamity and wickedness, and here it is calamity, the raid and the killing. The chronicler does not assign blame; he records that a household name was built out of a disaster, and then runs the line of Joshua straight through that name.

הָיְתָ֥הhā·yə·ṯāhhad comeH1961

√ hâyâh — to exist, iVerbQalPerfectthird person feminine singular

בְּבֵיתֽוֹ׃bə·ḇê·ṯōwupon his houseH1004

√ bayith — a house (in the greatest variation of applications, especially family, etcPreposition-bNounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular

Literal — word-for-word from the original

And-he-went-in unto his-wife, and-she-conceived and-she-bore a-son, and-he-called his-name Beriah, because in-evil it-was in-his-house.

Where the English smooths the original

וַיָּבֹא֙ וַיָּבֹא (way·yā·ḇō, H935 bôwʼ) is the ordinary verb "to go or come," here with ʼel, "he came in to his wife." BSB's "And again he slept with his wife" supplies both "again" and the euphemism. The Hebrew idiom is plain and unadorned, and it is the same verb used in v. 22 of the brothers who "came" to comfort him.
בְּרִיעָ֔ה בְּרִיעָה (bə·rî·‘āh, H1283 Bᵉrîyʻâh) is simply a name in Strong's, "the name of four Israelites." The verse itself supplies the wordplay with בְרָעָה (ḇə·rā·‘āh, "in evil"). Cambridge calls it "a play on the sound of the name"; Ellicott derives the name instead from baraʼ and warns that calling such plays derivations "would be a tasteless anachronism." English cannot carry the sound at all.
בְרָעָ֖ה בְרָעָה (ḇə·rā·‘āh, H7451 raʻ) is bᵉ plus a feminine singular adjective: "in evil." BSB's "tragedy had come" is a softening. Strong's defines raʻ as "bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral)," and the Hebrew clause is impersonal: "because in evil it was in his house." No subject is named for the disaster.
בְּבֵיתֽוֹ׃ בְּבֵיתוֹ (bə·ḇê·ṯōw, H1004 bayith) is "in his house." Strong's gives bayith "in the greatest variation of applications, especially family." BSB's "upon his house" reads as a blow falling from outside; the preposition is bᵉ, "in." The evil is located inside the household, not descending on it.

The Voices✦ 4 public domain

Keil & DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament1860s

Sherah was probably an heiress, who had received these places as her inheritance, and caused them to be enlarged by her family.

source ↗

Albert BarnesNotes on the Bible1834

Sherah could scarcely herself have built the Palestinian cities here mentioned, which must belong to a time not earlier than Joshua.

Barnes's objection is chronological, not grammatical: the Hebrew verb is feminine singular and says she built. He is resolving a date problem by widening the subject.

source ↗

Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

Sherah’s ear, or peak, only mentioned here. The relation of Sherah to Beth-horon may be compared with that of Achsah to the Negeb of Judah

source ↗

Joseph BensonCommentary on the Old and New Testaments1810s

Rebuilt or repaired them, which possibly she did in Joshua’s time. And this work may be ascribed to her, because it was done either by her design and contrivance, or by her instigation and influence upon her husband and brethren who did it.

Benson redistributes the credit to husband and brethren. The Hebrew verb assigns it to her; this is a commentator's inference, offered as such.

source ↗

His daughter was Sheerah, who built Lower and Upper Beth-horon, as well as Uzzen-sheerah.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

ū·ḇit·tōw še·’ĕ·rāh wat·ti·ḇen ’eṯ- hat·taḥ·tō·wn wə·’eṯ- hā·‘el·yō·wn bêṯ- ḥō·w·rō·wn wə·’êṯ ’uz·zên še·’ĕ·rāh

Word by word12 · parsed

וּבִתּ֣וֹū·ḇit·tōwHis daughterH1323

√ bath — a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawNounfeminine singular constructthird person masculine singular

bath: a daughter, in the widest sense The same noun appears in vv. 28 and 29 as bᵉnôṯehā, "her daughters," meaning the dependent villages of a town. In this unit a daughter builds towns and towns have daughters. The pun is in the Hebrew lexicon, not imposed on it.

שֶׁאֱרָ֔הše·’ĕ·rāhwas SheerahH7609

√ Sheʼĕrâh — Sheerah, an IsraelitessNounproperfeminine singular

וַתִּ֧בֶןwat·ti·ḇenwho builtH1129

√ bânâh — to build (literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person feminine singular

bânâh: to build, literally and figuratively A very common verb (344 verses) but placed here with a feminine subject, which is not common. It is also the root behind bên, "son as builder of the family name," so in the one verse where the chronicler names a woman he uses the verb hidden inside the word he has repeated ten times for the men. Barnes cautions that she could scarcely have built Palestinian cities herself and reads "she built" as "her descendants built."

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

הַתַּחְתּ֖וֹןhat·taḥ·tō·wnLowerH8481

√ tachtôwn — bottommostArticleAdjectivemasculine singular

tachtôwn: bottommost Lower Beth-horon and Upper Beth-horon are the two ends of the pass that climbs from the coastal plain into the hill country, the road named at Joshua 16:3 and fortified again by Solomon at 1 Kings 9:17. The chronicler records a woman holding the strategic ascent into Ephraim.

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

הָעֶלְי֑וֹןhā·‘el·yō·wnand UpperH5945

√ ʻelyôwn — an elevation, iArticleAdjectivemasculine singular

ʻelyôwn: an elevation The adjective is the ordinary word for "upper," though the same form is used absolutely as a divine title, Most High. Here it is topography, and nothing more should be made of it.

בֵּית־bêṯ-vvvH1032

√ Bêyth Chôwrôwn — Beth-Choron, the name of two adjoining places in PalestinePreposition

חוֹר֛וֹןḥō·w·rō·wnBeth-horonH1032

√ Bêyth Chôwrôwn — Beth-Choron, the name of two adjoining places in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular

וְאֵ֖תwə·’êṯas well asH853

√ 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

אֻזֵּ֥ן’uz·zênvvvH242

√ ʼUzzên Sheʼĕrâh — Uzzen-Sheerah, a place in Palestine

שֶׁאֱרָֽה׃še·’ĕ·rāhUzzen-sheerahH242

√ ʼUzzên Sheʼĕrâh — Uzzen-Sheerah, a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular

ʼUzzên Sheʼĕrâh: Uzzen-Sheerah, a place in Palestine A site named after a woman and attested nowhere else in Scripture. Gill notes it was called after her own name; K&D suggests she founded it. The register keeps a name the rest of the canon forgot.

