1 Chronicles 7:21

And Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son, and Ezer, and Elead, whom the men of Gath that were born in that land slew, because they came down to take away their cattle.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

THE TRIBE OF EPHRAIM (1Chronicles 7:20-29).

Shuthelah (Numbers 26, 35) was head of the first of the four Ephraimitic clans (mishpehôth). The names of six successive chieftains of his line appear to be given in 1Chronicles 7:20-21, ending with his namesake Shuthelah. It is likely, however, that these names really represent clans, as in other similar cases. (Comp. Numbers 26:29-33.) “Bered” (Genesis 16:14) is a local name, a place in the desert of Shûr. But Bered may be a mistake for Becher. So “Tahath” (Numbers 33:26) was a desert station of Israel. But Tahath may well be a corruption of Tahan, son of Ephraim (1Chronicles 7:25, and Numbers 26:35).

(21) Ezer and Elead.—Apparently these names are coordinated with the Shuthelah of 1Chronicles 7:20, as sons of Ephraim. Elead is a masculine form of Eleadah.

Whom the men of Gath. . . .—Literally, and the men of Gath who were born in the land slew them; for they had come down to take their cattle.

Born in the land—That is, aborigines of Canaan as contrasted with the Ephraimites, who were foreign invaders. Others think the real aborigines of Philistia, the Avim of Deuteronomy 2:23, are meant. 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.

They came down.—The reference of the pronoun is not quite clear. Conceivably the Gittites were the aggressors. The expression “carne down” is often used of going from Canaan to Egypt, but not vice versa. It can hardly, therefore, apply to an invasion of Gath by Ephraimites from Egypt. And the phrase “born in the land” excludes an expedition of Gittites to Goshen. It seems, then, that the descent was made upon Philistia from the hill country of Ephraim, in the early days of the settlement of the tribe in Canaan.

Benson Commentary

1 Chronicles 7:21. Whom the men of Gath slew — This history is not recorded elsewhere in Scripture, but it is in the ancient Hebrew writers. The Philistines (one of whose cities Gath was) and the Egyptians were next neighbours; and in those ancient times it was usual for such to make inroads one into another’s country, and to carry thence what prey they could take. And as the Philistines had probably made such inroads formerly into Egypt, and particularly into the land of Goshen, which was the utmost part of Egypt bordering upon the Philistines’ land; so the Israelites might requite them in the like kind: and particularly the children of Ephraim, to their own loss. And this seems to have happened a little before the Egyptian persecution, and before the reign of that new king mentioned Exodus 1:8. And this clause, that were born in the land, may be added emphatically, as the motive which made them more resolute in their fight with the Ephraimites, because they fought in and for their own land, wherein all their wealth and concerns lay.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:1-40 Genealogies. - Here is no account either of Zebulun or Dan. We can assign no reason why they only should be omitted; but it is the disgrace of the tribe of Dan, that idolatry began in that colony which fixed in Laish, and called it Dan, Jud 18 and there one of the golden calves was set up by Jeroboam. Dan is omitted, Re 7. Men become abominable when they forsake the worship of the true God, for any creature object.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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. The passage would then run thusly:

"And the sons of Ephraim, Shuthelah (and Bered was his son, and Tahath his son and Eladah his son, and Tahath his son, and Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son) and Ezer and Elead, whom the men of Gath slew" (i. e. the settled inhabitants, as contrasted with the nomadic Hebrews, Amalekites, etc.).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

21. whom the men of Gath … slew, &c.—This interesting little episode gives us a glimpse of the state of Hebrew society in Egypt; for the occurrence narrated seems to have taken place before the Israelites left that country. The patriarch Ephraim was then alive, though he must have arrived at a very advanced age; and the Hebrew people, at all events those of them who were his descendants, still retained their pastoral character. It was in perfect consistency with the ideas and habits of Oriental shepherds that they should have made a raid on the neighboring tribe of the Philistines for the purpose of plundering their flocks. For nothing is more common among them than hostile incursions on the inhabitants of towns, or on other nomad tribes with whom they have no league of amity. But a different view of the incident is brought out, if, instead of "because," we render the Hebrew particle "when" they came down to take their cattle, for 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. 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 (Job 2:11; compare Joh 11:19).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This history is not recorded elsewhere in Scripture, but it is in the ancient Hebrew writers, though mixed with many fables. The Philistines (one of whose cities this Gath was) and the Egyptians were next neighbours; and in those ancient times it was usual for such to make inroads one into another’s country, and to carry thence what prey they could take, as we find both in Scripture and in profane writers. And as the Philistines had probably made such inroads formerly into Egypt, and particularly into the land of Goshen, which was the utmost part of Egypt bordering upon the Philistines’ land; so the Israelites might requite them in the like kind: and particularly the children of Ephraim, either presuming upon their numbers and strength, or having possibly received the greatest injury from the Philistines in their last invasion, might make an attempt upon the Philistines to their own great loss, as is here related. And this seems to have happened a little before the Egyptian persecution, and before the reign of that new king mentioned Exodus 1:8. The Philistines are here called

