Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Chronicles 27

Now the children of Israel. —This first verse is the heading or superscription of the list which follows.

After their number. —The stress lies on this phrase. It refers to the twelve courses of twenty-four thousand warriors each.

Chief fathers. — Heads of the clans.

Captains of thousands and hundreds. —See 1 Chronicles 13:1.

Their officers. —Scribes, who kept the muster-rolls, and did the work of recruiting sergeants.

The courses. —Here, military divisions, corps d’armée. The same Hebrew term (mahlĕqôth) was used of the Levitical classes in the preceding chapters.

Which came in and went out. —That is, the class or corps which came in and went out. Render: That which came in and went out every month, for all the months of the year, i.e., the single corps, was twenty-four thousand. As regards construction, the whole verse, from “the chief fathers” to “of every course,” is a long apposition to “the children of Israel.”

Came in and went out month by month. —Every month, the division whose turn it was stood under arms, as a sort of national guard, ready for immediate service.

Over the first course. —Jashobeam son of Zabdiel was commander of the army corps appointed to be ready for service during the first month of the year. (See 1 Chronicles 11:11.) The names of the twelve generals of division have already occurred in the list of David’s heroes contained in that chapter.

In his course. —Hebrew, upon his course.

Of the children of Perez. —The reference is to Jashobeam. He belonged to the branch of Judah called Perez, or Pharez, to which David himself belonged.

The chief of all the captains of the host for the first month. —This notice about Jashobeam is obscure. The “captains of the host” (Hebrew, hosts) seem to be the twelve generals of division. (Compare to 1 Chronicles 27:5.) Jashobeam, as the first of David’s heroes, may have enjoyed a kind of precedence among the commanders of the army corps; although he was not commander-in-chief of the entire national forces, which was the function of Joab. Or perhaps it is meant merely to emphasise the fact that Jashobeam was “the first” in the rotation of the generals; so that the phrase “for the first month” explains what precedes it. Or “the captains of the hosts” may possibly mean the officers of the subdivisions of the first army corps, of whom Jashobeam was, of course, the chief. The context appears to favour this last explanation.

Dodai an Ahohite. — The Ahohite. 1 Chronicles 11:11 proves that the right reading is Eliezer son of Dodai the Ahohite.

And of his course was Mikloth also the ruler. —Literally, and his course, and Mikloth the prince (nâgîd); which appears meaningless. Perhaps the “and” before Mikloth is spurious. (Compare to the end of 1 Chronicles 27:6.) The sense may then be that this division included Mikloth “the prince,” an unknown personage; or that Mikloth was the chief man in the division. (See 1 Chronicles 8:32; 1 Chronicles 9:37, where Mikloth is a Benjamite name.) The Septuagint and Vulgate agree with the Authorized Version; the Syriac and Arabic are missing in this chapter.

The third captain of the host. —Hebrew, captain of the third host. So the Vulgate.

Benaiah. —See 1 Chronicles 11:22.

The son of Jehoiada, a chief priest. —Rather, son of Jehoiada the priest, as head, namely, of the third army corps. The term “chief,” or “head,” belongs to Benaiah, not to his father. But perhaps it is an erroneous gloss on Jehoiada. (Compare 2 Chronicles 23:8.) Both the Septuagint and Vulgate make Benaiah the priest.