Charles Ellicott Commentary


Charles Ellicott Commentary
"And he went in to his wife, and she conceived, and bare a son, and he called his name Beriah, because it went evil with his house." — 1 Chronicles 7:23 (ASV)
Because it went evil. —Beriah is derived from a root, bara’, and apparently means gift. Hebrew, because in evil it (i.e., the birth of Beriah) happened in his house. There is an allusive play on the words Beriah (“gift”) and bera’ah (“in evil”) such as we often encounter in Genesis (Genesis 11:9). To call such plays on words derivations would be a tasteless anachronism. Their purpose is to point a moral, not to teach etymology.