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1 Kings 4:8

in 1 Kings 4

and these were their names: Ben-hur in the hill country of Ephraim;

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

And these are their names: Ben-hur, in the hill-country of Ephraim;

KJV

And these are their names: The son of Hur, in mount Ephraim:

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This verse in 1 Kings 4

Commentary

6 notes on this verse
And these are their names,.... Or rather the names of their fathers; for of many of them not their own names but their fathers' names are given, as being well known: the son of Hur, in Mount Ephraim; a fruitful country in the tribe of Ephraim, from whence this officer was to furnish the king with provisions for one month in the year.

This site's exposition

twelve governors over all Israel

on 1 Kings 4:7-19

Solomon has “twelve governors over all Israel”, each to “arrange provisions for one month”. The districts mix tribal territory with cities and regions redrawn under the crown. Verse 19 gives Geber the land of Gilead, “including the territories of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan”.

This site's exposition

Ben-hur in the hill country of Ephraim

Ben-hur means son of Hur, and five of the governors are named only by their fathers. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that rural Syria and Arabia still named men as the sons of their fathers. Albert Barnes matches this district to Ephraim.

The record, by era

The Church Fathers1 voice

A commentator

Ephrem the Syrian

ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 4:1 · Written before 373.

The officials elected by Solomon designate the order of the chosen ones whom Christ affirmed in his grace and appointed as rulers of his people. Indeed, twelve prefects were selected to administer the incomes of this king and his house, because just as many apostles …

The Nineteenth Century2 voices

In this arrangement of the territory into twelve portions, the divisions of the tribes seem to have been adopted as far as could be managed without unfairness. The prefecture of Ben-Hur corresponded nearly to the territory of Ephraim; that of Ben-Dekar to Dan; that of Ben-Hesed to Judah; those of Ben-Abinadab and Baana to Cis-Jordanic Manasseh; that of Ben-Geber to Manasseh beyond Jordan; of Abinadab to Gad; of Ahimaaz to Naphtali; of Baanah to Asher; of Jehoshaphat to Issachar; of Shimei to Benjamin; and of Geber to Reuben.

A commentator

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

1802–1910

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)

proposed

The son of Hur--or, as the Margin has it, Benhur, Bendekar. In the rural parts of Syria, and among the Arabs, it is still common to designate persons not by their own names, but as the sons of their fathers.

The words behind it

6 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • וְאֵ֣לֶּהand these

    veelehH428 →746 times

  • שְׁמוֹתָ֔ם[are] names their

    shemotamH8034 →864 times

  • בֶּן־Ben-

    ben-H1133 →

  • ח֖וּרHur

    churH1133 →

  • בְּהַ֥רin [the] hill country of

    beharH2022 →546 times

  • אֶפְרָֽיִם׃ סEphraim

    ʾefrayimH669 →

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Related verses

3 in all, six open

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Judges 19:1

    Now in those days, when there was no king in Israel, a Levite who lived in the remote hill country of Ephraim took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.

    it leads to

    • Judges 18:1

      In those days there was no king in Israel, and the tribe of the Danites was looking for territory to occupy. For up to that time they had not come into an inheritance among…

    • Judges 21:25

      In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

    • Judges 17:8

      This man left the city of Bethlehem in Judah to settle where he could find a place. And as he traveled, he came to Micah’s house in the hill country of Ephraim.

    • Matthew 2:6

      ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of My people…

    • Judges 17:6

      In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

  • Through

    Judges 17:1

    Now a man named Micah from the hill country of Ephraim

    it leads to

    • Judges 10:1

      After the time of Abimelech, a man of Issachar, Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo, rose up to save Israel. He lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim.

    • Judges 18:2

      So the Danites sent out five men from their clans, men of valor from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and explore it. “Go and explore the land,” they told them. The…

    • Joshua 17:14–18

      Then the sons of Joseph said to Joshua, “Why have you given us only one portion as an inheritance? We have many people, because the LORD has blessed us abundantly.”

Where this verse is studied

About 1 Kings

The visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, Sir Edward John Poynter, 1890. Public domain.
The visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, Sir Edward John Poynter, 1890. Public domain.
1 Kings: the study guide →Read 1 Kings 4 →

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Ephrem the Syrian, ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 4:1; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Keil, The Books of the Kings.

Read on in 1 Kings 4 →