1 Chronicles 7:22

And Ephraim their father mourned many days,.... For the loss of his son and grandchildren for the above fact was done while the Israelites were in Egypt, and Ephraim the patriarch yet alive; nor is

And Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him. Ephraim their father mourned many days. The mourning lasted 30 days.

Ephraim their father; either, 1. That Ephraim of whom he speaks, , whose sons are here named. But that to many seems hard, especially if these several sons, named ,21, be understood successively, so as each man be the son of him who is named next and immediately before him, which seems most probable; for so here are seven successive generations of Ephraim, which it is not likely that Ephraim lived to see; for then he must have been near two hundred years old. Although it is not necessary that the persons here said to be slain should be that generation which was last mentioned; but the particle whom may belong to the other sons of Ephraim of the fourth, or fifth, or sixth generation. Nor is the word whom in the Hebrew text, which runs thus, and the men of Gath slew them, i.e. the sons of Ephraim in the general, as they are expressed in the beginning of , without respect to this or that particular generation. And the relative particle them may be referred not unto the persons last named, but unto some of the other and more remote persons; this being a common observation of Hebricians, that the relative oft belongs to the remoter antecedent. Or, 2. Zabad the father of the three persons and families last named, who might possibly have two names, and be called both Zabad and Ephraim. Or rather, the name of Ephraim may be put patronymically (as the learned speak) for the son and successor of Ephraim; who being now in Ephraim’ s stead the head of the tribe, as old Ephraim was in his time, might well be called by the same name. Thus Isaac is put for his son Jacob or Israel, , and Moses for the sons of Moses, , and David for his son Rehoboam, , and for Christ, , and (as many think) Abraham for Jacob, Abraham’ s grandchild, . And these words, their father, seem to be added by way of distinction, to show that he meant not this of the old Ephraim, but of another, who was father to the three persons said to be slain, . For if he had understood this of the first Ephraim, having called these the sons of Ephraim, it might seem superfluous and tautological to tell us that Ephraim was their father. His brethren, i.e. his kinsmen, as that word is frequently used.

1 Chronicles 7:22 And Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him.Ver. 22. And Ephraim their father.] Who must needs be now a very old man. Mourned many days.] His grief was the greater, if they went against the Gittites without his consent, as many young men are headlong and headstrong, &c. And his brethren came to comfort him.] The Benjamites also set upon the men of Gath, and took their city from them. Atque sic ulti sunt fratres suos Ephraemitas.

(22-23) This is either what we should call a metaphorical description of the enfeebling of the tribe of Ephraim by the disaster which had befallen two of its chief houses, and of its subsequent recovery owing to the natural increase of its numbers, and the formation of a new and populous clan, that of Beriah; or if this be deemed too bold an interpretation of the archaic record, we have nothing for it but to suppose that the whole account relates to an expedition from Goshen, under two sons of Ephraim, during the lifetime of that patriarch; who, after the death of Ezer and Elead, begat another son, Beriah.

The treatment of different tribes is unequal in this chapter. In the case of Issachar (1 Chronicles 7:1-5), Benjamin (1 Chronicles 7:6-12), and Asher (1 Chronicles 7:30-40), genealogies are given and the number of fighting-men of each tribe is stated. To Naphtali is devoted a single verse, giving only the names of his sons. For Manasseh and Ephraim genealogies are given and their possessions are shortly enumerated. The mention of Dan is obliterated, owing to the state of the text of 1 Chronicles 7:12.