1 Chronicleschapter 1
54 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
Key verse
Adam, Sheth, Enosh,
It stands in From Adam to Noah's three sons, verses 1 to 4.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The Chronicler opens not with a story but with a lineage, and it starts at the beginning: 'Adam, Seth, Enosh', nine chapters of names that root the returned exiles in the whole human race. Noah's three sons branch into the table of nations; Shem's line narrows to Abraham. Then the deliberate pattern of the book appears: the side branches are listed and released (Ishmael's twelve princes, Keturah's sons, Esau's chiefs and the kings that reigned in Edom 'before there reigned any king over the children of Israel') so that the line of promise can run on alone. Genealogy here is theology: God has been narrowing toward a family, a tribe, a king.
Context
History · Ezra · 1 Chronicles overview
The world behind this chapter
1 Chronicles 1The history
The chapter belongs to the compiler rather than to any man inside it. He is a scribe with archives in front of him, and every name he writes already stood in Genesis, the line from Adam, the table of the seventy nations, the sons of Abraham by Keturah, the sons of Ishmael and the chiefs of Edom. He copies his sources and leaves them visible, which is how a careful archivist worked.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The setting is post-exilic Jerusalem, a small province the Persians called Yehud, a few days' walk across. The occasion is a community that had come home and needed its records rebuilt.
In the ancient Near East a family list was a legal document. Land passed by descent, priestly service was restricted by descent, and a clan's right to a village rested on a name in a register. Temple and palace archives kept such lists on scrolls, and copying them forward was ordinary administrative work.
Ezra 2:61 to 63 records families who came home from Babylon, searched for their entry and could not find it, and were kept from the priesthood until a ruling could be made. A missing name meant a lost livelihood.
The Edomite king list at the close follows a form used across the region, a run of rulers with their cities named, the way Mesopotamian and Egyptian scribes kept their own king lists. Eight men reigned in Edom before any king reigned over the Israelites.
What it meant to them
A people living in one small province needed to know where it stood in the world, and the register answers by starting at Adam. Israel and the nations come out of the same first family, and the chapter names the nations before it names the tribe.
The closing list carries a quiet warning as well. Edom had kings and cities generations before Israel did, so arriving first and being chosen are two different things.
Sources cited
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- Gary Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 1-9 , Anchor Bible, 2003
Where the chapter sits
1 Chronicles 1 falls in Genealogies from Adam to Saul (chapters 1–9). The longest single genealogical block in Scripture; the Davidic-line focus; the Levitical emphasis; the post-exilic returnee list (ch. 9).
After it: David's reign: temple-framed, chapters 10–29.
The whole shape of 1 Chronicles→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. From Adam to Noah's three sonsvv. 1-4
Adam, Sheth, Enosh: No book of Scripture opens more abruptly: one word, Adam, and the whole primeval history compressed into a column of ten names from Adam to Noah. The list is Gen 5's chosen line with Cain's line silently omitted, which announces the Chronicler's method before he states it: he traces the thread that leads to David and the temple and lets everything else fall away. A remnant home from Babylon is being told its story starts at the first man.
1 Chronicles 1:1
“Adam, Sheth, Enosh - That is, Adam was the father of Sheth or Seth. Seth was the father of Enosh, Enosh the father of Kenan, and so on. No notice is taken of Cain and Abel, or of any of the other sons of Adam. One line of patriarchs, from Adam to Noah, is what the historian intended to give; and to have mentioned the posterity of Cain or Abel would have been useless, as Noah was not the immediate descendant of either.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:4
“Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth--The three sons of this patriarch are enumerated, partly because they were the founders of the new world, and partly because the fulfilment of Noah's prophecy (Ge 9:25-27) could not otherwise appear to have been verified.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
B. The nations spread from Japheth, Ham, and Shem
1. (vv. 5-7)
1 Chronicles 1:5
“The sons of Japheth, Gomer,.... Here begins the genealogy of the sons of Noah after the flood; of the sons of Japheth the elder, in this and the two following verses; next of the sons of Ham, the younger brother, 1Ch 1:8, then of Shem, whose posterity are mentioned last, because from him, in the line of Heber, sprang Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish nation, of whom the Messiah was to come, for whose sake this genealogy is given, 1Ch 1:17. The whole is the same with the account in Gen 10:1.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 1:5
After Tiras, the Targum adds, “And the names of their countries were Africa, and Germany, and Media, and Macedonia, Bithynia, and Maesia, and Thrace.” And in another copy, “Germany, Getia, and Media, and Ephesus, Bithynia, and Maesia, and Thrace.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:6
“To this verse the Targum adds, “And the names of their countries were Asia, and Persia, and Barbary.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:7
“The sons of Javan - “But the sons of Macedon, Alsu, and Tarsus, Ilation, and Dardania, or, according to others, Elisha, Alam, Titsas, Achzavia, and Dardania, Ridom, and Chamen, and Antioch.” So says this Targum, which I shall henceforth designate by the letter T.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The sons of Japheth: The table of nations from Gen 10 begins, condensed and unglossed: Japheth's line, the coastland and northern peoples, Gomer and Magog and Javan among them. Chronicles keeps the whole human map in front of Israel before narrowing to Israel, so the election it traces sits inside a world it has named.
