1Ch 8:34-39
Jonathan’s sons and grandsons. His son is called here and in 1Ch 9:40 Meribbaal, while in 2Sa 4:4; 2Sa 9:6; 2Sa 16:1., 2Sa 19:25, he is called Mephibosheth, because the name “striver with Baal” has been changed into מפיבשׁת, exterminans idolum. This Meribbaal, who was lame in his feet (cf. 2Sa 4:4), had a son Micha (מיכה, in 2Sa 9:12 written מיכא), of whom came a numerous race. He had four sons (1Ch 8:35), and the family of the last-named of these (Ahaz) is traced down, in 1Ch 8:36-40, through ten generations to the great-grandson of Eshek. First it is traced from Ahaz to Alemeth (1Ch 8:36); then through Zimri, brother of this latter, to Binea, by הוליד; then further by בּנו (hisson) to Azel, of whom in 1Ch 8:38 six sons are enumerated; and finally, in 1Ch 8:39, the sons of his brother Eshek are named, and the sons and grandsons of the first-born of this latter are then enumerated. The last two verses are wanting after 1Ch 9:44. The names in the two registers correspond, except at one point, where we cannot get rid of the discrepancy that for יחועדּה (1Ch 8:36) there stands in 1Ch 9:42 יערה both times, probably through an error of transcription, by which out of the shortened form יעדּה there arose יערה, ד and ר being interchanged. Besides this, instead of the תּארע of 1Ch 8:35, we have in 1Ch 9:41, according to the harder pronunciation of the gutturals, תּחרע; and for רפה, 1Ch 8:37, we have in 1Ch 9:41 the longer original form רפיה. Now since Ahaz, whose posterity is traced down to the tenth generation, was descended from Jonathan in the third generation, and his grandfather Mephibosheth was a boy of five years of age at the death of Saul and Jonathan (2Sa 4:4), the grandsons of Ulam, mentioned in 1Ch 8:40, will be the thirteenth generation of Jonathan’s descendants. Now Jonathan fell along with Saul in the year 1055 b.c., and consequently this thirteenth generation of Jonathan’s descendants lived probably about 700 b.c., i.e., about 100 years before the Babylonian exile; for, according to the analogy of the royal race of David, we cannot reckon more than twenty-five years on an average for each generation.