1 Chronicles 23:23

The sons of Mushi; Mahli, and Eder, and Jeremoth, three.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(23) The sons of Mushi; Mahli, and Eder, and Jeremoth, three.—These, with the sons of Kish. make only four Merarite houses, whereas six are required to make up a total of twenty-four Levitical houses. But 1Chronicles 24:26-27 shows that the chronicler’s registers named a third son of Merari, viz., Jaaziah, whose descendents constituted the three houses of Shoham, Zaccur, and Ibri, in the time of David. Adding these, we get seven clans, one too many for our purpose.

Perhaps the Mahli of 1Chronicles 23:23 is a mistaken repetition from 1Chronicles 23:21, due to some ancient scribe. The word “three” at the end of the verse would be added after the mistake had become fixed. It is wanting in 1Chronicles 24:30, which otherwise repeats 1Chronicles 23:23. Excluding this second Mahli as spurious, we get six clans of Merarites; and thus, altogether, twenty-four classes of Levitical overseers of the work of the sanctuary (1Chronicles 23:4), consisting of nine Gershonite, nine Kohathite, and six Merarite houses. This number of classes or guilds tallies exactly with the total of 24,000 Levites (1Chronicles 23:4), for it allows a thousand to the class (or clan). See on 1Chronicles 13:1.

It is right to remark (1) that the passage 1Chronicles 24:26-27, itself needs emendation (see Notes there); (2) that the old versions—viz., the LXX., Vulg., Syriac, and Arabic—have the reading of our present text in 1Chronicles 23:21-23, so that the assumed omission of Jaaziah and his sons must be very ancient, and is probably due to an oversight of an early editor, if not of the chronicler himself; (3) in the two other passages of the Old Testament where the sons of Merari are named, only two—viz., Mahli and Mushi—appear; and (4) that the recurrence of the name Mahli in our 1Chronicles 23:23 as a son of Mushi is easily paralleled: e.g., in 1Chronicles 23:9-10 (“ Shimei” twice). But it is easier to suppose an omission here than an interpolation of unknown names at 1Chronicles 24:26-27. And the correspondence of the present list up to this point with that of 1 Chronicles 24 favours the assumption of an unintentional omission in 1Chronicles 23:21.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:1-23 David, having given charge concerning the building of the temple, settles the method of the temple service, and orders the officers of it. When those of the same family were employed together, it would engage them to love and assist one another.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See the marginal references and notes. 1 Chronicles 23:28-32 give the most complete account in Scripture of the nature of the Levitical office.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

1Ch 23:21-23. Of Merari.

21-23. The sons of Merari—They comprised six fathers' houses. Summing them together, Gershon founded nine fathers houses, Kohath nine, and Merari six: total, twenty-four.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the sons of Mushi,.... The other son of Merari:

Mahli; so called from his uncle, his father's brother:

and Eder and Jerimoth, three; mentioned again 1 Chronicles 24:30.

Geneva Study Bible

The sons of Mushi; Mahli, and Eder, and Jeremoth, three.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

23. The sons of Mushi] Cp. 1 Chronicles 24:30.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 23. - The sons of Mushi (comp. 1 Chronicles 24:30). 1 Chronicles 23:23

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Of the sons of Mushi, three founded fathers'-houses, so that the Merarites formed only four fathers'-houses in all. If we compare the enumeration of the Merarites in 1 Chronicles 24:26-30, we find there in 1 Chronicles 24:30 Eleazar and Kish called sons of Mahli, with the remark that Eleazar had no sons. In 1 Chronicles 24:26, however, of the same passage we read, "sons of Merari (were) Mahli and Mushi, sons of Jaaziah his son;" and 1 Chronicles 24:27, "sons of Merari by Jaaziah his son; and Shoham, and Zaccur, and Ibri." From this Bertheau concludes that Merari had really three sons, and that the name of the third has been dropped out of 1 Chronicles 23; but in this he is incorrect, for 1 Chronicles 23:26 and 1 Chronicles 23:27 of the 24th chapter are at once, from their whole character, recognisable as arbitrary interpolations. Not only is it strange that בּנו יעזיּהוּ בּני should follow the before-mentioned sons of Merari in this unconnected way (Vav being omitted before בּני), but the form of the expression also is peculiar. If יעזיּהוּ be a third son of Merari, or the founder of a third family of Merarites, coordinate with the families of Mahli and Mushi, as we must conclude from the additional word בּנו, we should expect, after the preceding, simply the name with the conjunction, i.e., ויעזיּהוּ. The יעזיּהוּ בּני is all the more surprising that the names of the sons of Jaaziah follow in 1 Chronicles 24:27, and there the name of the first son שׁהם is introduced by the Vav copulative. This misled the older commentators, so that they took בּנו for a proper name. The repetition of מררי בּני, too, at the beginning of the second verse is strange, and without parallel in the preceding enumeration of the fathers'-houses founded by Amram's sons (1 Chronicles 24:20-25). We must, then, as the result of all this, since the Pentateuch knows only two descendants of Merari who founded families of fathers'-houses,

(Note: Bertheau, on the contrary, proceeding on the hypothesis that we may presume the list of Merari's descendants which is given in our verses to have been originally in perfect agreement with that in 1 Chronicles 24:26-31, would emend our text according to 1 Chronicles 23:21, for it cannot be doubted that in our passage also Jaaziah and his three sons were named. But since elsewhere only the two sons Mahli and Mushi occur, one can easily see why the third son Jaaziah came to be omitted from our passage, while we cannot conceive any motive which would account for the later and arbitrary interpolation of the names in 1 Chronicles 24:26. This argumentation is weak to a degree, since it quite overlooks the main difficulty connected with this hypothesis. Had we no further accounts of the descendants of Merari than those in the two passages of the Chronicle (1 Chronicles 23:11. and 1 Chronicles 24:26-29), it would be natural to suppose that in 1 Chronicles 23:21. the additional names which we find in 1 Chronicles 24 had been dropped out. But in the genealogical lists in the Pentateuch also (Exodus 6:19 and Numbers 3:33), only two sons of Merari are named; and according to them, the Merarites, when Moses' census of the Levites was taken, formed only two families. Had Merari had yet a third son besides the two - Mahli and Mushi, who alone were known in the time of Moses - who left descendants, forming three fathers'-houses in David's time, the omission of this third son in the family register in the Pentateuch would be quite incomprehensible. Or are we to suppose that in Exodus 6:19 also the name Jaaziah had been dropped out, and that in consequence of that the family descended from him has been omitted from Numbers 3:33? Supported by the Pentateuch, the text of our verses is presumably entire, and this presumption of its integrity is confirmed by the character of the additions in 24:26, 27, as above exhibited.)

regard the additions in 1 Chronicles 24:26-27 as later glosses, although we are not in a position to explain the origin or the meaning of the interpolation. This inability arises from the fact that, of the names Jaaziah, Shoham, Zaccur, and Ibri, only Zaccur again occurs among the Asaphites (1 Chronicles 25:2), and elsewhere of other persons, while the others are nowhere else to be met with. The three families of Levi numbered therefore 9 + 9 + 4 equals 22 fathers'-houses, exclusive of the priests.