12. and Janai, and Shaphat] LXX. “Janin the scribe”; Targum, “Janai the judge.”
of their fathers’ houses] This rather awkward phrase means clans or patriarchal families (πατριαί). Sometimes it is used to denote the whole tribe, compare Numbers xvii. 17.
¹⁶And they dwelt in Gilead in Bashan, and in her towns[¹], and in all the suburbs[²] of Sharon, as far as their borders[³].
[¹] Hebrew daughters.
[²] Or, pasture lands
[³] Hebrew goings forth.
16. in Gilead in Bashan] a contradictory phrase, since Gilead means the southern and Bashan the northern part of Israel’s trans-Jordanic territory. Perhaps in Bashan is here an addition made by the Chronicler or a later hand to harmonise in Gilead (the territory usually assigned to Gad—see note on verse 11 above) with verses 11 and 23. The emendation “in Gilead in Jabesh” has been suggested.
Sharon] some place, unidentified, to the east of Jordan. LXX. (B) has Sirion. (The well-known Sharon lay in the maritime plain between Joppa and Caesarea.)
¹⁷All these were reckoned by genealogies in the days of Jotham king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam king of Israel.
17. reckoned by genealogies ... and in the days of Jeroboam] “Reckoning by genealogy” is a phrase used only in the writings of the Chronicler (Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah), but the practice probably resembled what is called in other books “numbering the people”: see the example in Nehemiah vii. 5–65. The object however was different and corresponded with the circumstances of the returned exiles, who found themselves in the midst of a Gentile population in Judea. The people were “reckoned by genealogy” not so much to take a census of them, as to inquire into the purity of their Israelite descent. The ancient term “numbering” would be a more suitable description of a transaction belonging to the days of Jotham. For Jotham see 2 Chronicles xxvii. and for Jeroboam 2 Kings xiv. 23–29. The last years of the reign of Jeroboam II probably synchronized with part of the reign of Jotham.