Literal — word-for-word from the original

And-his-daughter was-Sheerah, and-she-built the-Lower and-the-Upper Beth-horon, and Uzzen-sheerah.

Where the English smooths the original

וּבִתּ֣וֹ וּבִתּוֹ (ū·ḇit·tōw, H1323 bath) is "and-his-daughter," with no antecedent supplied. BSB fixes it as "His daughter" attached to the man of v. 23. Ellicott takes the suffix to mean Ephraim's; Gill takes it to mean Beriah's. Strong's notes bath is "used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship," so Pulpit and Poole read it simply as a female descendant.
וַתִּ֧בֶן וַתִּבֶן (wat·ti·ḇen, H1129 bânâh, Qal consecutive imperfect, third feminine singular) is unambiguously feminine: she built. BSB's "who built" keeps the fact but loses the grammatical shock of a woman as the subject of a building verb in a tribal register. Ellicott notes the verb may mean rebuilt, restored or fortified; K&D reads it as enlarging and fortifying existing towns.
הַתַּחְתּ֖וֹן הַתַּחְתּוֹן (hat·taḥ·tō·wn, H8481 tachtôwn, "bottommost") and הָעֶלְיוֹן (hā·‘el·yō·wn, H5945, "an elevation") stand before the name Beth-horon in the Hebrew, as two definite adjectives taking the object marker. English must reorder them into "Lower and Upper Beth-horon." The Hebrew names the two heights first and the town second.
אֻזֵּ֥ן אֻזֵּן שֶׁאֱרָה (’uz·zên še·’ĕ·rāh, H242) is carried in the interlinear as two words with no parse on the first. Ellicott glosses the compound "Sherah's ear, or peak, only mentioned here." English "Uzzen-sheerah" is a transliteration that says nothing; the Hebrew is a built thing named after the woman who built it.

The Voices✦ 3 public domain

Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

The word “his son” ( benô ) may have fallen out after Resheph. Otherwise Resheph is brother and Telah son of Rephah (the elder). Resheph, which means “arrow,” “lightning,” “fever,” was a title of the Phoenician Baal.

Ellicott's identification of Resheph with a Phoenician Baal title is a claim from comparative Semitics, not from the Hebrew lexicon supplied in this brief. It is worth hearing and worth checking.

source ↗

Keil & DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament1860s

The name Tahan occurs in Numbers 26:35 as that of the founder of one of the families of Ephraim; but he can hardly be identical with our Tahan, who was probably a son of that Tahan from whom an Ephraimite family descended. If this conjecture be correct, Joshua would be of the family of Tahan.

source ↗

Geneva Study BibleMarginal Notes1599

And Rephah was his {k} son, also Resheph, and Telah his son, and Tahan his son, (k) That is, of Ephraim.

The Geneva gloss attaches "his son" to Ephraim rather than to Beriah, which severs this list from the Beriah paragraph entirely. It is one of the two live options and the Geneva editors chose it without argument.

source ↗

Additionally, Rephah was his son, Resheph his son, Telah his son, Tahan his son,

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·re·p̄aḥ bə·nōw wə·re·šep̄ wə·ṯe·laḥ bə·nōw wə·ṯa·ḥan bə·nōw

Word by word7 · parsed

וְרֶ֣פַחwə·re·p̄aḥAdditionally, RephahH7506

√ Rephach — Rephach, an IsraeliteConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

Rephach: Rephah, an Israelite Attested only here. Pulpit's whole comment on this verse is that nothing else is known of Rephah or Resheph. That is a fact about the canon worth stating plainly rather than covering over.

בְּנ֗וֹbə·nōw[was] his sonH1121

וְרֶ֧שֶׁףwə·re·šep̄Resheph [his son]H7566

√ Resheph — Resheph, an IsraeliteConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

Resheph: Resheph, an Israelite Ellicott records that the word resheph means arrow, lightning or fever and was a title of the Phoenician Baal. Strong's in this brief gives only the personal name, so the divine-title observation is Ellicott's and is reported here as his, not asserted as lexicon. If he is right, a pagan storm-title sits inside Joshua's ancestry, unremarked by the chronicler.

וְתֶ֛לַחwə·ṯe·laḥTelahH8520

√ Telach — Telach, an IsraeliteConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

בְּנ֖וֹbə·nōwhis sonH1121

וְתַ֥חַןwə·ṯa·ḥanTahanH8465

√ Tachan — Tachan, the name of two IsraelitesConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular

Tachan: Tahan, the name of two Israelites Numbers 26:35 makes Tahan the founder of an Ephraimite clan. K&D judges that this Tahan can hardly be that one but was probably his descendant, and adds that if the conjecture holds, Joshua belongs to the family of Tahan.

בְּנֽוֹ׃bə·nōwhis sonH1121

Literal — word-for-word from the original

And-Rephah his-son, and-Resheph, and-Telah his-son, and-Tahan his-son,

Where the English smooths the original

וְרֶ֣פַח וְרֶפַח (wə·re·p̄aḥ, H7506 Rephach) opens with a bare conjunctive waw, "and-Rephah." BSB supplies "Additionally," which reads as a new paragraph marker. The Hebrew simply continues the chain, and that is the whole problem: nothing in the text says whether Rephah is Beriah's son, Ephraim's, or the head of another house.
וְרֶ֧שֶׁף וְרֶשֶׁף (wə·re·šep̄, H7566 Resheph) is the one name in this list with no following bᵉnô. BSB's bracketed "Resheph [his son]" supplies what the Hebrew withholds. K&D reasons from the missing word that Rephah and Resheph must be brothers; Ellicott suggests "his son" simply fell out of the text.
וְתֶ֛לַח וְתֶלַח (wə·ṯe·laḥ, H8520 Telach) is a name attested nowhere else. Ellicott observes that "Telah" looks like a fragment of Shuthelah and conjectures that we-Reshef, we-The-lah is a distortion of we-Shuthelah. The English list gives no sign that one of its members may be textual debris.

Ladan his son, Ammihud his son, Elishama his son,

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

la‘·dān bə·nōw ‘am·mî·hūḏ bə·nōw ’ĕ·lî·šā·mā‘ bə·nōw

Word by word6 · parsed

לַעְדָּ֥ןla‘·dānLadanH3936

√ Laʻdân — Ladan, the name of two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular

בְּנ֛וֹbə·nōwhis sonH1121

עַמִּיה֥וּד‘am·mî·hūḏAmmihudH5989

√ ʻAmmîyhûwd — Ammihud, the name of three IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular

ʻAmmîyhûwd: Ammihud, the name of three Israelites Ellicott records that Elishama son of Ammihud was tribal prince of Ephraim in the time of Moses, citing Numbers 7:47. Pulpit calls this the stage at which welcome light breaks in, because these two names are independently attested at the Exodus, and adds honestly that none of those passages tells us whether Joshua's line ran through Beriah.

