Matthew Henry on 1 Chronicles 26:1-19
Observe, I. There were porters appointed to attend the temple, who guarded all the avenues that let to it, opened and shut all the outer gates and attended at them, not only for the state, but for service, to direct and instruct those who were going to worship in the courts of the sanctuary in the decorum they were to observe, to encourage those that were timorous, to send back the strangers and unclean, and to guard against thieves and others that were enemies to the house of God. In allusion to this office, ministers are said to have the keys to the kingdom of heaven committed to them (Mat 16:19), that they may admit, and exclude, according to the law of Christ.
II. Of several of those tha…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 1 Chronicles 26:12
Among these were the divisions of the porters, even among the chief men--These were charged with the duty of superintending the watches, being heads of the twenty-four courses of porters.
Adam Clarke on 1 Chronicles 26:12
The rest of this chapter, with the whole of the 28th, is wanting both in the Syriac and Arabic.
John Gill on 1 Chronicles 26:12
Among these were the divisions of the porters, even among the chief men,.... These before named were the principal men of the porters, among which was a division or distribution of them into classes or courses, in which they served weekly in turn:
having wards one against another, to minister in the house of the Lord; meaning either to watch in, as on the north against the south, and the east against the west, and "vice versa". The Jews say (t), the priests kept ward in three places in the house of the sanctuary; in the house of Abtines, in the house of Nitzotz, and in the house of Moked; and the Levites in twenty one places, five at the five gates of the mountain of the house, four at the…
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