of Jeroham, 1Ch 8:26, 1Ch 8:27, although some of these names are met with elsewhere singly. The concluding remark, 1Ch 8:28, “These are heads of fathers'-houses,” refers, without doubt, to all the names from 1Ch 8:15 or 1Ch 8:14 to 1Ch 8:27. “According to their generations - heads” is in apposition to the preceding, as in 1Ch 9:24, but the meaning of the apposition is doubtful. The word ראשׁים can hardly be repeated merely for emphasis, as the old commentators understood it, in harmony with the Vulgate principes inquam, for why should this word be so emphasized? Bertheau thinks that “according to their births - heads” is to be taken to mean that those who are enumerated by name are not the heads living at the time of the preparation of this register, but the individual families, with the name of their progenitor after whom they were named in the genealogical lists. But how this meaning can be found in the words in question, I at least cannot understand. Can the individual families be called אבות ראשׁי, “heads of fathers'-houses”? The families are the fathers'-houses themselves, i.e., they are made up of the groups of related households comprehended under the name fathers'-houses. These groups of related households have, it is true, each of them either head, but cannot possibly be themselves called heads. The meaning seems rather to be that the persons named in the family registers, or registers of births, are introduced as heads (of fathers'-houses); and the reason why this is remarked would seem to be, to prevent those who are enumerated as the sons of this or that man from being regarded simply as members of fathers'-houses. The further remark, “these dwelt in Jerusalem,” is manifestly not to be taken to mean that the heads alone dwelt there, while the households that were subordinated to them lived elsewhere; for it signifies that they dwelt in Jerusalem with the households which composed their respective fathers'-houses. That the households dwelt there also is not stated, merely because the register contains only the names of the heads.
Verse 29
1Ch 8:29 - 1Ch 8:29-38 recur in 1Ch 9:35-44 (see on that passage).
Verses 29-32
The ancestors of Saul. They dwelt mainly in Gibeon, but a branch of them were settled in Jerusalem, 1Ch 8:32.f. In Gibeon, now El Jib, two hours north-west from Jerusalem (see on Jos 9:3), dwelt the father of Gibeon, with his wife and his sons. The plural ישׁבוּ is used because there dwelt there, besides the father of Gibeon, also his wife and his sons. The father, i.e., the lord