בְּנ֖וֹbə·nōwhis sonH1121

אֱלִישָׁמָ֥ע’ĕ·lî·šā·mā‘ElishamaH476

√ ʼĔlîyshâmâʻ — Elishama, the name of seven IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular

ʼĔlîyshâmâʻ: Elishama, the name of seven Israelites The single external fixed point in this genealogy. K&D notes Elishama son of Ammihud was a contemporary of Moses and prince of the tribe of Ephraim (Numbers 1:10, 7:48, 10:22); Poole calls him the head of the tribe in the wilderness; Gill places him in the chain immediately before Nun. Everything in this unit that can be dated is dated from here.

בְּנֽוֹ׃bə·nōwhis sonH1121

Literal — word-for-word from the original

Ladan his-son, Ammihud his-son, Elishama his-son,

Where the English smooths the original

לַעְדָּ֥ן לַעְדָּן (la‘·dān, H3936 Laʻdân) opens this verse with no conjunctive waw, unlike almost every other name in the chain (vv. 20, 21 and 25 all carry wᵉ). English cannot show the seam. The asyndeton is one of the small signs Pulpit and Ellicott read as evidence that this register is stitched from more than one source.
עַמִּיה֥וּד עַמִּיהוּד (‘am·mî·hūḏ, H5989 ʻAmmîyhûwd) is printed as a flat proper name in English, but the form is transparently compound in Hebrew, built on ʻam, people. Strong's records only "Ammihud, the name of three Israelites," so the brief supports the name and not a gloss of it; the compound shape is visible in the consonants.
אֱלִישָׁמָ֥ע אֱלִישָׁמָע (’ĕ·lî·šā·mā‘, H476 ʼĔlîyshâmâʻ) likewise carries the divine element ʼêl in plain sight. In English it is one more name in a column. In Hebrew it is the name of the man K&D and Poole identify as prince of the tribe of Ephraim beside Moses (Numbers 1:10, Numbers 7:48, Numbers 10:22), and the only point in this list that anchors the whole chain to a datable moment.

The Voices✦ 4 public domain

Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

But abundant reason has already been shown for not interpreting these genealogies in a slavishly literal spirit, and without regard to their own contrary indications.

source ↗

Keil & DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament1860s

(Non) is so pronounced only in this place; in the Pentateuch and in the book of Joshua it is נוּן (Nun).

source ↗

John GillExposition of the Entire Bible1746–63

after Rephah, Resheph, Telah, Tahan, Laadan, Ammihud, Elishama, who was prince of the tribe of Ephraim in the wilderness, Numbers 1:10 , then Non or Nun, whose son was Jehoshua or Joshua.

source ↗

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges—1880s

Non … Jehoshua ] R.V. gives the familiar form of these names, Nun … Joshua

source ↗

Nun his son, and Joshua his son.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

nō·wn bə·nōw yə·hō·wō·šu·a‘ bə·nōw

Word by word4 · parsed

נ֥וֹןnō·wnNunH5126

√ Nûwn — Nun or Non, the father of JoshuaNounpropermasculine singular

Nûwn: Nun or Non, the father of Joshua Strong's itself carries both spellings, which is the whole of the variant. K&D observes the form Non is so pronounced only in this place. It is a small thing, but it is the kind of small thing that tells you this register was copied from somewhere with its own conventions.

בְּנ֖וֹbə·nōwhis sonH1121

יְהוֹשֻׁ֥עַyə·hō·wō·šu·a‘and JoshuaH3091

√ Yᵉhôwshûwaʻ — Jehoshua (iNounpropermasculine singular

Yᵉhôwshûwaʻ: Jehoshua Numbers 13:16 records that Moses gave this name to Hoshea son of Nun. The chronicler reaches it after eight or nine links and then stops: the Ephraim file exists, in the end, to arrive here. K&D says as much, that vv. 25-27 enumerate the ancestors of Joshua the son of Nun, who brought Israel into the land of Canaan. In Greek the same name is written Iēsous, which is the hinge of Hebrews 4:8 and Acts 7:45.

בְּנֽוֹ׃bə·nōwhis sonH1121

Literal — word-for-word from the original

Non his-son, Joshua his-son.

Where the English smooths the original

נ֥וֹן נוֹן (nō·wn, H5126) is spelled here with a plain waw, Non. Ellicott states that everywhere else the name is Nun, and K&D that this pronunciation occurs only in this place, the Pentateuch and Joshua having נוּן. BSB prints "Nun" and the variant vanishes; Cambridge records that the Revised Version likewise gives the familiar forms.
יְהוֹשֻׁ֥עַ יְהוֹשֻׁעַ (yə·hō·wō·šu·a‘, H3091) is the full theophoric form, written out with the divine element at the head. English "Joshua" is a two-syllable flattening of it. Geneva's text prints "Jehoshuah," which is closer to what the Hebrew actually says.
בְּנֽוֹ׃ בְּנוֹ (bə·nōw) closes the chain for the tenth and last time in this unit. The register ends on the same two syllables it has repeated throughout, with no verb, no comment and no honorific for the most famous man in it. BSB's "and Joshua his son" is accurate and equally bare; the restraint is the chronicler's, not the translator's.

The Voices✦ 4 public domain

Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

originally assigned to Benjamin ( Joshua 18:22 ), belonged later to the northern kingdom. The present list appears therefore to be younger than the disruption of Solomon’s empire.

Ellicott is drawing a date for the source document out of a place-name. It is an inference, and K&D reaches the same one independently, which strengthens but does not prove it.

source ↗

Keil & DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament1860s

as it belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes; whence we gather that this register was prepared after that kingdom had come into existence.

source ↗

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges—1880s

the well-known Philistine city was in the extreme south-west of Palestine and can hardly be intended here in a list of Ephraimite cities. Some Heb. MSS read Ayyah , a reading which is in part supported by LXX (B) ἔως Γαιάν

source ↗

Matthew PooleAnnotations upon the Holy Bible1685

Or rather Adasa, as it is in the margin of our Bible; the particle ad , here rendered unto , being a part of the name; for why should unto be put to this town, which is not put to any of the other?

source ↗

Their holdings and settlements included Bethel and its villages, Naaran to the east, Gezer and its villages to the west, and Shechem and its villages as far as Ayyah and its villages.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wa·’ă·ḥuz·zā·ṯām ū·mō·šə·ḇō·w·ṯām bêṯ- ’êl ū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hā na·‘ă·rān wə·lam·miz·rāḥ ge·zer ū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hā wə·lam·ma·‘ă·rāḇ ū·šə·ḵem ū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hā ‘aḏ- ‘ay·yāh ū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hā

Word by word15 · parsed

וַאֲחֻזָּתָם֙wa·’ă·ḥuz·zā·ṯāmTheir holdingsH272

√ ʼăchuzzâh — something seized, iConjunctive wawNounfeminine singular constructthird person masculine plural

ʼăchuzzâh: something seized, a possession The covenant word for land held by right rather than by rent, used of Abraham's burial plot at Genesis 23:9 and of the Levites' portion. Its appearance here matters: a chronicler writing for a people recently returned from exile files the Joseph tribes under a noun that means permanent, seized-and-kept holding.

