1 Chronicles 5:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

1 CHRONICLES CHAPTER 5 The line of Reuben unto the captivity: their war against the Hagarites, 1 Chronicles 5:1-10. The chief men and habitation of Gad, 1 Chronicles 5:11-17. The number of the Reubenites, Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh, that marched against the Hagarites, and overcame them, 1 Chronicles 5:18-24. They are all carried captive into Assyria, 1 Chronicles 5:25,26. For he was the first-born: these and the following words 1 Chronicles 5:3, which are enclosed within a parenthesis, seem to be inserted here as an answer to a secret objection, or as a reason why Reuben's genealogy was not set down first, but Judah's was put before it, which is double; the first follows immediately, the other is in the last clause of this verse. His birthright, i.e. the right of the first-born, which, although it contain in it something of dominion, Genesis 27:1,32, which Joseph had in his own person, Ge 49; yet principally consisted in having a double portion, as appears from Deuteronomy 21:17, which Joseph enjoyed both in his person and in his posterity, which had two parts of twelve in Canaan. And it is Joseph's posterity which is here considered. Unto the sons of Joseph; Ephraim and Manasseh, each having a distinct portion. The sons of Israel: this is added emphatically, because they were reputed and treated as if they had been the immediate sons of Jacob; of which see Genesis 48:5. The genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright: this is the second reason, which showeth both why Reuben's genealogy was not first mentioned; and if another tribe was to be ranked before it, why that was Judah, and not Joseph, as it might seem most fit for the former reason; because, saith he, the order of their genealogy was not to be ruled by the birthright but by a higher privilege, which was given to Judah, and which here follows.