the men of Gath, either because they were subject to the king of Gath, as afterwards that people were, or because they lived about Gath. And this clause,

that were born in that land, may be added emphatically, as the motive which made them more resolute and furious in their fight with the Ephraimites, because they fought in and for their own land, wherein all their wealth and concerns lay, and against those that unjustly endeavoured to turn them out of their native country.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And Zabad his son,.... Not the son of Tahath the second last mentioned, but the son of Ephraim, a second son of his:

and Shuthelah; his son, the son of Zabad, called after his uncle's name, 1 Chronicles 7:20.

and Ezer, and Elead; two other sons of Zabad:

whom the men of Gath that were born in that land slew: that is, Zabad and his three sons; these the men of Gath slew, who were Philistines that dwelt there, and were originally of Egypt, and were born in that land, but had removed into Palestine, which had its name from them, of which Gath was one of its cities; and this bordering upon the land of Goshen, or being near it, where the Israelites dwelt, they made inroads upon them, and plundered them:

because they came down to take away their cattle; and the sons, the grandsons of Ephraim, resisted them, and so were slain: and that the aggressors were not the Ephraimites, who went out of Egypt before their time, and fell upon the men of Gath, born in the land of the Philistines, in order to dispossess them of their land and substance, and were slain by them, which is the sense of the Targum and other writers, both Jewish and Christian; but the men of Gath, as is clear from this circumstance, that they

came down, as men did when they went from Palestine to Egypt, not when they went from Egypt to Palestine, then they "went up"; which would have been the phrase used, if this had been an expedition of the Ephraimites into Palestine; besides, it is not reasonable to think, that the Ephraimites, addicted to husbandry and cattle, and not used to war, should engage in such an enterprise; but rather the men of Gath, or the Philistines, who were a warlike people, and given to spoil and plunder; this, according to a learned chronologer (l), was seventy four years after Jacob went down to Egypt, and one hundred and forty years before the children of Israel came from thence.

(l) Nic. Abrami Pharus, l. 9. c. 21. p. 242.

Geneva Study Bible

And Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son, and Ezer, and Elead, whom the men of {i} Gath that were born in that land slew, because they came down to take away their cattle.

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

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21. they came down] This phrase suits a descent from the hills of Ephraim, but not an invasion from Goshen. It therefore occurred probably after Israel was settled in Canaan, i.e. long after Ephraim was dead, and the conduct ascribed to Ephraim in 1 Chronicles 7:22-23 must be understood of the tribe personified in its ancestor. The clan Beriah became prominent after disaster had befallen the clans Ezer and Elead.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 21. - Because they - i.e, the men of Ephraim - came down to take away their cattle. This certainly may be translated, when they (i.e. the men of Gath) came down (i.e. into Goshen) to plunder their cattle (i.e. the cattle of Ephraim). 1 Chronicles 7:21