וּמֹ֣שְׁבוֹתָ֔םū·mō·šə·ḇō·w·ṯāmand settlementsH4186

√ môwshâb — a seatConjunctive wawNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine plural

môwshâb: a seat, a dwelling Strong's gives the bare sense "a seat." It shares its root with yâšᵉḇū, "they dwelt," the final verb of v. 29, so the unit's last movement is framed by one root: seats, and sitting in them.

בֵּֽית־bêṯ-includedH1008

√ Bêyth-ʼÊl — Beth-El, a place in PalestinePreposition

אֵ֖ל’êlBethelH1008

√ Bêyth-ʼÊl — Beth-El, a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular

וּבְנֹתֶ֑יהָū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hāand its villagesH1323

√ bath — a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawNounfeminine plural constructthird person feminine singular

bath: a daughter Four times in this verse, and five more in v. 29, towns have daughters. In v. 24 a daughter had towns. The chronicler's vocabulary for settlement is domestic throughout, which is why the grief of vv. 21 to 23 does not read as a digression from the land list but as part of it.

נַעֲרָ֔ןna·‘ă·rānNaaranH5295

√ Naʻărân — Naaran, a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular

וְלַמִּזְרָ֣חwə·lam·miz·rāḥto the eastH4217

√ mizrâch — sunrise, iConjunctive waw, Preposition-l, ArticleNounmasculine singular

mizrâch: sunrise, the east Literally the place of the sun's rising, paired in this verse with maʻărâb (H4628), the west "as a region of the evening sun." The two compass points are built from the sun's day. K&D reads the four named sites as the chief places on the four sides of the Ephraimite territory.

גֶּ֤זֶרge·zerGezerH1507

√ Gezer — Gezer, a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular

וּבְנֹתֶ֙יהָ֙ū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hāand its villagesH1323

√ bath — a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawNounfeminine plural constructthird person feminine singular

וְלַֽמַּעֲרָ֗בwə·lam·ma·‘ă·rāḇto the westH4628

√ maʻărâb — the west (as a region of the evening sun)Conjunctive waw, Preposition-l, ArticleNounmasculine singular

וּשְׁכֶ֣םū·šə·ḵemand ShechemH7927

√ Shᵉkem — Shekem, a place in PalestineConjunctive wawNounproperfeminine singular

וּבְנֹתֶ֔יהָū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hāand its villagesH1323

√ bath — a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawNounfeminine plural constructthird person feminine singular

עַד־‘aḏ-as far asH5704

√ ʻad — as far (or long, or much) as, whether of space (even unto) or time (during, while, until) or degree (equally with)Preposition

עַיָּ֖ה‘ay·yāhAyyahH5804

√ ʻAzzâh — Azzah, a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular

ʻAzzâh: Azzah, a place in Palestine The interlinear assigns H5804, Gaza, but the identification is disputed at the level of the Hebrew text itself. Pulpit states the name can scarcely designate the well-known Gaza assigned to Judah; Gill notes the tribe of Ephraim did not reach so far and that the Targum calls it Aiah; K&D locates the place, if it is ʻawwāh, north-west of Shechem, possibly at Michmethah, whose position he admits has not been ascertained.

וּבְנֹתֶֽיהָ׃ū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hāand its villagesH1323

√ bath — a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawNounfeminine plural constructthird person feminine singular

Literal — word-for-word from the original

And-their-holding and-their-dwellings: Bethel and-her-daughters, and-to-the-east Naaran, and-to-the-west Gezer and-her-daughters, and-Shechem and-her-daughters, as-far-as Ayyah and-her-daughters.

Where the English smooths the original

וַאֲחֻזָּתָם֙ וַאֲחֻזָּתָם (wa·’ă·ḥuz·zā·ṯām, H272 ʼăchuzzâh) is from a root meaning to seize: Strong's defines it "something seized." BSB's "holdings" is bland; the Hebrew noun is the legal term for land taken and held as inalienable possession. Ellicott renders it "their domain" and notes it covers both divisions of the tribe of Joseph.
וּמֹ֣שְׁבוֹתָ֔ם וּמֹשְׁבוֹתָם (ū·mō·šə·ḇō·w·ṯām, H4186 môwshâb) is glossed by Strong's simply as "a seat," a place of sitting, built on the root yâshab that closes v. 29. BSB's "settlements" is a fair equivalent but hides that the word is about sitting still, which is exactly what the whole unit has been moving toward. Ellicott translates it "their seats."
וּבְנֹתֶ֑יהָ וּבְנֹתֶיהָ (ū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hā, H1323 bath) is literally "and her daughters," the standard Hebrew idiom for the dependent villages of a mother-town. BSB renders "and its villages" four times in this verse and the metaphor disappears entirely. It is the same noun used of Sheerah in v. 24.
עַיָּ֖ה עַיָּה (‘ay·yāh) is carried in the interlinear under H5804 ʻAzzâh, Gaza, while BSB prints "Ayyah." The two readings are a real textual divergence, not a translation choice: Cambridge notes some Hebrew manuscripts read Ayyah and that Septuagint B partly supports it, while K&D holds ʻAzzāh to be a copyist's and printer's error. Poole and Benson take yet a third road and read the preceding particle ʻad as part of the name, Adasa.