2. (vv. 8-16)
1 Chronicles 1:8
“The sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim - “Arabia and Egypt.” - T.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:9
“Seba, and Havilah - “Sindi and Hindi, and Semadaei, and Libyes and the Zingitae; but the sons of the Mauritanians, Demargad and Mesag.” - T.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:10
“He began to be mighty upon the earth - “He began to be bold in sin, a murderer of the innocent, and a rebel before the Lord.” - T.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:12
“Casluhim (of whom came the Philistines), and Caphtorim--a better rendering is, "and Casluhim, of whom came the Philistim and Caphtorim." They were brethren, the sons of Casluhim, and at first dwelt together, whence their names are used interchangeably. The Caphtorim are described as inhabiting Azzah, or Gaza, the seat of the Philistines.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Chronicles 1:13
“Canaan begat Zidon - “Canaan begat Bothniam, his first-born, who built Sidon.” - T.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:16
The Zemarite - See Gen 10:18 note. The inscriptions of the Assyrian monarch, Sargon, (720 B.C.) mention Zimira, which is joined with Arpad (Arvad); and there can be little doubt that it is the city indicated by the term “Zemarite.”
The sons of Ham: In fifty-four verses of names the narrator breaks pattern only twice, and the first is here: Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be mighty upon the earth, one clause of story kept from Gen 10:8 while everything around it is trimmed to names. What survives the Chronicler's compression is by that fact marked as freight. The line runs on through Mizraim and Canaan, whose peoples fill the conquest narratives already built.
3. (vv. 17-23)
1 Chronicles 1:17
“The sons of Shem - i. e., descendants. Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshech (or Mash), are stated to have been “sons of Aram” Gen 10:23. Meshech is the reading of all the MSS., and is supported by the Septuagint here and in Gen 10:23. It seems preferable to “Mash,” which admits of no very probable explanation.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 1:17
“The great promise of the Messiah (says bishop Patrick) was translated from Adam to Seth, from him to Shem, from him to Eber, and so to the Hebrew nation, who were entrusted, above all nations, with that sacred treasure, till the promise was performed and the Messiah had come, and then that nation was made not a people.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Chronicles 1:19
“The name of the one was Peleg - “Because in his days the inhabitants of the earth were divided according to their languages. And the name of his brother was Joktan, because in his days the years of men began to be shortened, on account of their iniquities.” - T.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:20
“Joktan begat Almodad - “He divided and measured the earth by lines. Sheleph; he assigned rivers to be boundaries. Hazarmaveth; he prepared a place of snares to kill by the highways. Jerah; he built inns, and when any person came to eat and drink, he gave him deadly poison, and so took his property.” - T. According to these traditions, the two first were geographers; the third, a public robber; and the fourth, an unprincipled innkeeper, who gave poison to his rich guests, that he might get their property. Such things have been done even in modern times.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:23
“And Ophir - “Whence gold is brought.” And Havilah; “whence pearls are brought.” - T.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:17-27
The sons of Shem: Shem's line carries the second narrative flash: Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided, kept from Gen 10:25 with its riddle intact and unexplained here as there. Then the list runs Arphaxad to Abram in the ten-name rhythm of the flood-to-Abraham line, and verse 27 lands the whole chapter's first movement in three words: Abram; the same is Abraham. Two thousand years of Genesis stand behind that semicolon.
C. The line narrows down to Abraham
1. (vv. 24-27)
2. (vv. 28-34)
1 Chronicles 1:28
“Isaac and Ishmael - Isaac, though younger than Ishmael, is placed first, as the legitimate heir, since Sarah alone was Abraham’s true wife (compare the 1Ch 1:36 note).”
1 Chronicles 1:29
“These are their generations - As Shem was reserved until after Japheth and Ham 1Ch 1:5-16, because in him the genealogy was to be continued (Gen 10:2 note), so Isaac is now reserved until the other lines of descent from Abraham have been completed. The same principle gives the descendants of Esau a prior place to those of Jacob 1 Chr. 1:35-51; 1Ch 2:1.”
1 Chronicles 1:30
“Hadad here and in 1Ch 1:50 is the well-known Syrian name, of which Hadar (margin) is an accidental corruption, consequent on the close resemblance between “d” (daleth) and “r” (resh) in Hebrew, the final letters of the two names.”
