أخبار الأيام الأول ٧:٢٢

The son of Asher,.... Which, and his two grandsons born before Jacob went down to Egypt, are here reckoned as in Gen 46:17 only it is here added Malchiel his second grandson: who is the father of Birzavith; which Jarchi interprets, prince of a city of this name, which signifies pure oil; which it might have from the abundance of olives about it, Asher being a tribe which abounded with them, see Deu 33:24 though some of the Rabbins take it to be the name of a man, whose daughters, they say, as Jarchi observes, were very beautiful, having much oil to anoint with, and were married to kings and priests anointed with oil.

In this chapter we have some account of the genealogies, I. Of Issachar (Ch1 7:1-5). II. Of Benjamin (Ch1 7:6-12). III. Of Naphtali (Ch1 7:13). IV. Of Manasseh (Ch1 7:14-19). V. Of Ephraim (Ch1 7:20-29). VI. Of Asher (Ch1 7:30-40). Here is no account either of Zebulun or Dan. Why they only should be omitted we can assign no reason; only it is the disgrace of the tribe of Dan that idolatry began in that colony of the Danites which fixed in Laish, and called Dan, and there one of the golden calves was set up by Jeroboam. Dan is omitted, Rev. 7.

7:22 The father of Ezer and Elead is recorded as Ephraim, but Ephraim the son of Joseph could not have settled in Canaan after the Exodus. The traditional solution was to imagine an early exodus for the family of Ephraim. Other possibilities are that the name Ephraim is a scribal mistake or that Ephraim referred to the tribe rather than the son of Joseph who bore the name.