their number] i.e. of the divisions which claimed Tola as ancestor.
in the days of David] xxi. 1 ff. (= 2 Samuel xxiv. 1 ff.).
³And the sons of Uzzi; Izrahiah: and the sons of Izrahiah; Michael, and Obadiah, and Joel, Isshiah, five: all of them chief men.
3. five] i.e. reckoning the four grandsons as sons.
⁴And with them, by their generations, after their fathers’ houses, were bands of the host for war, six and thirty thousand: for they had many wives and sons.
4. by their generations] i.e. according to descent. Each head commanded men that were his kinsfolk.
⁵And their brethren among all the families of Issachar, mighty men of valour, reckoned in all by genealogy, were fourscore and seven thousand.
5. fourscore and seven thousand] In Numbers ii. 6 Issachar is reckoned at 54,400, and in Numbers xxvi. 25 at 64,300.
6–12.
The Genealogy of Zebulun.
6–12. According to the existing text these verses are a genealogy of Benjamin; but, as such, they present most serious difficulties. Notice (1) that the customary “sons of” is lacking in the Hebrew text before Benjamin: (2) that the sons of Benjamin here number three, whereas in Numbers xxvi. 38, 39, they are five (five also in 1 Chronicles viii. 2!), and in Genesis xlii. 21 ten; and further that one of the sons here mentioned, Jediael, is nowhere else referred to as a Benjamite: (3) that the sons of Bela (verse 7) are entirely different in viii. 3: and (4) that in general the names in the list (with only three certain exceptions and two of them place-names) are not elsewhere found in lists of Benjamite names—a startling fact. (5) Finally and most important of all, a genealogy of Benjamin is given in chapter viii., exactly where we might expect to find it according to the order in which the Chronicler describes the tribes.