The Voices✦ 4 public domain

Keil & DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament1860s

the Manassites had received the four cities here named, lying within the territory of Issachar and Asher.

source ↗

The Pulpit CommentarySpence & Exell, eds.1880s

The places mentioned in this verse were assigned to Manasseh. Bethshean was on the west of Jordan, and was within the borders of Issachar ( Joshua 17:11-13 ; 1 Kings 4:11, 12 ).

source ↗

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges—1880s

A city (at present not certainly identified) which gave a name to the great plain watered by the Kishon and its tributaries.

source ↗

John GillExposition of the Entire Bible1746–63

the Ephraimites, in those mentioned in 1 Chronicles 7:28 , and the Manassites, in those that are here mentioned; who were both the children or posterity of Joseph, the beloved son of Israel.

source ↗

And along the borders of Manasseh were Beth-shean, Taanach, Megiddo, and Dor, together with their villages. The descendants of Joseph son of Israel lived in these towns.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·‘al- yə·ḏê ḇə·nê- mə·naš·šeh bêṯ- šə·’ān ū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hā ta‘·naḵ ū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hā mə·ḡid·dōw ū·ḇə·nō·w·ṯe·hā dō·wr ū·ḇə·nō·w·ṯe·hā bə·nê yō·w·sêp̄ ben- yiś·rā·’êl yā·šə·ḇū bə·’êl·leh

Word by word19 · parsed

וְעַל־wə·‘al-And alongH5921

√ ʻal — above, over, upon, or against (yet always in this last relation with a downward aspect) in a great variety of applicationsConjunctive wawPreposition

יְדֵ֣יyə·ḏêthe bordersH3027

√ yâd — a hand (the open one (indicating power, means, direction, etcNounfeminine dual construct

yâd: a hand, the open one, indicating power and direction The idiom ʻal-yᵉdê means alongside or in the possession of. Ellicott counts it nine times in Chronicles and once in Ezra, which makes it a fingerprint of this writer rather than a general Hebrew phrase. K&D takes it here as marking possession, and appeals to Joshua 17:11 for the underlying assignment.

בְנֵי־ḇə·nê-vvvH1121

מְנַשֶּׁ֗הmə·naš·šehof ManassehH4519

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

בֵּית־bêṯ-vvvH1052

√ Bêyth Shᵉʼân — Beth-Shean or Beth-Shan, a place in PalestinePreposition

שְׁאָ֤ןšə·’ān[were] Beth-sheanH1052

√ Bêyth Shᵉʼân — Beth-Shean or Beth-Shan, a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular

וּבְנֹתֶ֙יהָ֙ū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hāH1323

√ bath — a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawNounfeminine plural constructthird person feminine singular

תַּעְנַ֣ךְta‘·naḵTaanachH8590

√ Taʻănâk — Taanak or Tanak, a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular

וּבְנֹתֶ֔יהָū·ḇə·nō·ṯe·hāH1323

√ bath — a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawNounfeminine plural constructthird person feminine singular

מְגִדּ֥וֹmə·ḡid·dōwMegiddoH4023

√ Mᵉgiddôwn — Megiddon or Megiddo, a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular

וּבְנוֹתֶ֖יהָū·ḇə·nō·w·ṯe·hāH1323

√ bath — a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawNounfeminine plural constructthird person feminine singular

דּ֣וֹרdō·wrand DorH1756

√ Dôwr — Dor, a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular

וּבְנוֹתֶ֑יהָū·ḇə·nō·w·ṯe·hātogether with their villagesH1323

√ bath — a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawNounfeminine plural constructthird person feminine singular

bath (plural, her daughters) The fifth through ninth occurrences of the daughter-idiom for villages in two verses. The chronicler builds his map out of kinship words throughout.

בְּנֵ֥יbə·nêThe descendantsH1121

יוֹסֵ֖ףyō·w·sêp̄of JosephH3130

√ Yôwçêph — Joseph, the name of seven IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular

Yôwçêph: Joseph, the name of seven Israelites The unit closes by naming the father of both tribes. Ephraim and Manasseh have been filed separately through this chapter; here they are gathered under one head, which is why Ellicott treats vv. 28 and 29 as the southern and northern marches of a single Joseph holding.

בֶּן־ben-sonH1121

יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃פyiś·rā·’êlof IsraelH3478

√ Yisrâʼêl — Jisrael, a symbolical name of JacobNounpropermasculine singular

יָשְׁב֔וּyā·šə·ḇūlivedH3427

√ yâshab — properly, to sit down (specifically as judgeVerbQalPerfectthird person common plural

yâshab: properly, to sit down The last verb of the unit, and the answer to its first crisis. Ten verses earlier men went down (yârad) to take (lâqach) what was not theirs and died for it. Here the sons of Joseph simply sit in what was given. ⚙ That the chronicler ends on this verb is a fact of the text; what it is made to mean is our reading, and the honest counterweight is Judges 1:27, which says four of these towns were never cleared.

בְּאֵ֙לֶּה֙bə·’êl·lehin these townsH428

√ ʼêl-leh — these or thosePreposition-bPronouncommon plural

ʼêl-leh: these or those A bare demonstrative, carrying the weight of the entire preceding list. Function word, noted only because the English supplies a noun the Hebrew withholds.

Literal — word-for-word from the original

And-upon the-hands-of the-sons-of Manasseh: Beth-shean and-her-daughters, Taanach and-her-daughters, Megiddo and-her-daughters, Dor and-her-daughters. In-these dwelt the-sons-of Joseph son-of Israel.

Where the English smooths the original

יְדֵ֣י עַל־יְדֵי (wə·‘al- yə·ḏê, H5921 with H3027 yâd) is literally "and upon the hands of." yâd is "a hand (the open one, indicating power, means, direction)." BSB's "along the borders of" gives the sense and buries the idiom. Ellicott records that this literal phrase, upon the hands of the sons of Manasseh, is a favourite of the chronicler, occurring nine times in Chronicles and once in Ezra. K&D reads it as "to the hands, i.e., in possession of."
יָשְׁב֔וּ יָשְׁבוּ (yā·šə·ḇū, H3427 yâshab, Qal perfect 3cp) is the unit's last verb and its quiet resolution: Strong's gives "properly, to sit down." BSB's "lived in these towns" is accurate but unemphatic. The register that began with men going down to take ends with sons of Joseph sitting down. Note also that the interlinear places this verb at index 17, after the name Israel, while the Hebrew clause order differs; the glossing follows English sense.
בְּנֵ֥י בְּנֵי יוֹסֵף בֶּן־יִשְׂרָאֵל ("sons-of Joseph son-of Israel") uses bên twice in three words, once collectively for two whole tribes and once for an individual patriarch. BSB smooths this to "The descendants of Joseph son of Israel," using two different English words for one Hebrew noun. Gill notes that both Ephraimites and Manassites are meant, the posterity of Joseph the beloved son of Israel.
בְּאֵ֙לֶּה֙ בְּאֵלֶּה (bə·’êl·leh, H428 ʼêl-leh) is a bare demonstrative pronoun, "in these." BSB supplies the noun: "in these towns." The Hebrew simply points back at the whole list of vv. 28 and 29 without naming what it points at.