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The families of Ephraim. - 1 Chronicles 7:20. Among the Ephraimites, the descendants of Shuthelah, the founder of one of the chief families of this tribe, Numbers 26:35, are traced down through six generations to a later Shuthelah. The names ואלעד ועזר which follow בּנו שׁוּתלח, "And his son Shuthelah," after which בּנו is wanting, are not to be considered descendants of the second Shuthelah, but are heads of a family co-ordinate with that of Shuthelah, or of two fathers'-houses intimately connected with each other. These names are to be taken as a continuation of the list of the sons of Ephraim, which commenced with שׁוּתלח. The suffix in והרגוּם refers to both these names: "The men of Gath, that were born in the land, smote Ezer and Elead." These "men born in the land" Ewald and Bertheau take to be the Avvites, the aboriginal inhabitants of that district of country, who had been extirpated by the Philistines emigrating from Caphtor (Deuteronomy 2:23). But there is no sufficient ground for this supposition; for no proof can be brought forward that the Avvaeans (Avvites) had ever spread so far as Gath; and the Philistines had taken possession of the south-west part of Canaan as early as the time of Abraham, and consequently long before Ephraim's birth. "The men of Gath who were born in the land" are rather the Canaanite or Philistine inhabitants of Gath, as distinguished from the Israelites, who had settled in Canaan only under Joshua. "For they (Ezer and Elead) had come down to take away their cattle" (to plunder). The older commentators assign this event to the time that Israel dwelt in Egypt (Ewald, Gesch. i. S. 490), or even to the pre-Egyptian time. But Bertheau has, in opposition to this, justly remarked that the narratives of Genesis know nothing of a stay of the progenitors of the tribe of Ephraim in the land of Palestine before the migration of Israel into Egypt, for Ephraim was born in Egypt (Genesis 46:20). It would be more feasible to refer it to the time of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, as it is not impossible that the Israelites may have undertaken predatory expeditions against Canaan from Goshen; but even this supposition is not at all probable. Certainly, if in 1 Chronicles 7:23-27 it were said, as Ewald thinks, that Ephraim, after the mourning over the sons thus slain, became by his wife the father of three other sons, from the last named of whom Joshua was descended in the seventh generation, we should be compelled to refer the expedition to the pre-Egyptian period. But the opinion that Rephah and Resheph, 1 Chronicles 7:25, were begotten only after that misfortune has no foundation. Moreover, the statement that Ephraim, after he was comforted for the loss of his slain sons, went in unto his wife and begat a son, to whom he gave the name Beriah, because he was born in misfortune in his house, does not at all presuppose that the patriarch Ephraim was still alive when Ezer and Elead were slain. Were that the case, the necessary result would of course be, that this event could only be referred to the time when the Israelites dwelt in Egypt. In opposition to this, Bertheau's remark that the event in that case would be per se enigmatical, as we would rightly have great hesitation in accepting the supposition of a war, or rather a plundering expedition to seize upon cattle carried out by the Ephraimites whilst they dwelt in Egypt, against the inhabitants of the Philistine city of Gath, is certainly not all decisive, for we know far too little about those times to be able to judge of the possibility or probability of such an expedition.

The decision to which we must come as to this obscure matter depends, in the first place, on how the words וגו ירדוּ כּי are to be understood; whether we are to translate "for they had gone," or "when they had gone down to fetch their cattle," i.e., to plunder. If we take the כּי par partic. ration., for, because, we can only take the sons of Ephraim, Ezer and Elead, for the subject of ירדוּ, and we must understand the words to mean that they had gone down to carry off the cattle of the Gathites. In that case, the event would fall in the time when the Ephraimites dwelt in Canaan, and went down from Mount Ephraim into the low-lying Gath, for a march out of Egypt into Canaan is irreconcilable with the verb ירד. If, on the contrary, we translate ירדוּ כּי "when they had gone down," we might then gather from the words that men of Gath went down to Goshen, there to drive away the cattle of the Ephraimites, in which case the Gathites may have slain the sons of Ephraim when they were feeding their cattle and defending them against the robbers. Many of the old commentators have so understood the words; but we cannot hold this to be the correct interpretation, for it deprives the words "those born in the land," which stand in apposition to גת אנשׁי, of all meaning, since there can be absolutely no thought of men of Gath born in Egypt. We therefore take the words to mean, that the sons of Ephraim who are named in our verse attempted to drive away the cattle of the Gathites, and were by them slain in the attempt. But how can the statement that Ephraim after this unfortunate event begat another son, Beriah, be reconciled with such a supposition, since the patriarch Ephraim was dead long before the Israelites came forth out of Egypt. Bertheau understands the begetting figuratively, of the whole of the tribe of Ephraim, or of a small Ephraimite family, which at first was not numbered with the others, into the number of the famous families of this tribe. But this straining of the words by an allegorical interpretation is not worthy of serious refutation, since it is manifestly only a makeshift to get rid of the difficulty. The words, "And Ephraim went in unto his wife, and she conceived and bare a son," are not to be interpreted allegorically, but must be taken in their proper sense; and the solution of the enigma will be found in the name Ephraim. If this be taken to denote the actual son of Joseph, then the event is incomprehensible; but just as a descendant of Shuthelah in the sixth generation was also called Shuthelah, so also might a descendant of the patriarch Ephraim, living at a much later time, have received the name of the progenitor of the tribe; and if we accept this supposition, the event, with all its issues, is easily explained. If Ezer and Elead went down from Mount Ephraim to Gath, they were not actual sons of Ephraim, but merely later descendants; and their father, who mourned for their death, was not Ephraim the son of Joseph, who was born in Egypt, but an Ephraimite who lived after the Israelites had taken possession of the land of Canaan, and who bore Ephraim's name. He may have mourned for the death of his sons, and after he had been comforted for their loss, may have gone in unto his wife, and have begotten a son with her, to whom he gave the name Beriah, "because it was in misfortune in his house," i.e., because this son was born when misfortune was in his house.