list in Gen 35:23., is perhaps to be accounted for by Rachel's wishing the son of her maid Bilhah to be accounted her own (vide Gen 30:3-6).
Verses 3-5
1Ch 2:3-5The sons of Judah and of Pharez, 1Ch 2:3.f. - The five sons of Judah are given according to Gen 38, as the remark on Er which is quoted from Gen 38:7 of that chapter shows, while the names of the five sons are to be found also in Gen 46:12. The two sons of Pharez are according to Gen 46:12, cf. Num 26:21.
Verses 6-8
1Ch 2:6-8Sons and descendants of Zerah. - In 1Ch 2:6, five names are grouped together as בּנים of Zerah, which are found nowhere else so united. The first, Zimri, may be strictly a son; but זמרי may perhaps be a mistake for זבדּי, for Achan, who is in 1Ch 2:7 the son of Carmi, is in Jos 7:1 called the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah. But זבדּי (Josh.) may also be an error for זמרי, or he may have been a son of Zimri, since in genealogical lists an intermediate member of the family is often passed over. Nothing certain can, however, be ascertained; both names are found elsewhere, but of persons belonging to other tribes: Zimri as prince of the Simeonites, Num 25:14; as Benjamite, 1Ch 8:36; 1Ch 9:42; and as king of Israel, 1Ki 16:9; Zabdi, 1Ch 8:19 (as Benjamite), and 1Ch 27:27, Neh 11:17. The four succeeding names, Ethan, Heman, Calcol, and Dara, are met with again in 1Ki 5:11, where it is said of Solomon he was wiser than the Ezrahite Ethan, and Heman, and Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Machol, with the unimportant variation of דרדע for דרע. On this account, Movers and Bertheau, following Clericus on 1Ki 4:31 (1Ki 5:11), hold the identity of the wise men mentioned in 1Ki 5:11 with the sons (descendants) of Zerah to be beyond doubt. But the main reason which Clericus produces in support of this supposition, the consensus quatuor nominum et quidem unius patris filiorum, and the difficulty of believing that in alia familia Hebraea there should have been quatuor fratres cognomines quatuor filiis Zerachi Judae filii, loses all its force from the fact that the supposition that the four wise men in 1Ki 5:11 are brothers by blood, is a groundless and erroneous assumption. Since Ethan is called the Ezrahite, while the last two are said to be the sons of Machol, it is clear that the four were not brothers. The mention of them as men famous for their wisdom, does not at all require that we should think the men contemporary
