1 Chronicles 5:11-17 meaning

1 Chronicles 5:11-17 moves north to the second eastern tribe: Now the sons of Gad lived opposite them in the land of Bashan as far as Salecah (v 11). Opposite them places Gad alongside and north of Reuben on the east side of the Jordan. Bashan was the high plateau east and northeast of the Sea of Galilee, known in Scripture for rich pasture and strong herds (Deuteronomy 32:14; Psalm 22:12), and Salecah marked its far eastern edge (Deuteronomy 3:10). Jacob had spoken of this tribe's life on an exposed frontier: 

"As for Gad, raiders shall raid him, But he will raid at their heels"
(Genesis 49:19).

Gad's leadership comes in ranked order in the verse 12: Joel was the chief and Shapham the second, then Janai and Shaphat in Bashan (v 12). The tribe kept an ordered structure--one recognized chief, a second in command, and named leaders serving under them across the region.

In the next verse, the households follow: Their kinsmen of their fathers' households were Michael, Meshullam, Sheba, Jorai, Jacan, Zia and Eber, seven (v 13). The chronicler counts them out--seven family heads standing alongside the chiefs. He then traces one line back through eight generations: These were the sons of Abihail, the son of Huri, the son of Jaroah, the son of Gilead, the son of Michael, the son of Jeshishai, the son of Jahdo, the son of Buz (v 14), and he identifies Ahi the son of Abdiel, the son of Guni as head of their fathers' households (v 15).

Genealogy in Israel worked by household. Land, duty, and military service all followed the family line, so a tribe's identity was kept alive by keeping its family records straight. Lists like this one are the paper trail of a people's inheritance.

Verse 16 tells that, They lived in Gilead, in Bashan and in its towns, and in all the pasture lands of Sharon, as far as their borders (v 16). Pasture appears again, as it did for Reuben in 1 Chronicles 5:9. The eastern tribes were shepherds and cattlemen, and their settlements spread wherever the grazing land ran.

The section closes with a date: All of these were enrolled in the genealogies in the days of Jotham king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam king of Israel (v 17). Jotham reigned in Jerusalem in the mid-eighth century BC (2 Kings 15:32-38), and Jeroboam--the second northern king by that name, commonly called Jeroboam II--ruled Israel earlier in that same century (2 Kings 14:23-29). The chronicler is citing real registration records, made while these tribes still lived on their land.

Within a generation of those enrollments, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria swept through Gilead and carried the eastern tribes away (2 Kings 15:29; 1 Chronicles 5:26). For families returning from exile generations later, this list preserved in writing their place in Israel from before the catastrophe. A returning Gadite could trace his household to Bashan because someone had recorded it in the days of the kings.