1 Chronicles 1:32
“Keturah, Abraham’s concubine - Abraham’s pilegesh, or wife of the second rank; she was neither whore, harlot, nor concubine, in our sense of these words.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:33
“The great promise of the Messiah was transmitted from Adam to Seth, from him to Shem, from him to Eber, and so to the Jewish nation, who were intrusted above all nations with that sacred treasure, 'till the promise was performed, and the Messiah was come: and then that nation was made not a people.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The sons of Abraham: The Chronicler's sorting rule shows itself: Ishmael's twelve princes and Keturah's sons are listed first and finished, and then the line the book cares about is taken up last, and Abraham begat Isaac. The non-elect branches are honored with their names and dismissed from the story in the same breath, the pattern Genesis itself set with its toledoth and Esau's list before Jacob's. Nothing is said against the other sons; they are simply not where this book is going.
D. Esau's house and the kings who ruled Edom
1. (vv. 35-42)
1 Chronicles 1:35
“The sons of Esau,.... The firstborn of Isaac; his posterity are named in this and the two following verses, as in Gen 36:1 only it should be observed, that Timna, 1Ch 1:36 is not the name of a man, but was the concubine of Eliphaz, the eldest son of Esau, and the mother of Amalek, Gen 36:12, and so in the Arabic version it is read,"and Timna, which was the concubine of Eliphaz, the son of Esau, bare him Amalek;''and so the Alexandrian copy of the Septuagint.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 1:35
“Some slight differences there are between some of the names here, and as we had them in Gen. xxxvi. , whence this whole account is taken. Three of four names that were written with a Vau there are written with a Jod here, probably the pronunciation being altered, as is usual in other languages.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Chronicles 1:36
Timna - In Gen 36:11, Eliphaz has no son Timna; but he has a concubine of the name, who is the mother of Amalek, and conjectured to be Lotan’s sister 1Ch 1:39. The best explanation is, that the writer has in his mind rather the tribes descended from Eliphaz than his actual children, and as there was a place, Timna, inhabited by his “dukes” (1Ch 1:51; compare Gen. 35:40), he puts the race which lived there among his “sons.”
1 Chronicles 1:38
“And the sons of Seir,.... This man and his posterity were not of the race of Esau, but are mentioned because they were a family into which Esau, and a son of his, married, and whose possessions he and his obtained. The account from hence, to the end of 1Ch 1:42 is the same with Gen 36:20, with some little variation of names.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 1:38
“Seir - One of another nation, prince of the Horims; whose genealogy is here described, because of that affinity which was contracted between his and Esau's posterity; and those who were not united and incorporated with them, were destroyed by them.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:41
“Amram (rather Hamran), and Hemdan (margin), differ in the original by the same letter only which marks the difference in 1Ch 1:30.”
The sons of Esau: Esau's line and Seir's run together as Edom, the brother nation whose whole later history with Israel, from the wilderness refusal to Obadiah's oracle, stands behind a quiet list of names. The same sorting rule holds: Esau before Israel, the passed-over line completed and closed so that chapter 2 can open with the sons of Israel and never look back.
2. (vv. 43-54)
1 Chronicles 1:43
“The slight differences favor the view, that the writer of Chronicles has here, as elsewhere, abridged from Genesis (see the marginal references).”
1 Chronicles 1:44
“Bela was dead - “Being killed by Phineas, in the wilderness.” - T. Jobab the son of Zerah - Supposed by some to be the same as Job, whose book forms a part of the canon of Scripture. But in their names there is no similarity; Job being written איוב aiyob; Jobab, יובב yobab. See the notes on Job, and the parallel place in Genesis.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:46
“Smote Midian - Nothing is known of this war.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:48
“By the river - “Shaul of Plathiutha, a great city, built on the banks of the Euphrates.” - T.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:50
“Daughter of Mezahab - This word מי זהב mey zahab, is literally the golden waters; or What is gold? The Targumist paraphrases thus: “Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred, was so earnest and diligent in business that she became immensely rich; but when she was converted, she said, What is this silver, and What is this gold? That is, They are of no real worth.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:51
“Hadad died - “And his kingdom ended; for his land was subdued by the children of Esau, and the dukes of Edom ruled in the land of Gebala.” - T. For various particulars in this chapter, see Genesis 10 (note) and Genesis 36 (note), and the parallel places.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 1:54
“All these and all theirs had their day; many of them made a mighty noise in the world; until their day came to fall, and their place knew them no more. The paths of death are trodden paths. How soon are we to tread them?”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
before any king reigned: The chapter's last movement repeats Gen 36:31's pointed note: Edom crowned kings before any king reigned over the children of Israel. To a post-exilic reader with no king at all, the sentence carries weight both ways, for the brother nation ran ahead early and its kings are now a closed list of the dead, while the line this book traces is still alive and still carrying a promise. The dukes of Edom close the chapter, and the sons of Israel open the next.
This page carries no textual note on 1 Chronicles 1. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and W. H. Bennett, The Books of Chronicles (Expositor's Bible).