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 list that breaks — 7:20-7:22

The register opens as registers do: וּבְנֵי אֶפְרַיִם, "and-sons-of Ephraim," then name after name with בְּנוֹ, "his son," laid down ten times like courses of brick. Cambridge records that the first four names are taken from Numbers 26:35-36, where the parallel list reads Shuthelah, Becher, Tahan, Eran. Then at v. 21 the list stops being a list. וַהֲרָגוּם (hârag, H2026, "to smite with deadly intent") is an active verb with a plural object suffix, and two of the names become corpses.

Who killed whom, and where, is genuinely unsettled, and the brief's commentators do not pretend otherwise. K&D takes "the men of Gath who were born in the land" to be the Canaanite or Philistine inhabitants of Gath as distinguished from Israelites who settled in Canaan only under Joshua. Ellicott, reading the same phrase, concludes that the descent was made upon Philistia from the hill country of Ephraim in the early days of the settlement. JFB reverses the aggressors entirely by rendering כִּי (kî) as "when" rather than "because." Gill argues from the direction of the verb יָרְדוּ (yârad, "to descend") that the men of Gath came down, since one goes down from Palestine to Egypt and up the other way; Cambridge argues from the same verb that the descent fits the hills of Ephraim and not Goshen at all. Pulpit, after surveying the field, states flatly that it is impossible to solve with any certainty the involved question of chronology and genealogy presented by this section.

⚙ What the machine notices, and what none of these voices says, is that the chronicler has used one root twice in opposite directions. The killers are הַנּוֹלָדִים, "the ones born in the land" (yâlad, H3205, Nifal participle); in v. 23 the same root returns as וַתֵּלֶד, "and she bore." Birth in the land takes, and birth in the house gives back.

ii. A name made out of the wound, and a daughter who builds — 7:23-7:24

Ephraim וַיִּתְאַבֵּל (ʼâbal, H56) in the Hitpael, the stem of sustained, observed mourning, and his brothers וַיָּבֹאוּ לְנַחֲמוֹ, came to comfort him, the verb nâcham (H5162) whose root sense Strong's traces to sighing. JFB reads the scene as the Eastern custom of condolence and compares Job 2:11 and John 11:19. Then the father goes in to his wife, she bears a son, and he fixes the disaster into a word: בְּרִיעָה, Beriah, כִּי בְרָעָה הָיְתָה בְּבֵיתוֹ, "because in evil it was in his house."

Cambridge calls this "a play on the sound of the name." Ellicott is sharper and more careful: he derives Beriah from baraʼ, reads the clause as an allusive play of the kind found at Genesis 5:29 and Genesis 11:9, and warns that to call such plays derivations "would be a tasteless anachronism," since their purpose is to point a moral and not to teach etymology. Benson draws the pastoral line: the joy that a son was born could not make the father forget his grief, so he gives the child a melancholy name, and it is good to have in remembrance the affliction and the misery which are past.

Then v. 24, and the register does something it does nowhere else in the chapter. וַתִּבֶן is a third feminine singular of bânâh (H1129): she built. Sheerah built Lower and Upper Beth-horon and Uzzen-sheerah. K&D supposes she was an heiress who had received these places as her inheritance and had them enlarged by her family; Barnes, on chronological grounds, reads "she built" as "her descendants built"; Ellicott compares her relation to Beth-horon with Achsah's to the Negeb of Judah at Joshua 15:19. ⚙ The grammar itself resists the softening. In a chapter built out of bên, "son as builder of the family name," the only person who actually takes the verb bânâh is a daughter.

iii. The line runs out to Joshua, and the land it will hold — 7:25-7:29

The chain resumes and runs, in eight steps, to a name the reader already knows: יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בְּנוֹ, "Joshua his son." Gill sets out the sequence plainly from Rephah to Nun, noting that Elishama was prince of the tribe of Ephraim in the wilderness (Numbers 1:10), and K&D confirms Elishama son of Ammihud as a contemporary of Moses and tribal prince at Numbers 7:48 and 10:22. Ellicott records that נוֹן, Non, is everywhere else Nun, and Cambridge notes that the Revised Version simply gives the familiar forms. Ellicott also refuses to read the list woodenly: abundant reason, he says, has already been shown for not interpreting these genealogies in a slavishly literal spirit.

Then the ground. Vv. 28 and 29 give the four corners of the Joseph holding: Bethel south, Naaran east, Gezer west, Shechem and Ayyah north, and along the borders of Manasseh, Beth-shean, Taanach, Megiddo and Dor. Ellicott observes that Bethel was originally assigned to Benjamin (Joshua 18:22) and belonged later to the northern kingdom, so the present list appears to be younger than the disruption of Solomon's empire; K&D reaches the same conclusion, that the register was prepared after the kingdom of the ten tribes had come into existence. Ellicott further records that the idiom of v. 29, literally "upon the hands of the sons of Manasseh," is a favourite phrase of the chronicler, occurring nine times in Chronicles and once in Ezra. On the last name of v. 28 the sources divide: Cambridge notes that Gaza, the well-known Philistine city, can hardly be intended in a list of Ephraimite cities and that some Hebrew manuscripts read Ayyah; K&D says the reading ʻAzzāh is an error of transcribers and printers, since the more accurate manuscripts have ʻawwāh; Poole and Benson prefer to take the particle ʻad as part of the name and read Adasa.

⚙ The movement of the whole unit is from a raid over cattle to a map. It begins with men going down to take (lâqach) and ends with sons of Joseph sitting down (yâshab) in towns they are given. Pulpit and Cambridge both note the towns of v. 29 lay within Issachar and Asher and long withstood the Israelite occupation; Ellicott points to Judges 5:19, the kings of Canaan fighting in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo. The chronicler lists them as held. That is a claim of possession made by a post-exilic writer about a land his readers no longer securely held.

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

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested. Read straight, 1 Chronicles 7:20-29 is a genealogy that admits a casualty. The chronicler had every reason to keep his registers clean: he is assembling the identity of a returned people out of names. Instead he stops in the middle of the Ephraim file to record that two sons were killed over stolen herds, that their father put himself into mourning for many days, that brothers came and sat with him, and that the next son born was given a name meaning disaster so the household would carry the wound in its mouth forever. Nothing is explained. No providence is asserted, no lesson drawn, no enemy cursed. The text does not even settle who raided whom.

