1 Chronicles 3:22 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Bible Comments

Six - There are only five names in the Hebrew text. The Syriac anti Arabic versions supply “Azariah” between Neariah and Shaphat.

The question of the proper arrangement of the genealogy of the descendants of Zerubbabel 1 Chronicles 3:19-24 is important in its bearing on the interesting point of the time at which the canon of the Old Testament was closed. Assuming the average of a generation to be 20 years in the East, the genealogy of the present chapter, drawn out according to the Hebrew text, does not descend below about 410 B.C., and thus falls within the probable lifetime of Nehemiah.

If, further, we regard it as most probable that Ezra died before 431 B.C., and that this passage in question was not wholly written by him, this does not disprove the theory (see the introduction to Chronicles), that Ezra was the author of Chronicles. Deuteronomy is by Moses, though the last chapter cannot be from his hand. The “dukes of Edom” might he an insertion into the text of Genesis Genesis 36:40-43 without the authorship of the remainder of the work being affected by it. So here; Nehemiah, or Malachi, may have carried on the descent of the “sons of David” as far as it had reached in their time, adding to the account given by Ezra one, or at the most two verses.

1 Chronicles 3:22

22 And the sons of Shechaniah; Shemaiah: and the sons of Shemaiah; Hattush, and Igeal, and Bariah, and Neariah, and Shaphat, six.