with each other. Even the enumeration of these four along with Zimri as זרח בּני in our verse does not necessarily involve that the five names denote brothers by blood; for it is plain from 1Ch 2:7, 1Ch 2:8 that in this genealogy only single famous names of the family of Zerah the son of Judah and Tamar are grouped together. But, on the other hand, the reasons which go to disprove the identity of the persons in our verse with those named in 1Ki 5:11 are not of very great weight. The difference in the names דרע and דרדע is obviously the result of an error of transcription, and the form העזרחי (1Ki 5:11) is most probably a patronymic from זרח, notwithstanding that in Num 26:20 it appears as זרחי, for even the appellative עזרח, indigena, is formed from זרח. We therefore hold that the persons who bear the same names in our verse and in 1Ki 5:11 are most probably identical, in spite of the addition מחול בּני to Calcol and Darda (1Ki 5:11). For that this addition belongs merely to these two names, and not to Ezrah, appears from Psa 88:1 and Psa 89:1, which, according to the superscription, were composed by the Ezrahites Heman and Ethan. The authors of these psalms are unquestionably the Heman and Ethan who were famed for their wisdom (1Ki 5:11), and therefore most probably the same as those spoken of in our verse as sons of Zerah. It is true that the authors of these psalms have been held by many commentators to be Levites, nay, to be the musicians mentioned in 1Ch 15:17 and 1Ch 15:19; but sufficient support for this view, which I myself, on 1Ki 5:11, after the example of Hengstenberg, Beitrr. ii. S. 61, and on Ps 88 defended, cannot be found. The statement of the superscription of Psa 88:1 - “a psalm of the sons of Korah” - from which it is inferred that the Ezrahite Heman was of Levitic origin, does not justify such a conclusion.[1]
For though the musician Heman the son of Joel was Korahite of the race of Kohath (1Ch 6:18-23), yet the musician Ethan the son of Kishi, or Kushaiah, was neither Korahite nor Kohathite, but a Merarite (1Ch 6:29.). Moreover, the Levites Heman and Ethan could not be enumerated among the Ezrahites,
- ↑ The above quoted statement of the superscription of Psa 88:1 can contain no information as to the author of the psalm, for this reason, that the author is expressly mentioned in the next sentence of the superscription. The psalm can only in so far be called a song of the children of Korah, as it bears the impress peculiar to the Korahite psalms in contents and form.