And then the list keeps going. Beriah, the child named for the breach, is the man through whose line the chronicler traces Joshua, the one who brings Israel into the land. Sheerah, a daughter in a document made of sons, is the one who actually builds, and what she builds is the pass at Beth-horon, the very ascent at which Joshua's war turns (Joshua 10:10, cited here by both Ellicott and K&D). The paragraph that looks like an interruption is the paragraph that produces the conquest.

⚙ So the reading offered is this: the God of this text does not route his purposes around grief; he routes them through households that have been named after their losses. The register does not heal the wound and does not hide it. It writes the wound into the line and then keeps counting. That is a fallible reading of a difficult and possibly damaged text, and Pulpit's honest verdict stands over it: it is impossible to solve with any certainty the involved question this section presents.

The line to Joshua runs through a son named for a disaster. (⚙ a machine 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.

The Ephraim list and the Numbers muster verbal / quotation: confirmed

The four names of v. 20 stand in a clan-muster at Numbers 26:35-36, where the Ephraimite families are counted before the entry into the land. Cambridge states it directly: these four names are taken from Numbers 26:35-36, where they appear to correspond with Shuthelah, Becher, Tahan, Eran. The Verifier confirms the lexical tie. שׁוּתָלַח (Shûwthelach, H7803) is a genuinely rare name, occurring in only four verses in the whole Hebrew Bible, and two of those four are Numbers 26:35 and 26:36. Ellicott adds that Shuthelah was head of the first of the four Ephraimitic clans, which is why the chronicler begins his Ephraim file where the wilderness muster began.

Numbers 26:35 · Numbers 26:36

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H7803 Shûwthelach (in 4 vv, twice within Numbers 26:35-36) plus H669 ʼEphrayim (in 164 vv). H7803 is rare enough that the overlap is a real verbal dependence on the muster list, and Cambridge names Numbers 26:35-36 as the source.

Four cities on the hands of Manasseh verbal / quotation: confirmed

Verse 29 names Beth-shean, Taanach, Megiddo and Dor as lying עַל־יְדֵי בְנֵי־מְנַשֶּׁה, literally "upon the hands of the sons of Manasseh." The identical four-city list stands at Joshua 17:11, where these towns within Issachar and Asher are assigned to Manasseh. K&D states the connection: according to Joshua 17:11 the Manassites had received the four cities here named, lying within the territory of Issachar and Asher. The Verifier records three shared lexemes, all of them place-names of restricted frequency.

Joshua 17:11

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H1756 Dôwr (in 6 vv), H4023 Mᵉgiddôwn (in 12 vv), H1052 Bêyth Shᵉʼân (in 8 vv). Three rare toponyms recurring together in the same order is a textual dependence, not a coincidence of subject matter; K&D names Joshua 17:11 explicitly.

The same four cities, and the ones who were not driven out structural / thematic: confirmed

Judges 1:27 lists Beth-shean, Taanach, Dor and Megiddo again, and says that Manasseh did not drive out their inhabitants. The chronicler lists them as holdings. Pulpit and Cambridge both note the awkwardness: these places lay within the borders of Issachar and Asher, and Ellicott records that they long withstood the Israelite occupation, pointing to Joshua 17:12-16 and to Judges 5:19, "Then fought the kings of Canaan, in Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo." ⚙ The lexical overlap is the same three rare toponyms, but the relationship is one of tension rather than citation: a register of possession set against a record of failure to possess. No quotation is claimed here.

Judges 1:27 · Judges 5:19

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H1756 Dôwr (in 6 vv), H4023 Mᵉgiddôwn (in 12 vv), H1052 Bêyth Shᵉʼân (in 8 vv), and separately H4023 with H8590 Taʻănâk (in 7 vv) at Judges 5:19. The shared lexemes are real and rare, but they are a common city list, not a quotation; the link is the motif of contested northern territory, so the tier is deliberately held below verbal.

Beth-horon: built by a woman, refortified by a king structural / thematic: confirmed

Sheerah builds Lower and Upper Beth-horon in v. 24; at 1 Kings 9:17 Solomon builds Gezer and Beth-horon the lower. The Verifier records the shared lexemes, including the verb itself. Joshua 16:3 fixes the same pass on Ephraim's border with the verb yârad, the same descent-verb used of the raiders in v. 21. Ellicott notes that built here may mean rebuilt, restored or fortified, and K&D takes Sheerah's building as enlarging and fortifying existing towns, which is precisely what Solomon later does to them again.

1 Kings 9:17 · Joshua 16:3

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H1032 Bêyth Chôwrôwn (in 13 vv), H8481 tachtôwn (in 13 vv) and H1129 bânâh (in 344 vv) with 1 Kings 9:17; H3381 yârad (in 345 vv) with Joshua 16:3. The toponym is moderately restricted but bânâh and yârad are very common, so no quotation is claimed: the tie is one recurring strategic site described with the same ordinary verbs.

Bered: a shared name that may be no link at all flagged: verify source

The Verifier pairs v. 20 with Genesis 16:14 on the strength of בֶּרֶד (Bered, H1260), a lexeme that occurs in only two verses in the whole Hebrew Bible. That rarity looks like strong evidence, and it is worth saying plainly that it is not. Genesis 16:14 uses Bered as a landmark near Beer-lahai-roi in the desert of Shur; 1 Chronicles 7:20 uses it as a man's name in Ephraim. Strong's itself defines H1260 as "Bered, the name of a place south of Palestine, also of an Israelite," that is, two unrelated referents under one form. Ellicott records the Genesis location and then suspects that the Bered of this verse is a mistake for Becher, the name that stands in the Numbers 26:35 parallel. ⚙ The Verifier's computed basis is accurate as a lexeme match and misleading as a connection, and the flag belongs on our claim, not on the data.

Genesis 16:14

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H1260 Bered (in 2 vv). The frequency is as rare as it gets, but the two occurrences are a Negeb landmark and an Ephraimite personal name, and Ellicott judges the personal name may be a textual error for Becher. Flagged because the computed basis cannot distinguish homonymy from dependence.

Joshua son of Nun, and the name carried into Greek typological

The list closes on יְהוֹשֻׁעַ (H3091, Yᵉhôwshûwaʻ), whom Strong's defines simply as "Jehoshua," the man Numbers 13:16 records as renamed by Moses. In the Greek Old Testament and in the New Testament that name is written Iēsous, which is why Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8 speak of the conquest leader with the same letters used for Jesus of Nazareth. ⚙ This is a cross-Testament link and therefore cannot rest on shared Strong's numbers: Hebrew and Greek lexemes are not comparable, and the Verifier supplies no basis for it. What can be stated is the structural fact that the chronicler's Ephraim register terminates in the man who brought Israel into the land, and that the Greek tradition transliterated his name into the name later borne by Christ. Hebrews 4:8 makes that very coincidence its argument, that if Joshua had given them rest God would not have spoken of another day.

