of fathers'-houses, eight.” הגּברים לראשׁי means neither in respect to the number of the men by the head (cf. 1Ch 23:3), nor with respect to the chiefs of the men, divided according to their fathers'-houses (Berth.). The supplying of the words, “divided according to their fathers'-houses,” is perfectly arbitrary. The expression הגּברים ראשׁי is rather to be explained by the fact that, according to the natural articulations of the people, the fathers'-houses, i.e., the groups of related families comprehended under the name בּית־אבות, divided themselves further into individual households, whose heads were called גּברים, as is clear from Jos 7:16-18, because each household had in the man, הגּבר, its natural head. הגּברים ראשׁי are therefore the heads, not of the fathers'-houses, but of the individual households, considered in their relation to the men as heads of households. Just as בּית־אב sa tsuJ .s is a technical designation of the larger groups of households into which the great families fell, so הגּבר is the technical expression for the individual households into which the fathers'-houses fell.
Verse 5
They divided them by lot, עם־אלּה אלּה, these with these, i.e., the one as the other (cf. 1Ch 25:8), so that the classes of both were determined by lot, as both drew lots mutually. “For holy princes and princes of God were of the sons of Eleazar, and among the sons of Ithamar;” i.e., of both lines of priests holy princes had come, men who had held the highest priestly dignity. The high-priesthood, as is well known, went over entirely to Eleazar and his descendants, but had been held for a considerable period in the time of the judges by the descendants of Ithamar; see above, pp. 444f. In the settlement of the classes of priests for the service, therefore, neither of the lines was to have an advantage, but the order was to be determined by lot for both. קדשׁ שׂרי, cf. Isa 43:28, = הכּהנים שׂרי, 2Ch 36:14, are the high priests and the heads of the priestly families, the highest officers among the priests, but can hardly be the same as the ἀρχιερεῖς of the gospel history; for the view that these ἀρχιερεῖς were the heads of the twenty-four classes of priests cannot be made good: cf. Wichelhaus, Comment. zur Leidensgesch. (Halle, 1855), S. 32ff. האלהים שׂרי would seem to denote the same, and to be added as synonymous; but if there be a distinction between the two designations, we would take the princes of God to denote only the regular high priests, who could enter in before God into the most holy place.
Verses 6-18
1Ch 24:6-18 “He set them down,” viz., the classes, as the lot had determined them. מן־הלּוי,
