be like an ‘alluph in Judah. This word, which is applied in the earlier books only to the tribe-princes of the Edomites and Horites (Gen 36:15-16; Exo 15:15; 1Ch 1:51.), is transferred by Zechariah to the tribe-princes of Judah. It signifies literally not a phylarch, the head of an entire tribe (matteh, φυλή), but a chiliarch, the head of an ‘eleph, one of the families into which the tribes were divided. The meaning “friend,” which Kliefoth prefers (cf. Mic 7:5), is unsuitable here; and the objection, that “all the individuals embraced in the collective הוּא cannot receive the position of tribe-princes in Judah” (Kliefoth), does not apply, because הוּא is not an ordinary collective, but the remnant of the Philistines personified as a man. Such a remnant might very well assume the position of a chiliarch of Judah. This statement is completed by the addition “and Ekron,” i.e., the Ekronite “will be like the Jebusite.” The Ekronite is mentioned fore the purpose of individualizing in the place of all the Philistines. “Jebusite” is not an epithet applied to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but stands for the former inhabitants of the citadel of Zion, who adopted the religion of Israel after the conquest of this citadel by David, and were incorporated into the nation of the Lord. This is evident from the example of the Jebusite Araunah, who lived in the midst of the covenant nation, according to 2Sa 24:16., 1Ch 21:15., as a distinguished man of property, and not only sold his threshing-floor to king David as a site for the future temple, but also offered to present the oxen with which he had been ploughing, as well as the plough itself, for a burnt-offering. On the other hand, Koehler infers, from the conventional mode of expression employed by the subject when speaking to his king, “thy God,” and the corresponding words of David, “my God” instead of our God, that Araunah stood in the attitude of a foreigner towards the God of Israel; but he is wrong in doing so. And there is quite as little ground for the further inference drawn by this scholar from the fact that the servants of Solomon and the Nethinim are reckoned together in Ezr 2:58 and Neh 7:60, in connection with the statement that Solomon had levied bond-slaves for his buildings from the remnants of the Canaanitish population (1Ki 9:20), viz., that the Jebusites reappeared in the Nethinim of
