1 Chronicles5chapter 5

1 Chronicles 5:1-2

Reuben was Israel's firstborn, but Genesis 49:4 already marked him unstable as water for defiling his father's bed, and Chronicles states the consequence in genealogical terms: his birthright passed to Joseph's sons while Judah took the standing of chief ruler. Clarke notes that the Syriac, the Arabic and the Chaldee paraphrase all read the chief ruler as pointing toward the Messiah out of Judah, though the Chronicler himself draws only the immediate line to David's house. The tribal order of the whole book, Judah named first in chapter 2 though not the firstborn, rests on these two verses.

1 Chronicles 5:3-10

The list runs Reuben's line down to Beerah, prince of the Reubenites when Tiglath-pileser of Assyria carried him captive, so the genealogy itself reaches forward to the exile the chapter names again at its close. Between the names sits one clause of history: in the days of Saul the tribe warred against the Hagarites and took their land east of Jordan, in Gilead, where their herds had already multiplied. Wesley and Barnes both note gaps in the line, since nine generations from Joel to Beerah cannot span the centuries from Saul to Tiglath-pileser without the omissions ancient genealogies regularly keep.

1 Chronicles 5:11-17

Gad settled across from Reuben in Bashan, the tableland running to Salchah, and verse 17 says the line was reckoned twice over, once under Jotham king of Judah and once under Jeroboam king of Israel. Barnes reads the double dating as a sign that Judah still exercised some claim over the tribes east of Jordan in that period, even after the kingdom split. Gad's towns reached into the suburbs of Sharon, a name shared with the coastal plain near Joppa but here marking a district of Bashan itself.

1 Chronicles 5:18-22

Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh mustered forty and four thousand seven hundred and threescore men able to bear the buckler, the sword and the bow, and threw that strength against the Hagarites and their allies Jetur, Nephish and Nodab. Verse 20 gives the victory its true cause: they cried to God in the battle and he was entreated of them, because they put their trust in him, and verse 22 restates it plainly, the war was of God. Wesley draws the lesson direct, an army may expect to prosper in any undertaking only when it takes God along, and Henry reads the answered cry as proof that believing prayer is the prayer that prevails.

1 Chronicles 5:23-24

Half the tribe of Manasseh held the ground from Bashan north to Mount Hermon under its several names, Baal-hermon and Senir, and the chapter names seven heads of households as mighty men of valor and famous men. Gill reads the growth from Bashan as expansion within the territory Moses already assigned the half tribe, not a fresh conquest. The list stays short because the tribe's own story in this book is short, two verses of standing before the transgression that closes the chapter.

1 Chronicles 5:25-26

The chapter that opened with the tribes crying to God in battle and being entreated closes with their transgression: they went whoring after the gods of the peoples God had destroyed before them, worshipping the idols of the very nations whose land they had taken. The Lord stirred the spirit of Pul and of Tiglath-pileser, kings of Assyria, and Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh became the first of Israel's tribes carried into exile, settled by the river Gozan unto this day. Henry reads the tribes that chose the best land east of Jordan, most exposed and most mixed with the nations around them, as for that same reason the first tribes lost.