1 Chronicles 8

1 Chronicles 8:2

The people - For the common people, but only for the great men. Now they eat their own children for want of food, Lamentations 4:3, &c. Jeremiah in this extremity, earnestly persuaded the king to surrender; but his heart was hardened to his destruction.

1 Chronicles 8:5

Riblah - Where Nebuchadnezzar staid, that he might both supply the besiegers with men, and military provisions, as their occasions required; and have an eye to Chaldea, to prevent or suppress any commotions which might happen there in his absence. They - The king’s officers appointed thereunto, examined his cause, and passed the following sentence against him.

1 Chronicles 8:6

Slew, &c. - Tho’ they were but children, that this spectacle, the last he was to behold, might leave a remaining impression of grief and horror upon his spirit. And in slaying his sons they in effect declared, that the kingdom was no more, and that he nor any of his breed were fit to be trusted: therefore not fit to live. Babylon - Thus two prophecies were fulfilled, which seemed contrary one to the other, that he should go to Babylon, Jeremiah 32:5, 34:3, and that he should never see Babylon: which seeming contradiction, because Zedekiah the false prophet could not reconcile, he concluded both were false, and it seems Zedekiah the king might stumble at this difficulty.

1 Chronicles 8:7

Months, &c. - So the Chaldeans did not put all to fire and sword, as soon as they had taken the city: but about a month after, orders were sent, to compleat the destruction of it. This space God gave them to repent after all the foregoing days of his patience. But in vain; they still hardened their hearts: and therefore execution is awarded to the utmost.

1 Chronicles 8:8

Burnt the house of the Lord - One of the apocryphal writers tells us, that Jeremiah got the ark out of the temple, and conveyed it to a cave in mount Nebo, 2Macc 2:4,5. But this is like the other tales of that author, who has no regard either to truth or probability. For Jeremiah was at this time a close prisoner. By the burning of the temple God would shew, how little he cares for the outward pomp of his worship, when the life and power of religion are gone. About four hundred and thirty years the temple of Solomon had stood. And it is observed by Josephus, that the second temple was burnt by the Romans, the same month, and the same day of the month, that the first temple was burnt by the Chaldeans.

1 Chronicles 8:10

People - Whom neither the sword nor famine had destroyed, who were eight hundred and thirty two persons, Jeremiah 52:29, being members and traders of that city: for it is likely, there were very many more of the country people fled thither, who were left with others of their brethren to manure the land. Multitude - Of the inhabitants of the country.

1 Chronicles 8:11

Left of the poor - So while the rich were prisoners in a strange land, the poor had liberty and peace in their own country! Thus providence sometimes humbles the proud, and favours them of low degree.

1 Chronicles 8:20

Out of the land - This compleated their calamity, about eight hundred and sixty years after they were put in possession of it by Joshua.

1 Chronicles 8:21

Gedaliah - A righteous and good man, and a friend to the prophet Jeremiah.

1 Chronicles 8:23

Sware - Assured them by his promise and oath, that they should be kept from the evils which they feared. This he might safely swear, because he had not only the king of Babylon’s promise but also God’s promise deliver’d by Jeremiah. And it might seem, a fair prospect was opening again. But how soon was the scene changed! This hopeful settlement is quickly dashed in pieces, not by the Chaldeans, but by some of themselves.

1 Chronicles 8:24

Came - Moved with envy to see so mean a person advanced into their place. Ten men - Ten captains or officers, and under each of them many soldiers.

1 Chronicles 8:25

Egypt - And here they probably mixt with the Egyptians by degrees, and were heard of no more as Israelites.

1 Chronicles 8:26

Seven and twentieth - Or, on the twenty fifth day, as it is, Jeremiah 52:31. For then the decree was made, which was executed upon the twenty seventh day.

1 Chronicles 8:29

All the days of his life - Let none say, they shall never see good again, because they have long seen little but evil. The most afflicted know not what blessed turn providence may yet give to their affairs.

1 Chronicles 8:31

Came to pass - Thus the peoples sins were the true cause why God gave them wicked kings, whom he suffered to do wickedly, that they might bring the long - deserved, and threatened punishments upon themselves and their people.

1 Chronicles 8:32

Sheth - Adam begat Sheth: and so in the following particulars. For brevity sake he only mentions their names; but the rest is easily understood out of the former books. This appears as the peculiar glory of the Jewish nation, that they alone were able to trace their pedigree from the first man that God created, which no other nation pretended to, but abused themselves and their posterity with fabulous accounts of their originals: the people of Thessaly fancying that they sprang from stones, the Athenians, that they grew out of the earth.

1 Chronicles 8:36

The sons of Japheh - The historian repeating the account of the replenishing the earth by the sons of Noah, begins with those that were strangers to the church, the sons of Japheth, who peopled Europe, of whom he says little, as the Jews had hitherto little or no dealings with them. He proceeds to those that had many of them been enemies to the church, and thence hastens to the line of Abraham, breaking off abruptly from all the other families of the sons of Noah, but that of Arphaxad, from whom Christ was to come. The great promise of the Messiah was transmitted from Adam to Seth, from him to Shem, from him to Eber, and so to the Jewish nation, who were intrusted above all nations with that sacred treasure, ’till the promise was performed, and the Messiah was come: and then that nation was made not a people.