1 Chronicles 26:4-8
1Ch 26:4-7 Obed-edom’s family. Obed-edom has been already mentioned in 1Ch 16:38 and 1Ch 15:24 as doorkeeper; see the commentary on the passage. From our passage we learn that Obed-edom belonged to the Kohathite family of the Korahites. According to 1Ch 26:19, the doorkeepers were Korahites and Merarites. The Merarites, however, are only treated of from 1Ch 26:10 and onwards. אדם וּלעבד (1Ch 26:4) corresponds to ולמשׁלמיהוּ (1Ch 26:2), and is consequently thereby brought under לקּרהים (1Ch 26:1). Here, 1Ch 26:4, 1Ch 26:5, eight sons with whom God had blessed him (cf. 1Ch 13:14), and in 1Ch 26:6 and 1Ch 26:7 his grandchildren, are enumerated. The verb נולד is used in the singular, with a subject following in the plural, as frequently (cf. Ew. §316, a). The grandchildren of Obed-edom by his first-born son Shemaiah are characterized as המּמשׁלים, the dominions, i.e., the lords (rulers) of the house of their fathers (ממשׁל, the abstract dominion, for the concrete משׁל; cf. Ew. §160, b), because they were חיל גּבּורי, valiant heroes, and so qualified for the office of doorkeepers. In the enumeration in 1Ch 26:7, the omission of the ו cop. with אחיו אלזבד is strange; probably we must supply ו before both words, and take them thus: And Elzabad and his brethren, valiant men, (viz.) Elihu and Semachiah. For the conjecture that the names of the אחיו are not given (Berth.) is not a very probable one. 1Ch 26:8-9 The whole number of doorkeepers of Obed-edom’s family, his sons and brethren, was sixty-two; able men with strength for the service. The singular חיל אישׁ, after the preceding plural, is most simply explained by taking it to be in apposition to the כּל at the beginning of the verse, by repeating כּל mentally before אישׁ. - In 1Ch 26:9 the number of Meshelemiah’s sons and brothers is brought in in a supplementary way.
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