Matthew Henry on 1 Chronicles 26:29–end
All the offices of the house of God being well provided with Levites, we have here an account of those that were employed as officers and judges in the outward business, which must not be neglected, no, not for the temple itself. The magistracy is an ordinance of God for the good of the church as truly as the ministry is. And here we are told, 1. That the Levites were employed in the administration of justice in concurrence with the princes and elders of the several tribes, who could not be supposed to understand the law so well as the Levites, who made it their business to study it. None of those Levites who were employed in the service of the sanctuary, none of the singers or porters, were…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 1 Chronicles 26:29
OFFICERS AND JUDGES. (Ch1 26:29-32)
officers and judges--The word rendered "officers" is the term which signifies scribes or secretaries, so that the Levitical class here described were magistrates, who, attended by their clerks, exercised judicial functions; there were six thousand of them (Ch1 23:4), who probably acted like their brethren on the principle of rotation, and these were divided into three classes--one (Ch1 26:29) for the outward business over Israel; one (Ch1 26:30), consisting of seventeen hundred, for the west of Jordan "in all business of the Lord, and in the service of the king"; and the third (Ch1 26:31-32), consisting of twenty-seven hundred, "rulers for every matter pe…
Read the whole note in the consoleAdam Clarke on 1 Chronicles 26:29
Outward business - Work done without the city; cutting of timber, hewing stones, ploughing the fields belonging to the sanctuary. - Jarchi.
John Gill on 1 Chronicles 26:29
Of the Izharites, Chenaniah and his sons were
for the outward business over Israel,.... Which was done out of the temple, and out of Jerusalem, in the several parts of the country:
for officers and judges; to administer justice and judgment, and to take care that the laws of God were observed, both with respect to things civil and religious, and delinquents punished; which is a better sense than what Jarchi and Kimchi put upon this:
outward business, as if it lay in taking care to have timber cut down in the forest, and stones dug and hewed in the mountains, for the building of the temple; and that the lands were ploughed, and the vineyards, gardens, and orchards, dressed, which were devo…
