Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/124

60 Rapha the fifth. And Bela had sons, Addar, and Gera, and Abihud; and Abishua, and Naaman, and Ahoah; and Gera, and Shephuphan, and Huram. And these are the sons of Ehud; these are the heads of fathers' houses of the inhabitants of Geba, and they carried them captive to Manahath: and Naaman, and Ahijah, and Gera, he carried them captive; and he begat Uzza and Ahihud. And Shaharaim begat children in the field of Moab, after he had sent them away; Hushim and Baara were his wives. And he begat of Hodesh his wife, Jobab, and Zibia, and Mesha, and Malcam; and Jeuz, and Shachia, and Mirmah. These were his sons, heads of fathers' houses. And of Hushim he

Num. xxvi. 38—40, despite the surface divergences. Several of the changes are due to textual errors, e.g. Aharah and Ahoah are probably both variants of Ahiram (Gen. xlvi. 21).

3. Abihud] read perhaps (a slight change in the Heb.) Gera, father of Ehud.

5. Shephuphan, and Huram] See vii. 12, note on Shuppim.

6—28. Apparently a list of five post-exilic families [Elpaal vv. 11, 18), Beriah vv. 13, 16), Shema (vv. 13, 21), Shashak vv. 14, 25), and Jeroham (vv. 14, 27)], whose genealogy seems to be traced from Ehud, and whose descendants reside in Jerusalem (so ver. 28, but see note ad loc.). The uncertainty on the former point is the inevitable consequence of the corrupt state of the text in vv. 6—14.

6. Ehud] Ehud (the deliverer of Israel from Moab) was descended from Gera (ver. 5; Judg. iii. 15).

Geba] Cp. vi. 60.

they carried them captive] an utterly obscure phrase, most probably due to textual error. It is a plausible suggestion that the phrase is a corruption of proper names commencing the list which we should expect to follow the preceding words: "these are the heads of," etc. Hogg, J. Q. R. xi. 102 ff., therefore conjectured the names "Iglaam and Alemoth"; and similarly in ver. 7, in place of the equally obscure words "he carried them captive; and he," he would read "and Iglaam begat."

7. Naaman, and Ahijah, and Gera] perhaps to be deleted, as a repetition of ver. 5.

8, 9. Again the Heb. text appears to be in disorder, and the verses in consequence are so obscure that conjectures are all precarious.

Hushim] is elsewhere the name of a man. Hence ver. 11 below should perhaps read And Hushim begat