1 Chronicles 13

1 Chronicles 13:3

Shelah - Having treated of the posterity of Judah by Pharez, and by Zara, he now comes to his progeny by Shelah.

1 Chronicles 13:4

Had dominion - Which they ruled in the name and for the use of the kings of Judah, to whom Moab was subject from David’s time. Ancient things - The sense is those blessed times are long since past. Our ancestors had the dominion over the Heathen, but their degenerate posterity are slaves in Chaldea, were they are employed as potters or gardeners, or in other servile works.

1 Chronicles 13:5

There are - He seems to oppose their present servitude to their former glory, and to shew their mean spirits that had rather tarry among the Heathen to do their drudgery, than return to Jerusalem to serve God and enjoy their freedom. The king - Of Babylon: esteeming it a greater honour to serve that earthly monarch in the meanest employments, than to serve the king of kings in his temple.

1 Chronicles 13:9

Of Judah - The tribe of Simeon did not increase proportionably to the tribe of Judah in which they dwelt; as appears by those two catalogues, Numbers 1:22 26:14, which is to be ascribed to God’s curse upon them, delivered by the mouth of holy Jacob, Genesis 49:5 - 7, and signified by Moses’s neglect of them when he blessed all the other tribes.

1 Chronicles 13:13

Their cities - Several of these cities though given to Simeon by Joshua, yet through the sloth or cowardice of that tribe, were not taken from the Philistines, until David’s time, who took some of them; and, the Simeonites having justly forfeited their right to them by their neglect, gave them to his own tribe. For it is evident concerning Ziklag, one of them, that it was in the Philistines hands in David’s time, and by them given to him, and by him annexed to the tribe of Judah, 1 Samuel 27:6.