1 Chronicles 7:9

And the number of them, after their genealogy by their generations, heads of the house of their fathers, mighty men of valour, was twenty thousand and two hundred.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) And the number . . .—Render, “And their census (hithyahsâm) according to their birth-rolls, heads of their clans, valiant warriors, was 20,200.” This means that the total number of the warriors of Becher, chiefs with clans, was 20,200. “Their census:” that is, the census of the chiefs who are regarded as one with their clans. Others assume that the names in these registers are merely those of supposed founders of the clans; eponyms like Hellen, Ion, Dorus, &c, or Italus, Latinus, Romulus, and Remus.

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 lists here are remarkably different from those in marginal references Probably the persons here mentioned were not literally "sons," but were among the later descendants of the founders, being the chief men of the family at the time of David's census.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. the sons of Bela—Each of them was chief or leader of the family to which he belonged. In an earlier period seven great families of Benjamin are mentioned (Nu 26:38), five of them being headed by these five sons of Benjamin, and two descended from Bela. Here five families of Bela are specified, whence we are led to conclude that time or the ravages of war had greatly changed the condition of Benjamin, or that the five families of Bela were subordinate to the other great divisions that sprang directly from the five sons of the patriarch.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the number of them,.... Of the posterity of the sons of Becher:

after their genealogy by their generations, heads of the house of their fathers, mighty men of valour; as they increased in succeeding ages, and at the time of David:

was twenty thousand and two hundred.

Geneva Study Bible

And the number of them, after their genealogy by their generations, heads of the house of their fathers, mighty men of valor, was twenty thousand and two hundred.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. the number of them, after their genealogy by their generations] R.V. they were reckoned by genealogy, after their generations.

of the house of their fathers] R.V. of their fathers’ houses.

1 Chronicles 7:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Becher's descendants. Of these nine names there are two, ענתות and עלמת, which occur elsewhere as names of cities (cf. for עלמת in the form עלּמת, 1 Chronicles 6:45; and for ענתות, Joshua 21:18; Isaiah 10:30; Jeremiah 1:1). We may, without doubt, accept the supposition that in these cases the cities received their names from the heads of the families which inhabited them. In 1 Chronicles 7:9, אבותם בּית ראשׁי stands in apposition to, and is explanatory of, לתולדותם: "And their register, according to their generations," viz., according to the generations, that is, the birth-lists, "of the heads of their fathers'-houses, is (amounts to) in valiant heroes 20,200 men."