1 Chronicles 7:7

And the sons of Bela; Ezbon, and Uzzi, and Uzziel, and Jerimoth, and Iri, five; heads of the house of their fathers, mighty men of valour; and were reckoned by their genealogies twenty and two thousand and thirty and four.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) And the sons of Bela.—The names are wholly different in 1Chronicles 8:3-4. The reason would seem to be that the names before us represent the chieftains and clans of Bela as they existed at a given epoch, viz., the time of David’s census. The list of 1 Chronicles 8 belongs to another period. Here, as elsewhere, it is evident enough that the chronicler has faithfully followed or rather transcribed his sources, without a thought of harmonising their apparent inconsistencies.

Heads of . . . fathers.—Rather, heads of their father-houses, i.e., chieftains.

And were reckoned by their genealogies.—And their census was 22,034. This number represents the fighting strength of the Belaites,. who are here identified with their heads.

Benson Commentary

1 Chronicles 7:7. Heads of the house of their fathers — Each of them head of that family to which he belonged. For it may seem, by comparing this with chap. 1 Chronicles 8:3, &c., that these were not the immediate sons of Bela, but his grand-children, descended each from a several father.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:1-40 Genealogies. - Here is no account either of Zebulun or Dan. We can assign no reason why they only should be omitted; but it is the disgrace of the tribe of Dan, that idolatry began in that colony which fixed in Laish, and called it Dan, Jud 18 and there one of the golden calves was set up by Jeroboam. Dan is omitted, Re 7. Men become abominable when they forsake the worship of the true God, for any creature object.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The lists here are remarkably different from those in marginal references Probably the persons here mentioned were not literally "sons," but were among the later descendants of the founders, being the chief men of the family at the time of David's census.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. the sons of Bela—Each of them was chief or leader of the family to which he belonged. In an earlier period seven great families of Benjamin are mentioned (Nu 26:38), five of them being headed by these five sons of Benjamin, and two descended from Bela. Here five families of Bela are specified, whence we are led to conclude that time or the ravages of war had greatly changed the condition of Benjamin, or that the five families of Bela were subordinate to the other great divisions that sprang directly from the five sons of the patriarch.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Heads of the house of their fathers; each of them head, or chief, or commander of that house or family from which he was descended, or to which he belonged. For it may seem, by comparing this with 1 Chronicles 8:3, &c. that these were not the immediate sons of Bela, but his grandchildren descended each from a several father; and their fathers are here omitted, peradventure because they were obscure persons, as their sons are mentioned for their eminency.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the sons of Bela; Ezbon, and Uzzi, and Uzziel, and Jerimoth, and Iri, five,.... These are thought by some to be the grandsons of Bela, because of the different names in 1 Chronicles 8:3,

heads of the house of their fathers, mighty men of valour; principal men in their tribe and families, and of great courage:

and were reckoned by their genealogies twenty and two thousand and thirty and four; who sprung from these men.

Geneva Study Bible

And the sons of Bela; Ezbon, and Uzzi, and Uzziel, and Jerimoth, and Iri, five; heads of the house of their fathers, mighty men of valor; and were reckoned by their genealogies twenty and two thousand and thirty and four.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. the sons of Bela] These are differently stated in 1 Chronicles 8:3-5.

and were reckoned by their genealogies] R.V. and they were reckoned by genealogy.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - And the sons of Bela. The first and last of the five (descendants or heads of families) here given, viz. Ezbon and Iri, are not found in previous places among Benjamite families, but are found (Genesis 46:16; Numbers 26:16) among Gadite families. It would seem that by David's time they had become in some aspects ranked among the Benjamites, though not originally of them. 1 Chronicles 7:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The five heads of fathers'-houses called sons of Bela are not sons in the proper sense of the word, but more distant descendants, who, at the time when this register was made up, were heads of the five groups of related households of the race of Bela. חילים גּבּורי is synonymous with חיל גּבּורי, 1 Chronicles 7:9, and is a plural, formed as if from a nomen compositum, which arose after the frequent use of the words as they are bound together in the status constructus had obscured the consciousness of the relation between them.