(13) The sons of Naphtali.--See Numbers 26:48 seq., and Genesis 46:24, which read Jahzeel and Shillem.

Sons of Bilhah.--Dan and Naphtali were her sons (Genesis 46:25). That does not, however, prove that a reference to Dan is intended here. Both in Genesis, 50100, and in the present text, grandsons are reckoned

THE TRIBE OF WEST MANASSEH (1Chronicles 7:14-19). 1Chronicles 7:14-15 are very obscure.

Verse 13. - The sons of Naphtali. In an order quite different from the otherwise parallel passages (Genesis 46:24; Numbers 26:48-50), the tribe of Naphtali is taken. Naphtali was the second son of Rachel's handmaid Bilhah, and in order of birth the fifth sen of Jacob, and was of course more closely allied to Dan, Ephraim, and Benjamin. The family was distinguished for its spirit throughout its history. At the Sinai census it numbered fifty-three thousand four hundred fighting men (Numbers 1:42, 43); but at the close of the wanderings through the wilderness its numbers had become only forty-five thousand four hundred. Its territory in the north, largely mountainous, bounded by Asher, Zebulun, and Manasseh, was some of the finest, and covered the district afterwards called Galilee, "the cradle of the Christian faith, the native place of most of the apostles, and the home of our Lord" (Grove). The slight difference in the spelling of Jahziel in Genesis, and of Shallum in Numbers, may be noticed. The following are interesting references to Naphtali in one or another portion of its history: - Deuteronomy 33:23; Joshua 20:7; Joshua 21:32; Judges 1:33; Judges 5:18; 1 Chronicles 27:19; Ezekiel 48:3, 4, 34; Matthew 4:15; Revelation 7:6. It played a considerable and prominent part also in the conflicts with Titus and Vespasian, when the days of Jerusalem were numbered.

7:1-40 Genealogies. - Here is no account either of Zebulun or Dan. We can assign no reason why they only should be omitted; but it is the disgrace of the tribe of Dan, that idolatry began in that colony which fixed in Laish, and called it Dan, Jud 18 and there one of the golden calves was set up by Jeroboam. Dan is omitted, Re 7. Men become abominable when they forsake the worship of the true God, for any creature object.The sons of Naphtali: Jahziel, and Guni, and Jezer, and Shallum,.... Called Shillem, Genesis 46:24,

the sons of Bilhah; Jacob's concubine; her grandsons; for Naphtali, the father of them, was her son; from these sprung so many families, after their names, Numbers 26:48.