1 Chronicles 7:6-12 meaning

The roll moves to Rachel's younger son: the sons of Benjamin were three: Bela and Becher and Jediael (v 6). Benjamin--"son of the right hand," the name Jacob gave in place of the dying Rachel's Ben-oni (Genesis 35:18)--appears with different son-lists in different registers: Genesis 46:21 names ten sons, Numbers 26:38-39 counts five clan heads, and 1 Chronicles 8:1-2 opens with five. Ancient family rolls counted heads for the purpose at hand, and grandsons often ranked as founders of clans in one list and as sons in another. This chapter's list serves the army muster; the Chronicler will return to Benjamin at full length in the next chapter, where the tribe's register runs down to Saul, Israel's first king (1 Chronicles 8:33).

Bela's house comes first: the sons of Bela were five: Ezbon, Uzzi, Uzziel, Jerimoth and Iri, and they were heads of fathers' households, mighty men of valor, numbering 22,034 enrolled by genealogy (v 7). That figure, exact to the last man, bears the fingerprints of a genuine archive--somewhere behind this verse stood a muster document with every name accounted for, and the Chronicler carried its precision into Scripture.

Becher's house follows with nine sons: Zemirah, Joash, Eliezer, Elioenai, Omri, Jeremoth, Abijah, Anathoth and Alemeth (v 8). Two of these names became place names on Benjamin's map: Anathoth, the priestly town from which Jeremiah later came (Jeremiah 1:1), and Alemeth, another town given to the priests (1 Chronicles 6:60). Families this old left their names on the very ground of the tribe. The summary follows: they were enrolled by genealogy, according to their generations, heads of their fathers' households, 20,200 mighty men of valor (v 9).

The third house runs through Jediael, whose name means "known of God," to his son Bilhan, and then to Bilhan's seven sons: Jeush, Benjamin, Ehud, Chenaanah, Zethan, Tarshish and Ahishahar (v 10). Here a grandson carries the patriarch's own name, Benjamin--the tribe honored its founder by reusing his name--and another bears the name Ehud, famous in the tribe because the left-handed judge who delivered Israel from Moab was Ehud the Benjamite, son of Gera (Judges 3:15). The tally for this house: 17,200 mighty men of valor, who were ready to go out with the army to war (v 11). Benjamin's fighting reputation was long established; the tribe once fielded seven hundred choice left-handed slingers who "could sling a stone at a hair and not miss" (Judges 20:16), and Benjamite archers and slingers were among the mighty men who joined David at Ziklag (1 Chronicles 12:1-2).

A short verse closes the section: Shuppim and Huppim were the sons of Ir; Hushim was the son of Aher (v 12). Ir is evidently the Iri named earlier (v 7), so the first pair extends Bela's line. The second clause is a puzzle the Chronicler left standing: Aher is simply the Hebrew word for "another," and Genesis 46:23 names "Hushim" as the son of Dan--the one tribe missing from this chapter along with Zebulun. Some students of Scripture therefore see in this half-verse a surviving fragment of Dan's register, filed under "another"; others keep Hushim within Benjamin. The evidence allows either reading. What the verse shows plainly is the Chronicler's honesty as a record-keeper--he preserved what his sources gave him, even when the fragment was small and its label worn.