Numbers 13:16 · Acts 7:45 · Hebrews 4:8

basis: No shared Strong's lexeme is possible across Hebrew and Greek, so no verbal tier is claimed. The link is the ancient and widely-held reading of Hebrews 4:8 and Acts 7:45, where the Greek form of Joshua's name is used and the author argues from the insufficiency of Joshua's rest. Treated as figural, not lexical.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The register ends where the rest was not given ancient/widely-held

⚙ Every "his son" in this unit is pointed at one man: יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בְּנוֹ, Joshua his son, the last word of the list. Gill traces the chain to him; K&D notes that these verses enumerate the ancestors of Joshua the son of Nun, who brought Israel into the land of Canaan; Ellicott traces the ancestry through seven or eight generations to Rephah. The chronicler is telling a returned and landless people that the man who first gave them the land came out of a household that had been robbed, bereaved, and named after its grief.

The apostolic writers pick up exactly this figure and say it was not enough. Hebrews 4:8 argues that if Joshua had given them rest, God would not afterward have spoken of another day; Acts 7:45 places Joshua in Stephen's survey of a people always arriving and never settled. The Greek text writes Joshua's name as Iēsous, so the argument is made in the very letters of the name. This is the ancient and widely-held reading, not a novelty: the New Testament itself performs it.

Hebrews 4:8 · Acts 7:45 · Numbers 13:16

A son given after the breach novel

⚙ Ephraim loses sons to a raid, mourns many days, is comforted by his brothers, and then a son is born whom he names Beriah כִּי בְרָעָה הָיְתָה בְּבֵיתוֹ, because evil was in his house. Benson draws the pastoral shape of it: when God restores comfort to his mourners he makes glad according to the days wherein he afflicted, and yet the joy of a birth could not make the man forget his grief, so the name itself keeps the wound. The Hebrew keeps both facts in one clause: the son is real and the evil is named.

⚙ The pattern of a son named out of a mother's or father's anguish is not unique here. Genesis 35:18 has Rachel name her child Ben-oni, son of my sorrow, and his father rename him Benjamin. ⚙ The reading offered is that the gospel does not cancel this pattern but terminates it: Isaiah 53:3 names a man of sorrows, and 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 makes the God of all comfort the one who comforts us in our affliction. This is the tool's own framing, not a line drawn by any commentator in this brief, and it should be weighed as such. What is sourced is Benson's reading of the naming; the extension to Christ is ours.

Genesis 35:18 · Isaiah 53:3 · 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

The ascent that a woman built novel

Sheerah builds Lower and Upper Beth-horon, the two ends of the pass from the plain into the hill country. Ellicott and K&D both attach the site to Joshua 10:10, where the LORD discomfits the Amorite kings and Israel chases them by the way that goes up to Beth-horon; the hailstones fall on that same descent in the next verse. ⚙ The register records that the road on which that victory ran was built, or rebuilt and fortified, by a daughter of Ephraim whose name the chronicler preserved when he preserved almost nothing else about her. Ellicott compares her to Achsah at Joshua 15:19, a woman who asks for and receives ground.

⚙ Redemptive-historically, the observation offered is modest and is ours, not the commentators': the way into the inheritance is prepared before the conqueror arrives, and it is prepared by someone the genealogy had no obligation to name. Barnes prefers to read "she built" as "her descendants built," and the reader should know that the grammar, a feminine singular verb, resists him. This is a novel framing, marked as such.

Joshua 10:10 · Joshua 15:19 · 1 Kings 9:17

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. Scripture text is the Berean Standard Bible (CC0); the word-level data, Strong's numbers and parsings are from the Berean interlinear as supplied in the brief. The commentary quoted under ✦ is verbatim public-domain material, resolved from the raw sources by anchor rather than retyped. Everything marked ⚙ is this tool's own fallible synthesis.

What is genuinely uncertain here, and it is a great deal. Pulpit's verdict on vv. 20-27 is the plainest in the brief: the passage is evidently mutilated and corrupt, and it is impossible to solve with any certainty the involved question of chronology and genealogy it presents. The specific unresolved points are these. (1) Whether the names of vv. 20-21 are successive generations (Gill, Poole's first option) or co-ordinate sons and clans (Barnes, K&D, Cambridge, Ellicott). (2) Whether the Ephraim who mourns in v. 22 is the patriarch born in Egypt, still living (Gill, JFB), or the tribe personified in its ancestor long after his death (Cambridge, Ellicott). (3) Who raided whom: the Ephraimites descending on Gath (Ellicott, Poole, Benson) or the men of Gath descending on Goshen (Gill, JFB, Pulpit's alternative), a question that turns on rendering kî as "because" or "when." (4) Whether vv. 25-27 continue from Beriah (Gill, Ellicott) or resume from v. 21 (Pulpit's suggestion). This unit does not adjudicate any of them.

Textual variant at v. 28. The last place-name is read by many editions, the Septuagint, Vulgate and Targum as ʻAzzāh, Gaza, and the brief's interlinear carries H5804 ʻAzzâh. Cambridge notes that the Philistine Gaza can hardly be intended in a list of Ephraimite cities and that some Hebrew manuscripts read Ayyah, partly supported by Septuagint B; K&D says flatly that ʻAzzāh is an error of transcribers and printers and that the more accurate manuscripts read ʻawwāh; Poole and Benson instead take the preceding particle ʻad as part of the name and read Adasa. BSB prints "Ayyah." We have not adjudicated, and the note keys and glosses follow the interlinear as given.

Capped source. The K&D entry on this unit is capped in the brief with roughly 3,500 further characters unread. Our quotations from K&D are taken only from the visible portion, and no claim is made about what the remainder argues.

Two source oddities worth naming. The Ellicott entry at v. 26 prints "Blishama" where "Elishama" is meant, an optical-character error in the public-domain transcription, preserved verbatim in the quotation because we do not alter sources. Ellicott's identification of Resheph as a title of the Phoenician Baal at v. 25 is his own comparative-Semitic claim and is not supported by the Strong's gloss in this brief, which gives only the personal name; it is reported as his and flagged for the reader.

Thread bases. All verbal and structural thread bases are the Verifier's computed shared lexemes with their frequencies, quoted in each badge. The Genesis 16:14 pairing is flagged because a rare shared lexeme can indicate homonymy rather than dependence, and here it almost certainly does. The Joshua and Hebrews link carries no lexeme basis at all, since Hebrew and Greek Strong's numbers are not comparable, and it is tiered typological for that reason.

✦ = 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)